Well then. T’was certainly a Direct; forgive me for the coming wall of text, and if said wall of text comes off as a bit negative at times.

Tragically, the additional Side Order information mostly shoots down my stupid conspiracy theory that it’s a sequel to Paper Mario Colour Splash. Though then again, we still don’t know why the “Spire of Order” is devoid of colour, so it still could be the work of the straw-wielding Shy Guys (no it can’t). Idiocy aside, the fact it’s a rougelike is really interesting to me; I honestly just expected standard, pre-set single player campaigns to be the only major offerings of Splatoon 3’s DLC, akin to such campaigns of the main games and 2’s DLC. I do generally like rougelikes and did enjoy the first two Splatoons, so reckon I’d probably like this as well, but I never bought Splatoon 3 under the pretence it didn’t change enough from 2 to justify existing on the same system, and I’m not shelling out for the game and DLC just to play the seemingly cool rougelike side mode.

I was NOT expecting Trombone Champ, of all games, to make use of the right joy-con’s IR camera - been pondering about how relatively underutilised it is lately, though it’s probably not the easiest thing to actually find a use case for. I suppose that using it as a controller fits with the insanity of Trombone Champ, though, and multiplayer looks like it’ll be absolutely stupid in the best way possible. My sister already owns the Steam version, though, so probably won’t get this one, hilarious as the Switch-specific controls look.

Considering that Mansion 3 is perhaps one of the best looking games on the Switch, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD looks profoundly manky to me. Really just looks like an upscaled version of the 3DS version, perhaps with smoother models and possibly Luigi’s model snagged from 3, but since its first reveal and furthermore now, it’s always looked more than a little manky. At least the Scarescraper’s still there, though; in spite of never beating the main story of the 3DS original, I played mountains of Scarescraper.

F-Zero 99 looks kinda cool, and given it’s free, I’ll absolutely try it out, even if my few attempts at the original F-Zero via Smash 4 Wii U’s Masterpieces and Switch Online SNES went terribly. The worry, of course, is that it’ll be as short-lived as other 99 games like Super Mario Bros. 35 and Pac-Man 99, which would be a real shame for a series as famously content-starved as F-Zero.

I mentioned the IR camera’s underutilisation earlier, and WarioWare also decided to use it for some microgames. So that’s pretty cool. Don’t particularly like Wario’s voice acting, though; probably a consequence of Martinet stepping back from the role. While what we’ve heard of Mario’s Wonder voice sounds good to me, this Wario voice… less so. Also a bit worried about how I’ll play this game at all; definitely looks like it’s best played docked, but I almost always play with the Switch in Handheld Mode, and my console misbehaves when trying to dock it (i.e: it does acknowledge it’s been docked, but doesn’t display on the dock screen). Could probably make use of my old spare Switch or my brother’s instead, though.

There are only two question mark slots on the character select screen in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so where are they going to stick the two extra characters they’ve introduced? Are they going to crush them, or some existing characters, into alternate costume slots? That aside, I do fear that given that only 4 Tour nitro tracks (ignoring the RMX courses) aren’t in the Booster Course Pass yet, all 4 will appear in this final wave. While there have been some good Tour-originals throughout the Pass, they’ve been distinctly hit-and-miss, and the city tracks definitely blend together a bit with 12 of them in the game.

The appearance of the characters in the Thousand Year Door remake remind me of Sticker Star’s key art (https://mario.wiki.gallery/images/5/54/PMSS_Mario_Shiny_Album.png), probably only because of the different segments/layers having their own depth to them. Also, the talking sound effects are quite funny to me, likely due to the fact that some are audibly existing sound clips cut apart, and the original game used the same ones for almost every character. Didn’t play the original, though, and having played other RPGs in the past, like the Mario & Luigi games, I feel confident in the assertion that they’re better as spectator sports for me.

All the other announcements, I don’t really care that much about, and would probably just poke fun at if I were to speak on them.