Nintendo Direct

Today's Nintendo Direct shed a lot of light on the newest wave of amiibo, as well as other amiibo that will be launching later this year in conjunction with a number of games. Here are the highlights (courtesy of my viewing, and Nintendo of Canada's Press Release):

I was promised in the email from Nintendo of Canada that tomorrows Nintendo Direct was not an April Fools joke. The direct is aimed at updating games that Nintendo is working on, particularly those coming in 2015. A Nintendo Treehouse presentation is to follow outlining a 2015 Spring title.

Nintendo announced that the upcoming Intelligent Designs title Codename S.T.E.A.M launching for the 3DS on March 13th will allow players to unlock playable Fire Emblem characters through certain amiibo. Marth, Ike, Robin, and Lucina will all be fully playable by simply touching their corresponding amiibo to the New 3DS XLs bottom screen, or by purchasing the upcoming add on Near-Field Communications device for the older 3DS models.

Nintendo announced the 4th wave of the toy-to-life franchise amiibo during their first Nintendo Direct of 2015. The next wave of the Smash Bros. amiibo packs some heavy hitters from the world of Nintendo as Robin and Lucina from Fire Emblem, Ness from Earthbound, Wario, Charizard and even Pac-Man will be releasing on April 24th. It’s safe to bet that these all will sell out well before they are actually launched so if you want one you better be ready to click that pre-order button whenever it becomes available.

The Direct began with a new trailer for Super Smash Bros. The trailer has revealed the Little Mac from Punch Out will be a playable character in the game; it also appears as if a Punch Out boxing ring level may also be in the game. Many questioned if this game would ship this year, but Nintendo insists it will be available in 2014.

Although Nintendo had previously confirmed that changes were being made to Wind Waker HD, due for release later this year, there were some people that were still a little cloudy on exact what it was they were talking about. For those of us who played it back in the day, it was pretty obvious what needed to be changed, and in today's Nintendo Direct, they confirmed, without any room for ifs and buts, that the final part of Wind Waker has been "rebalanced" for Wind Waker HD.

The upcoming 3DS title A Link Between Worlds may be set in the same world as A Link to the Past, but it's not set in the same time period. In today's Nintendo Direct, Iwata revealed that a lot of time has past between A Link to the Past and A Link Between Worlds, and that the Link we've seen in the videos so far isn't the same link from the 1991 Legend of Zelda SNES classic.

Nintendo have announced that they'll hold a new Nintendo Direct tomorrow. You'll be able to tune into the official Nintendo website for the latest Wii U and 3DS news at 7AM PDT, 3PM GMT. Don't get too excited though, they have already confirmed that this will be related to games releasing this year.