Few would disagree that Nintendo’s recently revealed, priced and released Switch Online Expansion Pack represents a pretty hefty purchase. Sure, when you do the maths, it just – just – about checks out, coming to around 3 pounds a month, which is more or less what you’re paying for the standard Switch Online. God, just listen to me shilling away like a corporate drone. But still. Come on, Ninty. £34.99 for a bunch of ROMs and no discernible improvement to your bareboned online provisions? You and I are going to have words. And you can bet some of those words are gonna have four letters.
Regardless, the main draw of this Expansion Pack (they sort of missed a retro-inspired trick there by not calling it the Expansion Pak) is the modest selection of N64 and, oddly, SEGA Genesis games that you gain access to if you plonk down the cash. Though the actual emulation quality of these titles – including various Zeldas, Paper Marios, Sonics and, excitingly, Banjo Kazooies – varies to say the least, it is rather nice to have them all in one place, accessible at the press of a button. No switching cartridges or asthma-inducing blowing required.
What Genesis games are coming to Switch Online?
As long as the libraries keep being added to, we might eventually get within a bargepole’s distance of the Pack being decent value for money. Maybe. Luckily, that’s precisely what Nintendo have done: they’ve added five shiny new (by which I mean old) SEGA Genesis games to the lineup.
As TheVerge reports, the following five classics have arrived for punters dumb rich enough to have purchased the expansion:
- Altered Beast
- ToeJam & Earl
- Dynamite Headdy
- Sword of Vermilion
- Thunder Force II.
SEGA fans won’t need me to tell ’em what big gains Altered Beast and ToeJam and Earl are for the service. These are part of the absolute bread and butter of the Genesis, and are far more appealing additions than… whatever the hell Nintendo keeps choosing to populate the NES Switch Online library with. Why yes, I would like to part with my hard-earned wages to try some third-party shovelware nobody bought in the 80s! It’s like they can read my mind.
With any luck, I’ll be getting a Nintendo eShop card for Chrimbo; so keep this up, Big N, and we might eventually have a deal. I said ‘eventually’.
Any SEGA games you’d like to see added? Has this convinced you to pick up the expansion? Let us know!
Via, TheVerge.
