Nintendo Adds 4 More Game Boy & GBA Games to Switch Online
▼ Summary
– The first *Sword of Hope* game has frustrating damage variance, where enemy attacks can randomly deal 7 or 50 damage.
– The Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) rewind feature makes the first game more enjoyable by mitigating its luck-based combat.
– The second *Sword of Hope* lacks the damage variance issue but is a slow-paced adventure that does not hold up well against modern retro RPGs.
– The author played the first *Final Fantasy Legend* from the *Collection of SaGa* but did not finish the sequels.
– An unreleased, fully complete GBC ROM of *Gimmick Land* exists, revealing *Tomato Adventure* was originally a GBC game before being remade for GBA.
Nintendo has expanded its Switch Online library once again, this time adding four more titles from the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance catalogs. Among the new arrivals are both entries in the Sword of Hope series, a pair of early RPGs that originally debuted on the original Game Boy.
For those unfamiliar, the first Sword of Hope is a dungeon-crawling adventure that relies heavily on random number generation. The damage rolls can swing wildly, with an enemy attack dealing as little as 7 damage or as much as 50 based purely on luck. This makes combat feel more like a gamble than a test of strategy, especially in the final areas. However, the Switch Online rewind feature helps smooth over those rough patches, making the experience far more tolerable than on original hardware.
The sequel, Sword of Hope 2, avoids that particular frustration, though it remains a slow-paced adventure that struggles to compete with the many excellent retro-style RPGs available today. Its deliberate pacing and dated design make it a niche pick even for dedicated genre fans.
The Game Boy was home to a respectable number of RPGs, though many remain obscure. One player noted they picked up the Collection of SaGa: Final Fantasy Legend from the eShop and completed the first title, but haven’t yet returned for the sequels. That compilation remains a solid entry point for anyone curious about the handheld’s RPG legacy.
A fascinating piece of trivia emerged with the recent Japanese release of Tomato Adventure on Switch Online. According to data from the infamous Nintendo “gigaleak” from a few years ago, there exists a fully playable unreleased ROM for Gimmick Land, a Game Boy Color version of Tomato Adventure. It turns out the game was originally developed for the GBC before Nintendo scrapped that version and tasked Alpha Dream with remaking it for the Game Boy Advance. That unreleased ROM is reportedly complete, offering a rare glimpse into what could have been.
(Source: Nintendo Life)
