Topic: The Nintendo Switch Online Subscription Service Thread

@JaxonH Wait how much is it for the family plan? Is it ten or am I getting confused?

It's 80 but its for 8 people so...10. In theory at least.

@kkslider5552000 Ah, I see.

The expansion for me has almost everything I could want, I just, need GameCube and I think it will be worth it, to me at least.

I wonder if they're gonna have a Super Game Boy option for the Game Boy NSO app, assuming that Donkey Kong will make it in. That would be cool, honestly, I wasn't a fan of how it was all monochrome on the 3DS VC.

@MarioLover92
They do have an option to play GB games in GBC mode which effectively uses the default colour pallets. Which is what both the GBC and Super GB did. Unfortunately there's none of the enhanced borders or the ability to change the colour pallet. And definitely not any of the other SGB features, like the completely custom colour pallets

..... we do have "clap and point" in multiplayer mode like all of the other NSO apps. Which was something you could do with the SGB using the SNES Mouse if memory serves

@skywake Ah OK, I'm aware of the GBC mode and I was actually wondering if they'll add a SGB option later down the road. It is still cool that they have a color mode at all, unlike how the 3DS VC had monochrome displays for all original GB games. Looks like the GBC option's the next best thing, at least for now.

It feels like too much is adding up for it not to be but we've got:

• Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 are coming to NSO sometime in 2023
• Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow/Gold/Silver/Crystal delisted on 3DS in March
• GB and GBA came to NSO this week and the launch lineups are limited compared to the other NSO consoles
• There's likely a Pokemon Presents later this month

So I get the feeling in the Pokemon Presents there's a NSO section where:

• Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 are given release dates
• Some combination of Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow/Gold/Silver/Crystal/Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/Fire Red/Leaf Green are announced for NSO

Yeah, I think Pokemon is more probable than some seem to think. Though the Pokemon Company isn't exactly the most consumer friendly entity lately. Even within the gaming and specifically the Nintendo sphere of these companies having their hands in our pockets. The Pokemon Company is comfortably one of the worst offenders lately. But you know, if Nintendo wants to pull people into NSO? Pokemon would draw a crowd far more than any other classic game

With that said, I think there are other potential draws on the scale of Goldeneye to be had here. Nintendo could very, very easily drop Mother 3 onto the GBA NSO. Now outside of places such as this? Probably doesn't tip the scales, certainly doesn't draw people in like Pokemon would. But within the Nintendo fandom I think we all know it's pretty much THE classic title. And it's people such as us who people go to when they ask if a Nintendo thing is worth the money

My strategy to get 1000 points in Egg is infallible… And now I’ll proceed to never play it again…

More than just theory. I'm paying $10/yr, as is my brother, as we both pooled together with @Eel to form a group of 8.

I highly recommend family plan. It's incredible how low cost it is when you pool together.

@Grumblevolcano
I hope you are right on the NSO Gen 1-3 Pokémon games for the next Pokémon Presents. Although they really should just sell the roms instead of adding them to NSO. Imagine putting tons of hours into catching them all only to lose them all when NSO is eventually discontinued like the virtual console games getting taken down in a month.

Ugh, tried Wario Land 3 because I haven't in ages and I think I'll just leave it at "trying" again... Like all those other times.

I love 2, 4 is great, always enjoyed 1 despite its quirks... But I think I actually dislike 3. It's so needlessly convoluted and a** backwards in many ways, it legitimately confuses me when people say it's the best one because I can't find any redeeming qualities the others don't also have in this.

Definitely prefer the more straightforward approaches of...every other game in the series.

Time to charge my 3ds so I can play WL2 for the hundredth time

It’s a great take on the metroidvania genre, with bite size level objectives to fit the portable form factor, and gameplay that suits the graphics and level design.

Perhaps it’s because I played it first, but it’s my favorite game in the series.

I genuinely think that GB games might be a better fit for playing on Switch than - say - SNES or N64 - because even though the graphics are obviously far behind the curve (even for the time) they are at their best, from a gameplay perspective, so immediate and clearly designed with short play sessions in mind. They were also generally a bit easier than 8-bit games - especially the later GBC games that were contempary with the N64.

Of course something like Earthbound is a better game than any of the games on the GB app but it's not something I'm just going to start playing on a whim - it's a 20 hour commitment than I might choose to make at some point but when I do it'll be a conscious decision. I'm highly unlikely to make that choice for some of the other long & "meaty" games that I've never played before.

GameBoy Tetris though? There's no commitment there and it's fun for 5 minutes as a pallet cleanser (with the potential to still drag you in for longer).

I'd also hazard a guess that Nintendo has more chance of ultimately assembling a fairly comprehensive library on the GB app than on the NES or SNES. The Castlevania and MegaMan games on NES were always going to be sold in their own collections - and this has ultimately been much better for everyone - but I don't think the equivalent games on GameBoy hold as much cultural capital (I know that 2 of the Castlevania games are in the M2 collection). A clutch of MegaMan games would fill the app out nicely.

Quite happy with it in the early days.

If Nintendo were to add another system to NSO, what do you think it would be?

I never had a DS, but I wondered if that could be a possibility? I never had one, so I don't know how much of a problem the dual screen or touch would be? The screens weren't very big though?

I'm not saying it needs it right now, there are loads of GB and GBA games I want to play!

If it does happen, I'm assuming it won't be after the launch of the new system - I'm assuming NSO will be cross gen...

@MarioBrickLayer Honestly - another Sega system on premium tier. Master System or GameGear most likely. I'd say that a small selection of Saturn games is maybe more likely than DS.

After that I'd guess the next most likely is the PC Engine.

DS would pose a lot of challenges. Aside from the dual screen setup it also presents the problem that the touch screen was a stylus touch screen. Using fingers lacks the same precision and many of the games would be far less satisfying to play. This is particularly an issue because many DS games were very experimental and did lean in to using the stylus. DS was Nintendo's first console with online play built in... and it's all dead and gone now (and was finicky to say the least when it was alive). Bringing it back would be a technical issue for an app in the vein of the ones we've seen so far.

On top of this - DS games haven't aged well graphically. They have all of the visual disadvantages of N64 games without the proviso that they were pushing the boundaries of what could be done.

Personally I'd much rather we see select DS games brought back in a heavily reworked form. We already have a couple of notable ones (e.g. The World Ends With You) and more on the way (Ghost Trick). A Castlevania DS collection would lose next to nothing in the translation and would be an instant buy for almost anyone. Other DS games could be adapted for single screen play without a stylus but adapted is the key word there. Even on Wii U virtual console (with the huge advantages of a second screen and a stylus) DS was rough.

A 3DS app is in some ways an easier proposition because the games were more conventional and made less substantial gameplay use of the second screen.

@MarioBrickLayer I think it'll be the Genesis add-ons like the SEGA CD. SEGA for the most part only seems to care about the Genesis when it comes to retro games from their own consoles. See how for example the Sonic Adventure games can only be played on Xbox in terms of modern systems and that's only because Xbox focused a lot on backwards compatibility since 2015 meanwhile there's multiple Genesis collections, 2 Genesis Minis and collections like Sonic Origins.

Master System and Game Gear. I don't think there's much room for any of Nintendo's other platforms. In terms of being technically achievable I'd put Wii and GC above DS and 3DS but the Wii/GC era has enough value still that I don't think they'd go full NSO with them

I've said for a while but, Wii and GC titiles could be given out as bonuses. Not unlike how they give the DLC in the NSO+ tier. Like here's Pikmin 1, exclusive to and free to keep for active NSO+ subs in March and $20US after

I just ordered a Hyperkin Admiral on amazon… It’s one of those modern N64 controller alternatives that can be used with the Switch.

Has anyone here tried it before? I’m hoping it will make playing N64 games feel a little bit lore authentic.

It seems the mode they have for playing N64 on the switch (the one that maps the right stick to the c-buttons) assigns other buttons the d-pad (home, -, X and Y), so you can’t have both things at the same time. I know not many N64 games use the dpad, so hopefully it won’t be much of a problem.

I'm playing again Link's Awakening DX (in Japanese version, without the censorship), but it's a shame that it's impossible to play it like it was on classical Game Boy, in black and white (the original cartridge was compatible to classical Game Boy). Unless I didn't see the option to change that?