So, sit back and enjoy the best SNES games available on Nintendo Switch Online...
Doomsday Warrior ain't great but it has a few redeeming elements. The character roster is poor, but it is interesting to play as characters that would probably be considered villains in other games. There aren’t many backgrounds, but some are pretty cool, like stages consisting of floating coloured tiles, or a stage on a rooftop that seems tilted on its side, seeming to defy gravity.
Overall, it’s about what you’d expect from Telenet; some neat ideas, tossed into a game that passes the bare minimum level of playability, all to exploit an early-'90s SNES market hungry for new software.
A surprisingly solid fighter in the Street Fighter II mould, perhaps Tuff E Nuff 's biggest issue is that it's not Street Fighter II.
Then again, perhaps its biggest issue is an awful Western name (it's known as Dead Dance in Japan), or its ghastly North American box art . We think — we think — this game might have been made in the early '90s?
Based around the epic Paris-Dakar rally, the 1991 Super Famicom port of Jaleco's Big Run never came to the West, so it's great to see it made widely available via Nintendo Switch Online. It's a fairly basic rally racer, but driving a Porche at unsafe speeds through Africa to a banging soundtrack isn't a bad time at all.
A Japan-only Super Famicom sequel to Technos' Super Dodge Ball , Kunio-kun shows off his multi-discipline skills yet again in another sports spin-off. It's a good time, too, so definitely worth checking out via NSO if you've never had the pleasure of dodging Kunio and the gang's balls.
Oof. That's, er... Moving on.
A fun puzzler that sees you manually setting off bombs across an isometric grid without getting caught in the inevitable blast(s). Clearing the bombfield (well, they're not mines, are they?) is easier said than done as you're up against not only various environmental complications, but also a timer.
If the name Bombuzal has you bamboozled, that might be because it was renamed Ka-Blooey in North America.
Publisher: Telenet Japan
Available On: Nintendo Switch Online An action platformer and last of the Valis series to release in the West, Super Valis IV
In multiplayer, Natsume Championship Wrestling fast .
Psycho Dream 's stature in the world of retro gaming is perhaps artificially enhanced by the fact that we almost got it in the West back in the day, under the name Dream Probe . As such, it's one of those obscure Japanese games which has cult standing because Western magazines actually reviewed it ahead of its cancellation.
However, unlike titles such as Dracula X: Rondo of Blood and DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure — both of which are import titles which saw Western release on the Wii — Psycho Dream isn't quite the classic that some would have you believe. It's still worth a play for purely historical reasons (and, as it's on Nintendo Switch Online, it's not like it will cost you extra to experience it), but just go in with expectations low; you might then enjoy its quirkiness.
Known as Super Ultra Baseball in Japan, this is a sequel to a NES game of the same name (minus the 'Super', of course). Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 simulates that most engaging of pastimes enjoyed on both sides of the Pacific, although with features such as the 'Phantom Ball' which makes the ball vanish into thin air, this perhaps isn't the razor serious sim you might expect from the name.
Apparently, it's a good one, though — we can't say we got around to playing this one back in the day, although we're looking to rectify that pronto. Watch this base.
Despite having all the right ingredients, Jaleco's Brawl Brothers
Published by Ocean Software — the company with the Best Logo Ever™ — Jelly Boy is a platformer with a gelatinous protagonist who can transform into a variety of shapes, sized and materials. Using said skills, you're charged with getting little JB out of the candy factory he's trapped in.
A lesser-known title in North America thanks to the fact is only saw release in Europe (and relatively late into the Super Nintendo's life, too), Jelly Boy is worth investigating if you're a sucker for 16-bit platformers.
Bubsy has his fans, and good luck to them. But going back to Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind can be tough without the benefit of nostalgia (Stockholm syndrome?) and the snarky-dude-with-'tude context of the early '90s when this game came out.
Bubsy riffs on Sonic, but the bobcat lacks the hedgehog's refinement in all departments, with soupy controls, infuriating fall damage, poorly designed levels featuring difficult-to-avoid pitfalls, and other frustrations.
In '93, we were a little more forgiving, perhaps; Bubsy's first game was best enjoyed back then.
Released for arcades before making its way to the SNES in 1994, Data East's Fighter's History shared many similarities with Capcom's most treasured fighting game at the time: Street Fighter II . So much so, in fact, that Capcom tried to take legal action against Data East for what it believed to be copyright infringement.
In the end, it was determined that Fighter's History contained elements of "scène à faire", which basically means that all the elements Capcom took issue with simply had to be in the game for it to exist. Still, many gamers have since come to appreciate Fighter's History, particularly for its combo system and weak point mechanics.
It's not as action-packed as the minor cult classic The Firemen , but The Ignition Factor
Putting the salubrious charms of the two-player mode aside for one moment, Rival Turf! riffs on Capcom's Final Fight but is inferior in every single way imaginable. The gameplay is insipid, the characters look like they've wandered off the set of a Vanilla Ice music video, and the presentation is lacklustre.
This is a game that was practically sold on the fact that it allows you to play along with a friend, but in all honesty your pals are likely to shun you should you force them to endure this disappointingly feeble fighter.
Jaleco's The Peace Keepers Rival Turf! Brawl Brothers
Ah, yes. Spanky's Quest . It's a game from Natsume released on both Game Boy and SNES in 1991, 1992 in the West. It has graphics and gameplay, which is nice.
Okay, we have to admit we're not really au fait with Spanky and his quest, but rest assured we're looking to plug that gap in our knowledge. "Spanky was on his way to a picnic when the witch Morticia began dropping bricks from the sky," according to Nintendo's blurb. "Trapped, with six towers now built across the land, Spanky must clear each before the witch’s evil pet crow catches him."
We'll get back to you on this one. (In fact, you can check out our Spanky’s Quest review now — hurray!)
Also known as Operation Logic Bomb: The Ultimate Search & Destroy , Jaleco's sequel to the Fortified Zone titles on the Game Boy is a decent top-down romp that sees you gunning down enemies with a variety of futuristic weaponry.
It's pretty short and certainly not complex, but if you're in the market for a solid blast of Smash TV -style 16-bit gameplay, you could do a lot worse. With expectations set sufficiently low, this could provide a surprisingly fun hour or two.
Mediocre. Is there a more damning adjective in the English language? It's the perfect word to describe Super E.D.F. , though. This Jaleco shooter doesn't do wrong enough to elicit strong negative emotions, but its uninspiring presentation and mechanics do almost nothing to get your adrenaline pumping, either.
Much like Brawl Brothers, it's not offensive, just unimaginative. Very... mediocre .
From Interplay's clay-mation stable that included the ClayFighter series, Claymates' relation to those fighters should give you an idea of the tone of this 16-bit platformer. Playing as Clayton, son of Professor Putty, you're transformed into various animals as you attempt to rescue your Prof Padre from a witch doctor called Jobo.
Definitely sounds like an early-'90s platformer from the premise, then — the cheeky console wars reference to "Blaze-processing" (a nod to the Genesis' infamous 'Blast-processing') on the cover sets the tone, too. Not a stone-cold classic in the platforming pantheon, but a fun one all the same.
