I thought they were joking on April Fools’ Day. Lucas and Mewtwo becoming playable characters again in Super Smash Bros. Wii U/3DS, being able to vote for a new character in Smash (Go Team Skull Kid), and 200cc in Mario Kart 8 seem outlandish to me. Hahaha that’s a pretty good prank, Nintendo. Whew, you really had me yesterday.

But it’s totally real. You can get both new characters for $5 on April 28. And 200cc in Mario Kart 8? That’s never happened in the history of Mario Kart! It sounds dangerous and I’m genuinely excited for the new challenge. There’s already one DLC pack put out for Mario Kart 8. You get new maps, new cups, new characters, and that’s something you would never see in a Nintendo game. Usually when they release the game, that’s the game, forever. To me, there are some positives and negatives.

R.I.P. Dry Bones

The new courses, karts, and more challenging game modes are great! But what is Link doing in a Mario Kart game? I realize these characters meet in Smash, but this isn’t Nintendo Kart or Super Smash Kart. It’s Mario Kart. I’m probably going to get the MK8 DLC 2-pack bunduru when it becomes available, but it kind of breaks the game universe, you know? We got all these cartoon-looking characters and then this…strangely realistic looking guy with a sword. And now they’re adding Animal Crossing characters. *Sigh* I don’t know, man. All my friend wanted was Dry Bones, but he’s have to settle for Dry Bowser.

The Nintendo Direct channel is actually a really effective way to give players news about upcoming content. People really eat that up. I could do without the Japanese man who speaks English poorly, but I guess that’s part of the Nintendo charm. They’re also trying to get into mobile games. No, not the 3DS, the iPhone. Nintendo games on a non-Nintendo device seems very…unNintendo. This whole DLC thing is pretty new to Nintendo and some were worried they were going to get left in the dust. But things are changing at Nintendo, and that’s just fine.