stereobread

Is this Bionic Commando the original arcade game that's also included in one of the Capcom Arcade Stadium collections, or the NES game that isn't available elsewhere? This may influence my decision on whether or not to pick SF6 up.

It won't change how I feel about the games in any way, but two things make me doubt the movie will be very good. Avi Arad has some good things to his name but he's also got a fair amount of duds, and a lot of the poorer films were reportedly made worse because of pressure from him. The other thing is that the only times Link hasn't been a silent protagonist are in the bad '80s cartoon and the terrible CD-i games. That's not to say they can't make him into a talking character but it's a difficult thing to do right.

@Markiemania95 Oh really? I didn't know that. It's always interesting to see the differences between what got the PAL and NTSC libraries.

Nice, two well regarded Japanese exclusives coming west for close to the first time (Murasame Castle was on the 3DS Virtual Console and Devil World was on the PAL Wii Virtual Console but not the North American one) and the only Game Boy Castlevania not included in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection (I've heard bad things about Castlevania Legends, but it's good to have it if for no other reason than that it was left off of that collection).

@rjejr Seattle really never gets particularly cold, just rainy. In October you're looking at highs in the 60s and 70s, lows in the 50s or high 40s. November and December will have highs in the 40s or low 50s, lows in the low 40s or 30s. Occasionally it'll freeze overnight in the dead of winter but it's not really a regular thing. But the stereotype of it raining all the time in Seattle is there for a reason, especially in the winter.

@tektite_captain I checked out his Tiktok page, it seems like he saw some terra cotta soldiers in a museum in the UK, an Olmec head at a museum in France, and the Kamehameha statue was the one in Washington DC instead of the one in Honolulu. It seems like the only place outside of Europe and the contiguous US he actually went to is Japan. Still a cool accomplishment and good on him for using his video game fandom as an excuse to see some art.

@inenai Dude's in the UK, the overwhelming majority of the museums these pieces are displayed at are either in Europe or the eastern US, both pretty easily reached on reasonably affordable flights from London, and since he doesn't seem to have actually gone to Mexico, China, or Hawaii I think the only really long flight he'd have to take would be a trip to Japan. It honestly seems surprisingly doable when you look into it, again so long as you're based in Europe or the US.

I'm glad that they're selling these both as a bundle and individually. That way people, like me, who already picked up the Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun collection and/or Double Dragon IV won't have to double dip to get Advance and Super.

@MythTgr I hope there will be more GameCube ports but just in terms of data it wouldn't work to have them as an NSO app. NES cartridges held up to 1 MB, Sega Genesis 5 MB, SNES 6MB Game Boy Color 8 MB, Game Boy Advance 32 MB, N64 64 MB. GameCube discs held 1.46 GB which is small compared to their PS2 and Xbox contemporaries but still probably too big to be handled the same was as the systems included with NSO. Right now the N64 NSO app with 23 games is 1.1 GB, a comparable GameCube NSO app would be a massive space filler. Add in the fact that game design philosophies haven't really changed that much since the GameCube era and it just makes more sense for Nintendo to release ports instead of an NSO app.

My favorite thing about the Switch is that it's such a great vehicle for gaming history and as you say, not just retro Nintendo gaming, it's got a lot of great arcade, PC, Atari, Sega, PlayStation, and Xbox games too. Of course I wish some platforms were better represented (notably Master System, Game Gear, Saturn, Dreamcast, GameCube, Wii, DS, 3DS, original Xbox, PSP, Vita, and all the old computers that didn't survive when Windows and Mac took over everything), but it really is astonishing how great the potential to turn your Switch into a museum really is.

The new Mario, Princess Peach, and Pikmin games as well as Penny's Big Breakaway all look good but I'm mostly excited about the remakes and rereleases, particularly because between the first two Pikmin, the already released Metroid Prime Remaster, and the previously announced Baten Kaitos games, we're finally getting a decent chunk of GameCube titles. Add to that the Luigi's Mansion 2 rerelease and a sequel to Detective Pikachu and it's starting to look like Nintendo's paying attention to 3DS games too. Much as I've loved plenty of Switch exclusives, I've always primarily thought of the Switch as a retro machine and it's great to see Nintendo moving beyond the NES and SNES in their definition of retro games that are worth keeping in the public eye.

The new game looks fine, but I'd be so much more interested in rereleases of either the original '89 Prince of Persia or the Sands of Time.

Interesting thing I just noticed. The Hori Split Pad doesn't work with Kirby Tilt 'n Tumble. This isn't exactly a surprise to me given that it also doesn't vibrate or work in tabletop mode but it's kind of disappointing since I haven't actually used normal joy-cons since I got the Split Pad. It felt really weird to go back to them. Has anyone tried the game out in docked mode with either the normal joy-cons or a pro controller? I haven't had the chance to do that yet.

Nothing super exciting in the games themselves, obviously we already had the originals and frankly I'm surprised these weren't launch titles, but it's nice that we're getting games that haven't been announced ahead of time. Also, while I probably won't play through these all the way it's neat to see variations of games I'm already familiar with.

I've played through every canonical Zelda game except for A Link Between Worlds and Triforce Heroes (never had a 3DS, what can I say?). I'm sure I'll get this one too, but it's just a little spendy for the time being. I'm starting a new job in August, probably going to buy a copy then. Not sure about physical or digital, I like physical but the new job's in another country and given that the convenience of digital might outweigh the cool factor of physical.

@victordamazio The Game Gear games are functionally identical to the Master System games, just with the screen zoomed in more. I hope they include display options that would replicate the Master System versions, but I doubt they will. As for Spinball and 3D Blast they're both on the Sega Genesis/Megadrive Classics collection and Spinball is also on NSO.

I doubt it will because I haven't seen it mentioned, but I'd really like for the expansion to include the option to play Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles separately as well as connected.

It's hard for me to answer this question, in principal I prefer physical media but in practice I'm almost entirely digital. This isn't just a gaming thing for me, I feel the same way about music, film, and books. And it's not just about the media itself, I think the sense of community that develops around game, record, and book shops is important, but digital media is just so much more convenient, especially if you move around a lot and aren't really settled in one place. Like, I've got well over a hundred games on my Switch, only about 8 or 9 of them are physical, I've also got thousands of ebooks on an external harddrive and thousands of albums in MP3 or FLAC format. I'd love to have the space and stability to dedicate whole rooms to physical game, book, and music libraries, but the reality is that I live in a small apartment and I move every couple of years, in many cases moving to a different country. It's just too difficult to bring it all with me and too costly to store it all back home, as such I've already sold my physical record collection and all the physical books that I could find digital backups of. I think of games the same way, I grew up with bookshelves full of NES and SNES cartridges, VHS tapes, CDs, LPs, audio cassettes, and books, and I still think there's value in the actual tangible, physical objects, but it's hard to deny the benefits of the digital era.

@Kiyata
The list you posted, which was leaked a while back and has appeared all over the internet since then, is mostly accurate, but one game from the list is not actually on the collection and one game from the collection is not on the list. Warbirds for the Lynx was on the leaked list but isn't included while Yoomp! for the Atari 800 wasn't on the list but is in the game. Also worth mentioning, almost all of the games are available from the start, the only ones that need to be unlocked are Basic Math, Breakout, Combat Two, Gravitar, and Race 500, all for the 2600.

One final statistic that people might be interested in is how Atari 50 compares to Atari Flashback Classics, the other Atari retro collection on Switch. Now, bear in mind Atari Flashback Classics only has arcade, 2600, and 5200 games, so the 800, 7800, Lynx, and Jaguar games, as well as the Touch Me handheld game and the 6 reimagined games are only on Atari 50 and I'm only comparing the platforms that exist on both collections.

Having just compared the two on my Switch there is a lot of overlap but in terms of unique titles Atari Flashback Classics has 14 arcade games, 65 Atari 2600 games, and 12 Atari 5200 games that are NOT available on Atari 50. Atari 50 has 7 arcade games, 3 Atari 2600 games, and 1 Atari 5200 game that are NOT available on Atari Flashback Classics.

It's kind of hard to tell from the trailer if this is a 3D fighting game or a 2D fighter with 3D graphics. If it's a real 3D fighting game I'll almost certainly pick it up as that's one of the few genres that's really lacking on the Switch and I've been craving something that can scratch that itch and isn't an anime arena fighter. If it's 2.5D I'll probably pass as I've already got plenty of options for that already purchased.

I must be the only person in the world who played the hell out of the Game Boy original but never tried the N64 or GameCube games. Looking forward to giving this one a shot.

@ReaperMelia I'd say it's almost a certainty that all NGPC games that have been released individually since the last collection came out, including the Mega Man game, will be included on this collection. That's how it worked last time, which was annoying because I had already shelled out for SNK Gals' Fighter without knowing a collection was coming.

I played through both of these, though I had to use an emulator for Spirit Tracks because the microphone on my DS just straight up wouldn't work and it's 100% necessary to progress in the game. Even without that inconvenience, I think Spirit Tracks was the worst mainline Zelda game and Phantom Hourglass wasn't far behind. They both had some interesting ideas though and to be honest I'd love to see them get the Link's Awakening Switch remake treatment. I think the best way to fix the games in a remake (aside from taking out any microphone requirements) would be to make them feel less "on rails" (no pun intended). Make the ship in Phantom Hourglass move freely instead of following lines you draw on the map, make the trains in Spirit Tracks a fast travel mechanic rather than the only way to traverse the overworld. A few relatively small changes and suddenly the games are much better.

Nice, three of the four games are actually new to the Switch, only one that was already in the Genesis Classics collection. That's what I'm really looking for from Sega Genesis NSO, unique games that I don't already have from retro collections that I bought early in the Switch's lifetime.

"Hopefully, the first two games will launch beforehand so we can all catch up with the story!"
What do you mean, first two. Curse and Escape deserve more respect and I never actually played Tales. Bring me a complete collection.

I think there will be a direct soonish but I think the big announcements will be a Zelda rerelease and Game Boy games added to NSO. They've been trying to release a Zelda related game every year, BOTW2 has been delayed, porting over Wind Waker or Twilight Princess HD would be an easy way to keep up the yearly release schedule. As for the Game Boy games, we've only got one more previously announced N64 game to go and to be totally honest that system didn't have a particularly massive library so, while I expect we'll continue to get occasional N64 drops, I think bringing in Game Boy and GBA games would be an easier way to stretch out the drip feed. I think Pokemon Snap will be added to N64 NSO, and then they'll bring in the Game Boy games.

I could see these being rolled out sometime after the previously announced N64 titles have all actually been added to the service. I believe there are still two, Pokemon Snap and Kirby 64 that have been announced but not added. I'm sure we'll continue to see N64 games added after that but to be honest the N64 didn't have a particularly big library so I think the drops will slow down quite a bit. Dipping into the absolutely massive Game Boy, GBC, and GBA libraries would be an easy way to keep up the drip feed once the popular N64 games start to run out.

I won't buy this one individually but if SNK follows the same pattern with their previous NGPC games of releasing several individually before dropping a collection, I'll probably pick up the collection.

This is cool, especially the N64 part, not gonna lie though, kind of disappointed that only 3 of the Genesis games aren't already on my Switch through either the Genesis Classics, Castlevania, or Contra collections.