Wario Land joins Nintendo Switch Online's July classics
Wario finally muscled his way onto Nintendo Switch Online, and honestly it's about time. Nintendo dropped a fresh batch of Game Boy and Game Boy Advance classics into the service on July 8, and the headliner is a proper legend: Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, the 1994 platformer where the greedy anti-hero first shoved Mario aside and grabbed a game of his own.
If you never played it, here's the short version. Wario Land is where the whole Wario formula was born. Slower and chunkier than a Mario game, built around shoulder-charging enemies, hunting treasure, and hoarding coins like a gremlin who just discovered capitalism. It still holds up. Weird pacing and all.
What got added
Every Nintendo Switch Online member gets three Game Boy titles, and there's more here than just Wario. The full drop:
Fortified Zone (1991), a top-down run-and-gun that's a lot meaner than its cute sprites suggest. The Sword of Hope II (1992), an old-school first-person RPG for the folks who like menus and monsters in equal measure. And Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994), the obvious star of the show.
Paying a bit more? Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack members also get Dr. Mario & Puzzle League (2005) on Game Boy Advance, which is two puzzle games in one cart and a genuine sneaky-good time. Players in Japan get an extra treat too: Tomato Adventure, AlphaDream's cult GBA RPG that never officially left the country back in the day.
Switch and Switch 2, no extra hoops
All of it runs on both Switch and Switch 2, so you don't need the new hardware to dig in. Same subscription, same library, just a few more reasons to fire up that retro app you probably forgot was sitting on your home screen.
It's a low-key drop, sure, but a good one. Wario Land alone justifies booting it up, and the retro shelf keeps quietly getting better every month. Which of these are you actually going to play, and what Game Boy gem do you still want Nintendo to add? Drop it in the comments.
Source: Nintendo