Earlier this week Nintendo announced that Kirby would be getting a special Music Fest to celebrate its 30th anniversary (you can read all about it here). And that’s not all. We know later this month Kirby and the Forgotten Land is being released (25 March) and Nintendo previously announced that there would be several events to mark the occasion this year so we may even get something else before too long. This all got me thinking about how Nintendo celebrates anniversaries.
Back in September 2020, just when we thought Nintendo had forgotten all about the Super Mario Bros. 35th anniversary, we got a special Direct. And it landed up being quite a spectacle with several big announcements including a commemorative Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros., the reveal of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, Super Mario All-Stars 2D Collection coming to Switch online, the inexplicably limited-timed Super Mario Bros. 35 online battle royale-type game, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit and even Super Mario 3D All-Stars. I know some of those were a bit of a miss, but as a huge Mario fan – I was really happy with all we got that year.
Then, 2021 came along and Zelda fans were sure – Nintendo was once again going to make a big splash. Instead, they only barely referenced it and while we got another pretty great Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda and the remastered Skyward Sword HD many fans were left feeling like Nintendo had basically ignored the big anniversary. And I suppose (somewhat surprisingly) it seems Kirby is almost getting more fanfare even though it’s (probably) nowhere as big of a franchise for Nintendo.
Of course, it should be noted that both Mario and Zelda anniversaries happened to take place during a global pandemic, and while the former may have benefitted from pre-Covid planning – much of what may have been planned for Zelda may have been impacted by the spread of the virus, work-from-home situations and other unforeseen limitations. That being said… the question remains – How well do you think Nintendo celebrates their anniversaries? Let us know in the comments below what suggestions you’d include marking this specials occasions.
As always remember you can check out more Nintendo news, reviews and features at www.nintendogamer.co.za and if you would like a video recap of the Nintendo news you missed last week check out the latest episode of our quickfire video series 1-Up 1-Down here.