You must play this sci-fi western for free on Nintendo Switch as soon as possible

1995 saw a radical change in video game consoles, both in their appearance and in the type of games they have played. The fifth generation of consoles was launched in North America, including the original Sony Playstation and the Sega Saturn. Nintendo was preparing for the future with the upcoming Nintendo 64, and getting rid of the past with the shutdown of the original NES system. This left Super Nintendo in a sticky situation – on the one hand, the developers were making games as good as ever for a system they were familiar with. On the other, who wanted to play yesterday’s system?

If Super Nintendo had truly become yesterday’s console, a game exploring the craziest possible version of history would be a great fit. And Wild weapons, an almost forgotten shooter gallery game, does the trick.

If you are a paid Nintendo Switch Online member, you can play Wild weapons now for free by downloading the Super Nintendo Entertainment System app.

Like many Super Nintendo games, Wild weapons was done in a hurry. Looking back in a 2013 interview, creator Shunichi Taniguchi said his boss at Natsume, his Tokyo-based game developer, “told us to develop a new game with two conditions: quickly and inexpensively.” The game was made in five months with a team of three, but is bursting with creativity.

Inspired by the late 70s to mid 80s space adventure manga Cobra and spaghetti westerns like The good the bad and the ugly, Wild weapons stars two main characters, Clint and Annie. The original instruction manual covers the plot of the game, where Annie’s family seeks revenge on the Kid family and Clint is her hired space bounty hunter.

There isn’t a substantial difference between the two, other than a few different animations (Clint brings out a lever for the bombs while Annie throws hers in the air), but I found playing with Annie to be rewarding. Beyond a few characters like Samus from Super Metroid and Terra Branford from Final Fantasy III, there aren’t many main female characters in SNES games. While the game itself doesn’t offer a lot of intrigue or dialogue, seeing her make her way through the endless waves is gratifying.

Despite its title, the shot is only one aspect of Wild weapons. I spent my first few attempts focusing on my guns, but I was quickly dying over and over again, my screen fading into an old gray. The goal of Wild weapons is not to kill most enemies, but to survive them. Once I started jumping and jumping around the screen twice, dodging their bullet targets and listening to Annie’s calls to “Watch out!” I started living a little longer. , although frequent use of Switch Online’s rewind button is still helpful.

It was worth it, because the enemies of Wild weapons are something to see. They start out as standard cowboys and robotic destruction cabinets, but they get more and more random. There’s a typical non-western guy with a knife trying to stab you. There’s a man dressed in a leopard print hooping over a moving robot train, and the hula hoop shoots frigid circular explosions that leave your character vulnerable to attack.

What are these people doing in a western space? It’s hard to say, but the real surprise I felt upon seeing them, then the sudden rush of having to dodge their attacks, was a roller coaster of emotions.

Looking back, Taniguchi says that the Wild weapons The team still “thought it was the golden age” of Super Nintendo, not really concerned with what would quickly come down the pike. At its best, the Wild weapons screen is a series of constant explosions, from dynamite to robots, and it’s hard to predict where it will go next. But it makes you want to know it.