Nintendo Expands Its Switch Online SNES And NES Service With Three More Titles

Honestly surprised by Earthworm Jim 2. Pleasantly surprised. Mappyland too, but not to the same degree.

Not bad, not bad at all.

Wow, genuinely was not expecting an Earthworm Jim game to show up. I'll consider that a nice surprise.

Just what we all we’re waiting for.

I honestly thought it was gonna be mother 3. Per the reminder tweet of earthbound and beginnings

Huh, interesting choice with Earthworm Jim.

Meanwhile Japan got Harvest Moon instead.

Earthworm Jim 2 is pleasant surprise. Gonna check it out for sure, don't think I played the second one. I did rent the first and 3D one though.

At last, an update where at least 2/3 games are good ones.... but why earthworm jim 2 before 1?

Earthworm Jim is a great addition.

Earthworm 2 is a nice surprise. Hopefully the 1st game will be added eventually but I like the Genesis version better.

Earthworm jim is actually something I never thought I would see on the service, Nice one!

Just as Nintendo Life predicted.

I would do anything for either Super Mario RPG or a Final Fantasy game… or Chrono Trigger, but I doubt that’s gonna happen if it hasn’t already.

Yawn, gasp, oh well. At least Chrono Cross comes out in a few weeks.

Earth worm Jim 2 is a nice addition. I'll give it some attention.

Earthworm Jim 2!! Yes!! One of the first SNES games I ever played! (Odd, I know)

Time to head over to NSO, wooo 🥳

Much obliged.

Wow, Earthworm Jim 2 and two crappy games that have been playable on Switch for nearly two years. Way to go Nintendo.

Better.

Still not great

I remember the in-game Earthworm Jim 2 trivia questions being really funny when I was in middle school. Wonder how well that's aged...

EW Jim is a pleasant surprise, though I saw the Japanese get the OG Harvest moon.

Also if they're gonna keep going this route of throwing random stuff on there the chances of Fire Striker making it seem fairly good.

Don't forget guys that the NES version of Dig Dug II has 76 levels as opposed to the 32 levels in the arcade game. It also has a more difficult NG+ as well! 😉

Cool I’m still sticking with emulation though

@BabyYoda71 if you would "do anything" you wouldn't need to wait around for Nintendo, you could be playing those games at your leisure already.

Happy to see SNES and NES getting some love. But yeah, Murasame Castle is an NES banger that needs to be up there soon!

What's interesting about Earthworm Jim 2 is that back in the Wii era and the Wii U era the VC emulators used couldn't play certain sounds in the game. They went the extra mile for this game, probably. Or... they pulled a Pokemon Yellow.

The 3DS VC emu couldn't do the Pikachu cry in Yellow's title screen, they actually didn't fix this in the 3DS release of Pokemon Yellow, instead they hook into the part where the sound is heard and then play the sound from a separate recording, how lame, yet awesome is that?

@TonyTyga90 how would that work? we don't have a gameboy advance virtual console yet

If only we got Harvest Moon too!

@nowthisisepic bootleg mother 3 lol

Earthworm Jim! In the soil he did crawl. Earthworm Jim! A super suit did fall. 🎶

So.... I am a huge EWJ fan so this is pretty great news. Now let's get EWJ1 on the Genesis!

Psyched for Mappy and I didn’t even know earthworm was on snes so I’m double psyched. Good drop here

Dig Dug 2?

WHY?

I hate Dig Dug 2! The original is so good! Why can't they put Dig Dug 1 on there?

Earthworm Jim?!

G-r-roovy!!

Earthworm Jim is a great addition, and I love Mappy!

Nice to see Earthworm Jim 2 added to the service, hopefully this means the first one will be added at some point as well.

I was talking about Earthworm Jim this weekend, I almost bought the collection on PC. They could give us the first game

@nib0 I've got it on 3DS and it's awesome!

Mappy Land and Dig Dug II? I remember the latter being in the Namco Museum Archives/Namcot Collection, but I don't remember if the former is also there. Regardless it's nice to have them in NSO as well. Never played an Earthworm Jim so that'll be a first for me, a first I'm looking forward to.

Huh. Well Mappy Land I only know for driving multiple Let's Players insane, but Dig Dug 2 was Japan only back in the day and Earthworm Jim 2 is...an enjoyably random choice. Solid enough choices.

Earthworm Jim 2! That’s a great addition to the catalogue! Loved the 1st and 2nd games back in the day, and the cartoon series too, anyone remember that?

Where is Mario rpg?

@appleseedeon Me too. With the 3DS eShop closing down, it just makes sense to make that title available on NSO. Its a glaring omission.

Oh yes Earthworm Jim 2 the game that gave me a panic attack trying to save pink puppies being thrown from a two story house by a sadistic space crow! Such an odd game but I have very fond memories of it. Great game and I’d love to see Jim make a groovy comeback.

Superheroes and evil twins go together like peanut butter and… evil peanut butter.

I booted Earthworm Jim 2 just to hear the title screen music 😆. Still a classic.

I remember when it felt like they’d slow down the NES choices in favor or SNES, drip drip drip drip.

I’m looking to playing all 3 of these! Great additions!
And what’s funny, I’m more excited to play these games then the April Xbox gold/ps+ games.

I don't see myself playing these any time soon, but am glad that they've been included. Also worth noting they added Special Versions for Super Mario World & Super Punch-Out!!. It shows they're trying, which is all I ask with NSO. Hopefully we'll be seeing more games and variants added every month or every other month, even if they're not big names like FF or Super Mario RPG. Would love to see Life Force, maybe some Famicom titles we never saw like Nuts & Milk, or NES versions of arcade games like Rampage and BurgerTime. Or, you know, StarTropics 2.

Nope. I may finally renew my subscription in May when work slows down (I hope), but these 3 titles aren't causing me to ache for online.

Huh. Interesting.

Well, I was hoping for Super Mario RPG finally, so that's a little disappointing, but still really neat overall. Why the second Earthworm Jim game, though? Either way, I'm excited to try it out. EarthBound has set a precedent of high-profile SNES games being featured in Directs, so maybe that's where we would see a Mario RPG announcement.

Edit: Wait, I'm guessing the first Earthworm Jim wasn't on SNES. I forgot about the whole DKC2 "no hopers" thing. Hopefully it comes to Genesis soon then, if that's the case.

@shoeses I agree this is a nice update and that Nintendo is stepping up their game with NSO, but the "Special" games do nothing for me at all. Frankly, I wish I could hide them from the menu.

These are all right, but I really wish we got Harvest Moon.

@Not_Soos Yeah, the ones out there now are more 'that's cute' than something that'd you'd really wanna play, but I do think it has big potential if they'd be more willing to mess with the games. They're basically just soft ROM hacks, so they could do wilder stuff than 'start the game with everything' type stuff.

@nessisonett I wonder if that has to do with the localization licensing.

I saw Dig Dug and Mappy and I was ready to say something negative, but EARTHWORM JIM?! I've never played these games, but I hear so much about them, so I'm actually pretty happy to see this one here. You win this round, Nintendo... but you better bring Super Mario RPG next time.

I absolutely love Mappy Land and don't mind having it twice on my switch. Back in the late 80s my aunt owned a video store and when they closed it down they gave us the stores copy of Mappy Land. My mom and I played the hell out of it.

@shoeses I don't think they're really ROM hacks, so much as just loding you from a suspend point, essentially. After you beat Mario 3 normally, you can replay it from the start with a full inventory of P-Wings, for example. So, it isn't really anything you can't achieve through normal means. Nintendo will never do it, but yeah, something like an official randomizer would be pretty awesome.

Mapping is pretty underrated. Not everything I hoped for, but I'm ok with this. Holding out hope for EW1.

I have the Earthworm Jim series on my Evercade and I have all the N64 games I need as well so I'm good

Shame i let my NSO expire to save some money - (hey it all counts for the moment!). Probably not enough here to make me resub, so i'll wait a little longer.

EWJ2 i remember one of my under the influence mates laughing uncontrollably at the "well done" cows that you could make talk. Some nice animation too. Other than that I dont think i really enjoyed the gameplay that much though.

I have an unnatural level of hate for the first Dig Dug, but the sequel looks pretty fun. As does Mappy Land.

I think Square Enix doesn't want to let Nintendo put any of their games in the service

Well if nothing else at least these three titles are more well known I believe. Never played them though I think so I'll have to see after work how they hold up.

All I can say is: groovy!

My personal favorite update since earthbound and before that, the donkey Kong countries.
This is great!

@Funneefox These are emulation too

I will gladly take anything but tangerines!

@Tasuki I always wanted to play that version. Never got the chance.

@Not_Soos The first Earthworm Jim was on the SNES.

These are actually good games!

Geez, after so much time they should have released at least 20 new games....

Great! These were the exact 3 games I was hoping for. I’m glad they finally released some big, popular games for everyone.

@BabyYoda71 Nintendo managed to add Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings & Nintendo's relationship with Square Enix is less sour now, so we'll have to wait and see.

Nice earthworm jim. Just 2 games I want added are: Super spyhunter and wizards and warriors 3

I have noticed that there is a lot of crossover between games released on Evercade and the non-Nintendo developed Switch Online NES/SNES games. I guess some license holders are willing to license out their games to all comers and don't charge too much.

Rip no asterix game for snes

Considering the incredible catalogue the SNES has, this drip feed is painful. Such a shame a NSO could have been a brilliant package

That's a big meh. Why can't we have Axelay and Actraiser?

@Patendo Thing is nearly most of the good SNES games are already on the service. I will admit to a lot of Square games missing (they mostly do their own thing), Mario RPG and maybe some cult classics too (I love SimCity for example), but the heavy hitters are already on the service.

I personally think the base NSO package gives you a lot already at it's price. The Expansion pack is a bit more up for debate

I have actually never played Earthworm Jim 2 so I am happy about this.

Anyone that is satisfied with the offerings for NSO is not allowed to complain about Sony's new PS Plus tiers.

I’ve been playing Earthworm Jim on my Mega Drivd Mini. Great game.

@Funneefox yes, me too.

Why Earthworm Jim 2 before the first one?

IGN ranked Earthworm Jim 2 the #40 best SNES game.

They ranked it a bit higher than the first one.

I remember playing at least one of them, not sure if it was Genesis or SNES. Foggy memories.

@FatWormBlowsASparky I'd completely forgotten Earthworm Jim was on the MegaDrive Mini - going to have a (re)play on that before I check out 2.

Ah, I never played the SNES versions of the EWJ games, was well into the Mega Drive ones though, so it'll interesting to finally see how it differs

@dustinprewitt just Nintendo things

@NiallMitch14 Oh, NSO is crying out for the SNES version of Sim City — what a delight that game was.

Would rather have had Earthworm Jim 1 on the Mega Drive. Saying that, the sequel on the SNES is better, so it's cool we are getting that version.

A couple bucks worth of games like 2-3 times a year vs my ps plus giving me games worth $20-60
every month...

Nice! I do like me some Mappy.

Those are actually good additions.

These are good additions to the NSO package. I’ve already got them via the Evercade, but it’s good to have them on Switch too.

Not the worst selection we've had for these platforms

They probably chose Earthworm Jim 2 for SNES as it was the better version of that game. The first Earthworm Jim is better on the Genesis/Mega Drive, so it will probably be released over there instead.

Fun stuff on NES, but Earthworm Jim 2 stands out as one of the craziest classics of the 16 bit era, arguably even moreso than the first game. I poured a lot of hours into the Mega Drive version as a teen, the atmosphere and the variety of gameplay is something else.

Harvest Moon would have been awesome as well, but I almost beat the first game back in the day (never figured out if I missed one of the mushrooms counting towards the best ending), so I'm not sure if I'd tend to it much here anyway. Especially with stuff like FoMM still wishlisted and stuff like Doraemon SoS and two Rune Factory games already onboard.

@Mikmoomamimocki
I remember I actually really liked Dig Dug 2, if perhaps only for the way it changed up the format. ^^ Maybe if it played it again today, I'd be less entertained. I'll try it out, see how bad it really is. :v

Genuinely an all around solid selection of third party titles for these classic systems. I really would have thought that Earthworm Jim (2 or otherwise) would be held off for his own inevitable separate collection on the Switch, likewise, I'd have thought Dig Dug II would have appeared on some Namco collection instead of in NES Online.

@tyranny_life Touché… I suppose I wouldn’t do anything then lol.

@SmashFan347 Hopefully… I’m planning on buying Chrono Trigger on Virtual Console before it’s gone, but if it’s added to NSO before then, I would take it.

Finally some half decent ones! FF6 and Chrono please!

Earthworm Jim was such a cool game/cartoon show. Too bad my NSO expired so now I can't...oh wait..the rom downloaded already, nevermind.

Nice to finally see some old classics returning, this gives me hope for ClayFighter 2. C'mon Interplay give me that masterpiece, my Switch arcade stick is ready.

What about Conker’s Bad Fur Day???

I never expected Earthworm Jim 1 or 2 because I thought the franchise was supposed to be the "killer app" for the Intellivision Amico. Don't they have the rights? Is this a sign that it will be a flop after all or perhaps won't come out?

Dig Dug II and Mappy Land are games that I appreciate that they added.

Oh my, what a game changer. Beware PS5 🤣

Getting on Earthworm Jim 2 this weekend! Put an insane amount of hours on the first back in the day and never played the sequel. Awesome surprise

Earthworm Jim 2 is still a lot of fun to play through... except for the Puppy Love stages and The Flyin' King. Those are exercises in frustration.

@Patendo nso is a turd lol

I haven't played any of these, but I'm actually more interested in Dig-Dug 2 or MappyLand than EWJ 2. I won't get my hopes up for NES ports of arcade games, but still...

Interesting picks. I never liked Mappy Land, but I know some people do. I like EWJ 2. I've never been much for Digdug games.