Seven new classic NES games are now available to play via Nintendo Switch Online, including Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Cobra Triangle, and Solar Jetman. This latest batch expands the subscription service’s NES game offering significantly – and while not all titles on the list are well-remembered, they represent a notable era for Nintendo.
The inclusion of Donkey Kong Jr. Math is particularly neat. This game is a rare example of an early “edutainment” title, as it adapts classic Donkey Kong gameplay into an educational format. It was a critical and commercial failure, and was labelled one of the worst games of the NES, but regardless, it’s an important game.
While this attempt to integrate edutainment-style game mechanics failed, later attempts by Nintendo and other companies were far more successful. By the 1990s, edutainment games were very popular, and more mainstream with young audiences.
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Elsewhere, Nintendo’s latest NES offerings chart a range of other genres and themes. There’s golf games, racing combat games, speed boat sims, and plenty more.
New Nintendo Switch Online games – July 2024
Here’s the full list of new NES games now available to play via Nintendo Switch Online:
- Golf – “This 1990 classic brings you 36 holes of realistic golf action, with hazards that change every time you play (so you’ll need to plan a strategy apart from just “swing away”).”
- Urban Champion – “Nintendo’s first 2D fighting game from 1986, Urban Champion is a bare-knuckle throwdown between fighters looking to earn the rank of Champion – and send their opponent plummeting down the nearest manhole in the process.”
- Donkey Kong Jr. Math – “Navigate across vines and platforms to solve math-based puzzles, which requires you to do everything from collecting numbers to grabbing appropriate symbols that add, subtract, multiply and divide them as needed to solve each problem.”
- Mach Rider – “Mach Rider is a vehicular combat racing game where players navigate their heavily-armed Quadrunner across the ruined wastes of Earth in the year 2112.”
- The Mystery of Atlantis – “The Mystery of Atlantis is a side-scrolling adventure where players take on the role of Wyn, an amateur explorer intent on unlocking the secrets of a lost civilisation and rescuing his captive master from the forces of the evil Emperor Zavyra.”
- Solar Jetman – “You are Jetman on a dangerous quest to collect the lost pieces of the Golden Warpship, a near-mythical vessel capable of interstellar travel. This early-’90s multidirectional shooter puts you in the cockpit of Jetman’s Jetpod, as you explore 12 menacing alien worlds, each with its own level of gravity.”
- Cobra Triangle – “Put your skill and reflexes to the test at the helm of a Cobra Class Speed Boat in this 1989 vehicle-based action game for the original NES. In this part boat racing game, part vehicular combat game, you’ll take on high-speed challenges including cannon-equipped enemy craft, imperiled swimmers, deadly sea monsters, dangerous whirlpools and ticking bombs.”
All seven games are now available to play for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers.