Nintendo Switch Adds An Award-Winning Game Boy Game
Nintendo is now adding Metroid Fusion to its Game Boy Advance Switch library.
Nintendo Switch Online (which will soon have some major competition if Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard, at least according to the Switch 2 leak) continues to add more and more games to its collection. After adding a massive collection of Sega favorites, Nintendo is now adding 2002’s Metroid Fusion to its Game Boy Advance Switch library.
According to IGN, Metroid Fusion is supposed to join the Nintendo Switch Online (NSO) library sometime next week, but Nintendo wasn’t as precise with the dates—the company’s tweet lists March 9, while its press release mentions March 8. The addition of Metroid Fusion will be the first one (of many, hopefully) to join the six Game Boy Advanced titles that launched with the GBA library last month. The fourth game in the 2D Metroid Saga will join other games from the series, completing the entire collection of 2D Metroid games.
This includes the original Metroid, Metroid 2: Return of Samus, Super Metroid, and now Metroid Fusion. All are available in their original versions in the Nintendo Switch Online subscription, in addition to the 2021’s Metroid Dread, which is the fifth game in the narrative and a Switch-exclusive title. Besides the newly added Fusion, the subscription also includes Metroid Prime Remastered—a fantastic remaster of a 2002 GameCube classic gaming title.
Metroid Fusion is an action-adventure game that Nintendo developed and published for its Game Boy Advance console. It was a side-scrolling game with lots of platforming, shooting, and puzzling, which introduced mission-based progression that would guide players through certain areas of the game. Interestingly, it was released a day before Metroid Prime’s release on Game Cube, and both games could be linked via CG-GBA link cable to unlock additional content for Metroid Prime.
Metroid Fusion was an acclaimed title due to its gameplay, graphics, and controls, though it received some criticism for its shortness and linearity. It received several awards in the past two decades, with the most recent appearance on Nintendo’s Switch Online service, which added the Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Advance libraries last month, starting a strong lineup of several Zelda, Mario, and Metroid franchise titles.
With Metroid Fusion now officially introduced to the NSO library, fans can expect additional titles from the iconic consoles to arrive in the subscription service. This includes Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, Fire Emblem, F-Zero Maximum Velocity, and Golden Sun, all of which are supposed to come to the GBA collection in the coming months. GB’s library is being expanded further with The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, Pokemon Trading Card Game, and Kirby Tilt n’ Tumble. It would appear that Nintendo took its own version of Game Pass seriously.
Those interested in playing Metroid Fusion on their Nintendo Switch—which has the chance to finally dethrone PlayStation 2 as the world’s best-selling console—need both NSO and the Expansion Pack subscriptions to download the game. This, of course, goes for all games in Nintendo’s GBA library, but all of this can be done from the Switch Online app on the handheld itself.
