No plans for the holiday weekend? Insatiable thirst for retro gaming? Nintendo has your back. Early on July 4th morning, the company added no fewer than seven Nintendo Entertainment System games to the Nintendo Switch Online service, and the list is as eclectic as you could ask for.
At this point in its journey to building out the NES collection on Switch Online — it’s been there since the service launched in September 2018 — Nintendo naturally has to reach into some of the lesser-known corners of the 8-bit console’s catalog. Indeed, it seems to be leaning towards that esoteric flavor with its selection of “rare and surprising side-scrolling adventures, intergalactic shooters, and challenging educational games,” as Nintendo says.
The seven games added include: City Master1986 2D street fighter; Donkey Kong Jr. Maththat combines vine swinging with math puzzles; a scarce game from 1991. Solar Jetman; and vehicle combat in 1985s form. Mach Rider and a 1989 motorboat shooter Cobra Triangle. (Ah, the days when the “speedboat shooter” was a recognizable gaming genre.)
For retro enthusiasts, the most engaging will be the 1986 models. The Secret of Atlantis (known as Atlantis no Nasod in Japan), a side-scrolling platformer and maze exploration game from Sunsoft. Considered by its creators to be a Mario Bros. killer, it was never released outside of Japan and is quite collectible.
And then there is Golfthe most celebrated game on offer, which in 1990 was probably the most common sports game that could have appeared. Golf was programmed by none other than Satoru Iwata, who later became Nintendo’s president and was a beloved figure both within the company and among its fans. The playable version Golf was originally hidden away in the Switch OS source code as a tribute to Iwata, who died in 2015. However, it was hard to access even before it was removed in 2017. Now, Iwata’s game is much easier to enjoy.
The NES Collection is included in the base tier of Nintendo Switch Online, alongside SNES and Game Boy titles. To play Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, and Game Boy Advance games, you’ll need to pay extra for the Expansion Pack tier.
