Paper Mario will be playable on December 10 with the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack
As someone who has gotten decent mileage out of the Nintendo 64launch lineupfor Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, I’ve been wondering when the next content drop would be and how many games we might get. As it turns out, my expectations were too high — again. Nintendo is bringingPaper Marioto Switch Online on December 10.
That’s all well and good —Paper Mariois one of the better N64 titles to this day and it’ll suit the RPG crowd well on Switch — but I’m once again worried about Nintendo’s glacial rollouts for its Switch Online retro libraries. We’ve gone from infrequent groups of out-of-nowhere oddball picks from the SNES days to now having a solo N64 addition.
Maybe it’ll ramp up, though. We know for sure thatBanjo-Kazooie,F-Zero X,Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards,Mario Golf,Pokemon Snap, andThe Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Maskare comingto the Expansion Pack lineup — but there’s also well-founded data-mined evidence suggestingat least 30 moreN64 games are in the Switch Online pipeline.
Of the known-about games,Paper Mariowould probably be my preferred pick for Nintendo Switch Online — and these visuals look pretty good — but I feel you if you were banking onMajora’s Mask,F-Zero X, orBanjo-Kazooie. As a frequent renter in the N64 age, I never owned my own cartridge, so I’m excited to replay this game. The aesthetic was always so awesome, and I have a soft spot for those timed button presses during battles.
Speaking of which, I haven’t felt too burned by the NSO’s emulation latency, but I hope those timings aren’t too tough. I don’t want to keep lowering my expectations, y’know? Things could be so much better, and while I’m having fun with these old games for the time being, it’s absolutely fair to expect better from Nintendo in this day and age.
All that said, if you’ve only playedThe Thousand-YearDooror the newer entries (and, big caveat, you’re signed up for the Expansion Pack tier), don’t skip the originalPaper Mario.
