I have, in the past, expressed some derisory opinions about Nintendo’s NES Online service. I’m here to eat a slice of humble pie, with a side of my own words.
I was of the opinion that NES Online, and SNES Online, weren’t getting the attention they deserved from Nintendo. My main complaint was the dearth of games being released for the software.
I didn’t honestly expect Nintendo to keep releasing software on these platforms they have created. I understand that with many of the games that I would love to see, there are endless licensing issues and some of the companies that made them either don’t exist or were swallowed up by the bigger fish in the last 30 or so years. I thought they weren’t making an effort to even get their own games on the system. There are other reasons, which I will talk about later on.
I take that all back, with one caveat.
The NES library is fantastic. It has expanded from around 20 games to just about 50, and is a well-rounded variety of different kinds of games, from sports to arcade racers, action platformers, bullet hell shmups, puzzlers, you name it.
There are some titles that I’d still love to see up there, but there are some really sweet titles that I hadn’t discovered, likely because they were only released in the US. Journey to Silius is one such game, which has some good music as well.I still think the Switch is great … It could just be.. better.
That caveat I was talking about – SNES Online is still trash. Im sure it will get there, and it does have some really good stuff already. Super Metroid, F Zero, Starfox 1 and 2, and a few Kirby games are some of Nintendo’s timeless staples from the SNES era that forms a solid foundation for Nintendo to improve upon.
Probably they’re biding their time with 2020 being jam-packed with games already, and reasonably the kind of people buying the Switch are those who are invested in these franchises since, let’s be honest here, Nintendo games come at a premium and a fairly high entry cost in that you have to buy their system. These big games like Animal Crossing are system sellers, so I understand why SNES Online will never be a focus and they aren’t gonna drop an amazing game there when they’re trying to move as many copies of AC as they can.
Nintendo’s back catalog remains an ace up their sleeve, they have a titanic collection of fantastic games of their own to choose from yet only seems to do so as necessary.
I do have other complaints about the system, and believe that an expanded library of their older games will be a fantastic selling point in the next couple of years as we potentially see new iterations of the Switch hardware, but I will reserve those for the TAY Discord or other places that aren’t an article specifically about NES Online.
In spite of all these complaints, I still think the Switch is great, lack of games on their retro platform notwithstanding. IT could just be.. better. Surely it will be with future iterations, but that’s another discussion entirely.
Feel free to come shake your virtual fists at me over there if you think my opinion sucks and needs to die. Or down in the comment section, whichever you prefer.
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