Nintendo Switch Online: five "free" games coming soon

Nintendo Switch Online: five free games coming soon

Nintendo Switch Online

While subscribing to Nintendo Switch Online allows you to play certain titles online (Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, and more recently Super Mario Party), it also offers access to a catalog of NES and SNES games, at no additional cost. There are essentials from both consoles. Indeed, among the 54 NES games available, we find Mario Bros or Ghosts'n Goblins. For its part, the SNES has 41 titles, also containing pearls such as Donkey Kong Country or The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

In a video posted on Youtube, Nintendo announces the arrival on May 26 of four SNES titles as well as one NES title. Here is the list:

Caveman Ninja is a platform game set in the Stone Age. The player plays there a Cro-magnon man tasked with rescuing the women of his clan, kidnapped by a rival tribe. Magical Drop 2: a puzzle-game where you just have to assemble bubbles of the same color to make them disappear. The game features a story mode with 10 different characters. Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 is the sequel to Baseball Simulator 1.000 released on NES. It's a baseball simulation, where the different leagues (American, Japanese and European) each have teams whose members have superhuman powers. Spanky’s Quest is a platform game. Locked in a tower without his knowledge, he must climb each floor of the building to escape. Ninja JaJaMaru-kun is an action / platform game. The player embodies the ninja Jajamaru, responsible for delivering Princess Sakura. To do so, he must defeat various enemies from Japanese folklore such as youkai, but also specters and pirates. In addition, Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War will be available to all owners of a Japanese online switch account. Its absence from the European catalog is explained by the absence of an official translation of the game, the title having only been released in Japan.

As a reminder, there are different subscriptions to Nintendo Switch Online: a monthly (€ 3.99), quarterly (€ 7.99) and annual (€ 19.99) subscription.






Nintendo Switch Online reaches more than 100 retro games

background pattern © Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nintendo has hit a milestone with the ever-growing library of retro games included in its Nintendo Switch Online service. The next batch will take the number of available games past 100, with five new titles resulting in a total of 104.


In keeping with recent form, the latest additions are, well, not necessarily blockbuster releases. Here’s the list:

  • Caveman Ninja: Joe & Mac, a prehistoric action game released in arcades and ported to the SNES by Data East in 1991
  • Magical Drop 2, a 1996 Data East puzzle game for the SNES that was originally on the Neo Geo but never previously got a Western release
  • Super Baseball Simulator 1.000, a SNES baseball game released by Culture Brain in 1991
  • Spanky’s Quest, a 1991 SNES action game by Natsume about a monkey with a magic bubble
  • Ninja JaJaMaru-kun, a popular Jaleco NES action game released in 1985; it was only ever released in Japan but did come to the Wii Virtual Console around the world in 2007
  • So no, still no Earthbound.


    Nintendo is, of course, constrained in what it can release on the service for various reasons including licensing issues, and it is cool to see some more obscure titles get spotlighted. But it’s clear that there isn’t much left in the NES and SNES pipeline, and it’d be a good time for the company to start thinking about perhaps moving on to the N64 — especially now that Super Mario 3D All-Stars (which includes Super Mario 64) has been removed from sale forever.


    Until that hypothetical possibility transpires, you’ll be able to play the five new games when they’re added to the service on May 26th. Nintendo Switch Online costs $3.99 a month or $19.99 a year.