Nintendo Expands Switch Online's Game Boy Library With Five More Classics

Wow, this is mega, man.

Nice, I was wondering why there wasn't a Legacy Collection of these games.

These are games I missed when the 3DS eShop closed, so it's nice to be able to play them.

This gives me hope they eventually include both versions of Mega Man & Bass as well.

are these the actual mega man games? or are they a compromised version of the original ones?

Wow the entire Mega Man Game Boy lineup. What a great selection though I kinda wish we get a legacy collection of these as well.

Okay, Nintendo, color me impressed with this batch. I mean, 3/5 of these games are nothing to write home about, but IV and V are genuinely great and I'd argue stand up with the best of the Classic games.

Oh wow! A rare switch online win!

@Koxen yes and no. 5 is 98% original, and the others are new levels with old bosses

@Koxen basically compromised version of the original NES games mixed. Except for Mega Man 5 which is totally original

This means I can finally play Mega Man V using the extended color palette that I hear the original GB version had but was absent from the 3DS re-release.

Hopefully the other games stuck on 3DS/Wii U VC like Mega Man & Bass and Battle Chip Challenge also come to Switch.

Whoa! That’s a lot of games.

@Koxen The first four reuse Robot Masters and themes from the NES games, like the first one is a mix of 1 & 2, the second one is a mix of 2 & 3, etc. The levels are remixed too, but similar. I suppose they are "compromised" compared to the NES versions, but they do play quite well regardless - they are pretty solid OG Game Boy games. Part V is all original and pretty well regarded.

YES!!!!!!

@Koxen they are not ports, but reuse elements and bosses. I would recommend you play V in particular for original bosses

I just beat Mega Man V the other day on my Analogue Pocket. Enjoy!

@Koxen If I remember correctly, most of them are rehashes of the original NES games. Mega Man 5, however, is original.

Ya know, I played a lot of Mega Man games but I haven’t really played the GB ones. I might have many years ago but it ain’t no telling which one it was. I’ll check em out.

Well I certainly didn't expect this.

Great to finally see GB games coming out on a regular basis now.

my hot take:
Mega Man V is better than Mega Mans 3 - 6 combined. absolute win for NSO users.

(addendum: I forgot how atrocious the unpatched music is in Mega Man II.)

I have these on 3DS, but I'm happy for those who get to experience them for the first time.

@dudujencarelli it looks very nice, but it would have been cool to have Super Game Boy features included.
(at least I have the fan made DX version on my flash cart.)

Had a more difficult evening watching the boys alone while the wife got some time away this was a much appreciated article to see! Excited for tomorrow!

Holy 💩💩💩💩, guys. I think we're getting a new Mega Man game announced at SGF.

Now we need Megaman Xtreme 1&2

They're not gonna make me buy an entire collection to play Gameboy Megaman! Yeah!!!

Sincerely thrilled over this. Megaman V (and apparently IV, I've only ever heard hype for V until right now) is considered a hidden gem of the series but I'm not sure I'd want to spend much on the first couple of games, especially since I already bought way too many old games on my Switch. Something like NSO is perfect for me to try out more obscure games in a series I like without having to always spend money I could've spent on some 9/10 indie game instead.

Pretty amazing to see a whole packet of third party games show up here. Maybe Capcom realized they probably wouldn't sell worth a damn as a $20 legacy collection. But they're definitely nice as bite sized Mega Man games. The second is a wonderful example of how gb sound design can go horribly awry. But that corkscrew in the ear is very fitting for the game with the absolute lamest Mega Man antagonist.

I beat Mega Man V a couple years ago. Its a good Mega Man game if you’re looking for a more forgiving and smaller Mega Mn experience. Don’t be afraid to jump straight into V.

Nice addition. I’ve let my subscription expire and it’s too late in the lifecycle for renewal

Soo, I'm confused. They obviously have the same titles as the originals, but the descriptions sound different.

Eh. I'm glad I OWN the ones I want on the 2DS instead of renting them.

@Mrkittyhead Oh, are the descriptions different from what's in the manual or on the box? I only have one of those physically, bought it used from a cousin, no box or manual so I'm just curious how they differ from someone who had them new.

Funny thing is it had actually leaked early in the day from being posted early on the Portugal eShop, though don't think the leak got very much traction.

I was wondering why Capcom hadn't put these in a collection. Already played through these on 3DS, but nice to have these on NSO. Tons of legacy MM on Switch now, love to see it.

@Mrkittyhead I'm going to be the annoying pedant and note that they teeeeeechnically don't have the same names (GB Megaman games are enumerated I - V as opposed to 1 - 5). Not that that does much to clear the obvious confusion with the titles, so your point stands.

That's unexpected, but hey I'm not complaining!

I know I sound like a broke record but seriously why can’t we have an option outside of subscribing? I’d rather pay a few bucks a pop for games I’ll play regularly than pay $20 or even $50 a year for a lot of games and an online service that I never use at all!

I am so happy to see this! Someone was asking about the similarities with the NES megaman, but I consider them different enough.

GB MM1: Kind of a technical marvel when you consider how they managed to put so much into such an old gameboy game. One of the hardest too.
GB MM2: Famous for having the worst music that will destroy your ears!
GB MM3: Combined half of NES MM3 and NES MM4 bosses but with totally new stages!
GB MM4: Following the formula, this time combined the other half of NES MM4 bosses with half of NES MM5 bosses. New stages and some catchy music (we never got to see the other half of MM5 bosses because... read below)
GB MM5: The last game and probably the best of the gameboy franchise. It has a completely new plot, bosses, stage and its inspired by planets! This one I recommend 100%

@Mrkittyhead
Except for 5 which had original bosses wilys revenge through 4 use robot masters from the nes 1-5 along with a new sub boss type called the mega man killers (enker, punk and ballade) along with a warped version of megaman dr wily reprogrammed from the future renamed quint. So it’s recycling robot masters and adding new story elements.

I'm excited that these are now available for the masses! I have them all on cartridges but bought them all for my 2DS before the store closed and they are still great experiences, especially MMV.

The very loose story of the first GB Mega Man game (Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge) is that Dr Wily somehow rebuilt some of his Robot Masters (!) so you get four from Mega Man 1 and then four from MM 2, plus a new boss that shows up after beating them — and then of course Wily.
All the others followed suit: MMII = four from MM 2 and four from MM3 but this time it's because Wily has a Time Skipper!
And so on... 😂

Until you get to Mega Man V, which is a really special experience ESPECIALLY after playing the previous four. I played through them all again last year and it was really rewarding as a MM fan.

Played the heck outta these back in the day! Still got my original cart of MM V!

@dudujencarelli unfortunately no I don’t think so. You have the choice of game boy or game color palettes, this game had special palettes for super game boy only which Nintendo online doesn’t support sadly as far as I know

Very nice indeed!

Nice!
Im happy with this

good list, nice you get some new non nintendo series added...

and for people who have the means..mmv was patched and colorized.. it's really beautiful trhat way...

Still have the original! It was my first Mega Man game, ever! And it's where my love for the franchise started. This is pretty damn awesome!

Wow! This is sooo good, for a moment I was actually wondering if it's April Fools today, haha

Nothing for Expansion Pak owners in May. Hopefully that gets corrected this month!

And here I assumed Capcom was sitting on these until another collection opportunity. Then again, many of these being reportedly tweaked ports from NES, the existing collections might make it redundant.

Almost makes you wonder if the agreement between the two companies could even have Disney Afternoon games somewhere up the sleeve (like it or not, it's sporadic releases like the one above that excuse bumping a service up in the public's attention span, not unloading everything at once), seeing as the respective collection is still mystifyingly absent from the most family-oriented platform of the generation. Or maybe Capcom was just bitten by Atlus, go figure.😅

Best update ever.

Many many Mega Men.

Wow, this is an insanely good update! Super Mario Land and Alleyway got added to NSO last month, and now this. Game Boy fans are eatin' well right now.

It's also really crazy timing for me personally, because I've been practicing Mega Man 2 on Legacy Collection recently, trying to beat easy mode without save states for the first time.

My thanks to several users in the comments here for helping educate me on Game Boy Mega Man, as a relative newcomer to the franchise. It's really helpful. 👍

It's a shame that these didn't get a physical compilation on Switch like virtually all of the other classic Mega Man games.

I love these games! I'm one of those people who played the Game Boy Mega Man releases years before I played the NES games, so they sort of became my standard for platforming games (along with Metroid II). I stand by my opinion that Megaman IV and V are fantastic games that I actually like better than their NES counterparts.

A long time ago, I got myself all five of these games' Japanese GB cartridges from eBay, as it was cheaper than trying to find them locally. It was fine for 1,2,3,4, but for 5, I would have enjoyed being able to read the text in the game. So this update is pretty good for me, I might give Mega Man 5 GB another playthrough one of these days.

@SteveDaSteve Say that again,

@SteveDaSteve I'm sure that for Japanese gamers, it'll Rock, man.

I remember having MM4 on GB, but not the rest. I never knew 5 had unique content until reading some comments about the games, so I'm excited to give that one a try for the first time!

Uh... When's Pokemon coming?

@LadyCharlie Only Mega Man V had Super Game Boy features.
Most memorably, Capcom announced a GBA companion to the Mega Man Anniversary Collection, which would've had colorized version of the entire Game Boy series but it was eventually canceled after a couple years of waiting.
Too bad, there's probably certain fans Capcom could've hired at this point to do it over again.

I really wish Nintendo would enable Super Game Boy functionality on the Game Boy games that support it.

Outside of The Wily Wars for Genesis, I didn't think Capcom would even bother getting any Mega Man games on NSO that were on Nintendo systems, but... I don't think the GB games were on any Mega Man legacy collections... so maybe that's why. Oh well, still glad to see them.

They should have used the less ugly MM1 cover from europe

@Tempestryke no, I just assumed these were the same as the NES games, but it seems like they are completely separate games

@GameOtaku ahhh, okay. Sounds interesting! I’ll have to check it out

@Mrkittyhead Ohh

@Wisps if I could like a comment more times I would, great run down of what each of these titles gives. I played through the first game last night when I seen these drop and felt some parts were definitely right from the nes games, I'm looking forward to seeing how the lil handheld handles the semi ports and really looking forward to playing 5 after reading your post.

Since now I'm subscribing to +expansion, I hope nintendo expands nintendo 64 titles. And please let us configure buttons, I can't play golden eye 64 with the default controller on switch 😅

I just streamed these games on my YouTube and Twitch channel.

just realized that this was a missed opportunity to add super gameboy support..

@Wisps I agree with you, but it's fun to see the critics in the '90s were a bit swamped with megaman so they couldn't see the differences and new stuff in nr 5 anymore, as the nso review crew noticed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKZ8T-3Z1ho

@wiiware It's pretty easy to do a system-level rebinding and save it as a Goldeneye preset. I know it "shouldn't" have to be that way, but it's still fairly straightforward. It takes about a minute and makes Goldeneye on NSO actually playable as a twin-stick FPS. Nintendo Life even has a video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QepAQsjUWuo

@Beaucine Thanks, I'll try it and I hope it's easy to change from golden eye preset to normal control preset. If it's hard, maybe I need to buy that nintendo 64 switch controller on ebay, lol.