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Nintendo Switch Online is insufficient in many ways. People now have to pay to play online games, like Splatoon 2, when they were able to do it for free before. The lack of messaging, grouping, or voice chat features within the actual system (instead of relying on a cumbersome smartphone app for these essential features) is disconcerting. The backups are nice, but we should have had them free from the start.
Xbox Live and PlayStation Network offer these things and they have been around for years. Sure, they cost more ($ 60 a year versus $ 20 a year for Switch), but it's worth it for things like, for example, chatting online. But at least Nintendo Switch Online's $ 20 a year gives you access to a good hub for NES games. But even that requires improvements.
The new Nintendo Entertainment System application provides access to 20 games of Nintendo's classic 8-bit system. The hub is attractive and efficient, and has the basic features expected (record states) and surprising online multiplayer support for games that previously required local gaming.
Above: It's a nice hub.
Image Credit: Nintendo
As a replacement for the old virtual console system, this feature has many advantages. It is convenient to have a single hub for all these games, the user interface is friendly and pretty, and it is much cheaper than having to buy all these games separately. On the Virtual Console, you paid $ 5 for each NES game. Here you get 20 as part of your $ 20 subscription, and Nintendo adds three new games each month.
Unfortunately, the 20 games are not an ideal starting library. You have some of the big hits, like Super Mario Bros. 3 and The Legend of Zelda. But others are missing, especially the Mega Man and Castlevania series. The starting lineup also has a disproportionate number of sports games: Tecmo Bowl, Pro Wrestling, Baseball, Ice Hockey, Tennis and Soccer. These games range from fun to OK, but it's hard for more than a quarter of the app's selections to be sporty.
Others are arcade-type experiences, including Donkey Kong, Mario Bros and Balloon Fight. They are fun, but they lack the depth of the best games of the NES. You can not bother playing them more than once. Compared to something like The Legend of Zelda, sports and arcade games are making themselves felt. Some in the library are nice, but they should not be half.
We can compare this starting range with the 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition. This 2017 micro-console came with more high-quality titles, including Mega Man 2, Castlevania and Kirby's Adventure.
Above: you are now playing with power.
Image Credit: Nintendo
Nintendo will continue to add games to the Switch Online service, but it will be slow. We will have three new NES games per month. This pace will not be enough to maintain interest in the application. And we do not know when Nintendo will launch into other consoles. Nintendo 64 or GameCube games, for example, would be more interesting because these systems have no counterparts. The same goes for portable platforms such as Game Boy and Game Boy Advance.
When it comes to online multiplayer support, that's fine. It's new to play this old game with friends outside of your home. But the feature is blocked by Nintendo's weird lack of chat and chat features on the Switch. If you want to play a NES game with a friend, you have to organize it outside the Switch (via the Nintendo smartphone application or the chat service like Discord). In addition, the service had a default enabled mode that produced unprecedented latency. This made the games unplayable until I turned it off.
This NES game is the only part of the Nintendo Switch Online experience that inspires enthusiasm. Everything else, compared to what Sony and Microsoft have been doing for years, feels inferior. But if you want to play major online multiplayer games, like Splatoon 2 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, you need it. And that's the real purpose of these retro games. It hurts the bites of $ 20.
But retro games should be more than consolation prizes. Nintendo has created a good platform for classics with this application. It only remains for him to decide to go there, and he will have a service superior to the old virtual console.
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