With May officially up and running, Nintendo has pulled back the curtain on the latest trio of games to be added to its Nintendo Switch NES roster. We’ve got a couple decent classics in the mix, with the clear standout being a game that has barely seen the light of day outside of Japan.
These games are listed as “upcoming titles” on Nintendo’s official site, so we don’t have a launch day set in stone just yet. Given Nintendo’s fondness of keeping announcements pretty close to arrival, though, don’t be surprised if you see Donkey Kong Jr., Clu Clu Land and VS. Excitebike on the Switch later this week.
As a reminder, these games are included in the ever-growing library of NES games folks have access to if they subscribe to Nintendo’s premium online service for about $20 a year. These latest games bring the collection to around 40, so it’s not a bad perk if you like revisiting older games. It seems like Nintendo is running out of heavy hitters, though, leading many to speculate that another platform – such as the SNES – might be arriving soon. Whether as part of the premium service or sold separately, though, I’d just like to see more Nintendo classics available on a console that seems like their perfect platform.
In recent months, Nintendo has thrown in a “Special” version of a previously released game to keep things interesting, so we might be getting one more offering with the May titles. For now, though, it’s a pretty mediocre month. Donkey Kong Jr. is fine, putting a spin on the original game’s premise and this time having a young gorilla climb up vines and platforms to reach a mischievous, mustachioed plumber. As for Clu Clu Land, you’ll be taking on the role of a bubble fish who needs to explore mazes and find stolen gold bars while avoiding an army of sea urchins.
The real winner here is VS. Excitebike, which launched for the NES disc system in Japan but never made its way out of the region until it randomly popped up on the Wii U eShop. It’s an enhanced version of the original Excitebike that includes new levels, a track editor and the ability to play two-player splitscreen.
