ChameleonBros

~I still play NES games sometimes. It was my first ever console that introduced me to a lifelong love of the hobby and love it to this day, though SNES, N64, GameCube duke it out for my -absolute- favorites among the legacy consoles.

~I primarily play through my NES mini. It's my favorite way to play regularly with the space-saving+accurate replica form factor and HDMI compatibility among other reasons.

~I do have a top-loader that I got as an adult, and my original childhood toaster as well, I do love the top loader because of how much better it works than the toaster (despite the inferior image quality) and the dogbone controllers, but I simply don't currently have the space to have a lot of physical cartridges unfortunately. My nostalgic but barely working toaster has been in storage for many years now. I used to be more into physical collecting for NES games (and other consoles) in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but I kinda got out right before prices skyrocketed across the board. I had a bigger selection that I do now since I sold some down the line (which I kinda regret), but also content with my much smaller limited handful of cartridges nowadays. I definitely love the feel of playing on an original console, but when limited living space is a factor, it's more of a hassle than it's often worth busting it out frequently and maintaining/upgrading the setup. I have a small CRT monitor which does the job, and I would have liked to get a bigger, and better quality secondhand CRT TV hypothetically down the road, but simply don't have the space for that and I have to prioritize other more important things.

~I have not used NSO online much for NES games regularly in a long time, but I do want to play some of the lesser-known, obscure, 'not easily available physically' games on there at some point. Also there are some select games that I'd like to try out 2P online multiplayer some time.

~For some NES games like the Mega Mans, Castlevanias, TMNT, etc., I also have some of the compilations on Switch. I really love tangible compilation packages and I wish Nintendo did a lot more in general with their treasure trove of franchises, but also at reasonable prices (looking at you, Galaxy 1+2).

Kudos to CD Projekt Red here, glad to hear this. I'm not even interested in the game but would have considered getting and gifting a physical copy to someone if things were not rough economically.

@sleepinglion No problem!

@sleepinglion This is what worked for me:

Go to the controller menu, reset controllers, and connect as player #1 in the solo sideways Joycon 2 configuration (with the controller # light on top). Boot up the SNES app and Mario Paint with buttons as normal in this config, and once you're actually on the Mario Paint in -game title screen, just physically move the Joycon 2 into mouse configuration, and it should automatically recognize mouse control after a second, with the cursor appearing and R being main click, ZR being alternate click (or L/ZL respectively if you're using a left Joycon 2). I tested this on a flat surface and on my thigh too lol.

The little Joy Con 2 clip on strap attachment that came included with the console (if you purchased it new) does make scrolling a lot smoother, but you can still use mouse controls without it. The clip attachment is a hollow outline that matches the color of the attaching part of the Joycon 2, it might be fairly easy to miss or misplace.

Genuinely love this addition to NSO. A charming game/curio and soundtrack, and I liked the release video too. This will definitely be added to the rotation of retro games that I go to to decompress after a long day with intentional "phone-less" time to just relax and/or goof off.

It would be super cool if Nintendo released the Japan-exclusive 64DD Mario Artist titles now that native mouse support is a thing on Switch 2. If I recall, the WarioWare series and Miis essentially sprung from the N64 DiskDrive Mario artist series. Heck, bring a bunch of other N64DD titles like F-Zero X Expansion Kit and SimCity 64 while we're at it, even if untranslated.

SNES Yoshi's Island is a complete masterpiece of a game by Nintendo, so no question it's number one on this series list. It's been a personal favorite of mine for decades across all Nintendo games/series, not just from the Yoshi series. Some thoughts about other games:

Yoshi's Safari- An interesting little curio of a game for sure, I'd rank it higher, although the Super Scope being a huge C battery guzzler did not help the popularity and accessibility of this game both at its release and in the past couple decades. I did not have it growing up, but I found a Super Scope in the early 2010s and got to play this. This game was also the last time we'd see the Koopalings in any new Mario game for a long time (minor cameo in Superstar Saga and the Mario Advance ports aside) until their return in New Super Mario Bros. Wii- a hiatus from 1993 to 2009.

An unpopular opinion, but I'd rank the GBA port of Yoshi's Island a lot lower on the quality of the port itself. Although the 6 new levels are nice, the audiovisual element really suffers when compared to the SNES original.

Yoshi's Crafted World is decent in the gameplay and good in the aesthetics department (though not as good as Wooly World, which should be #2 on this list), but a special callout to how -abysmal- Crafted World's soundtrack is. It is legit the first time in decades of playing Nintendo games, that I ever actively muted the game while playing it to avoid the soundtrack, it is that bad.

Also, I know that Tetris Attack is just Panel de Pon with the Yoshi Island veneer, but personally I vastly prefer the Yoshi characters and voices to the original PdP characters. TA is definitely my favorite of the Yoshi puzzle games, and I'd love to see it rereleased on NSO. Just rename it Yoshi's Panel de Pon and whip up a simple new title screen to avoid the copyright issues of the past- I could not care less about the Tetris name attachment, it was a strange decision to begin with.

So I really love the core of this game, particularly the new mechanics, courses, characters, the soundtrack, and overall driving feel...

...but my goodness, the sorely lacking options and bizarre menu navigation are proving to be more trash with time. I can't believe that with this new patch, they're now making it even -HARDER- for people to play classic 3 lap same track races when it's already so limited and an obtuse method. WTF are they thinking? For what it's worth, I actually quite like intermissions, but at least give people an easy, simple, intuitive option to play classic 3 lap mode in offline and online vs friends when they want to. Don't get me started on the garbage unlock system for the enemy characters.

@Blooper987 Although I'm still playing regularly, I agree with so much of your post. It's like there was no UX/UI quality assurance team at all with this game, it's unbelievably sloppy in that aspect despite how good the core content is. Fun fact, the last time you could optionally choose a survival balloon battle with no time limit in a Mario Kart game was 2005 Mario Kart DS, a full twenty years ago!! Wii started forcing time, and 7, 8 Wii U, 8D, and now World STILL have not given that option back.

Ok, so I get it's a dynamic user-contributed list, everybody has their own personal preferences, and it's popular for the internet to completely dunk on every recent game.

.....but I'm sorry, World at only #5 is f****** ridiculous, from someone who started with 64 in the late '90s and has played every game in the series extensively except for Super Circuit and Tour. I can absolutely respect 8 Deluxe and Double Dash being in the top 2, they are in my top 5 for sure, but vanilla Wii and vanilla DS being ahead of World in 2025 is absolutely laughable, and I loved DS.

World is immediately a top 3 entry, even with its current warts and imperfections, and can easily become #1 with time- so many aspects of it are already arguably competing for #1 for me. Oddly enough, my chief complaint with the game is the lacking/bizarre options, menus and interface QoL. I'd like them to improve/add to the options/menus/interface QoL (especially battle), add a sound test, and fine tune the adaptive AI a hair or two down to a "fair very challenging" instead of "unfair brutal". The core gameplay, courses, character roster, soundtrack, attention to detail in-race, liveliness of the courses, variety of course enemies/obstacles, and animations/expressiveness are incredible.

One of the concerns I have with the Switch 1 BC compatibility being more software/emulation-based is how future Switch 2 firmware patches may affect their playability.

Looking at some games that have been worked on already because they did were confirmed to have issues pre-launch; what if a patch 20.x.x inadvertently introduces major errors/glitches for specific games, and makes them glitchy/unplayable again months or years from now after all the work they did just to get it running on the launch firmware? Would devs even bother fixing those Switch 1 games' BC at that point?

Warm take: I'd want drastically -less- focus on user-generated content, decorating, crafting and customizing your perfect island. I'd like them to go much heavier on rich animal neighbor conversations, better dialogue in quality and quantity, actual individual personalities, and deeper neighbor/task dynamics, closer to the spirit of the GameCube original but with late 2020s advancements and power. Only speaking for myself, but it should feel like it's truly the animal villagers' world that my human villager merely resides in and learns/adapts to as a secondary presence, rather than the other way around as in ACNH.

Neat, but I'm waiting for remasters/ports of Shadows of the Empire and Rogue Squadron 1-3 to be revealed+launched before jumping on a collection. Those games, especially Rogue Squadron 2, felt like the biggest "marquee" Star Wars games on Nintendo consoles and have never been rereleased after the original platforms, IIRC.

Consider that in the North American N64 launch, the N64 console box featured Mario, Bowser, Kilgore from Killer Instinct, and a Stormtrooper for like 1-2 years. SOTE was one of the first "truly" 3D polygonal FPS games on consoles to my knowledge (certainly on Nintendo, at least) and it has incredible atmosphere despite the clunky, primitive controls. SOTE, Rogue Squadron 2, and Rogue One (the 2016 movie) are my favorite pieces of Star Wars media outside of the original trilogy.

Rogue Squadron 2 speaks for itself-a fantastic, mind blowing game at GameCube's launch and a gem to this day.

@Smithicus That would be nice, but I would not get my hopes up. Within the last few months, Nintendo put out a statement/"accolade" celebrating that the eShop just crossed 15,000 games, and I don't see any convincing reason yet to think Switch 2 quality control will be any better.

Any system/digital storefront (not just Switch 1) that gets into five digit territory is 200% guaranteed to have landfills of shovelware+scamware, and/or very questionable quality control at best. The eShop really needs some strong filtering and blocking/ignoring options.

I had to wait ~55 min in Walmart's line, but I finally got an order placed and got the confirmation email. They seem to have been the most reliable, relatively speaking, of the three retailers doing midnight preorders, from mine and others' observations. Of course, time will tell if any confirmed preorders end up getting cancelled. Good luck to any still trying.

Target crapped the bed big time though.

Sweet! Underrated soundtrack of a perpetually underrated game. I think on the whole, Eveline Fischer (alongside David Wise's few contributions) did quite a good job with this one, despite a few songs being duds. It might not reach the heights of DKC2, but DKC2 is a Nintendo/RareWare magnum opus so that's kinda unfair. I like her usage of bass and electric guitar samples in this specifically. A few collected thoughts:

Northern Kremisphere - a nice little atmospheric track to introduce the game world (btw, I LOVED the overworld map of this game, and I really wish some of Nintendo's other 2D series' entries took a cue from the exploration, interactivity and interesting semi-openness of this game's overworld.

Stilt Village- one of the few tracks I outright dislike in the game. The levels where this track features are gorgeous graphically and fun to play, but I honestly think that the Stilt Village OST is what gave many first-time players a bad first impression of DKC3's soundtrack, and the game itself, compared to its predecessors. One of the few tracks where I prefer the David Wise GBA track.

Water World- one of the best tracks in the series. Each water theme in DKC 1-3 is amazing in its own right, each exuding a different presence/aura. Aquatic Ambience is reflective, Lockjaw's Locker is bombastic and tense, Water World is eerie, gloomy and melancholy.

Nuts and Bolts- I really like the muffled electric guitar samples in this one. One part of the melody reminds me of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir".

Nice. Too bad NA still does not get the colorized edition. Now that the Land trilogy is complete though...

Bring on DK94 and Diddy Kong Racing Nintendo!! Heck throw in the kitchen sink and release GBC DKC, the GBA ports, King of Swing, and DK64 while we are at it! Make it a DK December

The original Game Boy version was my first introduction to Tetris, but I grew to like the NES version too- I really like the shifting color palettes in this one. The type 3 music alone is worth checking this version out.

@KY502ShinyHunter I did not discover Tetris NES until later in life, but NES Type 3 has not only become my favorite of the classic Tetris NES+GB tunes, it's one of my favorites on the NES in general.

Nice addition! This game is more of a direct GB "demake" of DKC2 as opposed to Land 1 which was more of a standalone game, but imo the playability is greatly improved from Land 1. Although, I really wish they had included the Super Game Boy palettes and border as an option, or at the very least, the default ones that you could change into on GBC or the monochrome switch on 3DS virtual console.

The soundtrack alone is worth playing through. If I recall, Grant Kirkhope was responsible for arranging the soundtrack, and he did an excellent job imo. It was one of the first games as a kid where I truly paid attention to the music on its own accord; I would pause levels and listen to that mono speaker on the Game Boy Pocket. Pirate Panic, Hot Head Bop, Hornet Hole are some standouts. Also expect to hear Lockjaw's Locker for the first 1/3 of the game lol.

Now bring on Land 3, and most of all, Donkey Kong '94!

After some thought, here's how I currently categorize the consoles:

•Paleolithic: Pong through Atari 5200
•Retro: NES, SMS, C64, SNES, GEN, TBX16, GB, GG, VB, SAT, PS1, N64, GBC

•Millennium Era: DC, PS2, GBA, GCN, OGXBOX, DS, PSP

•Early Modern Era: Wii, 360, PS3, DSi
•Late Modern Era: 3DS, Wii U, Vita, PS4, XB2013, Switch

•Supermodern Era: PS4, XSX, Steam Deck, [Switch Successor]

Also, I really like the phrase "legacy system" to describe something that is clearly old and out of print but not quite "retro". Like, the Wii is approaching 20 years old but it doesn't quite feel "retro" like the NES, GB etc, so I consider the Wii a legacy system.

Great article, and better articulates some vague thoughts I've had about non-cosy games being the most helpful for some people during very difficult times. Nothing against "intentionally" cozy games on the whole- I mean Animal Crossing NH is probably considered a cozy game by the majority of players and I know that definitely helped me with navigating spring 2020 when Covid really emerged worldwide. I think just on the whole, it's kind of a different strokes for different folks kind of thing.

The three games that helped the most in three different severely difficult periods of my life were Super Metroid, Twilight Princess HD and Celeste for a variety of reasons, in different contexts; I would not consider any of those three as cozy games in the vein of Animal Crossing or some newer "intentionally" cozy indies that have released in recent times. Regarding Celeste, even though it has a prominent mental health theme in the plot of the game and deals with anxiety, tbh it actually was not that part that helped me out really, but rather the audiovisual element+atmosphere of the game and the simple yet brilliant gameplay itself.

I'm also glad that the writer of this article touched on the need for seeking out professional help and that video games can often be an excellent complementary aid in navigating severely difficult circumstances, but not a replacement for actual professional help by qualified mental health professionals (therapists, counselors, psychiatrists, etc.). I also appreciate the author's openness in talking specifically about partial and intensive programs, because that can absolutely be a very vulnerable topic, but those levels of care can truly help a lot of people that need it.

1986 is certainly one of the best and most influential years. I think the other contenders include 1991, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2017 (I think 1994-1998 is arguably the greatest 5 years stretch in video game history) but....

....1998 takes the cake as the single best year for games ever, imo (going off of North American release dates). Like, look at not only Nintendo's lineup that year, but other systems too, it's ridiculous:

Nintendo: Legend of Zelda OOT, Banjo-Kazooie, F-Zero X, 1080 Snowboarding, Ken Griffey MLB Baseball, WCW/NWO Revenge, Yoshi's Story, Star Wars Rogue Squadron, Turok 2, Kobe Bryant NBA Courtside, Pokemon Red/Blue, Wario Land 2, Link's Awakening DX, Game and Watch Gallery 2, Game Boy Color launch, the Game Boy Camera

PS1/PC/console multiplatform: Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 2, Half-Life, Grim Fandango, Tekken 3, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot Warped, Mega Man Legends, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Xenogears, Starcraft, International Superstar Soccer 98, NFL Blitz, some other ones I'm missing too.

The third games were relics of a different era- modern day, easy to access DLC has made the concept more obsolete. That said, for experiencing Gen 2-4 in their original form, the third games are absolutely the best games to play; Crystal is a top 2 all-time favorite Pokemon game for me. I consider Pokemon Yellow to be a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to the third versions.

It stinks to see this. I'm also still miffed about how Knockout City was handled- it was a genuinely awesome, unique game that was doomed by the live service format, and it stings that they didn't even allow for an offline/local multiplayer build of the game to be kept after the game's servers ended.

It's a good zone, the sound and visuals are great and unique. That Act 2 Robotnik battle in the sky is still really cool to this day. Some cool yet simultaneously frustrating gameplay mechanics. I think Launch Base is probably my least favorite of the Sonic 3 side of S3+K zones, the first 5 are decent to awesome. If I had to rank my preference overall from favorite to least favorite:

Hydrocity
Angel Island
Marble Garden Zone=Ice Cap Zone
Carnival Night
Launch Base

@Ganner WG3DH is great fun to this day! That and Ken Griffey MLB Baseball N64 are two of my favorite team sports games to this day; I also enjoyed International Superstar Soccer '98.

I agree, I'd love for older sports games to come to NSO or even better as a standalone eshop purchase but as you said, like 99% impossible unfortunately because of licensing. I say 99% because of the licensing miracle that was the official rerelease of NHL '94 with the 2020-2021 NHL rosters for PS4 and XBOX One. Personally I've been waiting decades for a new official Tecmo Super Bowl with current rosters and online.

Yea, it was challenging and took a while, but all in all as I got older, I enjoyed the Water Temple (I did hate it the first time I played though lol). The aesthetics were really lovely. I loved the soundtrack of the temple, and the room where you fight Dark Link was so surreal and captivating, it's legit one of my favorite specific locales in any Zelda/Nintendo game ever. Plus the dragon statues, the whirlpool rooms, the waterfall hookshot platforms, the color tone of the blue walls, and the cool unique cutscene that plays when Morpha grabs and throttles Link in the boss fight.

The only truly annoying thing to me was having to press start each time to change to the Iron Boots, which they rectified in 3DS by mapping them to a button.

Besides Rainbow Road Wii being the perfect finale for the Booster Pass and Mario Kart 8D in general, I particularly like Piranha Plant Cove so far. Fun layout, the nighttime beach+water theme is really cool, and it feels like Petey Piranha's own course because of his emblem all over the course plus the presence of Pianta spectators. I think they should have named it Petey Piranha Cove, to differentiate it from 3DS Piranha Plant Slide in the base MK8D game.

Move It! being behind DIY Showcase Wii is straight up insulting imo, MI should definitely be higher. Gold is my personal favorite; I think #2 is a good placement. I love that it's basically an anthology of all the preceding WarioWares- utilizing button, touch, motion, and even mic minigames, plus I also liked the side content.

The original GBA is still a great game on its own to this day, but while it has the original impact factor, I wouldn't have it #1 because there have been several entries since that have definitely topped it.

I think my current list would probably go:
01.) Gold
02.) Smooth Moves
03.) Move It!
04.) Twisted
05.) Original GBA
06.) Get It Together
07.) DIY
08.) Mega Party Games
09.) Game & Wario
10.) DIY Showcase
Have not played Touched or Snapped; the latter is admittedly likely already on the bottom even without playing it though just from how limited it is.

Mario/DK universe: Pauline, Petey Piranha, Mallow+Geno in a combo one, Poltergust Luigi, glow in the dark Polterpup, LM3 King Boo, Dixie Kong, Funky Kong

Others: Trident ALTTP Ganon, Ocarina of Time Ganondorf, Skull Kid with Majora's Mask, Happy Mask Salesman, Wind Waker Ganondorf, Groose, Samus' Metroid suit, Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, SNES Andross, Ninten (based on the original promo 3d clay models), Starman, Mani Mani statue off the top of my head

Some good additions/changes alongside the final wave of courses and the new characters+Mii costumes. The music player and nerf of item bagging are quite welcome. That said, still some missing QoL features that should definitely be added:

+Utilizing NIntendo Switch Game Invites. Alongside that, being able to play co-op with distant online friends against randoms instantly without always forcing an online friend to have to wait/spectate in order to join your group.

+96-race option in VS. mode

+Adding an optional toggle to random function in VS. mode where courses do not repeat. Even before the booster pass, a couple times I planned to do an online team 48-race marathon of all 48 base MK8D courses with 11 relatives, and I ended up getting repeat courses in the first go-about. Right now, the only way to 100% ensure that you get all distinct courses in the random queue is to manually have everyone vote for the same course, which is a huge hassle, wastes a ton of time, and is impossible without Discord/voice chat. There should be an option to eliminate or keep previously chosen courses in the random queue.

+An option to have only Booster cups/courses in the selection queue.

+The ability to have traditional, non-timed survival Balloon Battle with the ability to set the number of balloons. Frankly, it's ridiculous that survival balloon battle has somehow been missing from console Mario Karts for TWENTY YEARS (Mario Kart Double Dash in 2003 was the last one!). It has a different dynamic than the time-based one we currently have, because you often have to play with more defense, evasion and stealth if you're behind. I'm not arguing to remove or change the current system, heck even keeping things as is for online battles against randoms is fine; just give us additional options like how Smash has Timed and Stock battles for friend rooms/offline play. I genuinely don't understand how this is still missing.

Please never stop using this thumbnail

On topic, this is just a yikes from me, and I hope they don't insert this stuff/online requirements into the upcoming Batman Arkham trilogy port.

NES version all the way for me. The NES soundtrack is more "punchy", like certain parts of the notes and melodies sound clearer than the SNES All-Stars version, which has that characteristic SNES "softening/muffling" that sometimes dilutes the sound of a soundtrack. Don't get me wrong, many SNES soundtracks are some of my favorite videogame OST's of all time; I just think the subtle "softness" of the SNES sound fits some games better than others. Some other games where I feel this way about the soundtracks:

NES Tecmo Super Bowl > SNES Tecmo Super Bowl
NES Wario's Woods> SNES Wario's Woods
NES Punch Out > Super Punch Out

Graphically, I also prefer the unique orange+red Fire Mario in the NES to the more standard white+red Fire Mario in the SNES+GBA version. Likewise for the unique black overalls normal Mario compared to the blue jeans overalls normal Mario for SNES+beyond. The skies of the airship levels also sport unique colors in the NES version, unlike the SNES version where it's the same nighttime stormy sky color for all the airship levels.

The E-reader levels in the GBA version are cool though, and have elements that even Mario Maker 2 does not have. I just dislike the added voice clips and GBA compression. I love Charles Martinet's voice clips in the 3D Mario's and spinoffs, but I just don't care for it particularly in the older 2D games.

Pretty disappointing that a $60 collection of retro MGS games (that realistically should be $30-40 imo, even with the bonuses) has glitches and bugs like this off the bat. At least they are transparent about the presence of them and trying to fix them, instead of leaving players in the dark until many weeks/months after release. That's a low bar though.

Originally I was just going to get the PS4 version of this if it goes on sale over the holidays, but I'll consider this version too if it turns out good or at least decent enough. Even though I mostly play docked, the portability is great when I go that route.

The game is great, and I really hope these are not the final tracks of the entire lifespan of the game, regardless of other new potentially good content. New tracks (technically returning, but new to F-Zero 99 I mean) are the meat and potatoes of a game like F-Zero. The vast majority of players have never played the Satellaview courses from BS F-Zero 2 (sp?) and reworking the GBA F-Zero games' courses into 99 would be a large boost too. Heck even brand new original courses would be very welcome too.

They already missed an opportunity to give F-Zero X players the localized 64DD version of F-Zero X (Expansion Kit), which was never released outside Japan if I recall. That had a custom track editor which you could put in a custom cup, machine editor, two new full Nintendo-designed cups, and some new music tracks, most notably a metal remix of Mario Kart 64's Rainbow Road.

Hopefully the discrepancy between NOA and NOJ is cleared up, but unfortunately I'm not optimistic, knowing the history of similar situations like this with Sakurai/Smash tweets- people reading far too much into tweets and giving themselves hope on a very loose interpretation of the words used.

When it was first announced, I thought it was the dumbest idea ever and a step backwards. Why remove the main unique feature of the 3DS? After some time though, I softened up on that stance. A couple of years back, Nintendo were selling refurbished 2DS' for $50 on their website, presumably to empty out any remaining 3DS family stock since the 3DS family was discontinued. Needless to say, that price was an absolute steal and I got two of the blue/black 2DS systems- one for me and one for a young relative.

The 2DS is overall more ergonomic for adult hands than the normal 3DS models imo (I love my new+new XL 3DS', but I had to get grips for both of them; the standard form factors are not ergonomic at all). 2DS is also a very good choice as a kid's first system since parents/guardians don't have to worry about the 3D effect on their eyes, much more durable than the 3DS line, and still has parental controls.

Oh nice. This game was on my radar a while back, and it's good that it still got some recent support. Might pick it up when it goes on sale.

Also, how does this compare to Disc Jam? I played that when I got it for free on PS Plus years ago, and had some fun with it. Aesthetics looked kinda funky though.

On one hand, that's some impressive dedication. On the other hand, I feel like 85-90% of all SMM1 and SMM2 user-created levels range from mediocre to downright horrible lol. Like I loved SMM1+2, particularly the creation process, discovering new objects/interactions, playing friends levels, and playing randoms' levels with thought put into them. But playing 100 man mode in SMM1 and the Marathon mode in SMM2 soured me on the quality of user-created levels and had me yearning for official Nintendo levels again. Don't get me wrong, my levels certainly have flaws and can be rough around the edges too, and quality is subjective. But a huge majority of levels I encountered (across all difficulty levels in both games) just felt like a combo of impossible troll or kaizo levels, boring, and/or aesthetically ugly.

Archiving all levels and allowing creators to still play their own levels offline after March 2024 is one thing and I support that, but many junk levels are better left unbeaten imo.

Glad to hear initial positive impressions. I enjoyed WarioWare Get it Together, and felt it was a necessary change of pace to keep things fresh. But Smooth Moves Wii is #1 or 2 (alongside Gold) in the series for me, particularly for its motion controls, so I'm definitely anticipating this. Besides great microgames, one thing I'm hoping for is a good amount of side content and modes.

It's understandable, though I understand people that still play online regularly on 3DS/Wii U will be rightfully bummed out. Might have to get a few matches of Mario Golf+Kart 3DS and trade/battle in the 3DS Pokemon games before then.

I'm glad this is a feature, I'll be trying out both versions for each track as I play. Excited for this game, price point aside. I really hope the Paper Mario TTYD remaster/remake has a similar option toggle for the original version's soundtrack, whether at start or unlocked.

Aw man, the use of that gong/pipe sound is one of the most iconic sounds in video game soundtracks imo, distinctly tied to Goldeneye. I mean it's not a dealbreaker exactly but still a bummer. Hopefully they fix it. I also noticed the awesome percussion in the first 10 seconds of the Dam level was missing- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7dXoNUPE74- so sounds like some emulation/software issues. Not exactly happy with Nintendo's ongoing carelessness towards their N64/general NSO rereleases, these games deserve better. :/

I really like the 2021 Game and Watch as well as the Gold GBA SP with the black shoulder buttons. Although not a Zelda console edition, I also actually like the Gold N64 a lot, and if I recall correctly in North America, it initially came out as a Toys R Us exclusive around the same time frame as Ocarina of Time in 1998, so I kind of associate the two. The Skyward Sword Gold Wii remote is nice too.

Great list! It helps that autumn, especially late September- Halloween is my favorite season and weather of the year. Twilight Town+Trail+Steeple in Paper Mario TTYD has a fantastic autumnal+eerie atmosphere and should be on here! Idk if this is autumn per se, but I'd also include World 4 in SNES Yoshi's Island.

@sketchturner It's funny you bring up TS2, because that's also like a top 3 favorite FPS all-time for me. I guess I just like the FPS games with that Rareware footprint.

A few come to mind:

NES: Bad Dudes. The intro is legendary. I've had my fun with it, and while it pales in comparison to the later TMNT games, Double Dragon, etc., I laugh every time I clear a level and hear a screeching "I'M BAD!!" Speaking of TMNT, the first NES game would fit this article too, the soundtrack is such a bop.

N64: Rugrats Scavenger Hunt. As a big Rugrats fan, even back in the day, I knew that this game wasn't good, but still had fun with the game regardless, I liked the voice clips. Dil spaces were such a troll. Also, a random sidenote: The music that plays on the Pirate Treasure map is oddly foreboding.

GBA: Mario Party Advance. I think this one was very limited by the GBA hardware. Still the weakest Mario Party I've played, but for what it was, it had some neat ideas, and I like the appearance of a lot of the more obscure Mario enemies and how there was a little story element to their conversations.

Wii: Wii Play. I enjoyed a good half of the minigames on here, especially Tanks. Just very short and not enough depth. This would have fit more as a bundled-in/pre-installed game on the Wii system menu like FaceRaiders on 3DS.

@sketchturner I really like how you worded that last sentence. It's kind of how I feel when I talk about Goldeneye to others. I think Goldeneye is still a great game to this day, despite its jank and "sometimes possibly because" of it (e.g. the slow motion rolling soldiers, rocket launcher multiplayer matches becoming a 1920s slideshow). Someone on here mentioned how others may have more fun with GE multiplayer if they look at it as a "party game with an FPS coat" as opposed to a standard FPS with all the QoL and standards they expect of FPS games. Also, the atmosphere and music of the single player levels are genuinely incredible to this day, imo.

I'm genuinely happy that this is coming to Switch NSO EP. I still love Goldeneye to this day, and yes, I have actually played it within the past year. Of course it has its bigger flaws showing nowadays, but it's just fun imo, especially if you embrace the jank.

I'm surprised at the relative lack of mention for Pilotwings 64! That was such a shock to me, it has never been rereleased before today's announcement, and from what I remember it was stuck with some big licensing issues since the company that made it is defunct. PW64 is the best Pilotwings game of the three imo- it has the most content and variety. You have four different islands where the missions take place, unlike Pilotwings Resort 3DS which all take place on Wuhu Island, which itself came from Wii Sports Resort. Plus a really chill, jazzy soundtrack. The Hang Glider theme is lovely.

Overall, quite happy with the selection. Really pumped to have the Mario Parties in their entirety since we didn't get Superstars DLC. Hopefully Pokemon Stadium will be compatible with Pokemon Red/Blue, if and when those release on NSO down the road. 1080 has a tough, but really satisfying learning curve. Not happy with the continued drip feed of one game per month though. The last big-name games left are Smash and the rest of the Rare catalog- notably Diddy Kong Racing and Blast Corps. I don't see Perfect Dark having a shot simply because of the NSO EP's ESRB T rating restriction, unfortunately.

I can't remember if I vaguely recognized Samus' appearance on the SNES/GB box arts in stores, but the first time I really remember was Smash 64. Her moves were so cool. How other people see Smash 4 Cloud or Ultimate Pyra/Mythra, is how my friends and I saw Samus' Charge Shot back then lol ("so unfair!!")

It was through the modest Smash 64 character bio section that I learned about the original NES game, and that was the first Metroid game I ever played. I didn't get far at all, like I didn't even get out of Brinstar for like a year lol, but I was enthralled with the game. It was such a joy discovering that, Kid Icarus, Wario's Woods, and other NES greats for the first time. Because I loved the NES game, I was actually quite skeptical of Metroid Prime at first because of the huge change from 2D to 3D FPA. But after some time, it ended up becoming one of my favorite games of all time.

Besides being one of the best N64 games, Wave Race 64 is genuinely one of the best "feel good" games of all time. There is a sincere vibe that permeates the entire game. Pilotwings 64 had a similar feeling too imo, but sadly, it is extremely unlikely that PW64 will ever return to NSO. Those that have never played Wave Race 64 are in for a real treat.

Side note: I really miss when Nintendo still made team sports and action sports games. Wave Race, 1080 Snowboarding, Ken Griffey MLB baseball games, NBA Courtside, and Excitebike. For my game tastes, they were a great balance to the Marios/Zeldas/etc. (which I still loved). I get the reasons why most of those sports+action series ended up folding by the end of the GCN era, but there's just that what-if.

I really enjoyed the NBA Jam book from that publisher, so as a big Goldeneye fan, I'm interested in seeing how this turns out.