Nintendo just released three more games on their Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack’s Game Boy Advance app. Let’s have a look!
Game Boy Advance App
| Game | Genre | # of Players | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kururin Paradise | Arcade | 1-4 Competitive (Local Wireless / Online) | B- |
tl;drThis is the second game in the Kururin series involving navigating a spinning stick through an obstacle course without touching the sides. This game was previously only released in Japan, and probably the worst thing about this release is that it’s not localized or translated, which doesn’t affect gameplay but makes the Japanese-language menus a huge pain to navigate. Aside from that, this is a really fun game that not only does a great job with the core concept, but also offers a fun selection of minigames. | |||
| Metal Slug Advance | Action-Platformer | 1 | B |
tl;drThis is not a port of any of the arcade games, but an original game made specifically for Game Boy Advance, and it’s a pretty good one too. It lacks multiplayer and suffers from slowdown at points, but the Metal Slug series’ great charm, wonderful animation, clever bosses, and overall solid gameplay are all present here. A must-play for Metal Slug series fans, and well worth trying out for Action-Platformer players. | |||
| Monster Rancher Advance | RPG | 1-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local Wireless / Online) | D |
tl;drMonster Rancher Advance replaces the console games’ feature generating monsters by reading CDs, now generating them from letters and words you type in. This is a clever way to make the gameplay work on Game Boy Advance, but the actual RPG gameplay is just as slow, frustrating, tedious, and driven by randomness as the console games. | |||
This is a really surprising trio of games to be added to the Game Boy Advance app.
The one Nintendo-published game, Kururin Paradise, is an untranslated and unlocalized title with a lot of Japanese text in menus that makes it difficult to get to the gameplay. It’s a good game, but given that barrier to entry it’s difficult to see why we got this before we got one of the many English-language games Nintendo has yet to bring to the app. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we got Kururin Paradise, it’s just strange that this beat out games like Mario Golf: Advance Tour, Mario Tennis: Power Tour, and Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land.
Then, when we get to the first of the third-party games, it’s not a super-popular one like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or one of the Sonic Advance games, but rather, Metal Slug Advance. And honestly, I’m kinda’ thrilled about this, because I think a lot of people slept on this game when it came out (I know I did), and it’s actually really good for a handheld take on the series.
Finally, Monster Rancher Advance. As I’ve made clear elsewhere, I am not a fan of this series. And while I credit this Game Boy Advance entry in the series with finding a workaround for the series’ signature monster-generating feature, the actual gameplay is just as terrible.
Still, two out of three games being good is pretty good for a month for updates on the Game Boy Advance app. We’re still waiting for some major games from Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance library to make it into the app, but while we wait, we’ve gotten a few nice surprises here.
tl;dr – The Game Boy Advance app gets three games, Kururin Paradise, Metal Slug Advance, and Monster Rancher Advance, and two of the three games are good. You have to get through the Japanese-language menus for Kururin, but once you do it’s excellent, and Metal Slug Advance is a great handheld take on the franchise. The odd one out here is Monster Rancher, which is a clever take on the series formula that’s still a frustrating tedious slog to play. However, this is overall a good month for the Game Boy Advance app.
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