Three Sega Genesis / Mega Drive Games Have Been Added To Switch Online's Expansion Pack

I'm guessing they'll cross over but luckily I always download the JP versions of the NSO apps. Super solid drop this time too. I've played the heck out of all these on the Mega SG recently.

See, this is exactly the rate NSO should be updated.
None of that slow trickle nonsense.
Over the span of six different console emulators, there should be weekly releases like this. No excuse not to.

i'm pretty sure the Genesis app has two out of three of these games.

Sega Genesis??? So we haven’t forgotten. Been over a year since we got something here.

And only nearly a year and a half after the last update.

Its been far too long since the last Genesis update. Would love to give Vectorman or Panic at Funkotron a shot if given the time

The article got a little in the way of the adverts.

Where is the fourth one?

Ahh, Panic on Funktron. I was worried about this game being lost once they delist the Genesis Classics game on the eShop. Glad to see it won't disappear.

American app updated, and we have all three box arts in place...scanned so precisely that Vectorman has a contest advertisement in the lower left corner.

Toejam and "Early" in Panic on Funkotron

Autocorrect, right?

An excellent update. If I still had the service (and I’m not going back to it) I’d play them all. I had the Genesis app down as fully unloaded.. should have expected they’d trickle in a few more to stay on-brand.

It’s also pretty bad that I had the NSO expansion just to try the Genesis games on my Oled, and it never got an update in the year I had it. Terrible servicing of subscription content by Nintendo, if you ask me

Meh two of the three games here are already on the Sega Genesis Classics Collection but I guess since Sega is delisting those soon maybe for people who had not bought these yet y'all could start renting them from now on. As for Mercs don't bother with this waterdown version, just go play the arcade perfect version with co-op multiplayer via Capcom Arcade Stadium unless you want to play the filler Original Mode which is the only reason to play that port.

What's a Mercs? Never heard of it.

Cute Tails plush.

@HammerGalladeBro A Capcom-made ground shooter. The arcade version (JP only) is available in the Capcom Arcade Stadium collection, this is the only console version.

@Serpenterror The Capcom Arcade Stadium version is JP-only, tho, the NSO version has the text in English.

Sweet! Been hoping for some new Genesis games! It's been so long

I've been waiting AGES for Vectorman & I played it back in the GameCube days, I can't remember which Sonic collection it was apart of but I loved playing it... okay, I really enjoyed Vectorman 2 a little more even if I died over & over.

Solid drop!!
I’m so close to ordering the Genesis NSO controller. I beat Landstalker a few months ago and that was the first time I had done so since the late 90s. Maybe my second time ever beating it. It was like revisiting a dream…
I’m going to be playing these as well

@HammerGalladeBro Something the article and trailer and comments don't say is that Mercs is the sequel to Commando on the NES. Commando came out just before the Schwarzenegger movie of the same name but is unrelated.

@MirrorFate2 Doesn't matter though, it's still the same game. The NSO Genesis version doesn't had multiplayer mode so you can't even play it with friends online anyways. For some reason the Capcom Arcade Stadium version also doesn't had online play even though it had multiplayer mode.

I love that they had to put the "contest has ended" disclaimer in there

THE STREAK IS OVER!
I was just in a Discord conversation last week talking about how it was up to like 500 days since the last Sega update.

In the case of Mercs, they removed not only the third player from the arcade version but it lacks even a two-player option.
A shame but I guess the Original Mode was how they wanted to make up for it, which added of an RPG mechanic in addition to redesigning the levels.

@Mz3player It was many years ago pointed out that we don't know if game preservationists have ever uncovered a verified "winner" Vectorman cartridge.
I remember reading an article about the one person who won the grand prize (and how they unfortunately turned to some kind of life of crime later in life. And no, I don't mean game piracy which some people here respond as if it's the worst thing people could be doing in life.)
Surely that person didn't own the ONLY "winner" cartridge? Surely Sega would've made at least a literal handful of winners? Since it would be bad publicity if NOBODY won, and the game did have a skill element required to determine if a copy was a winner or not (finish the game with no cheats).

MERCS!!! Crap,, this is one of my fave Megadrive games. The music is meaty as anything!

@HammerGalladeBro Mercs is the second Commando game. However these days Capcom has retroactively been using a translation of the Japanese name for the franchise "Wolf of the Battlefield".
I guess because the original localized names are rather generic sounding.
(not the least that Sega made a completely unrelated game, three years earlier, called "Commando" that is not well-known and I think it referred to as "Sega Commando") Yep, the Sega game is definitely among the forgettable games in their vault. You'd need to specify "sega commando arcade game" if you even want to see what it is on youtube.)

go ahead and get hissy at me in the replies but this expansion just. OBJECTIVELY. OBJECTIVELY should not be a near 40 dollars more than the base plan, it should've been part of the base plan at the same cost. From its ammount of game breaking n64 bugs, absolutely minimal additions in terms of multiplayer, and library of gba and sega genesis games that get updated between sparcer time periods than count dracula's ressurections, there is no excuse for why ANYONE should have to pay 50-70 DOLLARS `A YEAR` for this in an increasingly money-scarce climate, especially when the alternatives Nintendo hates SO much on pc run games so much better for FREE, not to mention these games were cheaper and ran better on the wii, wii u and 3ds as well via the virtual console. No matter how much of a nintendo/sega fan you are, they have no excuse for this.

I think Nintendo sprung a leak, it's not dripping, but pouring!! 😱😂

YAY!
Was holding out on getting the Mega Drive Collection game as thought TJ and 2 would eventually come to NSO.

@PinballBuzzbro I get being pissed, Ubisoft was right in saying people will (have to) get used to not owning anything anymore.

But once you get over that mind numbingly awfull realisation that we're all little strings in the capilatistic web of dread where a single hack or computer mistake can leave us all helpless, hungry and without any way of saving ourselves.....then the pay one game, get all of this madness for free, is pretty sweet! 😂😄

@garfreek meh. I can get all this and more for cheaper and more often than not free on various platforms. and getting these games wouldve been cool if nintendo didnt take nearly a year between every game drop no matter how big or small it is.

„Nintendo has just added four more games to the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive app“

Four?

Five games in one month is good going for the NSO. I think there may still be an update on Friday too. The three MD games are not what I would have chosen but can’t complain.

these games wouldve been cool if nintendo didnt take nearly a year between every game drop no matter how big or small it is.

Nintendo is only responsible for their own games. Publishers have to approach Nintendo if and when they want to put their games on the service. If Sega or whoever doesn’t bother doing so, there’s nothing Nintendo can do. They certainly are not going to go chasing Sega to make them continue supporting the service.

I would be interested in hearing an interview with whoever it is who decides what games to put up on the service. There has been some odd choices and noticeable delays. Where is Sonic 1?

I imagine they want to keep people coming back to the service later by staggering releases. If they release all their good games first, people will play them and then not bother continuing to subscribe when there’s only bad and obscure games left to be added.

@PinballBuzzbro A couple of objections. First of all, what you're saying is not objective, but 100% subjective. Just saying.

Second of all, the emulation quality for NES, SNES and GBA is quite a bit better on Switch than on Virtual Console (which suffered from bad input latency, not to mention often quite a soft image and ugly colours). Switch online emulators are made by NERD who did generally an excellent job, although N64 is still a work in progress (it's gotten a lot better since launch, though).

Third of all, there are no free alternatives on PC. There are free emulators, but you're not paying for the emulators here. You're paying for the games.

I think 40€/year (that's just over 3€/month) for Expansion pack is not a bad deal. You get the online play, cloud saves, and access to 89 NES games, 75 SNES games, 33 Game Boy games, 39 N64 games, 48 Sega Mega Drive games and 25 GBA games. Then you also get the Mario Kart, Splatoon and Animal Crossing DLC, Tetris 99, F-Zero 99, and recently also access to Nintendo Music. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

A while ago I googled for lists of the best Sega Genesis games. I looked for long lists each at least 50 games long, that were ranked. I assigned points based on rank and added them all up. I was left with 16 lists, 396 unique games and 1,465 total entries.

Vectorman ended up tied for #46 best Genesis game.
Toejam & Earl 2: Panic on Funkotron was tied for #76.
Mercs was tied for #117.

Vectorman and Toejam & Earl 2: Panic on Funkotron were already included in the Sega Genesis Classics collection, which is being delisted forever on December 6th by the way, better snatch that up while you can!

This Genesis version of Mercs is new to the Switch. The Japanese version of the original arcade game is available in the Capcom Arcade Stadium collection, as others have mentioned already.

@Stuffgamer1 I remember that contest and the commercial for it back in the day, lol

Man I would love that helicopter game to be on there. I think its owned by EA though, the one where you have to pick up fuel barrels to keep flying. and ammo with your hook. Amazing. But These games are welcome. I love Vector and Toe Jam and Earl.

Alert the dictionary and inform them that the definition of four has been changed to be three

Maybe the contest has ended is for legal reasons.

We still need the rest of the soon to be delisted compilation.

@PinballBuzzbro You're right and you should say it.
The regular NSO is fine, because for $20 USD a year, you get online play, plus NES/SNES/GB games as a bonus.
The expansion pass though, is an objective rip off, especially at the price of $50 USD for trickle-down emulation and rented DLC.

I only pay the equivalent of $31 USD (£25) a year for the expansion pass because of a deal an online shop has (shopto.net).

What an early Christmas surprise from Nintendo! I can't stop playing TJ&E, MERCS and Vectorman as well as Donkey Kong Land 1 & 2.

Charging my nso controller right now... finally got the snes one last week so the collection is complete

(and people lets not have the same arguments on nso again and again.. if it's for you, it's for you... if you prefer the base pack and the genesis collection that's fine... everybody has a slightly different use case, for me the family package makes all the difference)

I remember thinking Vectorman was basically the coolest game ever made when it came out, and it’s sequel was one of the last Genesis games made (within reason I should say - pretty sure they still make’em lol)

But something about Toe Jam & Earl really sums up why Sega did so well exactly that one time. I think those games appealed to youth culture of the time specifically in a way few titles did, and really only have regularly begun to do in video games of the last 10 years. It’s so modern (of course now it isn’t) and like the Teen Movie of video games

Oh, cool! The last time they added Genesis games to NSO was back in June 2023, so I feared they had stopped supporting it.

Hoping that this is just the start and we get even more of them during the next few months.

I really like Toejam and Earl 2. But as always, I'd rather own then rent it.

Quite a familiarity range - I first played Vectorman at a friend's place, only ever read a few guide/tip/code compilation lines about ToeJam & Earl and can't confidently say I recall Mercs even from the emulation-focused years; perhaps it was just absent from what I found back then and is still tucked in some sort of "GoodSMD" pack I got long ago but have since procrastinated on sorting out. Sure neat to still make some discoveries even on a platform I actually had as a teen.

@Elitepatriot ah yes, Strike series - three jewels in the Mega Drive library's crown and, IIRC, ported to SNES as well (and even Game Boy!). But they seemed tied to EA Replay compilation in the later years, so no telling the odds of separate appearances here. For all I know, inspired indie followers like Megacopter or Cleared Hot might arrive on Switch first.

I was wondering when we might see some new Genesis games on here. I'd love it if they added Shadowrun and D&D: Warriors of the Eternal Sun sometime.

For anyone interested, SEGA Genesis Classics is on sale on the American eShop, its final sale before being delisted. Don't know if it's also on sale in other eShops, though.

I wonder if this means the app will get updated more, now that the collection is getting delisted

I say it every time there's a Sega update and I'll say it again. I NEED General Chaos and Skitchin'. Those games were religion in my household back in the day and I'd be all over them again if given the opportunity. They're so damn fun!

@AmyTheBrawler That was the Sonic Gems Collection. I also had it for my Gamecube back in thr day.

Is this a limited time deluge or is this "the new NSO"? I'm loving this rate. Also I was beginning to think the Genesis app was dead. It will be nice to play Vectorman again.

@ScalenePowers Vectorman’s level design has not aged well. The layouts are confusing and open

Vector man always looked fun, slippery controls but fun. I wish the could release NHL 93, or Joe Montanas football. NHL 93-98 were just amazing back in the day.

@MeloMan I imagine it’s only because it’s Thanksgiving / Black Friday.

@Tempestryke you likely wouldn’t play it for longer than the rental period.

Why bother buying a cow when you only want one glass of milk?

@sevex I wish they would re-release some Master System games too. I would love to have Dynamite Dux on Switch.

@DollyrotsFan1 and Game Gear games too.

@DollyrotsFan1 I had never heard of that one! Looked up a video and it is a weird and fascinating game haha.

@sevex Yeah. It was a fun game. lol I used to have it on Sega Master System and it was one of the games I played the most along with Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Wonderboy and Wonderboy 3: The Dragon's Trap. I was surprised it didn't get a sequel but the main character (Bean the Dynamite) went on to become of Sonic's side characters and still appears in games every now and then.