Current Events > A topic wherein TMOG plays every Nintendo Switch Online game.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I might not do them daily, but it's going to be a goal to play each game at least once. Whether or not I do more than one game per day will depend on my interest level and free time that day.

Going to play in order of their release in the US, or at least a rough estimate. Some of the NSO games were never initially released over here to begin with, and even for those that were, release dates from back then are vague. I'm also slotting Star Fox 2 in what I believe to be its original planned release date before it was canceled, and EarthBound Origins is where Mother released in Japan. I'm also including the NES Fire Emblem release here, because even though it wasn't released in the NA Virtual Console offerings, it is in the Japanese VC and was released separately for NA's shop. So it gets in on a technicality.

Not playing them all to completion because that would take up too much time, but I'm going to give each game at least a half hour of play time, afterwards I'll give a Yay/Nay verdict on whether or not I enjoyed the game and would want to play more; I'm not doing a full review, or giving them an actual score. It's just a pass/fail system with a few idle thoughts attached.

When possible I'll be using the Switch controllers that were designed after the originals, but this can't be done with the Game Boy / Game Boy Advance games, so I'll be using a Pro controller for that. No real reason, just immersion (and I believe some of the N64 games control really badly without that specific controller).

So, anyway, first game.

1 - Super Mario Bros. (NES)
Where else could I start? Of course it was going to be Mario. And boy, have my skills at this game gotten worse with age, or I've just been spoiled by how newer Mario games play. It took most of the 30 minutes just to adjust to the way Mario moves here, not to mention other things like no 1-Ups or going from Fire Flower --> Small Mario immediately upon hit. I'm not going to use the word "harsh", but this game is definitely more unforgiving and takes a LOT of practice.

By the end of the time I spent playing it, I had gotten as far as World 2-1 (I deliberately avoided using the warp because I wanted to see how far I could get naturally), so I at least got to kill Bowser one time, lol. But man did I have a lot of embarrassing deaths because I misjudged a jump or Mario decided to just keep walking right off a ledge.

Verdict: Yay! Even if I've gotten bad at it, this game's still a classic and I wouldn't object at all to playing it more. I'd love to see if I can get through the whole game in one sitting, but I'll definitely need to take my time to collect as many coins as I can on each level so I can earn extra lives -- three is a real struggle.

2 - Excitebike (NES)
Excitebike is, in a word, simple. Get on a bike, drive across a track, do some jumps, eat shit after the jump and lose time running back to your bike. The controls couldn't be simpler; just hold down A to accelerate, B to accelerate faster (but also build heat in your engine), and the D-pad to move up and down the track and adjust the angle of your landing.

Sadly, it's simple to the point that I didn't even last the 30 minutes I had allotted to play. I took 10 minutes in Selection A, which is basically a time trial mode where you practice each track. I then tried Selection B, which adds other racers to compete against; this made it more interesting, but ultimately it was the exact same game, just with a few more obstacles added. By 20 minutes of playing Excitebike I felt like I'd seen all I needed to.

Verdict: Nay. I don't see myself going back to this game; like I just said above, I feel like I've already had the full Excitebike experience and there are no more surprises that the game can throw at me. I am, however, now a little eager to get to Vs. Excitebike, and try it out in multiplayer mode.

Also, where the fuck is Gauntlet?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3360f6e3.jpg

3 - Ice Climber (NES)
This one was a little more fun than I expected to have! I already knew going in that it was a pretty simple game, like just about every NES launch title was; you play as Popo, jumping up a mountain and clubbing local wildlife over the head, all in the name of collecting fruit that a large bird has flown to the top. And I will admit, when you see that the tiny yetis have the sole purpose of repairing the damage you do while climbing, it's kind of an "Are we the baddies?" moment.

Still, despite the simplicity, I can see where there's definitely skill involved in Ice Climber. Some of the jumps are hard to time, since Popo doesn't really get a lot of horizontal momentum when airborne and you have to deal with things like breaking through a floor on a moving cloud, or floors that act as conveyors. Sometimes what looks like a simple jump can be a little frustrating, since a yeti will fix the ceiling JUST as you're able to jump through it.

Verdict: I think this one gets a Yay. I wanted to see more mountain layouts, and wouldn't mind trying out the multiplayer. But more importantly, it's a fun game, and one that I do kind of want to get better at.