Exploring the Switch's Nintendo Classics #4

Been a while since I last did one of these as well! It took me this long because, in-between reviews of other games, I could hardly find the time to play stuff from the Nintendo Classics service; however, I think I’ve found a system that could help me with that.

Before I start this article, I guess I might take this introduction to explain a thing or two: For starters, all I have is the classic Switch, not the sequel console released in 2025. As a result, while I do try to go through the games available on Nintendo Classics, I do not have access to the GameCube games that were announced for the Switch 2 exclusively. This also extends to whichever games on other consoles require a mouse to play, like Mario Paint. (Not that there are many of those.)

In the same vein, Nintendo began releasing Virtual Boy titles to the service in February 2026. I am very tempted to try these as well, and since many of these are short, they will fit perfectly in articles like the one here. However, I am told that they will work much better with a headset currently on sale. I do think I will be better off playing those games with the necessary equipment! Therefore, I’ll skip these for now and put them on the backburner. It’s not like I’ve got a shortage of Nintendo Classics games to cover anyway!

I was in a bit of a hurry to get this article ready for publication, so instead of waiting to have enough entries from just one console, here you have a pot-pourri of games from almost all the consoles that are part of the service. And just like my other collections, any progress is better than nothing!

Enjoy!

The NES

That is, indeed, baseball.

Baseball: I’m still not done with sport games! This game was one more of the console’s launch titles, and is about as straightforward as can be for an 8bit representation of the sport. Pitcher pitches, batter hits the ball, team on the field hurries to get the ball and throw it while the batter runs around the diamond. I’ll admit that I know little about baseball (most of my gaming experience with baseball is… Mario Super Sluggers). And this game explains very little, so I know the basics of the sport, but I was left to figure out the controls on my own. I did poorly at this one. While I can say there’s a few NES sports games I would come back to, this isn’t one of them. I can still appreciate that its release at the console’s launch helped further boost the NES’s popularity in North America.

Exploring the Switch's Nintendo Classics #3

I'm still working towards the next major review, so in the meantime, I'm taking today for another review of games I played on the Nintendo Classics. This time, I'm doing something different; two different consoles! Today, we're starting on known ground with the SNES, and then moving on to games from a console I've never played, the Sega Genesis!

The SNES: Fighters

I found out there was an undercurrent I hadn't heard about from the SNES era: The massive success of Street Fighter II Turbo led to a swath of copycats trying to hit the same level of fame by repeating the formula. But it's like I said a while ago: "If you follow the leader, you stay behind them". I bet you haven't heard of these games!

I mean, it does look a lot like Street Fighter II...

Fighter’s History: Developed by Data East, first released in arcades in 1993, then for the SNES in 1994. Play as one of nine fighters from around the world, each with their own reason to be in this competition; and learn to use your moves against each opponent. This game reminds me of Street Fighter II Turbo in terms of setting; it does try to set itself apart with new mechanics, however. One such mechanic is the “weak point” system, where you can temporarily stun a fighter once per round by hitting their weak point. But with that aside, it didn’t feel too revolutionary or special on its own – in fact, it looks so much like Street Fighter that Capcom sued Data East over it, though Data East won the suit by claiming that several elements in their game were inevitable for the genre.

Oh yeah, that's not Ryu at all.

Tuff E Nuff: Another trend-chasing “clone”, released in 1993 and featuring only four fighters. In 2151, the world is in shambles after an apocalyptic war. Something about one powerful guy rising above all others using technology and becoming like a god, and setting up a worldwide tournament to find the strongest among the survivors… I guess. Anyway, you can only play as one of four different characters, going up against the other three as well as seven additional opponents in Story Mode. It’s… well, if we put aside the stupid story and the lack of playable characters, this one just doesn’t catch my interest at all. It fares even worse than Fighter’s History.

Quick Review: Three Heroes

No thanks, I stopped at two heroes. I just… I just couldn’t.

Boars, wolves, bandits... the usual, really.

A creation from Cats Who Play released on September 17th, 2015, Three Heroes (often known as Fairy Tales: Three Heroes) is the story of Alesha, Dobrynya and Ilya, the titular characters. After their original years of heroism, the three grew apart. Alesha is one day assaulted by bandits at home. After he kills all of them but one, the last opens up about thievery having grown completely rampant in the area. There are more troubles further, there’s even talk of some sort of sea monster attacking people in the east! And Novgorod is being assaulted from two sides! …Okay, this is a very Russian game, I see. Not that a game’s geographical origins has anything to do with its quality.

Get yourself ready, 'cause you're gonna fight a lot of
enemies.

You start with Alesha, the archer. You later gain Dobrynya, who wields the handle of a spear to beat down enemies with; and, at last, Ilya, who has the classic sword and shield getup. Characters move with WASD, can turn with Q and E, attack with the left mouse button, and use special moves with the right button. You can switch to a different hero at will once they’re unlocked (pressing F1 for Ilya, F2 for Dobrynya, F3 for Alesha). The characters you don’t control will follow the one you play as, but you can ask them to stay in one place by pressing C, or make them run back to your hero with Z. You can focus on a specific opponent with the tab key. Need help? Open the advice menu with G! Finally, you can use items by pressing Enter and move between items with the [ and ] keys.

Okay, okay... shooting multiple arrows at once? Sure.
We can also steal stronger bows from enemies, that's cool.

You can open the special moves menu with T, and switch between special moves with the number keys (1 to 7). The game includes an EXP and level-up system, and each level grants a skill point to be used to unlock a new move or upgrade one that was already unlocked. All moves can be upgraded to up to three stars, which boosts their attack power, efficiency, and often reduces their cost in Heroic resolve points (a gauge that takes a moment to refill). Some moves can be practical outside of battle, like Dobrynya’s pole vault, which lets him jump over water.

Pole vault! And no horizontal bar to smash against!

Do I even need a spear? Just the stick beats down everything
in Dobrynya's way!

Now, onto gameplay proper! The game is split into maps. Like a long stage, each map has story quests that must be completed to progress, and side-quests that can yield rewards. On the first map, Alesha helps a traveling merchant whose guards ran off in fear after they were attacked, first by retrieving said guards, and then attacking the bandits’ camp as a team. Then he meets Dobrynya, and on the second map, they rescue villagers taken as captives by more bandits. This ploy involves poisoning the thieves’ well to weaken them, and using their own traps against them. It's a decent idea to make each hero’s unique skills necessary for progression, and strategizing can be useful against hordes of enemies.

Yeah, we aren't playing Hawkere or Greeen Arrow here.

But here’s where things go downhill. For starters, combat could have been refined. Alesha’s archery fucking sucks, and the further away an opponent is, the more his so-called skill comes down to sheer dumb luck and hoping you hit. Aiming is for losera, apparently. You can focus on that enemy alright; doesn’t help the aim, though! The first skill you unlock for him does allow you to aim for a specific spot, but the game’s hitboxes are so screwed up that even with that crosshair, you can still miss.

The crosshair does help. But still.

Okay, fine. Seeing bandits get tossed around can be
satisfying. They deserve it, anyway.

The game does NOT save automatically; you must press Esc, open the save menu, save, then come back. And if even one of your three heroes dies, it’s Game Over; go back to the last save point. I started saving obsessively to ensure I wouldn't lose the smallest bit of progress. And I was right to do this, because on several occasions, I got a Game Over for no apparent reason! This was fun, especially when it made me lose ten minutes of progress because I wasn’t yet saving at every hundred feet walked! And, oh yeah – if you don’t carefully follow the plot as it is requested (ex. If you go someplace you weren’t supposed to, or fail to execute a specific action), that can ALSO trigger a sudden Game Over.

I can't show you a screenshot of when the game crashed, since
I had to log out to undo it. Instead, have this memory of me
doing a side-quest and then dying due to failing to jump
over water on bthe way back, having to restart the previous
10 minutes. Fun. /s

But the death blow was the game working fine for an hour at a time, and then crashing afterwards. Badly, at that, superimposing its final frame over my entire computer screen, impossible to dislodge even with the task manager, and forcing me to literally log out and back into my session to make the damn thing disappear. Good freaking thing that OBS saved my playthroughs even when it had to get turned off by force like this! I quit trying to give this one a chance before I even met the third hero, Ilya.

Honestly? Don’t play this one. It had decent ideas, gameplay-wise, and felt overall promising. I like the possibility of following three heroes and switching between them, even if the plot is weak and the characters speak like their lines were shoddily translated from Russian to English. I could have taken that. But the saving issues, the sudden deaths, the constant bothers, the utter jank of controls and aiming, and of course the crashing… yep. I REALLY don’t recommend this one.

…But hey, if you want to risk it anyway, it’s cheap. Three Heroes is available on Steam for 3.99$ USD.

Asterix & Obelix XXL: Romastered

"Netflix? Never heard of him. Is he from Lutecia? Is he
a distant cousin of Danceremix? Or Pockystix?"

I am a huge fan of the Asterix series. Up here in Quebec, that franchise is such a part of our collective nostalgia that its movies are the must-watch non-Christmas movies around Christmas. I won't defend all of them, some of the older stories and movies haven't aged well. But the franchise is still alive and kicking, even getting a full CGI series released on Netflix on April 30th this year! Even the new books have kept their flair, lampooning modern events.

There are many Asterix video games out there, though if you’re American you may not have heard of most of them due to the series being much more popular everywhere else. Today’s game is Asterix and Obelix XXL: Romastered (also available on GOG), released on October 22nd, 2020 for PS4, XBOne, PC and Switch, and a remaster of a game from 2004 originally released on PS2, GameCube, PC and GBA. This one is more of a platformer, so let’s see how that goes!

Village in Peril

Free knuckle sandwiches for every Roman!

After a day hunting wild boars in the forest, Asterix and Obelix return to a village invaded by Romans and all the villagers gone! One weird guy at the entrance, wearing a Gaul mustache and Roman robes, claims he's a former spy for Julius Caesar who has chosen to help the Gauls. He knows Caesar’s secrets, and will help the two. The villagers have been sent to other places conquered by Rome.

You play as both Asterix and Obelix, but you don’t choose which one you play at any specific moment; most of the time, you’ll be Asterix, unless the situation requires Obelix’s permanent enhanced strength. Base controls on PC: Moving around with WASD, moving the camera with the arrows, and attacking with E. Dash forward with F, or grab a stunned Roman with R and use him to hit other enemies. You can press X to send Dogmatix out to bite an enemy's ass, stunning them.

The game is as classic an early 2000s platformer as can be; jump around, defeat enemies, collect “money”, find hidden secrets. Alright, let’s explain these one at a time. Jump around, well, both Asterix and Obelix can double jump.

In all fairness, it would be weirder if this was an early-00s
platformer where the characters DON'T double jump.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game - Complete Edition

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim series is one most people know of, though not everyone may know about its finer details. It’s fair to call it a franchise, too; six graphic novels originally released from 2004 to 2010, an animated short, a movie (which I reviewed), and an anime series released on Netflix (which I haven’t seen). It’s got enough of a following to get revived every couple years in some way, shape or form. Every iteration tells the story in a slightly different manner.

Alongside the movie came an associated beat’em-up video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released to the PlayStation Network on August 10th, 2010 in North America and the next day in PAL regions, then to Xbox Live Arcade two weeks later. While the game is well-known, its claim to fame – or, should I say, to infamy – was its delisting from both digital platforms on December 30th, 2014 due to the license expiring at Universal. Thus, despite its association to a popular franchise, the beat’em-up could not be played at all, and would remain in that state for several years.

…until time came to celebrate the movie’s tenth anniversary in 2020, and efforts were made from both O’Malley and the film’s director Edgar Wright to rescue the game from purgatory, while we’re at it. Talks with Ubisoft led to interest, and so in September that year Ubisoft announced a remaster for release to several more digital platforms (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One and Stadia – lol, that last one is dead already). Even better, a deal was made with Limited Run Games, which specializes in creating and distributing physical formats of games, usually indie and/or only available digitally. The remaster, both on digital and physical formats, was released in January 2021.

I found the Nintendo Switch physical edition at a convention and practically threw my cash at the seller. I knew of this game’s tumultuous history, and I wanted to own a copy. Alongside the cartridge came a free shiny trading card, an alternate box art, an old-school SNES-style instruction booklet small enough to fit in the box, and a “concert ticket” for The Clash at Demonhead with opening act Sex Bob-Omb at Leo’s Place. Feelies, we have feelies, there’s something so nice about those.

Now that this is all out of the way, I can talk about the game!

Brawl Across Toronto

"Hey, are you a 1-Up? 'cause you give me a new life."
Note: Playthroughs I'using for screenshots can be seen
here, here and here.