This year, the Electronics and Entertainment Expo was held online, being live streamed by several online media sources. That being said, the convention had lost a little bit of its luster that it has had in years past. Don’t get me wrong, there were still plenty of good-looking games that were announced as well as companies that put their best foot forward and brought their “A game” to the online convention. Here are a few of the games that I’m looking forward to from the convention so strap in!
The first two games that were presented that caught my eye were indie games and for those who haven’t been paying attention, the indie scene is picking up steam everyday. Demon Throttle and Firegirl caught my attention as they both have that “old-school” feel to them. Demon Throttle is designed that way, to play/feel like a classic shoot-em-up. It’s a top down shooter in an era of new games having a retro feel to them; similar to the style Shovel Knight went with and had great success with. It already has one of my favorite cut scenes where the main character says, “that demon kissed my wife”
One of the few knocks on Demon Throttle is actually playing it when it comes out, as it will be physical only, never digital. That didn’t stop me from preordering it and at the time of posting this, Special Reserve Games still had preorders open so get it while you can. The other game, Firegirl is from the folks at Dejima/Thunderful Publishing, and it’s so cool to see a firefighting game. My father was a firefighter for years, so I grew up around a firehouse. Graphically the game reminds me of a cross between the old G4 show, Code Monkeys, and Minecraft. Who doesn’t thinking knocking doors down with an axe and saving people with a jetpack isn’t cool?
Next up was Limited Run’s presentation and they decided they were going to show up and blow the roof off of the auditorium or at least knock you out of the computer chair you were watching the presentation from. For those who aren’t familiar with Limited Run Games, they produce physical versions of digital only games or put games on other platforms other than the one they were released on. The Switch has been getting a lot of love from Limited Run. Aside from the acting being a little over the top, the game announcements were some of the better games announced during E3. River City Girls Zero, a prequel, as well as River City Girls 2 were announced and I’m looking forward to both of those. Bloodrayne Betrayal feels like Bloodstained or Castlevania and speaking of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood are getting released too. One Step From Eden, Contra Anniversary Collection, and Skatebird are games to keep an eye on.
Now let’s move onto Nintendo, my favorite of the big three companies. You should check out the Stevetendo Show on the Shacknews Twitch channel but I’m getting off topic here. The heavy hitters from the Nintendo Direct were the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel new trailer, Metroid getting a new 2D plat former game named Metroid Dread, and Kazuya from Tekken getting into Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Tekken music getting into Smash is a big deal as I really like video game music and have taken advantage of the Smash music feature to make my Switch an iPod on long trips. A Mario+Rabbids sequel and Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania were leaked on Twitter prior to their presentations but didn’t steal the thunder as these games have been teased for a long time.WarioWare: Get it Together, Advance Wars coming back, Shin Megami Tensei V, Mario Party Superstars, Danganronpa Decadence, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, Fatal Frame, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot on Switch, and so much more getting shown gave me the info I needed that Nintendo had the best presentation at E3 this year.
To recap, plenty of companies showed some interesting games during E3 this year but the ongoing pandemic must have caused some issues for companies in regards to what they wanted to present. You could see that some companies should leave the taped presentations to the folks that know what they’re doing. Let’s hope that E3 is back to normal next year and we’ll get to see these great announcements live
You can also check out my Nintendo E3 2021 live reaction video here!