Yoshi And Balloon Kid Added To Nintendo Switch Online

It’s not an eventful week for Nintendo Switch Online…they’re releasing just two games, and they’re Game Boy stuff (but just wait a couple weeks until we get to the Virtual Boy, whoo nelly!)

Yoshi is the first…released shortly after Super Mario World and the launch of the SNES, it was the dinosaur’s debut on 8-bit systems. Miyamoto would claim he had the idea for Yoshi during the development of Super Mario 3 but they couldn’t get him to work on the old machine. However he DID show up, and the riding mechanics were even implemented in Mario’s Time Machine from 1994. A bootlegger “ported” Super Mario World to the NES later on and Yoshi functioned there.

But it was originally believed Yoshi could only appear on the NES and Game Boy if he was the star of a puzzle game. Here eggs and enemies drop, and your job is to shuffle the contents so that the baddies get condensed into eggshells. Then you keep doing it until you’re bored. This was created by Game Freak!

Yoshi is an action/puzzle game starring Mario’s trusty buddy Yoshi, who has been imprisoned in an egg. Now it’s raining Goombas, Bloopers, and Boo Buddies, and you have to help Mario stop the airborne invasion. As the critters fall, catch them on trays. Stack two of a kind and they both disappear, or capture the whole bunch in between eggshells. When the eggshells match, out hatches Yoshi and up goes your score! The action heats up as the characters fall faster and faster. To save the day, switch and shuffle, and don’t let your piles get too high!

The second new Game Boy game is Balloon Kid, an expansion of the ideas played with in the North American NES launch title Balloon Fight. You float around in autoscrolling levels and avoid sharp obstacles — it’s a pretty simple concept. In Japan, NSO just got Balloon Kid GB instead, the 2000 sequel that was never released here.

In the little town of Pencilvania, there lived a brother and sister who loved to play with balloons. Alice and her younger brother Jim would spend countless days filling the skies with their balloons. One day, Jim filled all of his balloons and tied them together to make a beautiful balloon rainbow across the sky. But suddenly, a strong wind came and carried Jim away.

As Alice, you must save your brother from peril. Float through eight different stages as you follow Jim’s trail of balloons. Collect as many balloons as possible to earn bonuses. Test your piloting skills to avoid enemies, or let go of your balloons to face enemies on the ground. In BALLOON TRIP mode, compete for the highest score and move up the ranks. Take a big gulp of courage and give Alice a hand as she searches for her missing brother!

Both Yoshi and Balloon Kid are now in the Game Boy section of Nintendo Switch Online.