Let's talk about Sora in Smash Bros.

Wow, I was NOT prepared whatsoever for the last character to be Sora from Kingdom Hearts to be revealed as the last DLC fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.  Though it wasn't a character I was hoping to be in the game, I felt that he has the tools, the history, and the following to make a great addition to the roster; however, I gave zero thought about Sora making it in because he was locked behind Disney copyright gates.  What a magical trailer.  What an absolutely amazing choice for the last DLC fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Here's what I wrote on Facebook:

(3.5 hours before the Stream):

[Pre-Smash Presentation Rant] - Do not read if you don't want any preconceptions or expectations out of the character reveal.

The final Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC Fighter Presentation will air on October 5th, 7AM PT.  No matter who it is, it'll break the internet.  I'm still hoping for Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden, but I don't think that's a particularly good choice for a last DLC.  A mind blowing reveal would be Master Chief from Halo.  A lot of fans still want Sora, but c'mon, Nintendo would have to deal with Disney.  If Nintendo wants a shocking and meme-worthy reveal, then Waluigi (and the reveal would be him breaking out of the trophy capsule).

...But what if Nintendo went for the marketing route for the last character?  They did put one in Season Pass 1 (Byleth from Fire Emblem Three Houses), but they put two in Season Pass 2 (Min Min from Arms and Pyra/Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2).  Would it be possible that they'd put a third one in, and as the last DLC fighter?  If that's the case, I'd love to see the Howard siblings from Astral Chain in Smash.  Astral Chain's combat is unique that's unlike any other character, leading to a dynamic moveset and playstyle.  Also, I just really loved that game (albeit, I still haven't finished it...).  This was the character I predicted and wanted when Season Pass 2 was announced.  As much as I would like the Howard siblings in Smash, I imagine it would cause a huge uproar within the Smash community (relatively unknown and an obvious market towards Nintendo's games).

Regardless of who Nintendo reveals as their last DLC character, Super Smash Bros. 4 (3DS/Wii U) and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate delivered some of the most exciting character reveals in gaming history and I'm happy for all that it has given us.

See you guys on in a few hours!

(Right when Sora was revealed):

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?! SAKURAI TRULY IS A MIRACLE WORKER! I DON'T BELIEVE IT!

(After waking up from getting more sleep):

[Post-Presentation Thoughts]

This was the one impossible dream I thought Nintendo and Sakurai could not fulfill as it was locked behind Disney's copyright gates.  Sora from Kingdom Hearts is definitely one of the most requested characters for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.  I'll admit, upfront, that I am not a fan of Kingdom Hearts.  To reiterate, I WISH I was a fan so I could appreciate the reveal that much more as I've listened through all the music, own every Kingdom Hearts game, BUT I never played through a single one yet...

As the trailer started and the Smash logo blaze withered into a tiny flame, I actually thought it was Demon/Dark Souls which I thought would be a surprising choice.  But when Mario throws the flame and it zooms in on the Mickey head keychain for the keyblade, my heart skipped a beat and I was in disbelief.  Of all the choices for the last character reveal, Nintendo and Sakurai managed to bring the impossible dream come true character.  As that keyhole opened up and Sora drifts into the rest of the Smash Bros. roster, the orchestrated version of Simple and Clean/Hikari plays as I fight back tears (I may not have an attachment to the game or characters yet, but I've listened to that song for half my life by now).  Sora's character model looks absolutely incredible and his moveset looks like so much fun (he is going to be annoying to fight against).  So how did they manage the whole Disney thing?  Seems like Square-Enix, Disney, and Nintendo all agreed that they'll have everything Kingdom Hearts in Smash EXCEPT anything Disney: characters, music, level references, etc.  Sora is truly worthy of the last character reveal and the whole experience (of watching the trailer) was kind of magical.

Aside from that, I was also extremely shocked about Doom Slayer added as a Mii Outfit (I am absolutely buying that).  Also, it was announced by Sakurai that every Kingdom Hearts game is coming to the Nintendo Switch, albeit through cloud streaming.

It was a bit sad seeing everything coming to an end.  The final character reveal, the final smash presentation, and possibly the final game.  Perhaps Nintendo will make more Super Smash Bros. in the future, but it's hard to believe any of them ever matching the sheer amount of content and company collaboration as this one.  I hope Sakurai can take a break and do something he wants to do: work on a non-Smash Bros. related project (a new game), spend time with his family, or maybe finally get some actual rest.

Thank you Nintendo, Sakurai, and all those involved in the making of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.  It's been some of the most exciting moments in gaming history.

(And now some of the best reactions I found in no particular order):

These reaction videos are some of the best ones we've seen throughout the years of Smash character reveals with the sheer amount of joy and overwhelming happiness from the fans.  Man, what a wild ride.  I'm looking forward to playing Sora on October 18th.  I should really get around to playing the Kingdom Hearts series, but man...10 games is kind of intimidating...

Let's talk about Nintendo Direct 9-23-21

Another month has quickly gone by and we're at the last week of September.  My sister was able to come back for a few days to celebrate our mom's birthday together earlier this month, and it's the first time she's been back home for 2.5 years.  I was happy to see her after so long.

I still spent most of this month practicing piano, exercising, and trying to get better at Guilty Gear Strive.  I'm struggling with piano as I'm learning very slowly and not finding enough time in the day to practice as much as I'd like to.  Exercising has been okay, but my weight has been going up and down between 137 lbs to 142 lbs since we're eating out a bit more now that we're vaccinated and also because my sleep schedule has been pushed late again (currently trying to fix it once again).  I often feel tired throughout the day because I can't sleep at night but am still trying to wake up earlier so that I'll feel more tired by night time.  As for Guilty Gear Strive, I think I've made some breakthroughs that I can be proud of, but playing a bit more ranked online recently has proved to me just how inexperienced I am and how much more I have to learn (and yet I've already put in over 270+ hours...).  I think I should focus on more piano and being mindful about my sleep schedule in the month of October.  Trying to do anything else productive might be difficult as Melty Blood Type Lumina releases this Thursday and Back 4 Blood releases next week.

And now, I'd like to talk about the Nintendo Direct as I feel like I haven't been talking about videogames much this year.  It'll be nice to talk about future releases and things I'm looking forward to.  The Nintendo Switch has gotten a lot of great releases that I haven't picked up and played yet (they're rarely on discount and I also don't have enough time for them), but they teased a bunch of new games coming out in the next year that I know I'll be eventually picking up.

Capcom teases a massive expansion to Monster Hunter Rise.  While it's cool to see more content coming to Rise, I'm still waiting for it to release on Steam PC first.  I just hope I have a new PC before then because my current one was barely handling Monster Hunter World.

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars is Yoko Taro's newest game.  Keiichi Okabe is also composing the music for this game which is incentive enough for me to pick it up.  While card games are generally a genre I don't look much into, I like the new trend of single-player focused RPG-aspect card games that have been made the past half decade and am willing to try this one out as well.

More content is coming to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, but I haven't even picked up the game yet.  There have been so many Zelda games coming out the past few years that I haven't been able to keep up with them.

Chocobo GP looks so cute!  I hope it comes to Steam PC so I can convince my non-Switch owning friends to pick it up as well.

Then they announce that the final Smash Bros. presentation will be streamed two weeks later as to not get people excited and disappointed for the new Kirby game they were about to reveal.  It's unfortunate that it's another early stream (7AM PT on Oct. 5th), but I'll definitely wake up for it.  It makes me a bit nervous on who the last character could possibly be.  By this point, they would have to reveal Master Chief from Halo to get a large positive response from the community.  I'm still hoping Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden gets in, but I also don't see him being entirely well received by the Smash community.  I guess I'll find out in a week.

I wasn't expecting a new Kirby game, and I was certainly not expecting it to be a 3D open-world game set in a post-apocalyptic world of our own modern environment.  It's just so wild and weird, but I like what I see so far.

More content is coming to Mario Golf: Super Rush.  I was interested in picking up the game, but haven't found the right time for it since I've been constantly digging through backlogged games.

Triangle Strategy had a bit more to show this time around and it's looking great.  I still have so many games like it that I haven't gotten around to playing or finishing yet that I'm probably not going to pick it up at launch.

Metroid Dread is looking great and I'm pretty interested in playing it now.  But it's releasing at a time where I'm already spending a lot of money and probably have most of that time occupied already to be able to even play this game.  I'll definitely be playing it one day, but sadly not at launch.

Nintendo Online is finally adding N64 games to play on the Switch as well as Sega Genesis games.  I was excited at first since I haven't played a lot of N64 games, but then I realized it was going to be sold as an expansion pack.  Depending on the price and the timing, I might consider it since I want to try playing through some of those N64 games.

I've been seeing leaks of Castlevania Advance Collection for months now and have been wondering when it'll be out.  I was super happy to find out that it was releasing later that day and on Steam PC.  I never actually beat Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance so I'm keen on picking it up and playing through them again and actually finishing them all the way through.  As mentioned many times, it's out at a poor time and I'm tempted to get it knowing that I may not have enough time to play it.  For now, I'm holding off on purchasing it until I finish some more games.

ActRaiser Renaissance was the highlight of the Direct for me.  When the map zoom of the original appeared, I was already shocked to see ActRaiser in any form and thought it might be porting the original to the Switch.  But when that map transitioned to one with modern looking graphics, I lost my mind.  I started jumping up and down in my seat and screaming from the pure joy and excitement that ActRaiser was getting remade.  Then I saw the gameplay and was a bit turned off by the graphics and animation.  They look like they came from the Playstation 1 era.  What was even more surprising was the game was releasing later that day.  I looked up gameplay and saw that combat was a little different with a bit more depth as well as the God Phase having a tower-defense like gameplay much like  the ActRaiser inspired game SolSeraph had in their game.  I really want to play the game, but perhaps not at $30 and at this time.  So I will have to sadly wait until a later date before I can find the time to play it.

A quick look at upcoming games sped through and it covered a lot of games previously announced.  I'm looking forward to Shin Megami Tensei V and Rune Factory 5.

We've known about the Mario movie for a while now, but they didn't reveal the voice actors until this Direct.  The idea of a Mario movie already has me skeptical, but the surprising and weird cast of celebrities voicing the Mario crew has me even more worried.

Details of Splatoon 3 were shown and while it doesn't make me super excited, I am looking forward to eventually playing it.  I haven't even finished the expansion campaign on 2 yet.

And then finally, after 4 years of waiting, we get a glimpse of Bayonetta 3.  It was already leaked before the Direct that it might have a mention during Nintendo's Direct and that the release date would be in 2022.  Despite that, I didn't know it was the trailer for Bayonetta 3 when it was revealing "the last game of the direct".  It was a good trailer because it kept me guessing.  You have dudes in military gear shooting at a large monster that doesn't look quite angelic in a modern looking city.  Thoughts were swimming in my head: "Viewtiful Joe?  Earth Defense Force?  Xenoblade Chronicles?"  And then I remembered the leak and realized "oh, this is Bayonetta 3!"  But then I saw the dog suit and thought I was being played and it was actually a sequel for Astral Chain.  But then Witch Time happens and you see Bayonetta's reflection on the blade.  Bayonetta looks great and her new abilities are wild!  I still have my pre-order from 4 years ago and am ready to play it whenever it releases next year.

Over all, it was a pretty good Nintendo Direct Presentation and there's a lot to look forward to for the Nintendo Switch.  I'll probably be making another post next week after the Smash Bros. Presentation.

Nintendo Switch Revealed

Copy-pasted from what I posted on Facebook:

Summing up how I feel about the Nintendo Switch: “Worried, but hopeful.”  It doesn’t quite do anything new and innovative that we haven’t really seen before.  I think this was ultimately what Nintendo wanted to do with the Wii U.  At this point, I’m just hoping for better support for the Nintendo console with a lot more games.

Nintendo finally revealed their new system.  The system is a home console/portable system hybrid where you can play games on the TV like a traditional console and take it along with you like a portable system. Here's a break-down of my thoughts on the reveal.

Positive/Excited Opinions:

-Name: I don't particularly like the name, but I think it'll catch on. At the very least it's straight-forward (much like the N64 being a 64-bit console, the Gamecube was cube shaped). The Wii U name caused confusion and grief for marketing.

-Portable Console Quality: This might be the first time a portable system has the exact quality of a console (I haven’t played with the nVidia Shield so I’m not sure if that counts).

-Company Focus: Having to focus on one system that supports both home console play and portable gaming on the go gives fans hope that 1^st/2^nd/3^rd party support will ensure a large library of games will be available for the system (something that the Wii U sadly lacked).

-Easy LAN parties: Games like Splatoon are generally played online, but the way it’s previewed they could potentially allow you to connect several systems together (much like the 3DS does for local multiplayer) for an easy setup for a LAN party.

-Cartridge-based: I hope this means faster loading for everything.  The one thing that has bugged me to no end since the introduction of the Sony Playstation is that Disc-based games take so long to load everything.

Negative/Concerned Opinions:

-Controllers: At a glance, the switchable controller looks ugly, uncomfortable, and delicate.  The Wii U gamepad and Pro controller were also uncomfortable, but I eventually adjusted to them, so it might be okay.  My main concern stems from its main functionality to detach from the controller and onto the portable screen and back: will it wear out quickly?  Is it sturdy enough?  Will it hold the portable screen securely?  Using the mini-controllers also looks uncomfortable.  That dedicated home controller looks particularly ugly (it makes the Wii U pro controller look amazing).  Ugh, I hope these are prototypes…

-Portable screen: When I had the original B&W Gameboy and Gameboy Color, one of the problems I ran into was that the screen was unprotected.  It would get dirty, oily, or scratched.  But ever since the Gameboy Advance SP, the clamshell design has protected the screen and buttons while keeping the device portable.  It’s cool that the Nintendo Switch will have a large screen to play on, but now there isn’t an implemented method of protecting the screen and it won’t easily fit my pocket anymore because of the protruding joysticks.  These were probably ignored due to conforming to our tablet culture (the Wii U was half way there, and now it’s all the way there).

-Battery life: The portable screen looks small, but it has to be strong enough to run a console quality game on it.  How long would a battery hold out before it knocks out?

-Exclusive support: It’s great to see that games like Skyrim and the NBA2K series being supported, but I hope it’s not ONLY going to be multi-platform game support.  The Wii U tried to regain its core gamer audience that it lost during the Wii Era by bringing a lot of multi-platform support.  The problem is that a lot of people playing those games will already have another console that plays those games and won’t go out of their way to pick up the version for the Nintendo console.  Games like Bayonetta 2, Xenoblade Chronicles X and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE really set it apart from other consoles and was a great addition to the library of games available, but it wasn’t nearly enough for Wii U.  The Nintendo Switch needs a lot more games like those and I’m hoping that a lot of developers are willing to create a tons of games fans are craving specifically for the system now that they only have to focus on one system rather than 2.

-Audio: The Nintendo DS and 3DS finally had stereo audio for the portable system!  From what I can tell in the preview video, the audio might come out from those holes on the top of the screen.  Does this mean it’s going back to mono?  I hope not!  At least there’s still a headphone jack.

Overall, I’m not THAT excited since it doesn’t really seem to bring anything new to the industry that the Wii, DS, Wii U, and 3DS did; however, I am hopeful that we’ll get a lot more games for the Nintendo console this time around.  Despite the public complaints about the last generation of Nintendo systems and its seemingly poor sales, I really enjoy playing my Wii U and I absolutely love my 3DS which currently holds a ridiculous backlog of 20 games on it.  I wish Nintendo the best and hope they’ll continue to provide innovative and entertaining games for many more generations.

Let's talk about Another Metroid 2 Remake

There was a job opportunity and I finished up applying for it.  I had to stop all projects to work on the application.  It's a composer position and it's an extremely small chance, but I still took it anyways.  After I finished up, I went back to my own projects.  Shortly afterwards, I saw that Metroid had reached its 30th anniversary since its initial release on the Nintendo Famicom.

"Whoop-dee-doo, we've reached the 30th Anniversary and they're giving us Metroid Prime: Federation Force. I don't think it looks bad, but it feels like they slapped the Metroid brand on a project that would otherwise get no attention. We haven't had a proper Metroid game in 12 years and haven't had a spinoff in 6 years. I don't think this is the spinoff fans expected or wanted, but perhaps it has a chance to surprise us."

That was my initial reaction to the news (as posted on Facebook).  It has bothered me for the longest time that there were so many Mario and Zelda games still being made with even some Donkey Kong Country and Star Fox games released while the Metroid series has been mostly ignored by Nintendo.  Even on the anniversary, no mention or celebration was made by Nintendo.  It wasn't even used as a marketing ploy to bring interest to their upcoming game Metroid Prime: Federation Force.

Moments after seeing the news for the anniversary, I came across Another Metroid 2 Remake when I typed in "Metroid" in google.  I've played quite a few fan-made Metroid games and they mostly capture the controls of the game, but not the full gameplay.  The game looked interesting and I decided to download and try it out.  I have never finished the original Metroid 2 as I got stuck on the last boss and couldn't beat it.  I was thinking the game was going to be a graphics overhaul of the original game and didn't think there would be too much deviation from it.  Boy, was I wrong!

This trailer is about 3 years old and was possibly the only time I've heard about this project.  Back then, it was just a demo and I didn't feel like playing an unfinished game.  So I didn't think much of it.  But on the 30th anniversary, the game was fully released.  I was expecting the game to be short since it was a fan-made game.  What I got was a fully fleshed out Metroid experience that is nearly on par with the quality it would have been if Nintendo had created the game.  Much of the gameplay, visuals and design is influenced by Metroid Zero Mission, which was a remake of the very first Metroid game.  The basic world layout and concept of Metroid 2 is still there: Kill all the Metroids, move onto the next area.  Obviously, the first and most notable difference in the remake is how rich and nicer looking the graphics are.  The original Metroid 2 was released on the original Black and White gameboy which had a limited amount of technology and memory space to work with.  In terms of control and gameplay, it closely resembles Zero Mission as Metroid 2's controls were slower and floaty to compensate for the limited amount of screen space it had.  The only critique I personally have for the game is the audio.  Some of the sound effects feel like misplaced foley recordings and some of the arranged music from the original are a bit monotonous and boring.  It also doesn't capture the eerie and atmospheric experience that the original had, despite its limited capabilities.  Still, it wasn't enough to call it "bad", just not up to expectation.  Everything else is great though!  Enemies have a lot more movement and AI patterns, bosses are challenging and memorable, level designs and item placements are well thought out and teaches the player along the way without actually having them go through any tutorial.  It was so fun, in fact, that I played the game 5 times in a row!  I played Normal the first time with the attempt to do everything and collect all the items (couldn't, got 94%).  Then I played 2 more times to improve my time.  I was going to stop.  But then I played through the original Metroid 2 and was reminded on how difficult it was due to enemies dealing a lot of damage and save points being scarce and far apart from each other and it made me wonder if enemies would hurt as much as they did in the original if I played on Hard difficulty for the remake.  And so I played the game a 4th time on Hard difficulty (with all other runs on Normal, I didn't play Easy).  It was challenging and it definitely made boss battles that much more intense, but I think I enjoyed the game more on Normal.  I wanted to try the game on Normal one last time and try to finish it in 1.5 hours.  I ended my run at 1:42:50 with my previous fastest time at 1:57:36.  I was hoping to get a much faster time than that after skipping a boss fight and many miscellaneous items.  I'm satisfied now in terms of Another Metroid 2 Remake.  The fans didn't exactly get the 30th Anniversary celebration they wanted for Metroid, but the fan-made game will have to do.

By the way, a DMCA was issued to the site a day after it was released and they had to take down the downloads for it.  Sad but true.

I'm planning on revisiting all the other Metroid games other than the original since I already did that earlier this year.  Maybe I'll finally get around to actually playing Metroid Prime 3 and Other M.

James & Mike Mondays - Metroid Rant

I was watching some videos last night of James (aka the Angry Video Game Nerd) & Mike playing games and I found out they recently released a video of them playing Metroid.  I made a post about it on Facebook and it was so long that it might as well be a blog post.  So here I am re-posting it here:


Watching other people play videogames through online streaming is one of the biggest trends in recent years. It wasn't too surprising to me considering a lot of us probably did it when we were younger (I watched my dad and my older cousins play videogames a lot when I was younger). Some like to watch others play to know what the game is like before buying it themselves. Some enjoy watching others play Horror or difficult games to see their reactions. Some people don't want to play games and rather watch other people play. I generally like watching high level play in competitive or super challenging games. But I noticed that the majority of gameplay videos and streams consists of people playing the game normally while talking a lot, making bad jokes, forcefully yelling a lot with screaming and cursing, and worst of all: constantly asking for donation/subscriptions.

I rarely watch videos or streams of other people play games, but I recently started watching James Rolfe's Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) sketch again and found out that he's been making videos with his partner Mike Matei of them playing games (old and new). The AVGN was a character and thus James acted in a very specific way that set the theme to his games reviews that was both informative and entertaining. So it was really weird seeing him act normal with Mike Matei when playing videogames. What really sets apart their videos from a lot of others on the internet and Youtube is how insightful they are on the games that they play. They know a lot of history behind each game, cultural references made in the game, fundamentals to design and aesthetics, and they grew up experiencing a lot of the old games they talk about.

Metroid is definitely one of my favorite NES games of all time and so I was excited to see them play through it. What really stood out was watching James go up against Mother Brain and finishing the game. The emotion and reactions were so genuine and so relatable for someone who remembers all the challenges and grief this game gave. That sigh of relief and laugh he gave at the end had such a strong implication of satisfaction. I played the game a lot when I was younger, played it a bunch in high school, and played it again in College. I haven't played it since College and I kind of want to now after I watched James play it.

TL;DR - James beats Metroid and man did it make him work for it. It's one of my favorite games on the NES.

P.S. Kraid's Chamber Theme is the song that helped me understand how to play the left hand on a piano when I was learning how to play. I remember hearing the song when I was playing at 5-7 years old and was thinking "I want to be able to play this on an instrument".


[Updated]
So I ended up playing Metroid tonight and finished it.  Made another small rant on FB which I'm pasting back on here:

Well, I said I wanted to play Metroid after watching the video of James and Mike play it yesterday, so I did. It feels a lot easier now than it did back when I was younger other than fighting Mother Brain. I ran out of missiles the first attempt. And then in my 2nd attempt, I remembered I used to skip fighting the Metroids to conserve ammo. Still, I got knocked down to 23 EN/hp before defeating her; it was a very close call.

I was surprised I got "No Armor Suit" Samus Ending considering how many times I had to farm for missiles in the beginning and health mid-game before getting the Screw Attack and Varia Suit. I've always found it weird that Samus is shown as a brunette at the end, green hair in-game, and eventually stayed as a blonde. I've always also found it weird on why people were so shocked that Samus was a female. To me (when I was 4-5 yo), Samus sounded like a feminine name and she looked like she was wearing high heels in-game. People had the same reaction with the protagonist of The Guardian Legend (also one of my favorite games on NES) where they thought it was a guy. It totally looked like a girl to me.

Anyways, playing through Metroid was nostalgic bliss.

Goodbye, RIP Mr. Iwata

Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, passed away this past Saturday at the age of 55 due to the complications of the tumor growing in his bile duct. I was shocked and saddened by the news and wrote a rather long rant (by my Facebook standards) on it today.

No music monday today. Instead, I want to talk a little bit about a man named Satoru Iwata. I want to share why his life and work mattered to me, to the gaming community, to the industry, and maybe to you.

Did you know that:

-Satoru Iwata was a programmer in game development before he was president of Nintendo? He was a freelance programmer for HAL Laboratory (a subsidiary of Nintendo) before being hired full-time working on games like Kirby's Adventure and Earthbound. In fact, he was a wizard programmer! He saved Earthbound when the script went awry; he organized and compressed the code to Pokémon Gold and Silver enough to fit the entire Kanto region into the game; he also programmed for the original Super Smash Bros. when it was just a small side project!

-He loved playing videogames as much as he loved making them. It's no surprise this day in age to have a CEO of a videogame company not know much about them or even like playing them, but they know how to run a business and will take part in the industry if it makes them money. I've worked in a company where every employee didn't play games or understand them. They didn't care about making or publishing fun games as long as it made money. So it's important to note that Satoru Iwata's desire to make "fun games" lead to some daring and innovative decisions such as motion control on the Wii. Nintendo has already tried motion control once (Power Glove) but were willing to try again. It wasn't until the success of the Nintendo Wii was known before Sony and Microsoft were willing to try motion control afterwards. He didn't always make the best decisions, but he made ones that other companies wouldn't even dare mention.

-Iwata became President of Nintendo during a time the company wasn't doing very well. The Nintendo GameCube, despite having two of my favorite games of all time in its library (Super Smash Bros. Melee and Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2), was performing poorly in sales. The GameCube had a lot of great games: Zelda Wind Waker, Metroid Prime, Tales of Symphonia, Skies of Arcadia Legends, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, etc. But they were geared specifically for "gamers" and those that played games often. Iwata believed that games should be enjoyed by all people and not by a small group which led to the development of the Wii and DS which garnered a lot of casual friendly games that were easy to learn but compelling. Nintendo stock value nearly doubled with the success of the Wii and DS. The Wii U and 3DS hasn't been nearly as successful, but games that I want to play on it continue to release on those system exclusively. I haven't bought a Wii U yet because of the ridiculous backlog I'm getting through right now. Otherwise, I would have bought one a while ago.

Long story short: Iwata was a man that cared about his product and his consumers because he, himself, loved and played videogames too. He has mentioned that he missed developing games, but his role as president kept him from having the time to do so. And were he not president, Nintendo might not have taken the steps to innovate and try new things. His influence, work, and ambitions left quite an impression on the industry. He wasn't afraid to act silly and entertain the masses whenever he talked about Nintendo and the games were making. He was passionate in his work and was truly dedicated to it as he had never left Nintendo since he started working under them. RIP Satoru Iwata, you will be missed.