The latest addition to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack for April 2023 includes all killer, no filler entries coming from the venerable Sega Genesis.
Leading the pack is Capcom’s Street Fighter II: Super Champion Edition. This release of Street Fighter II in 1993 prompted Sega to shift to making six button controllers, leaving behind the classic Sega Genesis controller with the three giant buttons.
It’s hard to explain how impressive this port was back in the day. Even gamers who owned this game would not have been fully aware of the miracle Capcom produced here, and in their Super Nintendo ports.
The same way that The Witcher III seems to be an impossible port for the Nintendo Switch, and is somehow feature complete and fully playable, Street Fighter II: Super Champion Edition shouldn’t have been as good on the Genesis as it was on Capcom’s own CPS-1 boards.
Extending that analogy further, if you look for them, you will find the compromises easily. But Capcom managed to bring over the overall game feel successfully enough that it feels like playing the arcades at home.
Pulseman is a physics based action platformer, that is better known as a trivia question, than on its own merits. Yes, this was the game studio Game Freak before they went on to make Pokemon. But don’t get it confused: Pulseman is worth playing to see how tight Game Freak’s design had gotten this early, and to see if you can get a handle onto Pulseman’s momentum based dashing mechanics.
Kid Chameleon is one of those Sega Genesis staples that a lot of Sega fans remember fondly. As the kid, you go around platforming, killing enemies, discovering new paths, and picking up different helmets along the way, that give the kid unique powers. You can think of it as a prototype Ben10 in video game form.
Finally, Flicky is Sega’s own port of its 1984 arcade classic. As Flicky, you roam around wraparound platforming stages, collecting small birds, known as Piopio, to follow you like eggs behind Yoshi the dinosaur.
You save Piopios from cats that are also roaming around these stages, by bringing them to the stage exits. There is a timer and small weapons you can use against the cats, but Flicky is mostly a race vs the clock.
To play these games on your Nintendo Switch, you need to get a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, and also pay for the Expansion Pack. All these games are worth at least a try, so if you already have a subscription, you should check them out as soon as you can.
