 Nintendo Directs. They've been around since 2011. We just had one the other day. That was fun for me. Look, everyone has very different opinions on each Nintendo Direct, which makes sense. Take that recent Direct, for example. If you are a massive RPG fan, that might be the best Direct you've ever seen. Or, if you're someone who likes RPGs and is really excited about Mario Strikers, that might just be an okay Direct with a highlight. You also might go and make a whole video about how that was just an okay Direct for you, but with a highlight that a lot of people took as, Oh, I hated that Direct! No, I didn't. But let's see if there are any Directs that I've hated. Let's rank them. There's no tier list made online. We'll get, um, Zack to make something much cooler. I'll have to wake him up first, though. Hey, Zack! Do you mind, um, creating some kind of graphic as we go? Kind of looks nice, so people can see where I'm... Thank you, buddy. Didn't doubt you for a second. Ha ha ha ha! But first, a moment from our sponsor, Raycon. Look, I've done Raycon sponsors a few times now, and I feel like the message just isn't sinking into some of you, so let me make it as clear as possible. Raycon's look, feel, and sound better than ever. But it doesn't stop there. They have a perfect in-ear fit. I bet you my hair bun will fall out before the Raycons do. Eight hours of playtime and a 32 hour battery life. The little case that it comes in acts as a charge base. How brilliant is that? Moving on. Dollars and hair. What do you think that means? The price? Affordable. And it starts at half the price of other premium wireless earbuds on the market. 48,000 five-star reviews. It's no wonder when you just hear everything else, I told you. And finally, and this is the real kicker. I love Kim. It has nothing to do with me. But it's just because I love you. Nothing. Thanks for helping. And thank you for buying Raycon, because I know you did. So click that link below or go to buyraycon.com forward slash beat em ups to get 15% off your order. It directly supports my channel when you click that link below. So do it. And now let's finish the rest of the video. Appreciate you. Let's take a look at the very first Nintendo Direct there ever was. Reggie Filsame presents in 2011, 11 days after my 11th birthday. Hi, I'm Reggie from Nintendo of America, and this marks a new endeavor for Nintendo. Wow. Direct, video new. This is crazy. I know I'm pausing already, but this is crazy. This is where Direct started 11 years ago. Wow, 2011, 11 years ago, 11 days after my 11th birthday. For this first installment, we've got some important- It wasn't my 11th birthday. It was my 21st birthday. I'm so dumb. If you're an owner of Nintendo 3DS, we're just thinking of becoming one. If you're neither one yet, what's wrong with you? Oh, Reggie was so good. What was the clip? This was at E3, so it's not spoilers for the video. The top-selling game machine of this generation is the PS2. But guess what? They've got company. Game Boy Advance has also sold more than 28 million units in America. Yeah! Even though it launched eight full months after the PS2. Global sell-through for Nintendo DS stands at over five million, or more than twice the level for the PSP. I know what some of you are thinking. The PSP hasn't arrived in Europe yet. So we got there when we said we would and they didn't. You know what? That Sony's issue, not my problem. But he became so wholesome in the later years with Nintendo. Not my problem. How have I never used that in a video? And now, a landmark production is on the way. It's the thriller song that you know and love, featuring DreamWorks Animation's Shrek characters. Is this a joke? Did I accidentally click on a parody? We're halfway through the direct and it's donkey from Shrek. With a 3D version of Don't Stop from foster the people. They thought these announcements were so good that they had to create a direct. First and foremost, Nintendo 3DS is about games. I mean, he said first and foremost it's about games, but we are halfway through and so far we've seen no games. What's so there's no music? It's not like upbeat tempo, it's just wretchy. The first is freaky forms. I don't remember this. I'm making light-hearted fun of this direct, okay? It is the first one and I understand that, but can we laugh at how far we've come? This is the very first video game ever shown in a Nintendo Direct. I take back everything I said about the last one. All right, that was some bangers in here. 3D Mario World was really great. And Mario Kart, okay, it really starts to ramp up. Thanks for watching. Wow. It's funny going back and watching this direct because as we all know now, the 3DS kind of bombed at launch and then Nintendo did some kind of miracle to breathe life back into it and revive the thing. And it's weird just looking at this. You can kind of see why it didn't do well to begin with, you know, the kind of things they were pushing like Hulu and the weird augmented reality and then a few games that honestly are not going to sell the system at all. But then they did pull it back with some Mario and some Mario Kart and then they even talked about Skyward Sword at the end. So the very first direct had Mario and Zelda. It was also the very first direct ever. So I think it's only fair to give the first direct an A plus. They could only go up from here. Very second one was presented by Owada. I will never say a bad thing about this man. Okay. Whoa. He looks so cool back then. He looks like he was in like every emo band I loved in high school. Oh, they used to do them so differently. They would have a specific Japanese one and then a specific English one. This one's much shorter. This one's 11 minutes. So we really got skimped on this one of Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii. Xenoblade has been given a lot of love from Nintendo and I love to see that. I know I have to tread thin waters whenever I talk about this damn series because people forget that I actually really like Xenoblade 1 and Torna. The free form fun of Freaky Forms. Why are you starting the second direct with Freaky Forms again? Within those, there are different types of claws. Different. Can you imagine if I reviewed games like this and I've been playing the recent Pokemon Legends and I just found that the catching mechanic of the Pokeball is enjoyable. Ooh, I don't like this sitting down format they had for the second direct. This is a massive open world role playing experience. You know, that's kind of crazy. The second ever direct ended with a big look at Xenoblade Chronicles. I love that. I mean, the most recent direct ended with it. The second ever direct ended with it. I love the history there. While they upped their quality of the direct in the presentation, I preferred the shorter one that was just Reggie. The middle parts with those two guys was very boring. I'm gonna give this one honestly a C plus. It was not anything to be remembered. So this one was a Europe release. I don't know if that should count April 21st. Man, when they started directs, they really went full bore with them. Okay, this one was really nothing. A bunch of games I do not remember. And then it ends with Super Mario Brothers 2. I'm not sure I even wanna put that on the ranking list because it was really bad. See, there was one that was only in South Korea on April 14th. I don't really know what's happening. A lot of these say Japan, Europe and Australia. So we didn't, I say we, I'm not that American. But America didn't even get a lot of these. So here's the Europe version, June 21st, 2012. So a year and a half into directs. So we're six minutes in. They've revealed the 3DS XL. We've seen Dream Drop Distance coming to the 3DS. But then we're back on Freaky Forms again. Man. It is insane to me. This is like the fourth direct this has been in, in a row. And I've never heard of the game. Is this like a weird Mandela effect? Is everyone in the comments gonna be like, would how have you never heard of Freaky Forms? That was my childhood. We'll give that one an A. I mean, console reveal and some solid games? October 2nd. So a year after they started. Yeah. Pokemon option. Ninja. Pokemon. Zach, this was a bad idea. I was filming that video and it was very late. And I was very deliriously tired. So rather than scrap the video, I'm just gonna pick up where I left off. I've never done this before. We're halfway through a video. I'm like, wow, just film it in a week. I'm way more prepared this time though. Cause I remember I was having trouble actually finding directs. I've gone through the Wiki page and I've pulled at least one from every year. So starting in 2012, the year that the world was supposed to end according to the Mayan calendar and that one movie. This was two weeks after the Wii U launched. So we're officially in the first direct of the Wii U era. So let's see what went wrong. Oh, okay. I was terrifying for a second. Lego Wii 1. Ooh, that's weird. Lego City. And Lego City Undercover. Oh. I like this game, but that was a rough visual presentation to begin with. These backups of the directs are not in good quality. Apparently we're already at 720p. I don't know what to tell you. Pikmin 3 was a really great, fantastic looking game still. Something I've noticed with all these directs is it seems like they didn't really announce things in the directs. At some point, these directs went from just a little look at what's coming and what we already know about for Nintendo to being the Nintendo event to watch. Oh, I remember this. It was like Google Maps, but it was like Wii U's own version of Google Maps where you could look around the world on your tablets. I don't know what game companies used to think they were doing with some of these things. Who cares? What, this was the peak technology they could come up with for this man in 2012. A bike helmet with a GoPro strap to the chin so he could record his gameplay. This was their one more thing of the event, by the way. What? All right, next. We're in 2013 now. We're going up a year. Let's see if things have improved. They used to do a lot of these skits. Uh, hello? Get your body ready. Can they go back to skits? Reggie, I'm kicking off the show. Reggie. Reggie? And the acting is, I heard nothing. Reggie, this is kind of like me in high school level of I'm making a project for my grade 11 drama class and uploading it to YouTube levels of, I want to say cringe. I heard nothing. I don't get it. Also the creepy head is back. Hi everyone. Reggie here at the Nintendo of America. That was funny. That's how the entire thing should have started. The Legend of Zelda, A Link Between the Worlds. Oh, good game. The launch is on November 27th. Good start of the direct. No boring voiceover, just the theme song and letting the gameplay speak for itself. So follow Nintendo on Instagram to catch. You're promoting your Instagram, Nintendo? Man, these were different times. To free play mode, hot air hijinks and a host of cool puzzles. Oh my God, what a boring way to present Mario Party. It's supposed to be a party. Sound excited. So we got Bravely Default. We got Professor Layton. We do have some good games in here. I noticed around 2014 reaction video started popping up. Hello everybody, once again, Truck1985 here. You know what? I'm going to watch this guy for this one. I'm going to watch his reaction because he's in the year. So surely his reactions we can trust for if they're actually hype or not. Nintendo's not doing new IPs, are they? This is so clearly Majora's Mask. What do you mean new IPs? That's a 64 game. My guy, have you not realized this is a Majora's Mask yet? Really? When is it going to hit you? The suspense is killing me. Ah! All right. I barely know anything about Majora's Mask. Okay, fair. All right, buddy, fair. You redeemed yourself. I do not like him. Is this what it's like watching me react to directs when I don't like something? Is this how the Xenoblade fans felt? Just be excited for the thing I want you to be excited about. Why do you hate Nintendo? Of course, I'm talking about Amoeba. Oh my God, that's crazy. There was only 12 at launch. Did they just reveal a Smash character and my guy here barely even blinked? So we're starting to get Smash reveals. I was pretty hyped for Duck Hunt Dog. I remember that reveal. Moving on. Let's talk about Mono- Oh! Xenoblade. He liked that one. We have a Xenoblade fan. I'll say they're getting good. We're getting some reveals of things. Oh, wow. So we're starting to get pretty frequent Smash reveals. Man, that's why it's so sad that Sora was the last reveal because for eight years, they were a highlight of the directs for so many people. I miss it. I miss it so much. Got two Smash characters in this one. Can you imagine getting two Smash characters in a row in a direct now? That would be bananas. Mario Maker had, I had to Google it. It had already been revealed. So they're looking at it even more here. Let me get a look at Yoshi's Woolly World, another great game. So they've announced Splatoon Amiibo while giving another look at Splatoon. Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS coming to the Wii U virtual console. We're not even halfway through this one. And I think we found the first great Nintendo Direct. Okay, then we have some quality indies starting to drop on the system. This was the first big look at the Fire Emblem game on 3DS. Mario Kart DLC for Animal Crossing following the Animal Crossing announcement and then 200 CC being added to Mario Kart was announced right at the end here. I think I was rating these at one point. Zack, put them wherever you want. I forgot we were doing that. You got it, Zack. But this needs to go in like S tier because it was the first really good one. So this is another one from 2015. My God, this video is gonna be so long. But the title said Mario Zelda, Pokemon and more. How can I not with a title like that? And it's starting with Twilight Princess coming to Wii U. So yeah, 2015 was the year when Direct started becoming the place to announce things. Amiibo Festival was a bit of a dud. I remember this game coming out and it being $5 within a week. Mm, mm, mm. And we're gonna be powering through some meetings all day today but to keep us going I got us some snacks. Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill! Can I get one more on that last bill? Bill! Reggie is a treasure. Dude, pretty hype. So yeah, they were definitely using Smash reveals back then as like big announcements and highlights of the Direct. Probably put this one up in an A. They weren't really reveals. They were more like deep dives. But I mean, Cloud and Smash, man. Okay, so the 2016 Direct wasn't great. It's just more looks at all the stuff we looked at in the last Direct, essentially. All right, but now we're in 2017, the month after the Switch launched. You know, for the first ever Direct when a Switch is out, they're starting with a lot of 3DS stuff. So nine minutes in we get two arms. Wow, this is nostalgia. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Street Fighter II was a big one, I remember. Minecraft, Sonic Forces, that's unfortunate. But Sonic Mania right after, ending with some salmon run talk. Wow, kind of a lackluster event for being right after the Nintendo Switch launch. I need another break. This is ridiculous. I think if you compared my face now to when I started, my beard is longer, Horizon, Forbidden West and Elden Ring have come and gone. I never thought this video would be such an undertaking. And I don't know why I thought that. They're hour long Directs and there's like 40 of them. Of course I can't react to all of them in 10 minutes. We're ending it today, we have 10 more. Starting with September 13, 2017. Interesting to see that they're still starting with 3DS stuff, because for me in my brain, it was all Switch from here when it came out. So we're kicking off with a big look at Xenoblade Chronicles 2. All right, cool. And I remember these dropdown tabs they used to do. I don't think they do them anymore. You'd get so excited while watching the Direct. You're waiting to find out, wait, what iconic shooters are coming to Switch? These are really cool. This was like some of the best times being a Switch owner and adopter early on. Oh, Octopath. Oh, Dragon Quest Builders. When's it okay to start getting nostalgia? Cause I'm getting it already. Oh yeah, I guess Mario Odyssey wouldn't have been out yet. That would come out end of this year, 2017, right? Dude, what a stacked year this was. That was a sick Direct. We'll put that in A plus. Then we march in to 2018, a year after the Switch. No way! I just did not remember the 3DS getting this much support. Another Mario and Luigi game. Detective Pikachu ended with some Luigi's mansion, and then after five minutes were into Direct. So they're cutting it down five minutes now, not 10. This Kirby was not great. The new one looks a million times better. I was pretty excited for Mario Tennis coming out. We start getting those Wii U ports. I think Toad was one of the first ones. Then we started getting some of the bigger ports coming, like Crash Bandicoot. More Splatoon Splatoon's been very heavy. Oh, this was the DLC. This trailer was so sick. We just came off of them talking about Splatoon stuff, and now they're like one more thing, and it's Splatoon still, right? So you're kind of expecting like, where is this going with Splatoon? And then everything fades to black, the music gets that like low-pass filter muted onto it. Oh, I just got chills, man. I got chills. Let's S tier this one. Very smart, very hype. I had chills watching that again. E3 2018, it's switch time, baby. Kicking off with what should have been a bang, kind of fell flat, sadly. Daemon X Markiner. Man, that switch looks so fresh. This shot, and just how bright that switch looks. I really liked that game. I wish the Diamond and Pearl remakes were the same style as that, but it's what it is. This is where the Nintendo Switch commercials started to get very adult-focused. Now Nintendo is really pushing this 20 to 30 demographic for their games and their consoles. A much better marketing, because even if you were young, you kind of wanted this to be you with your friends, you know, and if you were older, you wanted to capture that youth. Also, this is their target demographic. A lot of people think Nintendo is for kids. While it's very family-friendly, the actual target demographic, where they make most of their money, it's like 20, 30, that demographic range. That's where the money is. We have our first look at Smash Brothers. I'm sure you're all eager to find out who will be joining the roster this time. I love it. We're gonna watch this. We're gonna watch until the moment. It's so sick. When you're watching it the first time, you haven't seen it before. At this point, you're wondering, who is in Smash this time? Who have they brought back? Because it was always different. They had their staples, but some characters were here, some weren't. You were always wondering, who have they decided to do this time? Because there's no way they can do everyone. That's insane. And so you're watching and you're hoping to see your favorites. And you're like, oh, Mewtwo's sick. You're seeing Link, and you're like, whoa, it's the Breath of the Wild Link. Oh, and you want more information, but it's going by so quickly. You've seen Peach, and you're like, oh, Pikachu. Of course Pikachu is here. Why wouldn't Pikachu be here? Ice Climbers are back. Ice Climbers, really? Out of all the characters, they brought back Ice Climbers. That's insane. Splatoon figured that because we just had, that's the newest announcement. We saw that in the trailer. And then about this point, you're like, whoa, we've seen like 15 already. I guess they're showing us everyone. It just keeps going. How many characters are there? Chills again. Smash is like the best part. And to do this at an E3 as well, just to show off. Oh my God. For all the times that you're like, why Nintendo? Why did you do it this way? Or why didn't you do that? You have to look back to the things they did do. Things like this is just so smart. And the success, I mean, speaks for itself. Smash and the switch. S tier for this one too. I love directs. This is another one from 2018. Oh, wow. This is when they introduced Switch Online for the first time. I feel like if we could see dislikes, I think this one got bombed pretty hard. It has a couple of little announcements and things to talk about. Star Fox being in the new Starling game, which I really like. They showed the new Yoshi game. It was cute, super easy and really short. Final Fantasy Chronicles, which did not pan out to be very fun. And before they announced the new Animal Crossing, they did this reveal. It's kind of a really good fake out because it was like new Animal Crossing. You really think you're getting a new Animal Crossing. Oh my God. That gave me chills as well, though, to be fair. New Animal Crossing, you have to give it an A by default. February, 2019. So Mario Maker 2 announcement, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 announcement, Dragon Quest Builders 2. All right, I might be a little bit biased on this one. Oh, and then we ended with an Astral Chain announcement. I guess an A plus. It's not like an S or anything. It was just a really great way to start the year. I found 2019's E3. There was a full live reaction at Nintendo of America store in New York. This was the announcement of Hero and Smash, which was one of the biggest Smash announcements there is. I'm getting chills because of the reaction. Oh my God, dude. I'm like tearing up with like chills. It's just so exciting. It's so nice seeing like all these gamers come together and just get excited. What for an announcement in Smash, man? We're such nerds. Luigi's Mansion 3, obviously a sick announcement. This dude on the right here is having to hold his ear closed because it's too loud. Oh my God, they're giving me so many chills. Their reaction is so wholesome. Oh my God. Why is this making me so emotional? I'm not gonna cry at how wholesome this reaction is to these Nintendo games, man. Oh, these are my people. Calm down, you nerds. Why am I crying? It makes no sense. How do I get invited to one of these, man? I wanna go so bad. That's the best direct. I don't know, man, I don't have to tell ya. I was gonna say it was the best direct before they even showed Breath of the Wild sequel at the end. That's the best direct ever. So this direct was mostly ports of games coming from the Wii U to just third party stuff in general. Like a lengthy, like six minute look at the new Animal Crossing at the end. Fine, B direct, it was B, it was B. Oh yeah, this was the massive break in between directs for, I guess, the whole of 2020. We did have directs that were like an Animal Crossing direct that were focused on one thing but we did not get a direct for all of 2020, I guess. So then this was the first one back in February of last year. This Smash announcement was done very traditional Xenoblade cutscene and style. So you felt like it was maybe some kind of DLC. I got an invitation to join Smash! Most of my chills watching these have been with the Smash announcements. A lot of these games that were being announced February of last year are still not out. To be fair, I mean, that must not be named. And then Skyward Sword, okay, you know what? I think this direct is pretty mid as well. Although we did end with an announcement of Splatoon 3, actually. Yeah, that does bump it up one. It's probably about the same as the recent one. Ending was Xenoblade 3, ending was Splatoon 3. Yeah, and then E3 of last year, we had Kazooka come to Smash, Mario Party. All right, that's sick. Metroid Dread, Mario Gold, Monster Hunter Stories 2, Shin Megami, Mario Sparks of Hope, WarioWare Get It Together. All right, they saved a lot of good stuff for the direct. And then we had that first big look at Breath of the Wild 2 with the actual gameplay running around. I'm giving that one an S. September of last year, that first look at Kirby, then another look at Dread, the announcement of the expansion pack. And then we had this, yeah, I forgot about this. The cast of the new Mario movie, oh no. I laughed at that so much. I can't even. F for this direct, F. Oh, our first look at Bayonetta. All right, that evens it out. We'll give it a B. And then the most recent one, we already know because we literally just reacted to it, but Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, Mario Strikers, Nintendo Switch Sports, I played the beta on stream with Bob and we actually had a lot of fun. Earthbound's pretty sick. I said this one was mid, but I think it was the best out of the last three February directs. I think what we realized by going through all of these is that February is a very medium direct region. They're saving all the big stuff for the E3 area. E3 is usually where it's absolutely bangin'. The September directs seem to be some deeper dive looks at whatever games have already been announced that are coming out later in the year. I haven't changed my opinion on this recent one too much, but I've grown to appreciate this one a lot more. But at least we know which one was the best direct. I mean, that one E3, whatever year it was, I've already forgotten. That's by far the best one. Oh my God, this took me three hours to film. Zach, I'm so sorry. This is the longest YouTube video I have ever recorded. I don't even know how this is gonna turn out into content, but if you enjoyed it, like it and give honest feedback down below because I'll go through and do like the mini directs next. We can do that. But only if you guys actually love this and it does well. I'm just gonna, I'm done. I am done. Goodbye.