Celebrate the SNES’s 35th Birthday With the 5 Weirdest Switch Online Games
To mark the Super Nintendo’s 35th anniversary, a Polygon writer explored lesser-known games available through Nintendo Switch Online and selected five unusual titles that stood out. The piece argues that these games offer a mix of overlooked fun, historical curiosity and occasionally frustrating design, showing the breadth of the SNES catalogue beyond its best-known releases.
– Cosmo Gang The Puzzle: a deceptively strategic falling-block game whose alien-clearing mechanics kept the writer playing for far longer than expected.
– Mario and Wario: a visually appealing Game Freak puzzle game, but its mouse-only controls make it stressful and difficult to recommend beyond a brief novelty play.
– Uncharted Waters: New Horizons: one of Koei’s historical games, included among the writer’s unusual SNES discoveries.
- Switch Online contains many overlooked SNES curiosities.
- Cosmo Gang The Puzzle is the standout recommendation.
- Mario and Wario is historically interesting but frustrating.
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The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, usually called the SNES, was Nintendo’s main home games console in the early 1990s. It is remembered for well-known games such as Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, but its catalogue also included many puzzle, strategy and simulation games that reached smaller audiences.
Nintendo Switch Online is a subscription service that lets Switch owners play a selection of older Nintendo games. Its SNES library includes titles from Nintendo and other publishers, although the available games and features can vary by region and over time.
Some older games were designed around hardware and playing habits that are no longer common. For example, Mario and Wario originally used a Super NES Mouse, while games such as Uncharted Waters: New Horizons ask players to manage trade, exploration and travel rather than simply react quickly on screen.