Five More Classic Rareware Games Come To Nintendo Switch Online Today

Really good choices, these. This and World of Goo 2 were the best things today, IMHO.

This does proof that the call for RARE games on Nintendo is being heard. It gives me hope that more RARE games will launch on Switch in the near future.

Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll is such a fun game. I'll probably play it later today. Nice selection of games altogether.

This is a good sign for Diddy Kong Racing, Conker, Banjo 2, & other classic Rare games on Switch

Played most of these as part of Rare Replay on Xbox. These are all very fun games.

Give me Diddy Kong Racing and Kong 64

I was so excited at the start of this trailer when I thought they were bringing the full Rare Replay to Switch. Surely it can't be far off...

Only one I really care about at all is Killer Instinct, but hopefully it at least leads to Diddy Kong Racing down the line.

These are great but means the chances of Rare Replay on Switch is now zero. Which is a shame. However perhaps Diddy Kong Racing for the online service pleasssssssssse.

Give me original Battletoads and the Battletoads & Double Dragons crossover game in the future plz.

Hopefully we also get the arcade versions of Killer Instinct and Killer Instinct 2 one day as well. Overall this is a good sign.

EDIT: These games are apparently not coming to the Japanese NSO (or at least not yet). Instead they're getting Mother 3 today.

I had a feeling they would slowly dreadfeed us with all the old games from Rare Replay only. Chances are we probably won't see all the arcade (Battletoads Arcade, Killer Instinct 1 & 2) or original games (Perfect Dark Zero, Killer Instinct Reboot: Seasons 1, 2, & 3, Kameo: Elements of Power, Viva Pinata, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts 'n Bolts).

Hopeful for Diddy Kong Racing... it's one of the only Rare N64 games that is still completely locked to the original console. Even DK64 at least made it to the Wii U eshop.

Blast Corps is awesome!

@rpawlos15133 There was the DS port if that counts for much, though granted it did change a lot of things.

@HammerGalladeBro I'm not buying that unless it comes from HAMSTER Corporation.

Played Blast Corps last summer on my old N64. My 25-year-old save game was still there.

Good addition for those who have NSO.

This is an awesome addition! I’m especially pleased to have Blast Corps and KI back. Top stuff!

NICE!!! Been after Killer Instinct for ages. Chuffed to bits with this!!!

This announcement was a big-time W.

RIP to all the people who were hoping for Rare Replay...

I honestly didn’t expect killer instinct to get on NSO. Pretty cool.

No mother 3 again, this has to be a theme of Nintendo doing everything but release mother 3 in the states, it's funny at this point.

My friend and I used to play Snake Rattle 'n Roll SO MUCH back in the day. Looking forward to a playthrough.

@Qwiff I still have a save game on mine - 100% complete. I worked my butt off for a few of those levels!

My dreams have been answered. Blast Corps is one of my favorite games of all time. Will look forward to 100%'ing this again. It's so original and there's nothing like it.
And Killer Instinct is another classic, that soundtrack!!! I can still remember a lot of the original Ultra Combo inputs.

@Greatluigi And, honestly, the SNES port isn't bad. I mean, it's not the arcade version, but is a very fun game in it's own right.

Thought this was Rare Replay, kinda bummed that it’s not but having these games in the subscription rental service is nice too.

Seems promising that we'll see more Rare games on NSO, all welcome additions here, never heard of Snake Rattle n Roll, looks interesting.

Hang on, Phil said they were only launching 4 games elsewhere and here's another 5 🤪

Seriously though, Killer Instinct was awesome in SNES and stands shoulder to shoulder with Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat of the time and Blast Corps is good fun

@Lizuka Good call, I completely forgot about that port!

Nice for Switch Online users, but personally I hate it! I just want Rare Replay!

When I saw the headline I thought dk64, Diddy Kong racing, bk gruntys revenge. Let down.

How much rare would a rare replay replay if a rare replay replayed rare replay?

I found that Showcase to be one of the most boring yet but Blastcorps being available today made it all worthwhile.

@Henmii
its one of the reasons why i wish that NSO at least had an option to buy/keep the games. im not against the idea of the service existing i just hate that its the only way to play many of these games on switch despite them running natively on the system.

From what i gather the DLC that is offered with NSO can be bought independent of the service but the games sadly cant.

Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll is pure Rare/Ultimate isometric goodness

Glad to see more good games being added, but have to admit that that was a little tease.. i was hoping so badly for dk64 and diddy kong racing when i saw that logo 😅

@Mgalens
Would be awesome if they released physical versions with several games in a collection on the card. 😃 But that will most likely not happen i guess.

these don't look anything like Tooie or DK64.

@Artonide
yeah this would be something i would love.
kind of like those evercade collections but for switch and including games from NSO.

as you said it feels unlikely sadly.

Huge troll at the end with that rareware logo. I think everybody watching saw that and thought we were finally getting something else.

I like that Nintendo math says "5 RareWare games = Mother 3"

@Aurumonado I was hoping for more Genesis games for NSO

I always knew it was a long shot that Rare Replay would ever come to Switch, since about a third of the games in the collection are completely reliant on Xbox 360 backwards compatibility, and I can't imagine they'd want to put in the extra legwork to natively port those individual Xbox 360 titles to Switch (and emulation wouldn't be an option). It would be a ton of work and resources to port NINE Xbox 360 titles over just to bundle them in a $30 package, the ROI would certainly not be worth it for them.

That said, neither Battletoads in Battlemaniacs nor the SNES version of Killer Instinct were included in Rare Replay, so that's pretty nifty.

Also, as someone who is a MASSIVE fan of Battletoads, VERY HAPPY to see one of them make it over to Switch (even if it's the worst one). Hoping this means we can expect many more classic Rare titles across all NSO platforms in the future.

Awww, man. When I saw Rare logo I thought Microsoft was going to announce Rare replay for Switch.

Conker, diddy, and tooie this year please.

And of course they had to give us the dumb down version of KI instead of KI Gold or the '13 masterpiece

BLAST CORPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Very excited for that - roll on 5pm!

Nice, Diddy Kong Racing just might be around the corner too. I’m definitely jumping on that Battletoads game.

That is a GREAT list.

I absolutely loved RC Pro AM as a kid. It had the absolute tightest controls

@Mgalens I agree and that's why I prefer to play these on Xbox. However, I wonder if Nintendo and Microsoft will finally agree about Diddy Kong Racing being re-released. That would be huge.

Great! Battletoads in Battlemaniacs is the only Battletoads game I didn't own anywhere else. I still won't own it, but will be able to play it legally at least.

Blast Corps was the first game I ever rage quit. Looks like I’ll have to give it another go 25 years later.

Not the KI I was hoping for on Switch but I'll take it either way. Battlemaniacs is really cool too since it wasn't included in Rare Replay

Killer Instinct shines bright there. Always wanted to play Blast Corps. Should be very interesting

I really thought they were releasing rare replay on the switch for a moment when it was on the direct.

Holy Nintendo Switch Online update Batman~!!!!!

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, Blast Corps, and Killer Instinct are all coming to NSO, and I can't wait to play them.

@Mgalens,

That would be nice for Nintendo Online users for sure, but I still would love Rare Replay and physical at that. There are quite some games on it that I never played, including all the Xbox stuff.

Nice. I own two of these physically but I'm looking guard to all 5 on my Switch.

@HammerGalladeBro Ohhh that's a bad sign for rareware games getting over there in general than!

I remembered playing RC PRO AM all the time on Game Boy! Gonna give the NES version a try right away!

Overall, great additions to the service. If we got these, there's a real good chance we'll get Donkey Kong 64 and Diddy Kong Racing. I'm betting Nintendo is saving those for a regular Direct to announce them.

For a few seconds I thought we were gonna get Rare Replay: Nintendo Edition.

Guess the reason we've never got it is that Nintendo needs to drip feed us the Rare stuff to help sell its online service.

Maybe we'll get it on the Switch 2 eventually. 🤣

I got super excited thinking we were getting rare replay for a hot minute. I'd have bought Battletoads in Battle Maniacs and Snake Rattle n Roll if it weren't on the stupid NSO. The NSO ruins everything.

@majinx07 Yeeeessss!!! And the BT arcade game

@Aurumonado What were you hoping for out of curiosity?

@Axecon I think this is the first time I've ever seen someone refer to Banjo-Tooie as Banjo 2 hah.

Monsieur, with these NSO games you're really spoiling us.

@Tempestryke Rare Replay!

@Aurumonado Totally feel your disappointment on that

Wow, nice lineup of games here. Nice to see more and more Rareware titles on Switch, where they belong.

2 of my favs from childhood, rc pro am and killer instinct. I always felt like ki was the best of those old 2d fighters back in that era, it just disappeared after rares sale.

Snake rattle n roll, surreal, odd, fun, and punishingly impossibly difficult at the end. Whoo.

RC PRO-AM was one of my favorite NES games back in the 80s. It's a crying shame it took so long to get it ported to another Nintendo console.

@Serpenterror i think they’ll put them all on their eventually , if they put snes killer instinct then they’ll probably put the Xbox perfect dark and banjo nuts and bolts . They just can’t put everything in one day people will lose interest and forget in a week .

@Henmii Bro, Rare Replay doesn't even have the SNES version of KI. This is the first time that got a modern release.

Just played a few levels of battletoads, and this game is just awful. Hit detection and the speed that you punch is so slow. The other four games are still pretty fun.

Oh wow, this is bangin'. I never got a chance to get far with Battletoads Battlemanics, so I can settle that score now. SNES Killer Instinct is very welcome, I haven't played it in years. Never got to play Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll and RC PRO-AM, as these are a couple of NES gems that I've pursued for eons, and it's finally time. Lastly, the venerable Blast Corps that the world absolutely gushes over... we dance at last. Holy **** what a day!

Really nice surprise. I really wanted to played blast corps again. It’s such an original and differnt game. Perfect for discovery for people who don’t know the n64 library that well (the function of nso)

Here are how these games landed on IGN lists:

R.C. Pro-Am was the #13 best NES game
Snake Rattle 'n' Roll was the #32 best NES game

Killer Instinct was the #82 best SNES game
Battletoads in Battlemaniacs did not make the SNES top 100

Blast Corps was the #23 best N64 game

@CooCooKaChoo I feel your pain on that. I persisted to get 100% but man it was tough. Up there with F-Zero GX imo.

@Chaos_Knight,

Fair point, but I still want Rare Replay. Killer instinct is one of the titles that I have the least interest in.