5 Obscure SNES Games We Want on Switch

It’s been a while since Nintendo dropped 20 free SNES games for the Nintendo Switch Online Service, meaning we’ve already finished them all and are looking for something else to play.

With 721 games released in North America alone, Nintendo has a lot of choices when it comes to what to re-release next… whenever that may be. Still, with so many options to choose from, we’ve got the ones we know we’d like to see first. Here are five (more) SNES games that we want to see on Switch.

• Secret of Evermore

In Secret of Evermore, you play as a boy who travels through time with his dog sidekick, beating monsters to death with a bone (or a bazooka, depending on which time period they happen to be in). You dog transforms to match his environment, appearing as a feral wolf in prehistoric times or as a laser-firing toaster in the far future of Omnitopia, which is a nice touch. It’s a weird, B-movie version of that action-RPG style of game popularized by Square in the 90s, one that would be awesome to revisit if for no reason than for the sheer novelty of it.

• Metal Warriors

In 1995, LucasArts took a break from the whole “Star Wars” thing to bring us Metal Warriors, a side-scrolling action game that was basically 16-bit Titanfall. You had six different mechs, all with totally different abilities, and you could even get out and cruise around as tiny lil’ pilot with a pistol and a jetpack if your mech got wrecked or if you needed to sneak through a tunnel that your robo-pal wouldn’t fit through or something.

• Rock & Roll Racing

Rock & Roll Racing was one of the first games to lean heavily on licensed music, with midi versions of Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ or Deep Purple’s ‘Highway Star’ constantly playing in the background. Honestly, there were only 5 or 6 songs on repeat here (depending on which system you were playing on), but it was better than nothing.

• Legend of the Mystical Ninja

This game rules. You and a buddy run around clobbering demons and bad ninjas with flutes, yo-yos, and big ol’ pipes, because apparently Kid Ying and Dr. Yang are stoners. Speaking of: This game is hella weird. You can ride around on each other’s backs, participate in quiz shows, take a break to play Gradius, and generally do all kinds of bizarre, 4th wall breaking stuff. I’ve never really seen anything like it before or since.

• Actraiser

ActRaiser may not be an especially obscure game, but it’s a great one. The side-scrolling action is awesome, the god simulator mode is simple but just works and feels great, and the challenge is tough without being too crazy. That is, at least, until the end of the game where they make you basically fight every single boss back to back in a boss rush marathon that’ll probably have you trying to snap your controller in half.