Nintendo’s most infamous red headache machine is getting a second life on Switch, and this time it’s bringing some genuine lost history with it. The company has detailed its upcoming “Virtual Boy Classics” lineup for Nintendo Switch Online, and it’s a surprisingly robust revival for a system most people only ever saw in magazine ads.
Launching February 17th, the initial batch of games includes Teleroboxer, Galactic Pinball, Red Alarm, Golf, Virtual Boy Wario Land, 3-D Tetris, and The Mansion of Innsmouth. That last one, better known as Innsmouth no Yakata, never officially released in the States, so this is the first time it’s getting a proper Western debut. For anyone who’s only ever heard about the Virtual Boy as a punchline, this lineup already reads like a crash course in what the hardware actually did well (yes, Wario Land is as good as people say).
Nintendo isn’t stopping at launch day, either. A follow-up wave later in the year will add Mario Clash, Mario Tennis, Jack Bros, Space Invaders Virtual Collection, Virtual Bowling, Vertical Force, and V-Tetris. The real eyebrow-raiser, though, is the confirmation of Zero Racers (an F-Zero spinoff) and D-Hopper, two titles that never released at all thanks to the system’s quick demise. This will be the first time the wider public can play them without digging through prototypes or grainy YouTube footage.
On the modern comforts side, Nintendo is treating these like its other Classics apps: suspend saves, a rewind function, and remappable controls are all baked in. Like the 3DS’s Virtual Boy emulator, there will also be a color adjustment option that lets you swap out the original red for white, green, or yellow, though that tweak isn’t arriving until later in the year and won’t work with the cardboard headset.
You read that correctly, to lean into the nostalgia, Nintendo is selling two headset models: a cardboard version for 24.99 and a more authentic plastic unit at 99.99, both launching alongside the games on February 17th. Will you be picking one up? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!
Source: Game Informer
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