Well, the dust has settled on another Indie World Showcase from Nintendo, and it certainly got Switch fans talking. In just over 20 minutes there were 19 games shown off — some were surprises, others were long-awaited updates, and others still were out-of-left-field games from fresh names in the development scene.
This writer's personal view was that it may have been Nintendo's best ever Indie World, for multiple reasons. Of course that's highly subjective and there have been presentations with bigger individual reveals, but as a package this seemed like the most carefully curated show to date, and one balanced to offer something to just about anyone.
As you can see in the Round Up article above there's a real mix on offer. On the one hand a lot of the 'usual customers' are featured with high profile titles, which is no bad thing — games like Loop Hero, Tetris Effect: Connected, Metal Slug Tactics, Axiom Verge 2, Eastward, Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon are all critically acclaimed, big names, or hail from notable publishers / developers that regular readers of these pages will know well. All of those examples, whether Switch ports of popular games or Switch versions of hot new releases, are ideal headlines to keep an Indie World spinning.
Among the rest of the list, though, there was plenty of quality and variety in terms of genre, style and, indeed, development names. Best of all, it felt like there weren't too many games leaning on the familiar Indie™ tropes that can feel overwhelming on any digital store. Curious Expedition 2, TOEM and Hundred Days - Winemaking Simulator — as a few examples — are appealing and delightfully different, and in this golden era of visual novels this writer can't help but be intrigued by Necrobarista: Final Pour. A showcase will never appeal to a viewer with every game, but we suspect most will see several titles in the full list yesterday that will have drawn their attention.
Pacing was spot on, too; 22 minutes with quickfire sequences is ideal for an Indie World, with more details on each game and their developers easily found online for the curious. It felt like a show that kept the intriguing hits coming at a good rate and didn't leave any time for boredom or familiarity to set in.
But hey, though many in Team NL loved it, we want to know what you thought of the show! Was it a winner that got you excited about a bunch of eShop games, or were you left disappointed? Was there a specific announcement or shadow-drop which made your day? Let us know in the polls and comments below!
Comments 67
I always love these Indie World Showcases but this was definitely right up there as one of the better ones. Almost everything shown was interesting and a bunch of them are already out. Couldn't have asked for much more.
Axiom Verge 2
Gang Beasts
Tetris Effect
All pretty solid for me, and there are other games that look great if you have b̶a̶d̶ different tastes. 😉
B+. Solid presentation all-around.
Although, for me, personally, my excitement is pretty much limited to Tetris Effect. Metal Slug Tactics is cool, though.
It was great the eastward game and the one like jet set radio really caught my eye but there wasn't silksong so it was terrible
I missed a lot of it but I can tell it was a good IW because I've seen very few complaints on this website about Silksong, despite no info.
3 shadow drops of interesting / great games - personally I snatched up Axiom 2, Islanders, and Garden Story. Shadow drops alone of such quality warrants it being in a top 3 indie showcase, but it doesn’t quite make my best one. Forgot which one that was, either 2020 or 2019.
Still weird every nindies showcase has non indie games, usually AA games with indie budgets or outsourced games.
Anyway, tetris effect should still be experienced on the PSVR first IMO. It was made with PSVR in mind.
The fact it was hard to choose 3 games that stood out* kinda leans me towards saying it was one of the best ever.
*Because more than 3 did, not less than hahaha
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/03/watch_nindies_direct_march_2019_broadcast_-_live
Don't think it beats this one from March 2019 - Cuphead and Cadence of Hyrule were 2 big hitters and talking points
Favorite indie showcase for me ended with the Cadence of Hyrule reveal. I was literally in tears, blown away.
Only Axiom Verge for me, everything else I will wait until it comes to GamePass
It was very good. Axiom Verge 2 shadow drop, Eastward date and Tetris Effect were personal highlights. Disappointed with no Silk Song yet again but to be honest I fully expected AV2 to drop and don’t think they’d release both games on the same day even if Silk Song were ready so it wasn’t much of a blow to me. Lots of great stuff all the same.
Was an okay showcase, not the best. Definately not the worst.
B - Axiom Verge 2 is hype, but I'm saving A for Silksong release date at least
That was about as good as an Indie World presentation can get. Two of my top five hopefuls (Loop Hero and Necrobarista) were shown. And there were a handful of shadow drops. Only folks who disregard indies for being the best bit of gaming these days were disappointed.
It was very good, but not great. Solid B+.
The high number of same day releases was a welcome surprise, but there was a sense of "oh look, another metroidvania, another garden sim, another rougelike" that dampened the excitement.
@BongoBongo Bingo Bongo! That’s the one I was thinking of. Two huge surprises there….
And the one they did that showed off Touryst, Takeshi and Hiroshi, and Short Hike was a really fun showcase to watch as well. Personally ended up getting most of the games shown off. Still need to finish Inmost and Carrion.
@darkswabber "indie" in general has been increasingly conflated with "anything that's not first-party" and it's pretty weird.
It was very good because virtually every game seemed close to an insta-buy (around 5) or a prime wishlist game (around 10)
Did they announce Bushiden? No? Ok let me hit the snooze. Hope you guys got stuff you liked!
NINJA APPROVED
We are truly spoilt these days. For the 2 or 3 games I wish Nintendo would hurry up and release, there's more a dozen that are out right now that I'm very interested in playing. We'll miss this kind of choice if Nintendo's next console turns out to be another "Wii U".
NOPE, no silksong bad indie showcase. The Cuphead reveal is miles ahead of this one.
Tetris Effect was the standout for me. Eastward looks very promising too. Metal Slug Tactics looks good but I'm not big on tactic games so I'll wait and see with that. FAR also looks good. I'm going to buy the original next time I see it in on sale.
I thought it was pretty solid, although I didn’t buy any of the shadow drops like I did the last time (“There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension” is spectacular).
I wish they would shake up how they introduce games. I look forward to the trailers, and the comments from the developers are okay, but I dislike the commentary from the co-hosts as they loop through the trailer again. It’s mostly bad puns and awkward delivery, so I’d rather do without it.
For me a good indie showcase is one that piques a lot interest and broadens my horizons to unique experiences. Yeah.. I guess that describes it, lol.
This indie showcase actually didn't pique my interest in a lot of games. Some good looking games for sure but not a lot that seemed "unique" to me. I don't think I'll buy anything other than Eastward from this presentation.
I guess you could say this was a good showcase, or "the best," because it had a lot of games people want on Switch or news about games we already know about, so it's satisfying in that way, (that's my read on some of the reactions anyway) but that's not what I like about the indies.
Matter of opinion isn't it. I mean it's a few minutes of my life I'll never get back but at least the majority of people enjoyed it.
I always go into these events with 0 expectations since I’m not always playing indie games but usually come out pleasantly excited to try one or so games. Same with this. Tetris Effect is the one I got excited about but there’s so many games coming out that I’ll probably wait on it.
Overall, pretty good showing.
Would have been an easy A with a tmnt release date
That was one of the better Indie Worlds, imo.
It was really good. Loads I want to play but so little time to play it. I spent the best part of a grand on upgrading my PC earlier in the year and haven't touched it for months. There is so much to play on Switch atm. Another 5 or 6 games added to the ever growing wishlist...
Dunno, didn’t watch it. Didn’t see much highlighted on this site that interested me..
I'm happy to get 2 games I'll love out of an indie direct, this gave me 3 so above average!
I really liked the look of Bomb Rush CyberFunk. Looks interesting
Not my favorite but it was definitely a good one. I was happy to see more of Pocket Dungeon and to see Tetris Effect coming to Switch. Axiom Verge 2 shadow-dropped was great for fans but I haven't played the first (yet) so I wasn't personally excited about it.
@CharlieGirl More like anything that isn't first party, or EA, Ubisoft, Capcom or Square enix. Or actually created by a studio that isn't part of a big publisher. i.e. independent studio, indie. All games in the presentation were developped by smaller studio's.
Points for Tetris Effect, the Shovel Knight thing, and Gang Beasts. Points against for no Silksong or Sports Story. B-.
Eh...
I have watched the Indie Direct yesterday and it was.... Disappointing. 😕
Only two games I knew them from PS4 version (Slime Rancher and Astroneer) but still unsure to get excited with them. The other indie games are Nope for me.
I still thought the Wholesome Indie Direct during E3 2021 was the Best for me with almost every single games caught my attention.
Don't even care or have any interest with indie games that mostly peoples get excited here.
I'm different.
My interest is also different.
I'm not easily to get interested by everything.
Best one I've seen, but I haven't watched all of them. This was the first one that kept my attention throughout the time, so I thought it was one of the finest.
I'm a huge Metal Slug fan, so I popped huge for that gem.
Can't believe Silksong or the Cuphead DLC still didn't show up. What's going on with those two? Especially since the DLC was announced 3 years ago
I'm just happy about Slime Rancher. Since the Switch came out, the 3 indie games I've wanted on it were A Hat in Time, Subnautica, and Slime Rancher, so to all three having been brought over makes me really happy.
So Toem, Tetris and Gangbeasts are what made the show a good one. I'd even go so far as to say Tetris made it a great one. But even then, I only voted a passing grade of C. Because Tetris and Gangbeasts have been out for ages on other platforms and while Toem is a nice little title, I have no plans to buy it. Great titles, but not an ideal showing.
It was very good. Perfect? No, but very good.
It was all meh. Only game I would get is tetris connect..
Hyped for Tetris, that Jet Set game, Garden Story, and Slime Rancher.
@N8tiveT3ch Lol like Silksong will ever come out 😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎👍
@Anti-Matter I voted that I didn’t like a single game mainly because while some looked mildly amusing, or even good (Tetris), I wasn’t exactly reaching for my wallet. Which is good. Already have my picks for the year pretty much locked in (Fatal Frame, Mystik Belle: Enchanted Edition, Cotton Guardian Force Saturn Tribute... maybe something else...) 🤔 Of course that list may change if Nintendo drops Wind Waker or some other surprise on us soon.
I didn't watch it but I may get Tetris Effect. I suck at Tetris, really REALLY badly, but the trippy psychedelic visuals may be enough to convince me to try to not suck. The multiplayer aspect does not interest me in the slightest, which is why I never bothered with Tetris 99, but the single player looks pretty solid, so we'll see what happens!
...But there IS gameplay footage of Eastward. 15 minutes of it, even! Though it was exclusively shown on IGN (it's on Youtube, however).
The game plays like an action RPG remenicent of Zelda and the Mana games, mixed the Earthbound quirkiness.
@BlubberWhale
I don't even care with Zelda games.
Never have any interest with that franchise.
I'd give it an A-. Really good show with plenty of games to look forward to.
I didn't have enough choices to mark TOEM so I'm gonna use the comments to just say TOEM looks lovely.
I'm kind of more excited about the games that weren't shown in the direct but were announced to be coming to the switch by developers during the day.
Namely Super Sami Roll (a 3D platformer where you're a lizard who rolls around, collects stuff and tries to finish a level quickly), and Ex-Zodiac (Basically Star Fox with a better frame rate)
I'm rather disappointed that Nintendo and indie developers don't collaborate as often as I expected. Cadence of Hyrule gave me hope to see more Nintendo IPs bring handled by talented indie developers, but I can only hope...
Well it's Tetris Effect: Connected for me if it's reasonably priced of course.
I don't know why I am so surprised at the overblown hype rhetoric of this site, after all it's a fan site, but what an absurd headline.
I can't remember them all and I guess I didn't watch them all and I have not heard of most of them and I remember thinking, just another load of indi games that will be discounted in a couple of months and forgotten soon after.
But maybe there will be a hidden jem in there.
Honestly the only thing that could have made it better for me was if Silksong got some details at the end.
Lot's of variety in art styles and gameplay genres and lots of interest to me!
Honestly, Axiom Verge 2 was the only thing that interested me.
I dont see how Nintendo is responsible for the content, and just one thing
WHERE IS SILK SONG???????
Wow, I love indies but this indieworld wasn’t very topnotch for me.
I really liked the look of that photograph game toen/toem.. Something like that.
Far looked amazing as well, hadn't heard about the first game but that trailer looked amazing!!
Metal Slug tactics, axiom verge 2, cool, probably get both of them.
No Baldo news, heh
@garfreek the first game is really highly regarded, a lot of love for that here. I keep meaning to get round to it but I haven't yet
@Anti-Matter Start with Wind Waker if you ever decide to try it. (Unless you like the top down style better, than maybe Link to the Past or Link’s Awakening. I think I’d messed around with OoT a bit, but WW was when I really discovered why people love the series. (Went back and finished OoT and loved that one too, but anyway, no worries, you don’t need to like Zelda.)
@BlubberWhale
I have zero interest with Zelda franchise, sorry.
Not interested at all with every Zelda games.
Not everyone have same interest like other peoples.
@Anti-Matter OK
This is the first time I did not tune in to the direct (due to scheduling), but also did not feel the need to tune it after seeing the occasional articles.
My main gripe is that they set some kind of standard with giving IP access with Cadence of Hyrule and now there is nothing new on Nintendo x Indie Studio front and yet there are so many wonderful dormant IPs that could benefit from such a partnership to bring them back to life.
Especially with how popular the Switch is and how well seemingly METROID DREAD had been received, it seems the Switch might be the best way to revitalize a lot of series...
@PapaMurphy then that's definitely going on the wishlist as well!
The indie world showcase in April 2019 will always be the best by far.
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