Guide: Nintendo Switch Online - Every NES And SNES Game Available

I made a japanese account just so I could play Joy Mech Fight

Vice: Project Doom is a game I'd never played before, and I really like it. Most everything else has been a nice trip down memory lane.

The SNES games are so good that they are even diverting some of my attention from some of the new big releases. Hope they plan to drop some more next month. DKC and the Witcher 3 would make for a good October.

Lolo 2 on the Famicom Online list? Where have I been? I gotta get on that since I never managed to finish it. And here's hoping Lolo 3 gets added on at some point. (also LOL, "Japanese NES")

@Hylian-Likely Earthbound will come eventually but not Chrono Trigger and FF 6. The NES Dragon Warriors (Quest) games being separate Eshop purchases proves that Square wants to release their games independently. Looks like Konami and Capcom are going in the same direction, despite some of their smaller releases popping up on the service.

I kinda feel bad about Nintendo Online by now. I've been asking for SNES games for a while, but after spending a couple of hours with the service a short while back ... yeah, no. These games hold up better than the NES in my view, but that does not mean, they really amount to something I want to spend a significant amount of time with.
Part of it is probably the limited selection and the fact, that out of those, the games that speak to me most, I've already played, maybe even several times, but still.

Super Metroid is a good example. It's a truly good game, I might have called it great at one point, but booting it up to today, it is at the same time overly familiar and foreign.
Familiar, because 'ben there dan that' and because it - among a few others - inspired countless future titles (which is one way to define it as an 'all-time great' of course) and forgein, precisely because it has a tough time standing up against those it inspired, with all their added flavors and variety, incl. improved controls and such.

I find myself thinking, that I much rather go back to Hollow Knight and take another shot at unfinished content (cough Godmaster), go for another run in Dead Cells, find the last goodies in Ori and the Blind Forest, finally finish Guacamelee! (yeah, shame on me, I know), keep building my anticipation for the next Ori game or ...

So for anyone who never played the game, it's a nice thing to have, but I dunno, I've been re-playing a couple of GC games this year using Dolphin (well, just Baten Kaitos Origins and FE:PoR really), but it show me, that it is not just about familiarity with the SNES.

Maybe Nintendo just needs to build their catalogue, include alot more non-mainstreams games, most folks incl. myself are unfamiliar with or they can speed things up and move on to GC/Wii content ... or maybe I'll be never happy

I start thinking, it would have been better to make the Virtual Console like the Xbox Game-Pass: You pay extra for it, but you basically get access to all their own content - but in this case going back to the NES up to ... well, I guess not the WiiU/3DS, but certainly the GC/Wii and at least the GBA.
Personally, I'd rather pay $5-10 a month for that ( depending on how good the emulation is and ultimately how extensive the catalogue ) than what I do now.

It's a nice feature for those who need Online anyways, but for those that don't ... it's still cheap I guess, but as a service that can justify itself outside of online, I still don't see it.

For PS and Xbox that would be a minor issue, but Nintendo has such a treasure chest of stuff to share, yes, even and esp. after 1997'ish, that this feels like not even a half-measure in that regard, more like yet again another stop-gap-measure.

I sure hope they are not waiting to do their own Stadia-thing (like who needs a data centre to emulate an N64 or even GC game) ... and miss out on doing an exhaustive library on a PortablE system.

/rant over .-)

@Ralek85: "because it has a tough time standing up against those it inspired," - From a technical standpoint, as well as the standpoint of experimentation-then-improvments-to-the-gameplay-formula, future games always have the potential to make their predecessors, and/or inspiration, obsolete. Of course, this usually doesn't devalue personal favorites, and/or nostalgia for a specific title.

@Hylian-Likely yeah, switch online is basically all about the single player games I would love to have in portable format for me, too. I haven’t sprung for it yet, but now that SNES is — blessedly, FINALLY — there, it’s just a matter of time.

A missed opportunity to mention all NES and SNES games available from third party collections.

I feel like there still missing some games..

Maybe this guide should also mention the collections that contain NES games such as the Mega Man and Castlevania collections?

@Hylian-Likely Those games are worth the subscription price alone!

@BarefootBowser Yeah that’s true. Saw that a while back. Maybe it will be every other month now? I guess it’s up in the air, but I agree it would be nice if they drop more than a couple if that is the case.

I personally just want to buy and own the games rather than pay a yearly rental fee and play the games I want at anytime I want. With the account system we should have access to our wiiu and 3ds VC games (why even restart the service again! Just add rental capabilities to the VC and you'd be done with it.). I don't have the Internet access to check in on a regular basis so an alternative to this service is desperately needed. Not everyone lives in a connected world, the service locks out a good chunk of gamers in rural areas like myself.

@GameOtaku I purchased these games enough, I am just happy I get them for my 5$ a year. Either way I have the entire SNES library from all regions and most patched ROMS, not really a big deal and I will have them forever and have an unlimited amount of devices that I can hack and or us emulators to play them.

That being said, a subscription makes them more money than one-off sales in the grand scheme of things, this is why subscription models are dominating the digital front now so you are paying for all of them for less but it is more restrictive.

@Ralek85 Basically you don't know what you want, that's your problem. You are those fanboys that kept asking for something and then when you finally get it you complain again like oh I know I had been asking for this but now that I got it, it's really not that special. Dude had some respect for the big N, they went out of their way to give us what they could, they are a business and to be able to give us titles like Breath of Fire, Demon's Crest, and Joe and Mac for their platform required lots of licensing agreement to have them there not to mention we wouldn't had known about these games had it not for their availability through service like this. Sure there's only 20 games in the service right now but not everyone is lucky like you.

My brother who grew up with a Sega Genesis and Super NES back then only had 3 Super NES games in his life time, to be able experience 20 games let alone many new ones that he never got the chance to try with the SNES Mini or his original SNES is a blessing to him. So before you say it's not that special, to some it is. Even I myself am blessed that older games are coming to Switch cause a majority of them I had missed in the last gen or so, games like Dragon's Dogma, The Last Remnant, Grandia II, Diablo III, L.A. Noire, Samurai Shodown V Special, Final Fantasy VIII (the only FF I hadn't got the chance to play at the time cause I never got a PlayStation and no one I know had this game), and Kirby's Dream Land 3 (this game I didn't even know existed cause I use to think that the Kirby's Dream Land series ended with the Game Boy as I had only play or known about Kirby Superstar on Super NES).

With the Nintendo Switch Online service if we're lucky we may even see lost titles surface too like Star Fox 2, maybe someday even that lost Killer Instinct 2 title that was finished on SNES but never got release. That would be exciting or even that cancelled Super NES version of Rayman or even some of the Super NES Satellaview games like the Legend of Zelda 1 remake they had for that service. These service are more just a haven for rom games, there may even be surprises in store that we are yet to get. Remember that Super Mario Bros. 3: Super Mario Advance 4 game that got released on Wii U? No one expect that version to came with all the e-Reader levels unlocked, no one but it did and it was awesome. Surprises like that could still happen with service like these.

@PcTV That would be a better and far more helpful list to compile than this one.

@Capt_N I think potential is the operative term there.
Playing PoR, I thought about how FE lost quite a bit of it's strategic appeal starting with Awakening. With Three Houses, it also started loosing quite a bit of it's tactical depth. It improved on a bunch of other aspects, but I struggle to see how it really innovated and improved on the formula over-all.

While Hollow Knight might not have been perfect, I think it got close, and really pushed the 2D Metroidvania structure (meets Souls) kinda to the brink of what seems can be done. I'd love to see the game that really outdoes it without reservation.

@retro_player_22
Not to sound too salty, but yes, I know, that I don't know what I want. I think I made that rather explicit. I do like the implict point, that I am potentially in any way, shape or form unique in this, when in fact, I am anything but.

I do reject the fanboy label. If anything I turned into a Playsi fanboy this gen It was meant as a Big-N-critial and self-critical statement in favor of a different approach to Nintendo Online was well as the endless story of their "virtual console" (remember rebooting it every gen so far, pricey individual sales, drip-feed releases, often repeating the same titles over the gens, not moving on to newer gens ... and so on and so forth).

"they went out of their way to give us what they could"

I'm not sure I get what you are saying? You think they couldn't handle a broad classic games library? It's just a couple Gigs of Roms basically, sure, they need to test them on their emulation, and it would probably take a fair bit of time and effort, but other than that ... the new online features would go away, for sure, but to me that seems like a fair trade-off.

"So before you say it's not that special, to some it is. "

Yes, but I explicit said that. I feel your brother would really benefit, from a wide selection of classic Nintendo games incl. but certainly not limited to the NES and SNES.

I have zero trouble with last-gen re-release on the Switch, esp. if these games are entirely new to true Nintendo die-hards or fanboys (in the sense of sticking to Big-N and only Big-N). Personally since the Gamecube, Nintendo has always been a secondary or tertiary system to me (the WiiU certainly due to it's limitations vis-a-vis the 360 and PS3 at the time), so I rarely feel compelled to pick these up, as I already own them (a few rare exceptions not withstanding ^^).

"With the Nintendo Switch Online service if we're lucky we may even see lost titles surface too like Star Fox 2, maybe someday even that lost Killer Instinct 2"

I hear that, this is exactly what I meant that are not mainstream. But I am not super confident in that regard. Sure, there are examples, but yeah ... I am still waiting on that often rumored Mother 3 'release'!

While I don't know what I want, I do stand by my momentary wish for a more Game-Pass-like service, that is focused on games, and does not mix up it priorities with online 'features'. Nintendo has enough content to support such a service. If anyone ... it's them. They could do it, too, for sure!

While Mother 3 (Earthbound "Insert Secondary Title Here") is a mystery in terms of a Western release, the SNES option opens the door for the first and second Earthbound to come onto Switch, which is cool.

I'm personally waiting for StarTropics 2 so I can play the series together. Speaking of which, I think it's one of the only Nintendo series that's exclusive to the West. Even the Famicom Mini didn't have it over there, lol.

A pretty decent selection building up.

@Ralek85 eh, I know you’re speaking purely subjectively and already stated you don’t know what you want, but I think you’re in a minority (in regards to asking for SNES Online and then being underwhelmed). A majority of the people who asked for it got what they wanted and are happy with it, aside from the small selection (which is to be expected at release). They 20 titles they picked range from classics to more obscure and, even for those of us who’ve played through them countless times, are enjoyed greatly to this day, especially now that they’re in handheld format. I didn’t even grow up with Super Metroid and yet I don’t think any later Metroid titles ever really outdid it. It sounds to me like you want to be challenged, which replaying games often doesn’t do. And I mean, that’s fine, we all have our tastes, but I do think this was exactly what Switch Online needed to make it worth the price (especially given the online services are still pretty mediocre at best). The fact remains that the third party titles are legal headaches to rerelease and Nintendo jumped through some pretty tough hoops for the ones that are on there. It is much harder for them to do it this way than VC, where in the latter case companies can simply get a percentage of the sales. Many companies, like Square, might not be willing to put their classic games on a subscription service rather than just rerelease them. And many IPs have changed ownership several times since the early 90s which makes it even harder to put them on the service. The only reason first party games like DKC aren’t on it is because Nintendo has to keep some ready in case they have trouble securing rights to other games - they need to add games in the future to keep interest in the app. You seem to think they can just easily upload the majority of the SNES catalog but third party titles take a lot of legal work and first party titles won’t be released all at once in case they CAN’T secure third party titles... no matter what they’re going to add to this over time.

As for your low expectations on things like lost titles resurfacing or games being released in the West for the first time... well, they already did that with Super Puyo Puyo 2. They set that precedence off the bat and will be expected to keep going, especially considering it’s not one of the more in demand games. They’re not gonna play their whole hand at once. That would simply be foolish in terms of business. You might just not be the target audience for this app though and that’s okay, not every has to like everything.

Also, I wouldn’t hold my breath with Mother 3, if it ever gets localized it’d be a stand-alone release, not on a service like this.

Hope we get more SNES titles soon - I know they aren’t going to be monthly anymore but I want more games for my SNES controllers, I just got them and have already blown through a lot of the selection before the controllers even arrived!

Decent selection so far but having owned many VC games before on Wii and Wii U i already have most of these. Vice project doom was certainly a nice surprise though. I know it looks generic but it's quite the hidden gem actually! It's like Ninja Gaiden with a lightsaber whip and a little spy hunter thrown in. Sweet!

I've been doing alot of research on hidden gems for each of the various systems and this game popped up alot on peoples lists.

@GameOtaku I totally agree with you, at least they aren't forcing us to buy them all again. Honouring the fact we already purchased these games on 3ds, Wii and Wii U would have been nice.

@masterLEON I don't see Lolo 2 or A second clu clu land game on my famicom online app :/

Edit: it seems from the wikipedia article that Adventures of Lolo japanese version is actually what is known as Adventures of Lolo 2 outside of Japan
and the clu clu land thing is an updated disc system version.

@Ralek85 Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island inspired many other games but none have bettered them. They are the gold standard of 2D platformers and I'm not sure they'll ever be bettered.

@Damo For Japanese NES exclusives... the Adventures of Lolo is a numbering inconsistency. The western Adventures of Lolo 1 was not released in Japan (I think it was a level pack of HAL's previous "Eggerland" games.)
So Japanese Lolo 1 and 2 are western Lolo 2 and 3.
I think Japanese 2/western 3 had not been previously released on VC. (I know it was missing from the original Wii.)

@Ralek85: I agree with what you mean, although I haven't played any of those titles you mention. It's sad when developers regress in gameplay, rather than improve.

@Jokerwolf
Well to play online you have to subscribe right? They are already making a killing for doing absolutely nothing except charge people to use their own internet connection.

Of those ROMs you have just how many do you actually play? I'm guessing only a small fraction, afterall, no two people like the same things. I could care less about sports titles but platformers and RPGs I love. Right now you have no control over what games you play on the service. At least with VC you could purchase only games you wanted and could play at anytime. Maybe they should've put more effort into getting the entire gaming library on the service. It would certainly cut down on illegally downloading ROMs if you could actually buy it. Will people still download illegally? Heck yeah but the majority will gladly pay for games.

@Ralek85 Love Hollow Knight and put over 300 hours (Godmaster radiant runs) into it but while it may be more refined, I’d struggle to call it truly innovative. The main journey basically hits all the beats that Super Metroid did, and I didn’t find the storytelling/lore any more interesting than the one presented in Metroid.

So I think the whole “indievania” thing is great comfort food but I still find the older titles to hold up. The only one I’ve played recently that seems to add anything truly new to the formula is Rain World.

Dead Cells is a blast, but the nature of the roguelike design means that exploration is limited. Clever idea though.

I greatly enjoy being able to play these old games. I was happy to see the NES collection grow even if a lot of people thought they were being added far to slowly. Now that they aren't releasing games on a schedule I am concerned that new games will start being few and far between. As it was I enjoyed starting a new month wondering what new games would be added. September was great with 20 SNES games coming but now it's October and miss the anticipation of learning what was going to be added. I know, I'm a little weird.

I don't know why they have seperate Japanese and North America NES games, just put all of them together without forcing us to make a separate account. At first I was baffled that an untranslated Puyo Puyo 2 was released on the NA SNES online but then I played it for hours and was glad it was there.

@KingMike Ah, thanks - will amend!

@EarthboundBenjy This list is for games available via NSO only.

@Ralek85 The problem you have is that you presented harsh but true notions here, in a Nintendo fanboys website. I think Nintendo does not understand that selling the same NES/SNES games can be detrimental and an obstacle in the long run.

Let's take SNES games for a good example: Nintendo started selling them on the Wii channel. This is the one and only legitimate way they sold them. Why? Because it was back when purchasing digital games started being a huge game-changer and also allowed you to morph your console into a retro-console as well. The only problem? The pricing. Nintendo still believes that paying €10 to €20 for a 20 years or more old game is A-OK! Still.

Then what happened? They started selling them on the Wii U at the same price, even though more years had passed by, and you could transfer your Wii library of games to the U.

And then? NEW!!!!!! NINTENDO 3DS!!!! You want SNES games on your regular 3DS? How dare you ask us for that, you peasant??!!!! Buy the overpriced and majorly worthless upgrade if you want them on the go. Give us money or you get nothing (Even though M2 proved that perfect and smooth emulations of 16-bit games can be made available for the regular 3DS).

Then what? Hahahaha hahaha Introducing.... SNES MINI!!!! THE ULTIMATE GAMING MACHINE TO PLAY THEM ON!!!! You want one? Hahahaha Good luck, as Reggie took half the stock in his car to build a castle out of them in his garage. The other half...???? You have to sleep outside a Game stop and pray that it is there when you want to buy it, as the employees are scalpers that need to feed their families. The poor things

And now...??? We are not selling the games anymore. Nope. What we do now is blatantly sell you the chance to play them online on your console from our servers. And we are gonna sell you a wireless SNES controller to give you the illusion that you are getting the better end of the stick here, kiddo.

See the "evolution" here? From actually getting something worth of your money, we have arrived at this point where they are not selling you Super Mario World for the fifth time. They are granting you the privilege of playing it online. If they feel like pulling the game from the servers, you are screwed.

Gotta love Nintendo

I want them to bring back paper boy for SNES.

Obviously it'll never happen, but I'm a little sad there's no NES Tetris (maybe a Tetris 99 NES theme?).

If they ever do Game Boy games, though, and don't include Tetris, that'll be a little weird.

Also, any chance of Mario All Stars? I like the new graphics.

Also, also, would be nice to have access to manuals. I've tracked most of them down, but the good versions they have online for NES/SNES classic, would be nice.

@retro_player_22 Well, you described your brother's personal (very much subjective) experience. I never claimed objectivity (no such thing exists of course anyways), but given that ... yeah, I acknowledge your point, but I don't know what to do with it.
I think I made it pretty clear, I was mainly focused on Nintendo owned content. But yeah, even there issues with licensing for stuff like music and such can probably arise.

I fail to see how after at least a decade of trying to get it right and (most of, I assume) hoping they would get it right, what we are left with is, is another sevice that will pretty much over the same limited content, over an extensive amount of time - a bunch of welcome exception aside.

It's not the best they could have done, it's not even close and I don't think it is ultimately satisfying. The Switch will soon be three years old, which is, for a system like that, probably half it's life-time ... having 20 SNES games ... low expectations indeed.

Mother 3 is localized, it has been offered from what I understand.

@OorWullie I admittedly cannot speak to that with any confidence. Platforming was never my genre, so you might very well be right, but I wouldn't know.
Nintendo has alot more to offer though than platforming (or "Mario" for that matter). I think the last couple of years really underlined that and I wish they would lean into it even more and also push their history on this harder! (incl. with this service). Just saying.

@NotTelevision That's fair, still, I think Hollow Knight did alot of things not just right or great, while they also really re-contextualised them in a way.
I love how they managed to create a similar atmosphere to like Demon/Dark Souls and Bloodborne by having the world itself and the environments tell huge chunks of the story (also the music of course). The game is often hauntingly beautiful while it also makes you wonder ...
how this world came to be, where the 'monsters' and 'bosses' came from. You can clearly tell, that something is truly ... amiss, right away. It's eerie and it just keeps building that.

It is not something obviously that has never been done in any shape or form, but it is still rare and incredibly rarely done this well (imho).
I also like a bunch of the level design choices and traversal moves in the game as well, but I lack the knowledge of platforming to really consider whether they shall be thought of 'innovative' in any way.

Innovation can be, in my view, doing something really well, that so far has been only an afterthought. Again, meaning re-contextualising something known in a meaningful way, and pushing the concept not just to the forefront but to it's limits.

@FRANKLIN_BADGE Yes indeed, that is kinda of my point. No one could argue, that fans did not have plenty of patience with Nintendo through at least two generations now only to end up with ... two dozen SNES games, three years into the next generation, with no clear idea what else is to come or when, with little hope of seeing other gens beyond the SNES make any appearence.

This should have been easy, like truly easy. The Switch is beefy enough to emulate pretty much any of the older systems (not considering that Nintendo has the luxury of not having to do alot of reverse engineering of their own stuff) and yet ... nothing really.

I admit, that they had me for a moment. A moment where I wanted to cheer them for moving on to the SNES. It's not so much bad on it's own, as it is absolutely falling short, not just on expectations, that would be one thing, but potential.

It's a metric tone of waste potential. It doesn't bear thinking on. It's like looking at Mario Kart Tour ... and you just know, they didn't care to get this right. It was indeed just one way to advertise the Switch, and barely competent at that. It's fine, it's their prerogative to be okay with making ... it that way, but I still feel sorry for anyone who falls for this, puts money into it.

It's rather bland, it won't be around for a very long time and you will not end up being satisfied. It's like the story of Nintendo's quest with "virtual consoles" in a nutshell.

@May_Nyan Ah, that's too bad. Probably never going to see them again unless I pony up to cash to an eBayer or y'know...the other method. Ever since Kirby came about, Lolo's been out of the spotlight. It's a shame, really.

@Ralek85 Uh what? I think you’re replying to the wrong message, I don’t have a brother.

@ShadJV Yup, sorry, fixed it

It's so sad that Nintendo STILL hasn't done this whole retro stuff properly on Switch. At the very least I would have liked it to have matched what they already achieved on the Wii two generations ago.

NES games: Didn't even look
SNES: booted up Super Metroid but would rather have a game save that lasts forever, without a subscription, on my 3DS and mini console. No point investing time here.
N64: Probably play, but that's what I thought about SNES before it came out.
Gamecube: I'd rather buy the good games as HD remasters like Windwaker HD
Wii: Wii sports would be fun as a freebie, or the one on Wii U they thought people would subscribe to.
Wii U: I'm not sure they released any games I wanted, except Windwaker HD

now it is time for Nintendo to add some Nintendo 64 games to Nintendo Switch Online.

At last we get DKC, thank you Nintendo.

For the NES how about:
Gauntlet II
Marble Madness
RC Pro-Am
Slalom

And for the SNES how about:
Actraiser
Axelay
Populous
Space Megaforce
Super Double Dragon
Super Mario All-Stars
Super Off Road
TMNT IV: Turtles in Time

Maybe someday we'll get to play Super Mario 64...