News about retro game re-releases on Nintendo Switch has been coming in thick and fast lately. This is a round-up of the best retro games coming soon to Nintendo’s console.
Aero Fighters 3
The next ACA NeoGeo game heading to Nintendo Switch is the Video System shoot-em-up Aero Fighters 3. The game is due out this week (15 March) and is the sequel to the fantastic Aero Fighters 2 which is already on the Switch eShop. Aero Fighters 3 mixes it up as it has you flying old WW2 fighter planes rather than the modern jets of previous games in the series. Whilst this game isn’t technically as good as Aero Fighters 2, it’s still a decent enough game which adds to the Switch’s growing library of classic arcade shoot-em-ups. Watch a gameplay video here.
The following week will see the release of NeoGeo fighter World Heroes 2 JET.
Bad Dudes Vs. Dragon Ninja
The next Data East arcade game to hit the Switch as part of the Johny Turbo’s Arcade series will be the side-scrolling beat-em-up classic Bad Dudes Vs. Dragon Ninja. The game is coming to the Nintendo Switch eShop on 21 March 2018 and you can watch a gameplay video here. This game is pure nostalgia! I reckon it’s the game I played the most as a kid in the arcades and on home computers.
Sol Divide
Image source: www.arcade-museum.com
The latest Psikyo shooter to head to Switch will be Sol Divide, due out on 22 March. This is a change from their usual top-down TATE approach. The game is horizontally scrolling and has a really interesting medieval fantasy theme. I’ve never played this game but I’m an avid fan of Psikyo’s shmups on Switch so this will be a day-one purchase for me. Check out this gameplay video.
Moon Patrol
Image source: www.arcade-museum.com
Hamster are bringing the 1982 Irem classic arcade game Moon Patrol to Nintendo Switch on 22 March. Watch a gameplay video here.
Atari Flashback Classics
Atari recently announced that they are bringing their Atari Flashback Classics collection to Nintendo Switch later this year. We don’t have any more details yet but have to assume they will follow the same format as when released on other consoles such as PS4 and XBox One. What’s annoying about this is that they created two separate volumes, each with 50 games. The real draw here are the arcade versions of classics such as Crystal Castles, Centipede and Asteroids. Sadly these are spread out across the two collections which also include a load of old 2600 games. As someone who owned an Atari 2600 I have fond memories of these games but they really haven’t aged well and this limits the appeal of the collections. I’d be a lot happier if they were all on the same volume. You can watch a decent video review of both PS4 collections by CornshaqGaming below:
Crash Bandicoot NSane Trilogy
Fans of Playstation 1 favourite Crash Bandicoot will no doubt have been pleased to hear that the re-mastered version of the original games is now heading to Nintendo Switch. The game has been out for some time on PS4 but I’ve been holding out in the hope it would come to Switch as it seems a better fit for Nintendo’s portable system. There will be a physical version of the game published on 10 July 2018 and it’s available to pre-order now from Amazon, priced at £34.99 (UK price):
Crash Bandicoot NSane Trilogy (Nintendo Switch)
Vasara HD Collection
Bullet hell shoot-em-ups Vasara and Vasara 2 developed for arcades by Visco Corporation are coming to Nintendo Switch in 2019 in a 2 game collection. Not quite sure why it’s taking so long but these do look like very interesting games for shmup fans!
8bit budgies 
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can’t play 2p Simultaneous on the NES version of Bad Dudes, right? If so, this is the first time (unless the arcade version released for the Wii and Wii U) that you can play 2PS Bad Dudes action on Nintendo. Now you can rescue President Ronnie with a friend.
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Hi – you’re correct the NES version was single player only (I think it had a 2 player mode that wasn’t coop ie you had to take turns). I believe there was a collection of Data East arcade classics on Wii which had this game – just googled this: https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/f5vzeKzDtWrsjyz3nHSDFZvlVyS6mKfZ (I never knew about it though)
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HAHA, did you see the slowdown on one of those games? Yikes! Thanks for that though, I didn’t know about this game either. Its the arcade version? Neat! How do you like Metal Slug? Completely unrelated, I know, but curious.
And sorry about the two replies, I don’t know what the heck happened. You can dump the other one if you’re able to, haha!
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can’t play 2P Simultaneous on the NES version of Bad Dudes, right (just alternating, which is nowhere near as fun)? If so, this is the first time that you can rescue President Ronnie with a friend on a Nintendo system, and go out for burgers after.
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I absolutely love the Metal Slug series. I’m currently playing a lot of Metal Slug X on Switch (ACA NeoGeo) and really enjoying the high score mode where you get 1 credit to get a high score on an online table – that’s the best way to play Metal Slug – if you just pump in hundreds of credits it spoils the challenge and it can get stale after a few levels. I watched a gameplay video recently of someone playing the original Metal Slug and they got really far with one credit – it was seriously impressive. I really like Metal Slug 1 and 3 too – will have to get those on Switch soon but there are so many great retro games available its difficult to find time to play them all (and it’s getting expensive!) – will have to buy Bad Dudes this week and then Psikyo’s Sol Divide is out soon as well.
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I never got to play Metal Slug as a youngster, but holy cow, what a great game. I got the Wii one when it came out, just fantastic. Someone told me Gunstar Heroes was “Metal Slug + Contra,” and I was just SO disappointed with it. Metal Slug + Contra should not equal an inferior game. Maybe its a far superior game for other people, but yeah, the math just doesn’t work for me there. (Metal Slug: I LOVE the stuff with the huge muscular mid-level boss dude, “see you in helllllll” and all that, and then in Metal Slug 2/X, I think it is…WOW, what a spectacular death. I don’t want to spoil it in case someone hasn’t seen it yet. Worth the play for that alone!)
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Yes yes! Bad Dudes, river city ransom, and Double Dragon were my favorites! Fantastic review!
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