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Posted

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Nintendo Switch Online NES and SNES applications have been updated with new games

Now up on the main page.

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  • 6 months later...
Posted

Wasn't sure where to stick this Earthbound overview from the official Nintendo channel, as it includes both Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings, but man did it give me a good chuckle :D

They're pushing it really hard, which is great to see! 

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Posted (edited)

"Say hi, Ness!"

"OK!"

"That'll do!"

Honestly, apart from the original Western PR back in the 90's, Ninty have been doing good with pushing EarthBound. They did a similar thing with the WiiU release.

EarthBound Beginnings has the best NES title music, and I will fight people on Smash if they don't agree.

Edited by Glen-i
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
Posted (edited)

Earthworm Jim 2 is coming to SNES Online today (and to save a separate post in the NES thread as they're in the same announcement, Dig-Dug II and Mappy-Land are coming to NES Online today):

 

Edited by Julius
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Posted

Well that's random! Looks like Nintendo are actually starting to put that Expansion Pass money to good use on securing more 3rd party licenses and remembered that the NES/SNES service still exists :D 

Posted (edited)

BTW, Japan is getting Harvest Moon instead of Earthworm Jim 2...

That seems... really arbitrary? Odd decision, considering that Harvest Moon has previously been made available on both the Wii and Wii U VC services in all regions before... while EJ2 got a Japanese release back on the Wii VC.

Also noteworthy, this is the first time that the SNES version of EJ2 has ever been re-released (all previous re-releases of EJ2 have been the Mega Drive version).

Edited by Dcubed
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Posted
3 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Well that's random! 

It was hinted at earlier in the week that new games would be dropping on Thursday. NL ran a story about someone noticing something to do with server maintenance and this has been a sign of new games being released. 

In for Earthworm Jim 2. Bit weird we are getting the second game but not the first. The second is the better game but not being able to play the original before this feels wrong. Still, just happy new games are being added to the service. 

Posted

Earthworm Jim is pretty shocking, considering the controversy around it and it's creators, and how much the company that owns it disses the Switch (they said, they're on the verge of bankruptcy). Makes JK Rowling look like a saint by comparison.

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Posted
56 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I'm sat here at work and thanks to this announcement all I can think about is this song.

 

Peter Puppy was always such a wet blanket but yes, just been humming this to myself during a call. :laughing: The way I always remember it is "Earthworm Jim, he's such a groovy guy! Earthworm Jim, his suit fell from the sky!" Hearing the correct version again will only serve as a momentary correction I'm sure.

I've never played EWJ 2 so definitely looking forward to giving it a whirl and launching some cows or whatever they've added. :grin: 

No-one else ever think that Frog pulls out an Earthworm Jim arm when he victory flexes??
Chronno Trigger Pixel Art GIF - ChronnoTrigger PixelArt ...

I can never not-see it. 

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Posted

Groovy, I've borrowed Earthworm Jim 2 from a friend a couple of times back in the days, but never finished it. May be fun to give it a go again, if only for the level completion screen.

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Posted
9 hours ago, darksnowman said:

Peter Puppy was always such a wet blanket

Probably one my favourite running gags is Peter's dislike of haggis.

9 hours ago, darksnowman said:

No-one else ever think that Frog pulls out an Earthworm Jim arm when he victory flexes??

I always thought that too!

I've only ever played the Mega Drive version is there much difference between the 2 versions?

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Posted

I have...oddly fond memories of Earthworm Jim. The cow running gag in one of the games was the exact amount of nonsense that my child self loved.

Also, occasionally Youtube recommends me clips from the cartoon for some reason.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you

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Posted

I finished Earthworm Jim 2 on Thursday evening.

Spoiler

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The game isn't as good as I remember it being, which is quite often the case when going back and playing retro games. I honestly don't remember it being such a mish mash of stages. It's as if they had a bunch of ideas but had no way to bring them together in a cohesive way. Everything just feels a little disjointed. When the game is allowed to be a platform game it works really well but having the Peter Puppy levels show up multiple times, levels where you have no suit and a stage where you are pushing an air balloon along, all of this just feels like a mess. There's no need at all for the Peter Puppy stage to show up 3 times during the adventure and it feels like padding more than anything else. 

I will say though that the game still made me laugh. Some of the random things, such as firing a pig off a slide or a boss fight that isn't really a boss fight ( bit like what happens in the first game ) got a good giggle from me. I also had a laugh at the stage ISO 9000. Having now worked with quality systems and done courses on ISO9000 standards and auditing, I now get the joke about that whole level, something that l would obviously wouldn't have got as a kid. :D 

I'm hoping the first game shows up on the service at some point. I'm keen to see if I now prefer that one over the sequel. 

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Posted

Nicely done. :cool: So the stairlift was a highlight for you then. :laughing: 

Do you remember roughly how many levels are in it? Only played up to the excavating level (level 2...?) the other night and wouldn't mind having a bash at going through the game in its entirety.

 

Posted
21 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

Nicely done. :cool: So the stairlift was a highlight for you then. :laughing: 

Do you remember roughly how many levels are in it? Only played up to the excavating level (level 2...?) the other night and wouldn't mind having a bash at going through the game in its entirety.

 

Indeed it was. The grannies jumping on the chair and beating on you cracked me up.

There were around 10 levels and then 3 Puppy Love sections to deal with. Game can be finished in a few hours or so, especially with save states and rewind features.

 

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Around this time last year, I replayed a bunch of Zeldas with Mario World thrown into the mix for good measure. Since I was loving those games (as always I do) and the NSO SNES stuff in general,  I thought the time had come to give Super Metroid another whirl to see if I was coming around on the whole Mario X Zelda thing yet. As fate would have it, one thing lead to another, I didn't get around to it and then my NSO sub lapsed. Now here I am in 2022, fresh off Axiom Verge--a game that is much more Metroid than Metroidvania--so what better time to check in with Super Metroid to see if I love it yet.

Tldr; still don't. :p

On paper, I've always thought Metroid (and Metroidvanias) sound like great inventions. Then when I sit down with one, my world is rarely rocked. Where in Axiom Verge, the pure fundamentals of moving and blasting felt in tune with what I want and expect, Super Metroid falls short. The floatiness, the lack of precision (there's no pixel-perfect platforming, but sometimes you need to land on single-square blocks!), and even the lack of confidence with the midair arc of a jump all come together to create a game in which I've little to no faith in reliably positioning the main character where I want them. 

Thankfully there are very few high-pressure situations, so the game mostly gets away with its handling however in some boss rooms, for example, it can get hairy. Sometimes a jump will clear a projectile, other times you'll jump into something and best of luck if you want to consistently jump between hazards. As far as I can tell, the same controller inputs produce varying onscreen outcomes. 60% of the time it works 100% of the time. I just unload my missiles and hope I've enough health to see these encounters through.

There is no real satisfaction in blasting things out of your way either, imo. :hmm: 

It's hard to compare the areas in Super Metroid with Axiom Verge since AV was all-new to me and I already have a lingering familiarity with SM's layout and a rough idea of the major areas throughout the planet that need to be hit. Tbh, most of these things I'd like to forget but they remain burned in my memory from decades ago when I first persevered through, dead-end after dead-end after ever-suffering dead-end. Trekking back through the same rooms and corridors time and time again. If (more a case of when) you lose your grasp on the thread of progression, all the best picking up the trail again. 

Admittedly though, for a while, Super Metroid does a decent job of recycling you around so you emerge near something that's newly accessible after you score an upgrade. So props for that. Just try not to miss it and enjoy it while it lasts.

As you can probably tell, my lack of faith in the movement saps the fun out of the discovery. For example, when you get the ice beam it isn't a HUGE distance up the shaft, freezing creatures to use as platforms. It's a few mins tops. Alas, a few mins that drag by. :( Which is how I feel about the game overall--it's not so much full of "ah-ha!" moments as "urgh, spose we'll head all the way back there... again."  

Now and again you come across a few rooms of nice self-contained forwards progression but in general, it's a slog despite areas being fairly compact and distinctive. I feel like I'm getting nowhere fast and I don't have the funnest of times traversing through it. Moment to moment, Super Metroid just isn't a pleasure. :( 

Plenty of people spout about what a seminal moment SM was. I appreciate that it served as the launching point for Castlevania to start the offshoot explorative Metroidvania genre (ultimately leading to things like Axiom Verge), but other than that I'm genuinely baffled that people still cite SM as something that stands the test of time.

Well actually, it did signify something important for me, too. It made me realise that just because a game came from that lot that make Mario, Zelda, Pilotwings, F-Zero, et al, it didn't automatically mean I would like it. And that's okay. To each their own! :peace: 

Some snaps:

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Just... grab... the ledge. 

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You go to the corner of the map and this is all you find.

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Almost died of boredom here. :zzz: 
Barbos' Barrier is a better boss fight, and Belcha's Barn is better than the later boss it mimics, too.

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It's-a-me...troid?

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Sometimes an easy jump. Other times it takes so many tries. The water is like quicksand. So imagine what the quicksand is like.

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You can't see Samus because she's flickering her health away.

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Break glass in case of not knowing where to go next.

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Well hey there little guy.

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Brutal.

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She's pinballing around between those spikes, the enemy, the sarlacc pit plants, flickering like mad.

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These things are cool.

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Was into my last 99 health by the time I got out of this close encounter.

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Feather the jump button or risk being fried by those frayed cables.

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Plenty of time was spent doing this in various locations.

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Blending in.

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Blink and you'll miss it!! :eek:

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Yes, I did it this way. So what. :hehe: 
The game knows full well how ropey its controls are otherwise you would never happen upon this room!

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This was therapeutic.

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Say arrrrrrrghhhhhhhh

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One of the most frustrating encounters in gaming.

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Not my first go on the Super Metroid rodeo and I still frequently lost my way. Tried to take it all in good spirits (really, I did!) and surrender myself to crisscrossing the map. Heading for the grapple beam took me a good while to figure out it was time to circle back for, for example. And plenty of other things besides.

There is no way that time is correct by the way. Reckon it took me double that!!

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My protip is this: when you come across an upgrade, check nearby for further passages. I by no means have locations memorised but you'd be surprised how many times one leads directly to another!! They're the buses of the Metroid world. :D 

Towards the end, I was thinking the scales were balancing for me with this game and I'd reflect on it more favourably this time, however that trek back after Ridley drained any goodwill out of me. The uplifting credits music tried to influence me otherwise... and came close to succeeding. 

Likes
- The above-ground music.
- Opening doors and reeling in items with the grapple beam. 
- The firefly things that when you kill them, the room gets darker.
- Sometimes I gave her a good yeet off a grappling point.  

I dreamt of Samus arcing across the night sky. Crashing into a building, then back into another then forward again into another. A wrecking ball. 

Still want Alien 3 on NSO so whatever.

Fusion 4ever. 

:peace: 
 

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  • 1 month later...
Posted (edited)

Wow! A 1st party Nintendo release!

Granted, it’s just Pinball, but it’s still hope for the likes of Startropics 2 that are still missing from NSO :)

Japan is getting the original SNES Umihara Kawase instead of Congo’s Caper BTW.  An excellent game that’s well worth checking out, and with no language barrier to speak of to boot! :D

Edited by Dcubed
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