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 Itch.io Collection #5

It’s been a while since I last did one of these! I figured I would do one to fill in while I make my way through larger games that take longer to finish.

Last month, I spent an entire week re-making the list of games in my collection over on itch.io, because I felt the original was incomplete and I wanted to make it feel right. The result? Well, instead of about 800, I actually have 1269 games to check out. That’s without counting the 80 I covered last year, or the other 26 I already had on Steam and which I have either already played or will play in the future, for a grand total of 1375 games. …I know, that’s a lot. And more than 500 of them don’t have recorded times on HowLongToBeat.

Most of today’s article was written last year. I added to it after every super-short game I played. A few of the ones covered here, though, have been played this past week. I can’t promise to cover 80 games like this once again in 2026, but any progress will be good. Especially with those revised numbers.

As stated in the Index, I have this page where anyone can see the games I have already tested on the platform. You can always go back to it to see how much progress I’ve made in that collection, or which games are coming up in the next article. I still include a link to every game I discuss here, since I am giving visibility to everything I cover in these articles, and you can go check out each one. Even if I didn’t like one of them, you can go check it out for yourself; maybe YOU will enjoy it!

Experiences

Can I at least get a glass of water to help that
block of brick and sand down?

The Indifferent Wonder of an Edible Place: In the fashion of taking a metaphorical image for a real issue and making it literal, in this game you are someone who eats buildings to make them disappear. This is accompanied, and inspired, by a poem from 1960, translated to English in 1983, about the historical erasure done by the state of Bombay. In the game itself, you are told to eat specific numbered pieces of a large tower. If you don’t eat the correct piece, your character gets poisoned and is incapacitated for a moment. You can use the scope with the right-click button to figure out where the next “correct” piece is. Either way, this is history you’re making disappear, with no way to get it back.

If you see a giant green eye under war trenches, I think you
may be suffering from something worse than PTSD.

Please follow: A walking simulator/horror/puzzle combo in which you play a lone soldier venturing into the tunnels dug by the enemies and find… something. Deeper into the tunnel, there are puzzles involving worms, giant leeches, and other supernatural stuff. This short exploration ends with a freaky acid trip. The game’s look is very “early 3D” of video games (think N64 or PS1), the sound design grossed me out the entire way through, and the visuals…. Jesus, that’s freaky. It’s horror alright.

Donkey Kong Country Returns

If there’s a Nintendo platforming franchise I’ve seldom discussed, it’s Donkey Kong Country. I’ve only ever played the very first game, on the SNES, and even wrote a quick “Gaming Memories” article about it some time ago. The two sequels? I’ve never played them, though I know they are available among the Nintendo Classics, and so are all the Donkey Kong Land games for Game Boy consoles. DK 64? Also never played, but I heard a lot about it (as well as all the ways that fans improved its system on emulators). Anything else? Well, I could talk about the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, but the plumber has no business stealing the spotlight today.

This series returned on the Wii. Developed by Retro Studios (instead of Rare, obviously) and released on November 21st, 2010 in North America, this entry sees a return to playing with both DK and his buddy Diddy Kong as a new villain rises on their island. Notably, this game had a port for Nintendo 3DS released in 2013, and an HD rerelease for the Switch in January 2025; today, I am covering the Wii game.

Tiki Threat

Oh, that's a big one. Good. It'll just be more satisfying to
break it into pieces at the end.

A normal day on Kong Island is interrupted by the eruption of its volcano. Out of the bubbling lava come large rocks that break, revealing tiki monsters that instantly cool down in the open air. Along with them, a gigantic tiki monster appears from the depths of the volcano. The deity instantly requests a tribute to appease him. The tikis get to work, hypnotizing the island fauna to do their bidding. They direct the animals to steal… what else? Donkey Kong’s banana hoard, of course!

Gaming Memories: Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland

Haven't done one of these in a while. I probably could have done one last week. Oh well!

Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland

NES

April 1993 (NA)

I recall mentioning before that when I got my NES, long ago, it was at a garage sale with many games included, at a steal of a price. I have a somewhat decent memory of which games came with it, but some I'm not quite as sure about. Like today's game. Was it part of the package? Did I purchase it later because I recognized those faces on the cartridge? I can't quite remember.

And to their credit, the Tiny Toons are very recognizable. I usually hear more about Animaniacs when it comes to WB's cartoons of that era, but the show is definitely up there in terms of nostalgia. It was just fun to see kid Toons inspired by the more famous, adult Tunes, going through the same slapstick, with personality tweaks. The franchise, of course, had its own video games.

Developed by Konami and released in April 1993 in North America, Tiny Toon Adventures 2: Trouble in Wackyland is set in an amusement park that just opened. Every ride is a stage, and you play a different character in each one of them. Plucky Duck is in the bumper car ride, being attacked by bullies; Hampton is on a train; Babs Bunny is on a dangerous rollercoaster; and Furrball is riding the log flume, while he is being attacked by frogs and birds. Classic parkgoing experience, really.

Each ride costs a number of regular tickets to be entered; in turn, you can collect regular tickets while going through each stage. Clearing a stage grants the team a Golden Ticket; you must collect all four in order to unlock the fifth and final stage, the Funhouse, a creepy castle with gravity-defying features visited by Buster Bunny. Alternately, if you keep failing to collect the Golden Tickets, you can keep playing the stages to collect points then trade them for regular tickets, since collecting 50 tickets also opens the Funhouse.

I have fond memories of this one because, although it was short, it was fairly challenging. There was just enough variety in its gameplay to stay fresh; the bumper cars are a non-platformer level. Other stages have their own quirks, like the roller coaster ride having a mechanic where you can "flip" the platform Babs in on, making her hang from it in order to avoid certain hazards. I do not actually recall beating the final boss, Montana Max, but I do remember beating every other stage at least once and getting there. Itt's enjoyable, it's sweet, and also, the sprites are just so damn cute­.

Movie Review: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

Hmmm... Okay. The sequel to 2023's Super Mario Bros. Movie has come out in theaters. Once again produced by Illumination Studios, this entry expands massively the universe that first got a proper introduction in the previous film. However, for as much as this movie tries to be a continuation, I think its scope reaches too wide, and that hurts it as a result. But! I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Story

The movie opens on Rosalina (Brie Larson), the princess of the cosmos, who takes in her little Lumas for bedtime. However, before she can read them a story, the Comet Observatory they live on is attacked by the Koopa Troop. Despite her best efforts in protecting the Lumas (and showing crazy powerful magic, at that), Rosalina and a lone Luma end up taken away by the attackers.

Meanwhile, Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) have made a name for themselves as plumbers and general problem-solvers across many Kingdoms. One day, while helping in the Desert Kingdom, they find a lone Yoshi (Donald Glover, yes really) that adopts them as friends. The Toads are celebrating the day they found Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), treating it with the same importance as if it were her birthday; and Mario can't seem able to admit that he has feelings for the Princess. The group also kept the miniaturized Bowser (Jack Black), who has taken residence into a mini-castle. The Koopa King tries his best to get along with his captors.

During the celebrations, a rain of Star Bits falls across the Mushroom Kingdom, and a Luma crashes in the mushroom forest. Investigating, Mario and his friends find the poor thing and after recovering, it says that Princess Rosalina is in danger. Without knowledge of what is happening in space, the Bros. first opt not to get involved; but Peach decides to, and leaves to space with Toad (Keegan-Michael Key), using the Luma as a launch star.