The 5 best announcements from the latest Nintendo Direct

The latest Nintendo Direct added to the slew of video game news that keeps hitting headlines over the last few weeks. While it may not be as big as Xbox buying Activision Blizzard or Sony purchasing Bungie nor did it give us any sort of Zelda remakes or remasters or Breath of the Wild 2 announcements, there’s still plenty to get excited about.

Here are the five announcements that have us ready to spend our day playing all of the video games.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land looks ridiculous

Kirby and the Forgotten Land was already on our games we can’t wait to play this year, and the latest reveal trailer showcasing all of the fun new moves has us even more amped up.

Truly, it looks like they took a page out of Super Mario Odyssey’s book, and that’s not a bad thing. Remember how you could take control of a t-rex in Odyssey? Yeah, well, you can eat as car as Kirby and drive around this post-apocalyptic wasteland. And that’s just barely scratching the surface of the sheer ridiculousness that this game looks to offer.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land launches on March 25th.

Nintendo Switch Sports

Move aside, Wii Sports, there’s a new sports game in town! And it looks to be just as fun and chill as the Wii’s iteration. Welcome back to playing tennis and bowling and getting increasingly frustrated at not being able to bowl a perfect game.

We’re also getting the addition of soccer (which includes a leg strap accessory so you can kick), badminton, and volleyball. It should be fun to return to a simplistic game, and Switch Sports launches on April 29.

Portal and Portal 2 are coming

The cake is a lie, still, after all these years. If you’ve never played any of the Portal games and love puzzles, please make sure to check these games out.

It’s a return to Aperture Science and GLaDOS’s dark humor and condescending, backhanded compliments as you make your way through puzzle after puzzle with nothing but the portal gun to figure things out. These two games are so much fun and it’s still such a bummer at how short they are. Still, we can’t wait to play Valve’s games on the Switch.

EarthBound is on Nintendo Switch Online

Listen, my household has been waiting for EarthBound on the Super Nintendo emulator since the SNES emulator was announced. And it’s here! And it’s now! It’s both EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings (known as Mother in Japan).

These games are some of the most beloved RPGs in gaming history, and fans have been loudly asking for them to be ported to newer consoles (and Mother 3 still doesn’t truly exist in the US). So this one comes as a pleasant, excellent surprise.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass

While we’d prefer an announcement for Mario Kart 9, the reveal of new DLC that includes a slow roll of many remastered courses from Mario Kart’s storied history is still pretty cool.

Nintendo announced the Booster Course Pass, which is a release of 8 courses at a time in six waves of releases through the end of 2023. The first wave includes Coconut Mall from Mario Kart Wii and Choco Mountain from Mario Kart 64. Now, will we still be able to use the old cheats on these courses or will those have been taken out?

This DLC is included if you have the Nintendo Switch Online subscription that includes expansion pack access, otherwise, it is $24.99.

What else are you most excited to play on the Switch that we missed? Let us know in the comments!