Topic: The Nintendo Switch Online Subscription Service Thread

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?

@Rudolf that option is called “Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda”, and it is sold separately 💁‍♂️

@Eel @Rudolf
It's obviously Link's Awakening DX not the original Link's Awakening so while technically it could be played on the original GB I'm not sure why you'd want that. If I was to guess I'd think that all of the "Type B"/"Dual" Gameboy cartridges will use the GBC pallets as that was the way they were intended to be played. Which is why the same is true for Game & Watch Gallery 3 which also sits in this category

Although I expect people may become slightly more vocal about wanting to play these games in the "original" black/white when the Pokemon games come out. Because technically Yellow, Gold, Silver & Pinball were all Type B cartridges. And I suspect a lot of people remember them as original GB games. Probably even more to the point, they might be a bit confused if Yellow lacks the option to play in "original GB mode" while Red/Blue have that option

It was like that on the 3DS already, yellow was locked to GBC mode, while red and blue had the green and b&w palettes (which both looked kinda ugly on the 3DS, I’m glad the GB games look much clearer here)

On that subject, I would expect a potential release of red and blue here would use their all-red and all-blue palettes; as they would display in a game boy color- not the full super game boy style palette from yellow.

@Eel
Yeah, personally I don't really have much interest in the GB/Pocket modes outside of the novelty of it. My nostalgia for the GB era is pretty strong around '95-'02. The day I got my GBC was the day my OG Gameboy went in a box. I have nostalgia for the way these games played on the GBC, I have zero interest in playing them like it's an OG Gameboy

@skywake I appreciate that they kept the B&W mode… Works well for games with ugly palettes in Color mode…

coughKirbycough

Though I do wish they allowed us to set it on a per-game basis, or made it possible to change it without exiting the game.

Maybe I've missed it but one feature that definitely seems absent is the option to change the pallet on start up. The original GBC had 12 different options that you could access by holding the d-pad and buttons when you switched the console on.

Some of those were better than the default for certain games IMO.

The ability to change pallets on the fly would also be very welcome.

@skywake It's just because I think DX's colours are ugly (the original black and white pallets is much more charming), but I have interest in new contents (and bug fixes, or different and more consistent owl's hints in dungeons) like the photograph's quest (only the "colour dungeon" was inaccessible on classical Game Boy, which was stupid because the puzzles were completely doable with gray's shades).

I make the most of my NSO expansion pass by taking a lot of pics in games that use it along with taking pics in N64 and GBA games. That way, years from now, I can show these to my nieces and nephews and brag that their uncle defeated Gruntilda or finished Metroid Fusion 100%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Switch_Online_...