Wii U gamers were given something of a treat recently when news broke about a whole host of new titles that were coming to the platform in 2013. There were all sorts of goodies to take away from the Nintendo Direct conference, including two Super Mario games and a couple of Legend of Zelda releases – so what’s the scoop?
Well, when it came down t0 the latest Mario adventure the details were a little vague. 2012 saw New Super Mario Bros. U (and New Super Mario Bros, 2 on the Nintendo 3DS console), but it’s certainly good to be told there is more to come. What we do know is it will be 3D title of some sort that will be put together by the same team who brought us Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario 3D Land, and will be joined by the latest iteration of Mario Kart. It is expected these titles will make their debut at E3 in Los Angeles, California later this year.
Of course, one of the other big pieces of news was that we can expect not one, but two new Legend of Zelda games in 2013. It seems the first will be a remake of Link’s Wind Waker adventure on GameCube that Nintendo series director Eiji Aonuma said will "tune up the overall game experience". A big part of this will inevitably be that the game will be available in high definition, but we’ve also been promised it will have plenty of other new bells and whistles. All that was given away on the brand new Zelda title is that it will "rethink the conventions of Zelda", which caused some to speculate there will be more of an open set up to the order of gameplay and that co-operative gameplay may feature heavily.
Last year was great for people who like a bit of brain training, with games like Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask on Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 3DS XL. But this was no time to talk about that particular platform, as Nintendo announced that instead, those who like to exercise their brains as well as their thumbs will have to settle for what crops up in a brand new Yoshi game set to be developed by the team behind Kirby's Epic Yarn, along with Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Story director Takashi Tezuka.
Other new game announcements included sequels to Xenoblade Chronicles and Wii Party, as well as a crossover title that no-one was expecting – Shin-Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem. Nintendo added Virtual Console would be coming to Wii U and the speed of the user interface would be addressed with a couple of firmware updates in spring. Initially, this will mean you can download and play NES and Super NES titles on your Wii U, but Game Boy Advance will follow.
So, is this enough to get you excited for the future of Wii U? Or is there a specific game, reboot or sequel you are still waiting for? Let us know in the comments.
