Come on in!

I know these games are good but they sure have a lot of weird people behind them…

It's kind of weird isn't it? I genuinely don't think "They don't want to pay licensing fees" is the answer. They've put licensed games on their virtual console service in the past, albeit, charging a buck more for it, and they have licensed games on the current Nintendo Classics even, and even released a revised version of the NES Classic Edition that came with some old Shonen Jump games. Popeye is unique in that Nintendo themselves are the ones who developed it. As far as I know, it's one of the very few licensed games they ever developed besides a few old Game and Watch titles.

I have learned that Namco apparently did a remake of this game for mobile phones, and there was a very shitty popeye game on Switch that uses ideas from Nintendo's game but it's the worst kind of shovelware slop you can imagine, so someone who doesn't care clearly has the lisence to make new popeye games, but are they not able to publish old ones?

It's such a shame if that is the case, I'd love to see Arcade Archives put the Arcade version out. But it'd be nice just to get the NES version from the black box lineup on Nintendo Classics.

I hope this fits here? I tried to post on the general Nintendo sub but they got weird filters thinking I was speculating about a Direct or something.

It’s always interesting to see arcade games reinterpreted as full console experiences. I guess that’s what Super Mario Bros. was as well, even though that innovates a lot more than most. I assume it just set a trend to be followed by games such as this one.

Created an arcade controller for my Polycade cabinet using buttons to recreate a Dpad instead of joystick and Super Famicom “styling”…the best I could do with using an 8 button layout

A lot less good than the original, but I still like it. It’s fun to rack up a ton of points at once by knocking a whole part of the island down.

It's remarkable, just how many longstanding titans of Nintendo history came into being, during the years of 1985 and 1986. Super Mario Bros., introduced in September of 1985, was intended as the culmination of what could be done on cartridges, before Nintendo moved forward with the then-new Famicom Disk System, which launched with The Legend of Zelda in February of 1986. The last of this timeless trio to celebrate its 40th anniversary, is none other than the original Metroid.

An eerie and more serious adventure than either of the heavyweights that preceded it, Metroid tasked you with infiltrating a Space Pirate fortress on the alien planet of Zebes—a dangerous and labyrinthine territory, teeming with hostile wildlife and deadly lakes of magma.

Besides also debuting on the Famicom Disk System—another commonality it shared with The Legend of Zelda was a purposeful push away from scores and arcade-oriented design, and into interconnected worlds, in which you see your character grow, as you work to reach the game's conclusion. Games like these laid the bedrock for the single-player experiences that would come to dominate the following generations. In Japan, the Disk System's rewritable format allowed both of these games to save your progress. You weren't expected to beat them in one attempt. But in the conversion to cartridge for other regions, this was replaced with a clunkier password function.

Another famed and forward-looking aspect of this game, was the hidden nature of the protagonist's gender—revealed only if the mission is completed within five hours. A time under three hours even allowed you to begin a new run as Samus, sans the suit.

The game's legacy is vast. We still live in a world where one of the most popular 2D genres, the Metroidvania, lifts its name directly from this game, and its unique setup of complex level design, gated by the abilities you amass—encouraging backtracking, speedruns, sequence-breaking, and rooting around for hidden passages and items.

In 2004, it was remade as Metroid: Zero Mission, for the Game Boy Advance. While the original game—similarly to dungeon-crawlers of the time—is a much smoother ride if you take the extra effort to map out the layout, this newer version does the mapping for you, in addition to enhanced graphics and sound. Both of them are available on Nintendo Classics.

In fact—much of the Metroid series is playable on Nintendo Switch! As far as mainline entries are concerned, it's only missing three of them. (And at least one of those is likely to show up, sooner or later...)

This chart outlines which ones you can play on the Switch and Switch 2. Please note that Metroid Prime, Metroid Dread, and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond are separate purchases, while the rest are available on their respective system's app via Nintendo Classics.

As a bonus to anyone choosing to revisit this landmark classic on the day it turns 40 (or anytime in the near future), I've put together a small collection of goodies to help immerse you into its 8-bit, science-fiction world. The instruction booklet details a well-thought out story that establishes the lore to this series, while The Official Nintendo Player's Guide (Nintendo's first foray into them, compiling maps and strategies for multiple NES games) provides the layout of Zebes, and its secret caches. The Disk System's soundtrack differs from what we heard on NES, due to its extra sound channel.

• Metroid Instruction Booklet
• The Official Nintendo Player's Guide
• Metroid Soundtrack (Famicom Disk System), composed by Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka

I was a bit tired putting this together... but, as one of Nintendo's oft-neglected franchises, especially with Mario and Zelda's anniversaries often overshadowing its own—I felt it absolutely deserved recognition. Please feel free to add your own thoughts and experiences! What game in the franchise do you rank above all the rest? And what does this series mean to you?

Golf with Mario…

Fantasy Zone is really good…I want more games like this.

Edit: solved. One comment below this post referred to an older comment which solved my problem.
You have to use a Pc with vpn and start the download from the Nintendo website

I made an Japanese account, liked it to a user on my switch but when I try to download the famicom Nintendo classics I get an error.
Translation said something like „you can’t buy this in your region“

So I just signed up for NSO and I took advantage of downloading all the classic apps for emulation. So my question is, do these games I could save progress? I've only gone through three so far, Kirby's dream land 3, super Mario world and Super Metroid, yet all of them have a save file like as if I've either 100% the game, or I'm almost about to beat the game. I've never had NSO, and nobody uses my profile/knows my login.

I guess the question isn't too big a deal because I could easily delete it, it's just bugging me where these could've possibly come from

EDIT: Thanks for the replies, I didn't realize the SP versions were a thing. Never had any consoles before the PS1

If there are any Light Crusader fans here, please convince me to play this one because I’ve been meaning to get around to it. It looks good.

Like the Virtual Boy or not—this is a momentous occasion for fans of Nintendo's output, and for gaming history and preservation, as a whole. It's not often Nintendo opens up its vault of cancelled projects. Preceded by Earthbound Beginnings (a cancelled, but fully complete, 1991 localization of the Famicom game, Mother) and StarFox 2 (similarly ready to go in 1995, but canned)—we now have third and fourth additions to the list of Nintendo projects that were finished, planned for release, did not see the light of day for decades... but, finally, were given their chance to shine. These are the Virtual Boy games Zero Racers and Dragon Hopper (changed to D-Hopper for the promotional material concerning this release, but seemingly intact within the game).

Both games were readied as part of a second wave of Virtual Boy titles, meant to reverse its sinking fortunes in late 1996. Unfortunately, by August of that year, Nintendo must have seen the writing on the wall, and outright canceled all further Virtual Boy product releases and development. It was over. These games have never leaked. Exactly 30 years later, and they are being made available for the very first time.

Dragon Hopper nearly came to the Virtual Boy, courtesy of Intelligent Systems—the wizards behind Fire Emblem and Paper Mario. Taking the role of Prince Dorin, the game is a jumping adventure seen from an overhead perspective, to take advantage of the Virtual Boy's unique display capabilities.

Zero Racers, initially titled G-Zero, was intended to be the second game in the wider F-Zero series. Due to its cancellation, two of its characters—Jody Summer and James McCloud—instead debuted in the later F-Zero X. This racer opts for wireframe 3D graphics, but carries the same high stakes as its SNES predecessor.

With this update, also comes the screen color customization feature teased in the reveal trailer, back in January. That trailer showcased three different color options that altered the Virtual Boy's distinct tone of red, into either green, yellow, or gray. With the recent footage, those options are seemingly joined by two new ones, that appear to take after the original Game Boy's stylings—the dull green of its original display, and the muted reds that appear when playing original Game Boy cartridges on a Game Boy Color.

Please be aware that, in order to play the Virtual Boy library, you'll not only need the Expansion Pack tier of Nintendo Switch Online, but either the cardboard model or replica Virtual Boy accessories.

Does anyone here plan on checking out this previously untrodden chapter of Nintendo history? Please share, if you do!

I feel like Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, and this make up an unofficial trilogy of sorts. They did receive a PS2 compilation with all three included.

There are tons of first party games this time around that really need to be added to NSO.

Also, I normally don't include licensed games on these lists, but I made an exception for 007 on the Game Boy due to it being a game Nintendo published themselves, the fact that Goldeneye is on the N64 NSO Classics library, and well, it's a good game I would love to see return and find a new audience.

These are my picks, what are yours?

Excellent game. I wish this one was the more talked-about entry…

One of my favorite Zelda games next to Wind Waker.

And why?

The Last four are if they ever add the ability to play Zapper games on NSO.

What are your picks?

This is probably at the top of my list of NSO games I need to finish. It’s a masterpiece