Exploring the Nintendo Switch Online #1

Near the end of 2024, I started toying with the idea of getting a subscription to the Nintendo Switch Online and covering the games in there. It’s not like I don’t have a ton of games to discuss already, but this could allow me to expand a bit more. It’s also a way to give me stuff to talk about again, as I’m starting to see a potential end to regular Quick Reviews, as the games I’ve got yet to cover are getting longer and I might need to find an alternative eventually. So hey, why not these instead? That could work, right?

Every month since the start of the year, I played a few games from the list, starting from the quickest and working my way up. Many of the quickest games are so short or have so little content that I wouldn’t feel right having an article just for them; so instead, I’ll discuss them in catch-all articles! A lot of the quickest games here can be finished in under an hour. So, I’m going to start with the quickest, and record my thoughts here. Don’t expect in-depth reviews at first – just a paragraph will do. However, as I progress through that collection, I’ll do larger articles. Eventually, I will indeed turn these into Quick Reviews. But for now, the games are too short for this.

And, bonus, I have enough done to occupy a week when I don't have other reviews ready.

I've collected three months' worth of paragraphs on games, and so I decided to focus on those from a single console today: The Nintendo Entertainment System, the one that didn't quite start it all (so much more came before it), but was truly the beginning of Nintendo's meteoric rise in fame.

The Kong Games

Danger! Construction zone! (And ape, too.)

Donkey Kong: Ah, the classic! The game that featured Mario before he was Mario, rescuing his girlfriend of the time, Pauline. Only three levels, you probably know them already: The ladders and the barrels, 75M with the walking fire and the springs, and the third stage with Jumpman pulling support beams to send the eponymous ape crashing down. It’s a classic for a reason, and like many games of the NES era and prior, it feels like playing a part of History. Yeah, it’s basic, but that’s normal for games of the time. It’s not Nintendo’s first game (they released arcade cabinets, games on Color TV, and Game & Watch prior to this), but it’s the one that took them on the road to massive success.

Climb those vines, you're gonna go high kid!

Donkey Kong Jr.: DK Jr. must rescue his father captured by Jumpman. This takes him across four stages, all of which highlight the new mechanic of climbing vines. You can move left and right from vines that are close to each other, but you can’t jump between vines – be careful with that, it has tricked me a few times. Also beware of the birds that fly down in a zigzag pattern, or the enemies Jumpman sends down the vines. The fourth level (after which, the loop restarts) involves moving keys up the vines to free Donkey Kong Sr. from his cage and defeat Jumpman in one fell swoop. One extra level already made this one even more satisfying to finish.

3X6=18! Looks like a victory for me!

Donkey Kong Jr. Math: A game to learn math? Sure! This game can be played in 1- or 2-Player modes. The 2-Player modes are given first on the menu; in them, you have the original Donkey Kong giving a number, then vines on both sides of the screen with numbers and operation signs on the ground. You must pick up the required numbers and operations to reach the requested number. 57? That’s 8X7, +1. That’s the first mode; the second is similar, but the numbers are a lot trickier, being much larger (three digits) and sometimes negative (ex. -480). The third mode, single player, involves playing as DK Jr. to solve operations; you can do additions, subtractions, multiplications, divisions, both small and big, at your choice. It’s a clever idea for an educative game.

Shouldn't take too long. Ape head, meet hive.

Donkey Kong 3: Closing out the series with this entry. Donkey Kong is tormenting a whole other protagonist this time: Stanley, who wants to protect his flowers. You shoot upwards to send DK up, while the ape annoys beehives to send bees your way. Eliminate them before they get to your flowers, and shoot at DK to make him go away. In some rounds, you literally shoot him so his head ends up in a beehive. Of all four Donkey Kong games, this is the one I enjoyed the least. It doesn’t feel nearly as interesting as the platforming action of the other three.

Sports

There's an opening, time to shoot!

Soccer: Oh boy, the sport games from the NES era. I have a hunch I won’t do great in those. Or maybe I have that impression due to owning just one or two NES sports games that just didn’t work all that well, so maybe things will go better this time. In Soccer, you select your team out of seven countries, then your desired skill level (from 1 to 5), and then the half-time (the duration of the event between two periods). Move around with your current player, press A to kick, press B to switch to another player on your team – the one closest to the ball. Head to the goal, and score! Or, if the opposing team is coming close to your goal, switch to the goalkeeper to block the ball! This game ranks squarely in the category of games I probably won’t touch again, but at least I’m glad I tried it.

Both of them look like they're gonna talk like
Popeye the sailor.

Urban Champion: Does street fighting count as a sport? Whatever, I'm putting it here. In this game first released to arcades in 1984, you play as some thug in street fights, battling opponents from a street to the next, until you deal with them permanently by sending them tumbling backwards into an open manhole. However, if you’re not careful, the same can happen to you! Occasionally, people in the buildings will pop from windows to throw flower pots and incapacitate the brawler that gets hit. You have a timer of 99 seconds for each round, and to defeat an enemy, you must win 3 out of 5 rounds. Beware of your lowering stamina, as well. In single-player mode, the game is won by defeating 45 opponents that way. This one didn’t strike me as all that great, there’s a few mechanics to keep track of, but the crux of this game, the street fights, are bland and kinda repetitive. Doubt I’d replay it.

Take different paths, run, swim, smack the
others around... Decorum? Rules? What's that?

Downtown Nekketsu March Super-Awesome Field Day!: That title’s a mouthful. In this title originally released to the Famicom in 1990, you play as one team competing against three others in a series of inter-school athletic events. Said events are always played in the same order. The first is a Cross Country race. You are encouraged to use violence against the other contestants, even in events that don’t require it. Past that, there’s a Trap Room, a game about breaking a large ball at the top of poles, and finally a Battle Royale match. The game is exclusively in Japanese, so I needed guides and videos to figure out what to do. I couldn’t quite grasp the controls, and thus I pretty much remained stuck in the Cross Country challenge. Though, in all fairness, it looks fun, the sprites are nice, the environments visited in that event are varied, and the game’s tone isn’t too serious overall.

Yup, I remember those. Good times.

Golf: My favorite of the sports titles played, and one more of the NES’s launch titles. This one was programmed by Satoru Iwata alone. If you’ve played golf in a video game before, then this feels like the grandfather to all of them. As a result, the controls are a little awkward at first, and so are the mechanics, but you get the hang after a bit. You first decide in which direction to swing using left/right, then ready your swing with A, press again to select the power of your stroke, then finally the accuracy (by pressing the button while as close to the white area of the bar as possible). Your golf ball’s movement is also affected by the wind. Try not to end out of bounds, into a bunker, or into a water hazard. You can play on your own, or against a friend, across 18 holes. The holes from NES Golf were copied for the Wii launch title, with slight alterations to account for the updated controls and the third dimension. I thought the classic was great!

Others

Hunting yokai all day, not even breaking a sweat!

Ninja JaJaMaru-kun: An action platformer released on the Famicom in 1985, this is the story of JaJaMaru, a ninja who must rescue Princess Sakura from the clutches of the pirate lord Namazu Dayuu. The lord has enlisted the help of several yokai from Japanese folklore to fight by his side. You throw shuriken to defeat enemies, and can stun them by jumping on their heads. You can break bricks to move between floors, and you can find power-ups in the bricks. If you collect three different power-ups, you can gain a giant frog as a mount! There’s an arcade-like feel to this one, since stages are similar, with their main difference being the types of enemies present. This is the first game I played on the Nintendo Switch Online with a “bonus mode” available; namely, this one starts on Level 19, with several power-ups already collected.

Pinball with a side dish of Arkanoid. ...Eh.

Pinball: A NES launch title, Pinball is exactly what it says on the tin. A virtual pinball machine, with various effects to trigger for scores. You launch the ball with A, after which you control the flippers either with the D-pad or A/B. The machine is split into two screens, one top and one bottom, so you can swap between the two if you’re skilled at controlling the ball. There’s a handful of neat effects to find. The most interesting is a Breakout-like bonus mode in which you control Mario wielding a paddle and moving with Left/Right; direct it to toss the ball and rescue Pauline from containment at the top of the screen. Otherwise, it’s plain pinball, you don’t even have access to more than one machine. Excusable for the era, but still a bit dry for content.

By the power of Christianity, (and even though
I'm a dragon), I will exorcise this evil!

Devil World: Those who’ve played Smash and found that guy's Assist Trophy know the deal. In Devil World, released on the Famicom in 1984, you play as an adventurous dragon who has the task of killing the Devil himself. Each level is split in two parts; first, you must pick up all the scattered pellets, but you can only do so when holding a Holy Cross, which can also let you kill enemies on the map. All the while, the Devil will make the camera move up, down, left or right, forcing you to adapt; if you get stuck between walls and the edges of the screen, or are hit by an enemy, you lose a life. When all the pellets have been gathered, you move on to Part 2; Bibles appear in the four corners, and you must pick them up and put them into a square adorned with a skull. This defeats the Devil for this level. Then, there’s a bonus stage. I really enjoyed that “Pac-Man with extra steps” idea, and though I didn’t do too great, this is one game here that I could see myself going back to and try to go a little further in, because the concept was quite fun.

Those aren't the aquariums I'm used to.

Clu Clu Land: In this game released as a launch title for the NES, you play as a female balloonfish named Bubbles who must go around each level’s playing field, crossing through the grid of poles to find coins. Bubbles moves in a straight line; however, she can change her direction by extending her arm and turning around a pole. This means that you must hold down the direction you want to go in and she will, at the next pole. The goal of each level is to find every coin, all of which are hidden between poles; the coins form a symmetrical picture when collected, so this can help you figure out where the other ones are. However, the task will be made more difficult by vortexes, which suck Bubbles in, and enemy fish moving in the area, both of which cause your protagonist to lose a life. This game is a lot tougher than it looks, and it took me forever to beat even one stage. It’s very tricky to learn, and your reliance on poles to turn means that you can mess up quite easily. How many times have I ended up right in the path of an enemy fish while trying to direct my own fish towards a spot where I knew a coin was waiting…

That's it for now! Next week: Hopefully a true, proper review!