Nintendo Switch Online - NES/Famicom Central

As we're all aware Nintendo have decided to finally grace us with the online subscription service and one of the benefits of this is any and all NES/Famicom games that are on it can be played online with friends in multiplayer!

The service currently has 20 games:

1. Mario Bros
2. Mario Bros 3
3. Mario Bros Classic Arcade
4. Donkey Kong
5. Dr Mario
6. Yoshi
7. Baloon Fight
8. Ice Climber
9. Excitebike
10. Ice Hockey
11. Tecmo Bowl
12. Baseball
13. Soccer
14. Tennis
15. Pro Wrestling
16. Gradius
17. Ghosts n' Goblins
18. Double Dragon
19. River City Ransom
20. The Legend of Zelda

One benefit of this as well is if you create an account in another region, say US or Japan then you can also download the app for free and play on your main account with the subscription!

I've found myself playing through Mario Bros and playing an awful lot of Tecmo Bowl (even though I'm not even a fan of American football :lol:

), Ice Hockey, Double Dragon and Baseball. Anyone else been playing? Anyone want to play some multiplayer on some of these titles at some point?

I've played some Excitebike and SMB3. Why does Nintendo insist on mapping the buttons wrong with every iteration of the Virtual Console? Run should be on XY, jump should be on AB!

YouTube

Went through Zelda 1 the last few days. Was quite a treat as I was mostly going by memory of past playthroughs, said memory was hazy so there was still a great sense of discovery. Of course a guide was needed eventually heh, is pretty vital to know what items you need at certain points. Also you do have to rupee grind a bit, so I abandoned shame and cheesed the gambling mini game with save states :simper:

Of course like everyone else I want more games + systems, all the same I'm ecstatic at the image quality. This is by far better than any NES Virtual Console, featuring far more vivid colours and a sharper image. I mean just look at this:

Though praise should perhaps be muted as this is fixing something that shouldn't have been an issue in the first place :p

I do recommend everyone plays in 4:3 as that's the most accurate. The weird thing with NES (and SNES) is that it uses wide pixels, something that can be tough to do on a fixed display. As such, the 'pixel perfect' mode which uses square pixels is actually incorrect, they've done an amazing job on whatever smoothing/interpolation technique they've used for 4:3. Sadly the CRT filter is way too blurry for my taste, seems to be approximating a composite image. Hope they add an RGB CRT filter in updates, along with customisable controls of course.

My Life in Gaming did an excellent video on this all for anyone curious.

Chocolate-Milk wrote:I've played some Excitebike and SMB3. Why does Nintendo insist on mapping the buttons wrong with every iteration of the Virtual Console? Run should be on XY, jump should be on AB!

For what it's worth, using X for B and A for...well A is a decent substitute. They desperately need customisable controls though aye, gimme turbo functions also

Been playing Zelda mostly. Memory of that has completely gone. Tried playing Double Dragon but I've forgotten how to play that well. Luckily SMB3 skills have never left me.

With hackers already being able to add whatever they like to the app it would be nice if Nintendo added more games right now. They have licenses to so many more NES games than are on there it's a bit of a joke to be honest. And we need to see SNES games added before xmas.

Jazzem wrote:
Chocolate-Milk wrote:I've played some Excitebike and SMB3. Why does Nintendo insist on mapping the buttons wrong with every iteration of the Virtual Console? Run should be on XY, jump should be on AB!

For what it's worth, using X for B and A for...well A is a decent substitute. They desperately need customisable controls though aye, gimme turbo functions also

It's serviceable, sure, but it's bit of an awkward angle for my taste. It feels much more natural to have B on Y.

I hope they eventually add SNES and GBA games to this service, it’s a good start though (not tried it myself yet)

Played a bunch of Ice Hockey today with my step brother. That and Baseball (didn't play Tecmo Bowl) are definitely better than Soccer and Tennis. Ice Hockey is amazing even now.

The sports games are pretty awful but Double Dragon and River City Rampage are really fun.

Some relics should remain in the past.

Preezy wrote:Some relics should remain in the past.

Y u buly jawa?

Soccer is SHITE my goodness.

Mafro wrote:Soccer is SHITE my goodness.

Please talk about Man United in the football thread.

NickSCFC

Jazzem wrote:

So glad they went down this route for emulation, by default the games should render as they did originally. If people can't handle the jaggies then the ability to change it should be optional only.

Seems like PlayStation Classic is going the same route, 4:3 with no smoothing/blurring.

Mafro wrote:Soccer is SHITE my goodness.

I think it was the first game i played on my mates NES way back when. Needless to say, my C64 got a pat and some affectionate words when i got home.

Japanese Mario Bros 3 having the power up system from 1 (get hit once, go back to small Mario) is making this game waaaaaaaaaaaaay harder than it was when I played the English version on GBA. :dread:

Qikz wrote:Japanese Mario Bros 3 having the power up system from 1 (get hit once, go back to small Mario) is making this game waaaaaaaaaaaaay harder than it was when I played the English version on GBA.

I thought it was like that anyway? Thought World was too.

Pedz wrote:
Qikz wrote:Japanese Mario Bros 3 having the power up system from 1 (get hit once, go back to small Mario) is making this game waaaaaaaaaaaaay harder than it was when I played the English version on GBA.

I thought it was like that anyway? Thought World was too.

In the American one you just go back to Big Mario (minus a mushroom) rather than straight to small Mario from Fireflower or Tanooki Tail.

Hmmmmmmmmm. Fair enough.

Nintendo Switch Online - NES/Famicom Central

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