Nintendo has announced the next batch of games coming to the Game Boy Advance library for Nintendo Switch Online and Expansion Pack subscribers, and it’s always Mario. The first three games in the Super Mario Advance series will be added to the collection in one week, on Friday, May 26.
Among the three are two of the best platformers – scratch that, two of the best games – of all time. Super Mario Advance 2 brought the launch classic of the Super Nintendo Super Mario World to GBA, while Super Mario Advance 3 did the same for its wonderful, hilarious and very different sequel, Yoshi’s Island. They’re perfect conversions and nice to have, though both can be played (without an expansion pack membership) in their original versions in Switch Online’s SNES collection.
The first Super Mario Advance doesn’t belong to the same divine level, although it’s arguably a more interesting release. This was a 2001 remodel of the much maligned Super Mario Bros. 2a curious 1988 NES game about throwing vegetables that itself was a reskin of a game called Doki Doki paniccreated when the US market objected to Nintendo’s original Super Mario Bros. follow-up. The Super Mario Advance version updated the graphics nicely and was the beginning of a critical turn in the game and its charmingly eccentric gameplay. Again, the original NES version is already available with a basic Switch Online membership, but in this case the GBA remake is definitely the version to play.
The three games come together Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 to complete the availability of the Super Mario Advance series on Nintendo Switch Online.