Well, 1st April has come and the joke articles, social media posts and GIFs have done the rounds. For our part we decided to make fun of Nintendo's inability to keep meaningful secrets over the past year, making up some nonsense about a Mario-themed operation to plug the gaps and stop leaks. Along with the reference to Uncles that work for Nintendo being monitored we had a bit of a serious point in that Nintendo had a chronic inability to control information last year; that's an area it'll no doubt try and improve upon in 2017.

Of course, plenty have been doing their own April Fools' Day gimmicks this year, so we looked around for some of the good 'uns - enjoy!

Here's One We Didn't Use

Breath of the Wild Majoras Mask.JPG
Image: Ben Bertoli

Nintendo Life reviewer and contributor Ben Bertoli shared the above mock-up with the team, but we'd already finished our 'Operation Mario' article and decided to stick with that one. Besides, lots of people would probably actually want this in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, so maybe it would have just been cruel.

Fire Emblem: Battle of Revolution

FE Revolution.JPG

Thanks to time zones Nintendo was one of the first out of the gate as April Fools' Day rolled around, and opted for a new spin on a popular series - Fire Emblem: Battle of Revolution. A new setting and Famicom-style graphics for a 3DS and Switch dual release, the fact the gags were in Japanese (which is fair enough considering the source) made it a little confusing. Oh, and some people actually like the look of it and want the game.

Well, at least Nintendo didn't joke about a fake Metroid game, it just made Metroid Prime: Federation Force; we don't think the game is bad, but couldn't resist writing that...

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Jelly Beans

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This was a good one, so kudos to Vooks. The above Jelly Beans were 'revealed' as part of a physical reward on My Nintendo, and as cooking in Breath of the Wild is a meta-game all on its own we thought this was a fun idea. This line is also great - "Most importantly there's also one single bean in each box that has the flavour of a Nintendo Switch cartridge. It'll look just like a regular bean so watch out".

New Frontier Days 'Real Life Visuals'

This is a charming and self-aware video from Arc System Works, presenting a real life take on New Frontier Days: Founding Pioneers, with members of staff recreating some of the clunky animations and demonstrating the widely accepted absurdity of sim games. Fair play for this one.

Ms. Pac-Man in Google Maps

One of the most publicised ones, as Google's always are, this one is tied to Nintendo by the fact the original came to NES - yeah, a bit of a stretch. In any case, it's been possible to turn Google Maps into Ms. Pac-Man, which is a cool idea. Whether this'll do a Pokémon GO and go from gag to reality is debatable.

'8-Bit Bayonetta' Steam Gag, But an Actual Countdown Starts

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So, SEGA posts an 8-bit Bayonetta game to Steam that's actually been bouncing around the internet for a year or two; it's a free download so no harm is done. Of course, what does happen is that PC gamers get excited about the idea of playing Bayonetta in 60fps at 4K. SEGA has also started a countdown that is clearly related to Bayonetta. Is the 8-bit Bayonetta post on Steam an April Fools, a kickstart of mysterious countdown hype, or both?

Maybe the original Bayonetta is coming to PC after all, but unless Nintendo says so Bayonetta 2 will not.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX G-Assist - Honourable Mention

This is included because Nintendo and NVIDIA are now buddies thanks to the Switch, and because it reminds us of those '90s cheat carts. The above gag offers to employ AI to beat games for you, though it falls into some lazy jokes about gamers needing prompts to eat and top up on energy drinks. Sigh...


Anyway, it's almost 2nd April and we can all move on - good news indeed.