As part of today’s Nintendo Direct, the company announced that five titles from former partner Rare’s back catalog are releasing on their Nintendo Switch Online service.
The first couple are for NES: 1990’s Snake, Rattle & Roll, and 1988’s R.C. Pro-Am. For the SNES, we have 1993’s Battletoads in Battlemaniacs and 1995’s Killer Instinct. And on N64 is 1997’s Blast Corps, which requires the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack to access.
It’s no Rare Replay, but it’s… no Rare Replay.
Of the bunch, I’m excited to see Blast Corps on here. It’s a creative title that just smells like early N64. It’s all about demolishing buildings with a plethora of weird vehicles. A truck carrying nuclear devices has lost control and is very slowly moving through populated areas. The only solution, obviously, is to knock down everything in its path. And for bonus points, knock down everything that isn’t in its path, as well.
Snake, Rattle & Roll is fine. R.C. Pro-Am is a bit of an NES staple. Battletoads in Battlemaniacs is not the best nor worst game in the series. Killer Instinct is a pretty big departure from the much flashier 1994 arcade release.
Still, it’s a great bunch of games for the service. But it would have been cooler to see Rare Replay go multi-platform.
This buffet of Rare titles will hit the NSO channels today.
