For the second part of my E3 articles, we’re finally going to talk about Nintendo!  But before we get to that, let’s take a look at more game companies I met with at E3, and what games they had!  And maybe some random pictures, too.

3 Minutes to Midnight

Since I grew up with games like Maniac Mansion and Zak McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders, I’m always a sucker for a good point and click adventure game.  So I was glad to see this one at E3!  Made by Scarecrow Games, it’s their very first title which is very impressive.  It’s styled to look like the Monkey Island games, in fact if I just glanced at it I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference at first.  You play as a kindhearted schoolgirl and must save the world and will need to interact with a bunch of crazy characters to do so.  The backgrounds are all hand-painted and took three weeks to do each one!  The game will be out on PC and consoles later on, so if you enjoy true point and click adventures, you’ll want to keep your eye on this!

Outright Games

So when browsing E3 coverage, did you ever come across anyone talking about a new Adventure Time game, or a Crayola scooter game?  Probably not.  But that’s why I like coming to E3 so I can cover these kinds of games that nobody else does.  Anyway, to celebrate the Adventure Time cartoon’s last season, Outright Games is making a new game based on the franchise.  It’s called Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion.  In the game, the Ice King has flooded the land of Ooo, leaving everything covered in oceans and small islands.  So Finn and Jake must sail a boat named Jeff around the water while fighting off everyone who has gone pirate crazy.  So what does that sound like?  Yup, it’s very much like Wind Waker.  Yet battles are turn-based but with plenty of action, and there are other mini-games, too.  Such as one where you must interrogate people and play good cop/bad cop via a roulette.  The dialogue is fully voiced by the cast, which is impressive.  You’ll play as Finn and Jake, and later Marceline and BMO as well.  The game comes out in July, so you’ll be able to play it soon!  I think of all the licensed games out there, I’ve probably reviewed more Adventure Time games than anything.

The other game Outright was showing was Crayola Scoot.  This is a colorful and cartoony extreme sports game featuring kids riding scooters in a skate park.  You can customize your character any way you like, with color names straight from the Crayola crayon box!  When you perform tricks, you’ll splat color around you.  If you ride over your color, you’ll go faster, but any other color will slow you down.  So it’s like Tony Hawk meets Splatoon.  You’ll compete in events like splatting the most area with your color, races, and much, much more.  Plus it’s fun just to mess around and do tricks.  The game will be available for consoles this fall.

Aksys Games

I think Aksys has been supportive of me since their entire existence, so they were certainly deserving of my time at the show.  Fans of those PS Vita digital novels will be happy they have more in the pipeline.  And they have a Jake Hunter detective game on the 3DS coming, too.  But the game I was most interested in was Little Dragons Café.  In the game you play as a brother or sister who must run their parents’ restaurant, as well as take care of a baby dragon!  You’ll search around for ingredients and recipes, and play rhythm mini-games to cook your food for customers.  But you’ll also have to pay attention to your dragon as well.  If you take good care of it, the dragon will help you out, too.  The dragon can fetch items and later will be able to help you hunt as it gets older.  The game was made by the same guy who did the Story of Seasons and previous Harvest Moon games, and this one has that same kind of feel.  So if you like those kinds of games or other titles like Animal Crossing, you’ll want to check this out when it releases later this year.

Mastiff

Speaking of game companies that have been supportive of me since their existence, Mastiff is another one of those so they deserved a chunk of my time at E3 as well.  They had a bunch of games shown, including a new pool billiards game.  But I stumbled in on a previous meeting where they were playing a horror game called Home Sweet Home.  You can play it with or without VR, and you must avoid a ghost of a lady who killed herself with a box cutter as she chases you through a spirit world.  When you hear a ‘clickclickclick’ of a box cutter, you know it’s time to hide!  But since this is a spirit world, things aren’t as they seem.  That door you just walked through may be a brick wall when you turn back around, for instance.  Plus that ghost lady can walk through walls!  This game is definitely not for kids, but I think ghosts are interesting and one of my guilty pleasures are those stupid ghost investigator shows on TV, so I’m glad I got to see this game for a bit.  Plus it’s based on Thai lore, which is also interesting.  So if you like horror games but are tired of zombies, here’s one for you.

But the game I was there to see was Arcade Islands.  It’s really just an improved version of Party Planet, a game I reviewed for the Switch a while back.  Arcade Islands features mini-games based on arcade classics, and has new ones not in Party Planet.  It’ll be a downloadable title for PS4 and Xbox One and will have a new interface, unlockables for you to decorate a room with, online leaderboards, and much more.  Hopefully I’ll get to review it when it comes out later, too.

OK before we talk about Nintendo, let’s see some random pictures I took at E3 that I didn’t know where else to put for these articles!  First up, Focus Home Interactive was showing lots of games, one being the latest in their Farming Simulator series.  They had a tractor and a plastic horse at their booth, so I took a picture of it.  Yeah I know, I’m easily amused.

How would you like to be the trucker who had to drive this pink rig to E3?

And here’s just a really cool car.

A costumed duck was throwing snack cakes at attendees in the hall between the show floors.  I like the signs in the background.  I want that duck to be a character in a fighting game!

After the show we like to go to Universal Citywalk to eat and walk around.  I saw this poor chocolate gingerbread man with a pretzel stick speared in his heart.  Talk about nightmare fuel!

Nintendo

OK now we’ll talk about Nintendo.  If you’ve seen their video “E3 Direct” then you know that they mostly talked about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.  And I couldn’t be happier with what they did with it.  Normally I’m not too thrilled about all the Wii U to Switch ports, as I was a staunch supporter of the Wii U and do not want to rebuy the same games again on the Switch.  But with Smash Bros., I was willing to make an exception because I didn’t get a chance to play the Wii U version as much as I would’ve liked, or get any of the DLC.  I was worried that the Switch version might be a new game and maybe not have some of my favorite new characters from the last entry, like Pac-Man and Mega Man.  So I was really pleased to see how they handled the new game having every single character ever in the past, plus new ones like the Inklings from Splatoon and Metroid’s Ridley.  And on a side note, the Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu and Let’s Go, Eevee games looked like fun, too.

But other than that, I was pretty disappointed with Nintendo’s presentation.  Technically the only ‘new’ thing they showed that we didn’t know about already was another Mario Party game, like we need another one of those.  Smash Bros. Ultimate really isn’t new, just an enhanced port or at the very most, an all-stars version.  And the Pokémon games are based on Pokémon Yellow, so those aren’t really new either.  And their booth at E3 was even worse.  It was HUGE, but you couldn’t set foot inside it because all the people wrapped around in line to play Smash.  And from the looks of it, the only things you could play were Smash and the new Pokemon games.  Supposedly they had an area where you could play indie games, but I didn’t see it.  I wish I had because I heard one of the games they had was Team17’s Overcooked 2.  I reviewed the original and the new one adds different kitchens and online play.  Plus I think they were giving out free chef hats if you played it!

So yeah, you really got more info if you DIDN’T go to E3 and just watched the Direct.  Granted that makes sense, since more people could watch it than go to E3 and see their booth.  But I think they could’ve done both.  Nintendo’s booths at E3 used to be so inviting and I could go in and play a good two or three games in less than an hour.  Not anymore, I guess.  But I did take a few pictures of their ginormous booth anyway, so here they are:

The back top wall was a giant screen that changed what was on it every so often.  But mostly it was red.

And here’s where they showed off the Pokémon games.

One neat thing at Nintendo’s booth was they had some life-sized items from Super Smash Bros. on display like a museum, so I took some pictures of those.  Here’s the hapless Sandbag.

And here’s Fox’s helmet and blaster.

And the Inklings splatter gun.

Finally, don’t forget Kirby’s hammer!

And that’s really all Nintendo had at their booth, from what I could tell anyway.  Right beside them was the Sony PlayStation booth.  I didn’t go in there either even though right now I prefer playing games on the PS4 than my Switch.

And that’s all for the second part of my E3 articles.  So if Nintendo didn’t “win” E3 for me, who did?  Well, you’ll just have to find out in my third and final part of my E3 coverage tomorrow!  Later!  –Cary

Tags: Misc