Nintendo Direct: A Whole Lot of Hype and a Whole Lot of Thumb Wrestling

I'll be straight with you — I almost didn't make it through this one. Turned it off after the first game, came back only because Asmongold dropped a video and guilted me into finishing it. Glad I did, but Nintendo still needs to have a serious conversation with whoever greenlit an extended thumb wrestling bit with Yoshiaki Koizumi instead of, you know, showing actual games. Here are my takeaways from the June 9th Direct.

Rhythm Paradise Groove. Skip. Hard skip. Moving on.

Now for the stuff that actually matters. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is getting a full remake on Switch 2. Never played the original myself, but I'm enjoying Tears of the Kingdom enough that this is on my radar. That said, Nintendo showed a five-second logo tease and called it a day — and fans are rightfully pissed about it. Either show the game or don't mention it.

Kingdom Hearts IV showed up on a Nintendo stage, which nobody saw coming. That alone made the Direct worth watching. On top of that, the older Kingdom Hearts titles are running natively on Switch 2 hardware instead of that cloud garbage they tried to pull before. Small win, but a real one.

The RPG slate is stacked. Xenoblade Genesis is a brand new entry coming in 2027. Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave lands September 17th. Final Fantasy XIV Online is somehow making it to Switch 2 with early access in August. And Final Fantasy Resonance is the first HD-2D Final Fantasy, which looks genuinely interesting. The Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy is also getting 4K/60FPS upgrades with new content — first game is available digitally right now.

Other things worth noting: Star Fox is back with a demo available now, Deltarune Chapter 5 drops free on June 24th, and third-party support is looking solid with Devil May Cry 5, Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, and Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 all confirmed for Switch 2.

The elephant in the room is Mario — or the complete absence of him. The Switch 2 is freshly released hardware and Nintendo brought zero new 3D Mario content to the table. That's a problem, and the community isn't letting it slide.

Overall? Solid Direct buried under a few baffling decisions. The Ocarina remake and Kingdom Hearts IV carry the show. Just skip the thumb wrestling.