4/1 Nintendo Direct Recap: Fire Emblem x Shin Megami Tensei lives, the return of Lucas, and amiibo galore

Nintendo’s latest Nintendo Direct might have taken place on April 1st, but this broadcast turned out to be anything but a joke. Between loads of downloadable goodies, amiibo out the wazoo, and a couple killer announcements, this show did quite a bit more than showcase the likes of upcoming games we already knew about.

Here’s a little recap of what went down:

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS

• – A trailer for the Mewtwo DLC in Smash Bros showed off the jaded legendary creature’s triumphant return, complete with a Final Smash transformation into Mega Mewtwo Y. He’ll be available April 28 for paying customers or earlier on April 15 for those who registered both versions of the game on Club Nintendo.
• – More new Mii fighter costumes are on the way, inspired by games like Xenoblade, Mega Man X, and Zelda. They’ll be paid content in the $1 USD range. 
• – Lucas of Mother 3 fame is making his grand return! “Smashing song of praise” couldn’t be more appropriate. He’s coming in June, presumably also as paid content. 
• – A new online poll called Smash Bros Fighter Ballot will allow fans to vote for what fighter they want to see next. Surely Nintendo won’t be flooded with requests for Goku, Shrek, and Geno (haw). 

amiibo

• – The fourth wave of Smash Bros. amiibo was finally revealed for North America with a release date of May 29. It’ll include Robin, Lucina, Wario, Pac-Man, Ness, Charizard, Jigglypuff, and Greninja.
• – The fifth wave features Dark Pit and Palutena whilst the sixth wave promises Olimar, Bowser Jr, Dr. Mario, Zero Suit Samus, and Ganondorf. We’ll see whether or not that’s the extent of them as wave five sounds suspiciously small. 
• – Nintendo’s Greatest Hits is an upcoming app that lets you unlock demos for Virtual Console games by scanning amiibo. Titles are randomly decided when you scan your figure and are not tied to any one character, thus paving the way for characters like Shulk to be useful. It’ll be a free download. 
• – Yoshi’s Woolly World is getting its own line of soft, yarn-based figures. They’re pretty much the cutest things ever and will be available in green, blue and pink. Buy them all and liberate those poor creatures, won’t you?
• – Those Splatoon amiibo rumours turned out to be true. Like Yoshi, there will be three choices; an inkling girl, an inkling boy, and a squid. You can also buy a bundle with all three.
• – A new Animal Crossing game called Happy Home Designer has you designing homes for other animals. It uses new “amiibo cards” to invite your mammalian pals. 
• – The NFC reader/writer for standard 3DS models will launch on the same day as Happy Home Designer and the amiibo cards. 

Fire Emblem 

• – Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem is a thing that exists! It’s going take place in the everyday modern world with the fantasy settings hidden in a secret world. It looks little like what I anticipated – almost a new IP – but I can’t say I’m the slightest bit disappointed either. Go check out the trailer because my brain is too melted at this point to offer any kind of insightful analysis. In the meantime, I’ll sit here and gloat about being right about something with 50/50 odds. 
• – Fire Emblem if’s main character will be customisable and the main protagonist of the game (not second fiddle/third wheel to Chrom and Lucina, in other words). The player will choose which kingdom to side with, which makes sense of the “if” title as you’re playing out “what if” scenarios. One path is fairly traditional story-wise whilst the other has the player revolutionising the country from within with a complex political plot. 
• – SMT X FE will go by Genei Ibunroku #FE in Japan. It’s also slated for winter 2015 there. Fire Emblem if comes to North America at some point in 2016. 
• – In Japan, Fire Emblem if will be split into three games. The first two, Fire Emblem Black Kingdom and Fire Emblem White Kingdom will both cost retail price, but the extra game can be purchased for a reduced price as DLC or through a limited edition pack. It remains to be seen whether this scheme will apply to the rest of the world as it wasn’t mentioned in the other broadcasts. 

Misc. News

• – By some miracle, Fatal Frame is coming west!
• – Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains for 3DS is also getting localised, which surprises me much less considering the franchise’s success worldwide.
• – A trailer for Puzzle &Dragons Z + Puzzle & Dragons Super Mario Edition was shown. You can play as, uh, Boo Luigi. Yeah.
• – Nintendo 64 and DS games are coming to Wii U via the Virtual Console. Donkey Kong 64 was shown, so we can presumably put to rest all those theories about Microsoft/Rareware clutching onto this one. Yoshi’s Island DS is now available for $9.99 USD.
• – Code Name Steam will have an update to speed up enemy turns. Seems insignificant, but it was an overwhelming criticism in reviews so presumably this will greatly enhance an otherwise solid effort from Intelligent Systems.
• – Two new Streetpass Minigames are on the way. One is a full-on fishing game with over 150 fish and legendary monsters. The other is an action game based on bashing zombies. StreetPass Mii Plaza Premium will be paid content that allows you to add birthdays to your Miis
• – Villager, Isabelle, and Dry Bowser were shown in Mario Kart 8’s second DLC pack. The new Animal Crossing track features different seasons and Resetti as an obstacle. It comes April 23, which is a whole month sooner than originally stated. 200cc races will add a whole new level of speed unseen in the franchise previously. They’ll be free on the same day, as well as additional amiibo suits (provided you’ve got the amiibo, naturally).