Nintendo Switch Online - NES games, and the countless other features

[Kelvin]

Thought I'd make a dedicated thread for any discussion about the online service, and as a place to discuss the NES games they continue to release. 

Despite my initial belief that almost all the games were rubbish, I've now played through quite a few of them (using save states), and have a few more thoughts on them. They've also just added a few new games today, including a bizarre "Special Edition" of the original Zelda which consists of nothing but a save state made after collecting a few items, to act as an easy mode. This version literally starts with Link shooting a "sword beam", because after gathering all the items, that's where they've saved it, and gone "that'll do". Secret passages in the overworld are revealed, too, so it is a genuinely good place for people to start, if they can't be arsed with the more trial and error approach of the original game.   

That said, I've actually played through the proper version of Zelda 1 for the first time ever on Switch Online, and honestly, it's miles better than I ever gave it credit for. It's nowhere near as confusing or hard to navigate as I assumed it would be, and there are very few puzzles which I couldn't solve myself, following in-game hints, or brief experimentation. More than any other game on the service, I feel like I've done Zelda a disservice by rashly assuming it had aged itself out of being fun, based on a few incredibly brief attempts to play it over the years. In fact, the game is genuinely liberating in how it approaches exploration, discovery and puzzle solving, and it's really obvious to me now how far head of other games it was for it's time.

[madhair60]

Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and 3 remain excellent. They need to get 2 on there.

[Kelvin]

Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and 3 remain excellent. They need to get 2 on there.

I still don't think 1 is that great by modern standards. I just don't like how Mario controls in that game.

No idea why 2 is missing. I assume they're holding it back for next year, for whatever reason.

[madhair60]

I love it, the inertia. High skill ceiling innit. I can clock that game in five minutes and feel like a god. It's literally perfect!

Have you tried Gradius?

[Kelvin]

Have you tried Gradius?

Yes. Once I accepted that I was going to enjoy playing the games far more with save states*, I started playthroughs of basically all the games that weren't puzzlers or sports titles. Gradius is one I haven't finished yet, but I'm enjoying it a lot. The upgrade system is fun, and it controls really well. It's comfortably one of the better games on there, right now. 

*I would have never gotten past the twin volcanoes, otherwise.

[Mango Chimes]

Oh, Solomon's Key. That's actually good, isn't it? The Gameboy one was, anyway. The NES one, by the fact it's on here, is presumably shit.

Gradius is a broken game. The upgrade system is fucked.

[Kelvin]

Gradius is a broken game. The upgrade system is fucked.

Probably if I played it properly. As it is, I'm playing most of the games with saves states, so that I can push my way past the cheap deaths most of these games throw at you. Once I accepted that the games weren't meant to be beatable on a first or even twentieth playthrough, I felt far less guilty about just skipping the looping levels (Double Dragon), or the pop in (Ghouls n Goblins), or the completely unpredictable attacks (Gradius' volcanoes), and just enjoyed the core experience of playing each of them a lot more. Played that way, seeing how long I can go without saving, I find the games far more enjoyable.     

[madhair60]

Gradius is a broken game. The upgrade system is fucked.

You're a broken person. Your upgrade system is never fucked. Gradius is important.

[Mango Chimes]

You're a broken person. Your upgrade system is never fucked. Gradius is important.

Nevertheless...

[The Boston Crab]

I love shmups but Gradius is a bit mild for me, quite hard in an old fashioned way and ultimately no excitement.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Does this subscription do anything other than give access to NES games? Because if that's all it is I'd feel inclined to tell them to get fucked after the heavy-handed way they've been treating abandonware sites.

[Kelvin]

Does this subscription do anything other than give access to NES games? Because if that's all it is I'd feel inclined to tell them to get fucked after the heavy-handed way they've been treating abandonware sites.

Well, you can't play online games without it, so it depends whether you play many of them, really.

[Twed]

The confusing thing being that you previously could play the online games for free. One of the features of the service launching was taking away that freeness. Good stuff.

[Kelvin]

The confusing thing being that you previously could play the online games for free. One of the features of the service launching was taking away that freeness. Good stuff.

They did always say the free online was only a grace period, in fairness. It's just hard to let people do something for free for that long and then charge for it, with no obvious improvement in the service.

That said, I don't thing their service is good enough to be charging anything, really; it's peer to peer, has no (decent) voicechat, and cloud saves should probably be free. I just think they've chosen the only price point they can get away with.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The same level of service has been free since the Wii though.

[Kelvin]

The same level of service has been free since the Wii though.

Yes. I think for them to justify charging for it, they needed to at least allow mod cons like voice chat, friend messaging, actual multiplayer servers, etc, or at least a much wider selection of classic games to play. As it stands, the service is still incredibly limited.

[Sebastian Cobb]

One of my mates reckons one of the reasons it is so limited is to stop things that happen on xbox/psn, ie parents going mental because little jimmy get's called the n-word by some edgy 14 year old.

[Kelvin]

I wonder if this has been a bit of a flop for Nintendo. I just got an ad for it on youtube, which seemed a bit odd two months after release.

[The Boston Crab]

I expect they'll be pushing it all through Chrimbo. Seems like a shitload of players online in everything I was playing before the launch, and stuff like Dragonball FighterZ and Dark Souls are doing really well, packed with players. The actual NES stuff though is probably tanking.

[Kelvin]

I've actually played the nes games much more than I expected. I'm using save states to grind my way through games like ghouls and ghosts and Gradius at the mo.

[Mango Chimes]

Oh, Solomon's Key. That's actually good, isn't it? The Gameboy one was, anyway. The NES one, by the fact it's on here, is presumably shit.

It is shit. Even using save states, about ten levels in it becomes grindingly unfair.

[Kelvin]

It is shit. Even using save states, about ten levels in it becomes grindingly unfair.

Thats true of most of these games, in hindsight. I knew Ghouls and Ghosts was notoriously hard, but I hadn't realised quite how stupidly unfair it was. Even using save states, it's a nightmare at points  Gradius and double dragon, too.

Funnily enough, I had always assumed Zelda 1 was an obtuse game, but playing it through properly for the first time, I honestly think it's one of the easiest games on the console, easier even than Mario 1. It doesn't boost the difficulty with cheap enemy spawns or ridiculous attacks, for a start*. Even then Nintendo had a quality and polish that other developers lacked.

*Not talking about Mario 1 here, obviously.