Exploring the Switch's Nintendo Classics #2

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I was planning on continuing these articles under the Nintendo Switch Online denomination, but then Nintendo decided to change it due to the upcoming release of the Switch 2; they are now known as the Nintendo Classics (...even though it includes stuff from the SEGA Genesis, and a lot of third-party games released on retro consoles). Oh well! I'll manage. Just a quick name change, right?

I was hoping to cover a different console for the second such article in a row, but as it turns out, the NES section has most of the shortest games among the Nintendo Classics, so – might as well do this again! For the foreseeable future, I might try to release full articles covering the short games from just one console, at least as long as it will be possible. I'll cover games from other consoles soon enough!

Sports

Go Canadians Go! ...Oh wait. Canada isn't one
of the two teams here.

Ice Hockey: Released in January 1988 in Japan and two months later in North America, this title is self-explanatory – you play a hockey team in a match against another. You choose your team (one out of six), then the opponent, the speed of the game, the duration of the match. After which, you can change the layout of your team of five; the goalie never changes, but the other teammates can be slim and weak but fast, average all around, or stocky and slow but strong when brawls happen. Yep, there can be brawls in this game. Aside from when you’re put in control of the goalie, you swing the hockey stick with A, and swap to another teammate with B. It’s a complicated game that requires way more skill than I’m likely to ever have, and I doubt I’ll play it beyond these first few tests. Though, I am told there’s a decent number of extra little programming details, like the crowd noise being louder when the game is a close one.

Let's see if I do well... Nope!

Tennis: Yet another of the NES’ launch titles, Tennis is also self-explanatory. You can play singles or doubles, and you can even choose the difficulty level of the opponent. After which, you follow the classic rules of tennis; one side serves the ball, then it’s back and forths over the net, with a player scoring points when their opponent fails to toss the ball back or accidentally knocks the ball to the side of the field rather than the back. Doubles invites the possibility to play with a friend. The only other real point of interest? Mario is the referee. It’s fine, didn’t strike me as all that interesting; might be that I’ve played more complete NES sports games for these articles, so this one disappoints in comparison.

SLAM D-Wait, wrong sport.

Volleyball: I knew I wouldn’t do great at NES sport games in general, but wow, I sucked at this one. I think I’d do better going out on the field and playing for real! Volleyball, 1986. Classic rules, serve the ball, send it on the other side of the court, if you fail to bounce the ball back to the other side they get a point, and vice versa. The winner is either the team with 21 points, or if the score is too close, the team that has two more points than the other. You play two sets of three players, either the three closest to the net, or the three at the back; and the game instantly makes you play as the trio in the area where the ball is headed. Not be a terrible idea, but you must adjust in seconds depending on which set you’re put in control of, which can make reacting tricky. There doesn’t seem to be difficulty settings, and all options aside from single- or two-player are purely cosmetic (men or women teams, and the country of origin of each team).

Dang, we're putting on a great show for penguins!

Super Dodge Ball/Kunio-kun NO Dodgeball da yo Zen’in Shugo!: Doing something different here as these two games are very similar, despite being on NES and Super Famicom, respectively. In both games, you play as a dodgeball team, with three teammates on the field and three others around the opposing team’s field. You can pass the ball around between teammates, or throw the ball at an opponent to try and hit them. With good reflexes, a targeted character can catch the ball thrown at them. In Super Dodge Ball, the field teammates have health bars, and when a teammate has lost all his health, he’s out of the game. The goal is to knock all the members of the opposing team out before they knock yours out.

Today I learned that Japan has prettier
dodgeball courts.

The NES game is basic, but the Super Famicom one has an entire system allowing a player to switch up and train their teammates, leveling up their skills in specific positions, allowing them to climb up the ranks of a competition. The second game does highlight one issue I may have going through the Nintendo Classics, especially the ones in Japanese that were never translated; I barely have bases in the language, I would struggle to play the games, let alone navigate the menus.

Wham! To the ground! Apparently, the Black
Lagoon wrestler... thing... can even bite a head
off.

Pro Wrestling: Released in North America in March 1987, this title features six wrestlers, a two-player mode, and a single-player campaign where you fight for First Place against the other five. Each wrestler has his own special moves, but all of them share the basics. Punches and kicks, attacks involving the sides of the ring, even the possibility to toss the opponent out (the character is then given a 20-second timer to get back on the ring, or they lose instantly). Body slams, piledrives, and other classics of the sport can be pulled off with button combinations. You win a match by knocking the opponent down and making them stay down until the referee finishes counting. Fine for what it is, but a bit lacking. Maybe it's my own lack of care for the "sport", but this one didn’t leave a big impression.

They call me the Speed From Above.

Vs. Excitebike: I will cover Excitebike in a future article, but for now, there’s this one, which was a reissue in 1988, for the Famicom Disk System, of the arcade version of the NES classic. …That's a complicated history! It’s bike racing, on tracks with hazards. Slopes to drive upwards on and jump from. You hold A to use the slower gear, which has no risk of overheating your bike, or B for the faster gear, which does run the risk of overheating. While in the air, you can use Left and Right to rebalance your bike, and on the ground, you can also hold Right to go over rough spots on the track. In the game’s main mode, you first play through each track on your own to qualify for the race that comes afterwards; and then, it’s the race itself, where you maneuver around the hazards and the other racers, or risk tripping and having to get back on your bike to keep going. You can only move on to the next track if you make it to the Top 3. This version includes the “Vs.” version where you can race against a second player, as well as a mode allowing you to create and test your own tracks, an impressive mode for an 8bit-era game. I’ll probably need to test out the original to do a proper compare-and-contrast, but this one was a sweet introduction, even if I wasn’t so great at it.

Arcade

Speed from above? Nah, I'm Pop From Above now.

Balloon Fight: First released in arcades in 1984, then on Famicom the next year, and to NES the year after, you play as a little guy floating through the air thanks to two balloons. Your task? Ramming into the enemies’ balloons to pop them, then making sure these enemies stay down by either popping their parachute or their attempts at reflating their flight apparatus. Careful, though – take too long, and a storm cloud will send a deadly thunderbolt to bounce around the screen. Gameplay is arcade-like, with a few stages and a bonus stage for extra points afterwards. Things can get tricky. There’s another mode, Balloon Trip, where you travel across a stage and collect balloons while avoiding the electric hazards.

The Unnamed Greaser And His Amazing Gravity
Defying Honda Across The World. ...Hm, nah,
that title would be a bit clunky.

City Connection: First released to arcades then ported to consoles, this 1985 game features… Well, I would have told some fun trivia about Clarice, one of the first video game heroines even preceding Samus Aran, but this is the NES version in the U.S., where she is replaced by some blond dude nobody instead. The gameplay: The protagonist drives their Honda hatchback around the world. Somehow, that quest involves painting the roads they drive on and turning them white. The cops aren’t fans, and block their path. No problem! The character can collect oil cans and toss them at the enemy cars to stun them, after which ramming into those cars knocks them off the stage. Their trusty Honda can even jump! And by holding down Up, you can jump up a floor of road! A stage is beaten when you’ve painted every single square of highway. Hitting other cars, or cats, makes you lose a life. Three lives lost, and it’s Game Over. Those goddamn cats love to appear in your way, too. I swear, the first time I hit a cat, the music sounded too happy for a failure, and I thought I had gained a bonus instead! Not a great game, its sprite art is fun but the controls aren’t great. Also: Justice for Clarice!

Shooty Action

We're not flying, we're more like... hovering.
As long as we're shooting and killing, we
don't quite care how we're flying.

S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Team: This game released in June 1991 in North America has, uh… an unfortunate name. You can play in single-player as "Arnold", or with a friend as Arnold and "Sigourney" (references intentional). Think Contra meets Gradius; this isn’t a run-n-gun, your character is flying, but is still a soldier wielding a gun and going through each auto-scrolling stage. With power-ups, your gun can be changed for a Bomb, a Laser, or other Contra-inspired weapons. They're equipped with two satellite modules that move left and right above and below them, and auto-aim and shoot at threats. You move with the D-Pad and shoot with B. With A, you can stop the satellites from moving, keeping them into one spot; or press A again to make them move again, so you can set them into a new position. Your character only has one life, but multiple HP; lose all of them, and Game Over. The game is lenient as you can restart after a Game Over at the current level, and you can regain HP by picking up specific items or scoring enough points. This game is a tad derivative, but tries to do something interesting with the idea; its biggest flaw is that the flying soldier plays like a run-n-gun character, so you turn around to attack threats coming from behind, which can be a bother. The soldier is a larger target as well, which makes it trickier to avoid bullets. But aside from that? I had fun with it, and could see myself try to beat it someday.

"Don't forget to ring the bell!" Is what I'd say,
if this was YouTube...

TwinBee: A top-down shmup from Konami (also known for Gradius) in which you play as a character fending off waves of enemies and bosses. Your main weapon is shot with B, while you can shoot bombs at décor elements such as bushes with A, which can reveal power-ups. Getting hit by a bullet does not instantly kill the player, but direct contact with an enemy does. You can shoot at a cloud to reveal a bell, which will give points if collected. However, you can keep shooting and bounce it on the screen; it will sometimes turn a different color, and grant a power-up if collected in that state. Greater speed when blue, extra bullets when white, Options (i.e. ghost “ships” that follow you around and shoot alongside yours) when shining red and white. Careful not to hit it too much, or you'll lose your chance at a power-up. Remember, you play volleyball with this thing while there's enemies on the screen shooting at your ship or coming towards it. Five stages, each of which ends in a boss battle; and when the fifth is completed, it’s back to the first, rinse and repeat. TwinBee has an SP version available from the NES game select; this drops you at “Stage 6” (the Stage 1 repeat), with 12 lives and a higher difficulty. This one would be tough on its own, but the bell-juggling adds another layer that can make it quite devious. Without any upgrades, your ship is weak, but upgrades can turn it into a beast, so you better learn the juggling thing!

No clue yet which console will be the lucky one covered next in article #3 - but I do plan on continuing these for a little longer!