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NSO The biggest success of NSO has to be GBA multiplayer.

Mer.Saloon

Mer.Saloon

Tingle
Pronouns
He/Him
Over the last several months, I've been able to play Zelda Four Swords, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, and the best version of Arcade Mario Bros all in their intended multiplayer modes.

These are all games I owned as a kid but never could fully access on my own because I never could actually find anyone who owned copies of these games. At the most people around me owned copies of Pokemon for trading, but that's about it. Never could play anything else with anyone on the damn GBA because almost every decent game needed people to own several copies of the thing to make use of a lot of the best features.

You could always emulate these games sure, but that still required everyone to have/want the emulator and the games you wanted to play. Just a hassle there for a bunch of old games that I don't think people have a lot of nostalgia for because of how inconvenient it was to access the multiplayer on them. The advantage of NSO is that you get all the games so you can be assured as long as you know people with the expansion pack you can play the GBA lineup with them.

It's not perfect mind you. Random lobbies would be really nice, because as is you still have to find people interested in playing these specific games on your GBA list.

Random thoughts on random games:
  • Bowser only shows up in battle mode of Mario Bros. Now what is up with that?
  • Why Capcom/Nintendo felt it was ok to lock a bonus dungeon behind a multiplayer Zelda mode is beyond me. It definitely didn't make my friends wanna buy it, just made me wish I had new friends.
  • Kirby and the Amazing Mirror is really ambitious for the time. The fact you can have access to a whole map across four seperate screens is pretty bonkers. And the game is struggling to manage that performance wise.
 
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rick_C said:
For all NSO multiplayer game, i am looking for online random match. Currently i need to find other people that have NSO too, that decrease my motivation to play the game.
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Isn't there a risk of finding rage quitters when playing strangers? I play yahtzee occasionally in Clubhouse and sometimes when my opponent is losing they'll just drop out.
 
bixente said:
Isn't there a risk of finding rage quitters when playing strangers? I play yahtzee occasionally in Clubhouse and sometimes when my opponent is losing they'll just drop out.
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Yeah there's always that risk. And unless there's some emulation level technical wizardry gobbligock I don't understand; I don't think there's a way to counter a rage quitter. Just communication errors ahoy.

But the option would still be nice.
 
I’m actually a bit disappointed with the GBA emulator here. For some reason, you can’t do single-player games with other people with this specific emulator like you can the others. Found out a few days ago when a friend and I were going to go through Metroid Fusion together and that game and all other games that don’t have any type of multiplier component don’t even show up in the catalog.

We’ll probably do Four Swords at least in the future though and see how that is. Don’t think I’ve ever played that one.
 
rick_C said:
For all NSO multiplayer game, i am looking for online random match. Currently i need to find other people that have NSO too, that decrease my motivation to play the game.
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Same. I’ve never played any of these NSO games online because I don’t have friends that want to. Kinda frustrating.
 
Selfishly I'm disgruntled about it because I went through the effort to put together a setup for multiplayer GBA games I can host and wow people with just a few years before and this kind of makes it obsolete lol, but obviously I'm not actually mad people get to experience these interesting weird experiences. Kirby and the Amazing Mirror is indeed, so cool
 
I had a fun time with Four Swords Anniversary Edition and it ended up being the reason my buddies and I went in on TriForce Heroes. We've been back on Four Swords with NSO and it's been great. Hoping we get FSA on GCN NSO in the future so we can keep it going.

I'd be curious to see if there's a case for making a new multi-player Zelda tied to NSO. Maybe it could work as a DLC mode for EoW included with the Expansion Pass. I don't know how well it would push NSO subscriptions, but it seems like it could be effective at selling NSO to people who focus more on local multi-player, which would distinguish it from the 99 games.
 
Cubs017 said:
Same. I’ve never played any of these NSO games online because I don’t have friends that want to. Kinda frustrating.
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If it helps, there are usually plenty of discords dedicated to the individual games that usually have people sharing FCs for the sake of playing them. It's how I did my Four Swords run.

I can't vouch for the merit of inidividual discords as a whole so I won't link any, but that is an option.

Lugia667 said:
the biggest sucess is introducing people to Gargoyle's Quest and it's SNES sequel
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If it was a total success we'd have the NES sequel to complete the trilogy!
 
honestly its the best. I have recently been able to play some of the games from my childhood in new ways since this is the first time I had access to Multiplayer with them. Playing the Co-op Mario bros on the gameboy advance was great, along with duels in Pokemon Trading card game.
 
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Rareware said:
I’m actually a bit disappointed with the GBA emulator here. For some reason, you can’t do single-player games with other people with this specific emulator like you can the others. Found out a few days ago when a friend and I were going to go through Metroid Fusion together and that game and all other games that don’t have any type of multiplier component don’t even show up in the catalog.
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How do you play a single player game with another person?
 
Quoted by: Tye
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I've always wanted to try Kirby and the Amazing Mirror with the full multiplayer. When I learned about it I was...well, amazed at the scope of it.
 
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Brannigan said:
How do you play a single player game with another person?
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The same way you do it on the other NSO apps—one person plays, and the other watches but can move a cursor around on the screen to point things out and such. Plus control of “Player 1” can be switched at any time.

Part of the reason why that feature exists, I imagine, is to emulate the experience of console games where other people can be watching you play on the TV and help point things out, react to things, or even switch places with you. It may be for that same reason that the feature is removed in the Game Boy and GBA apps, since those are handheld systems rather than home consoles that were played on a TV (though the Super Game Boy and Game Boy Player existed, to be fair).
 
bixente said:
Isn't there a risk of finding rage quitters when playing strangers? I play yahtzee occasionally in Clubhouse and sometimes when my opponent is losing they'll just drop out.
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The main problem is finding NSO member then add their friend code, this action is annoying. Also it make my friend list become too long.

I can sure that if Nintendo can make the NSO multiplayer connection as "any time, any people", make it convenience, it will greatly increase NSO value.
 
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Tye said:
The same way you do it on the other NSO apps—one person plays, and the other watches but can move a cursor around on the screen to point things out and such. Plus control of “Player 1” can be switched at any time.

Part of the reason why that feature exists, I imagine, is to emulate the experience of console games where other people can be watching you play on the TV and help point things out, react to things, or even switch places with you. It may be for that same reason that the feature is removed in the Game Boy and GBA apps, since those are handheld systems rather than home consoles that were played on a TV (though the Super Game Boy and Game Boy Player existed, to be fair).
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Oh I didn't know what was a thing.
 
Yep, I always found weird how no one ever mentions how the Wii U VC for DS and GBA didn't have multiplayer at all, that really was a blow to many games, so finally having them is a big win for NSO over that.
 
ILovethegameAC said:
Yep, I always found weird how no one ever mentions how the Wii U VC for DS and GBA didn't have multiplayer at all, that really was a blow to many games, so finally having them is a big win for NSO over that.
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It's because sadly, no one really used multiplayer back in the day on GBA. It was so inconvenient to make work, most people did not bother. So there's little nostalgia factor for said multiplayer modes outside of a select niche of players.
 
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I need to schedule some game nights with y'all, because I don't think any of my IRL friends are down to play GBA games. Or multiplayer Nintendo stuff outside Mario Kart or Smash Bros. in general. 😞
 
I agree with multiplayer being a big boon of NSO, however I think the biggest success is simply the ability to try random games for "free" (assuming you already paid for the service!). It's basically the magic of any streaming service obviously but the ability to just say "oh this retro game seems like it could be fun" and playing it without having to spend $5/$10 or whatever VC games costed is such a cool thing.
 
rick_C said:
For all NSO multiplayer game, i am looking for online random match. Currently i need to find other people that have NSO too, that decrease my motivation to play the game.
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Biggest issue I see for random matches would be that the majority of games will have no one playing.

You'd probably need to make appointments like with some more niche multi-player games. And at that point might as well just add them and play that way.
 
I don't do multiplayer, but yes GBA is the most used app on my switch. I finished Zelda Minish Cap, Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission on it. Was my first time playing these too. Great experience. Also enjoyed the Mario Advance remakes and looking forward to playing the other games on there. Wish there were many more though.
 
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Revolsin said:
man i just wish battle network was on it cus NSO has drastically more players and the collection itself didn't do much playerbase-wise
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Yeah this is exactly it. I know people complain about not being able to purchase the games, but I am still glad for the existence of an option that gurantees that the people you play Four Swords with can jump to a quick game of Mario Bros.

Even just the first Battle Network would be great for that. (And Capcom could treat it like a demo. "Hey, you like this first game? We have a whole collection here with online.)
 
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I played Amazing Mirror multiplayer with my brother, and the fact a 2D MetoridVania styled game with multiplayer hasn’t been attempted again to my knowledge is crazy to me. It’s incredibly cool exploring on your own and then teleporting across the world to help about another player with something like a boss battle.
 
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I still stand that NSO needs at least some public lobbies that can be shared on a stream or for easier community stuff, but I feel like the main decision why this did not happen is because intercontinental netplay is just usually not stable? Which is still very sad when I remember moments on my PC where I could just play Mario Party with others online with people who were clearly not in the same areas as I do
 
LuigiBlood said:
I still stand that NSO needs at least some public lobbies that can be shared on a stream or for easier community stuff, but I feel like the main decision why this did not happen is because intercontinental netplay is just usually not stable? Which is still very sad when I remember moments on my PC where I could just play Mario Party with others online with people who were clearly not in the same areas as I do
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It’s probably mostly due to the fact that it would be hell to coordinate anything with random players without voice chat, and Nintendo’s not exactly big on voice chat with randoms. It’d have to either work as it does normally, with the host being able to select any game from the menu and change games whenever they want (which would be a terrible experience with random players without any coordination, lol), or they’d have to add some sort of per-game lobbies which wouldn’t only be a lot more work, presumably, but it also comes with the problem of greatly splintering the player base which would likely result in most games having very few active online players at any given time.
 
Tye said:
It’s probably mostly due to the fact that it would be hell to coordinate anything with random players without voice chat, and Nintendo’s not exactly big on voice chat with randoms. It’d have to either work as it does normally, with the host being able to select any game from the menu and change games whenever they want (which would be a terrible experience with random players without any coordination, lol), or they’d have to add some sort of per-game lobbies which wouldn’t only be a lot more work, presumably, but it also comes with the problem of greatly splintering the player base which would likely result in most games having very few active online players at any given time.
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You say that but several popular first party games have this feature, some even added this feature outright post release (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Party), so I don't really think that's the problem, there are definitely games where Nintendo assumes the fans will pick up the slack themselves.

EDIT: To sum it up more clearly: Nintendo is not aiming to have a platform where it ignores the rest of them. They clearly made decisions for games where it assumes people will use other platforms for contact and sharing.
 
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Quoted by: Tye
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LuigiBlood said:
I still stand that NSO needs at least some public lobbies that can be shared on a stream or for easier community stuff, but I feel like the main decision why this did not happen is because intercontinental netplay is just usually not stable? Which is still very sad when I remember moments on my PC where I could just play Mario Party with others online with people who were clearly not in the same areas as I do
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I'm glad you're here so you can shoot down this theory o' tech wizard. What about the case of rage quitting? This emulator doesn't have any safeguards to reward victims or punish aggressors for such behavior. At the least modern Nintendo games try to implement some form of safe guarding in them. (However mediocre that may be.)
 
Mer.Saloon said:
I'm glad you're here so you can shoot down this theory o' tech wizard. What about the case of rage quitting? This emulator doesn't have any safeguards to reward or punish players for such behavior. At the least modern Nintendo games try to implement some form of safe guarding in them. (However mediocre that may be.)
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Well... there's nothing that can be done about it, the player will just quit and that's it, gotta rely on some kind of report feature (oh yeah, that's something imo they should improve upon)
 
LuigiBlood said:
Well... there's nothing that can be done about it, the player will just quit and that's it, gotta rely on some kind of report feature (oh yeah, that's something imo they should improve upon)
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But some of these games really do lose you progress if someone rage quits. It's not even just about reporting the player, but you know helping the player who lost. A four sword run lost can seriously kill momentum if someone disconnects at the results screen before things save. It's not even like it will just continue with one less player, the game will kick you back to the title screen. These old GBA games were really hostile towards communication errors/disconnects.

At least for the other consoles I can understand random lobbies because most (as far as I know) didn't just disconnect outright when a player unplugged their controller.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
But some of these games really do lose you progress if someone rage quits. It's not even just about reporting the player, but you know helping the player who lost. A four sword run lost can seriously kill momentum if someone disconnects at the results screen before things save. It's not even like it will just continue with one less player, the game will kick you back to the title screen. These old GBA games were really hostile towards communication errors/disconnects.

At least for the other consoles I can understand random lobbies because most (as far as I know) didn't just disconnect outright when a player unplugged their controller.
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I didn't say random lobbies though, I said public lobbies but I meant with a ID you have to pass around. All it needs is a way for you to control the lobby and it'll be fine.
And if a player quits, well, there's genuinely nothing you can do, you'll have to live with that possibility.
 
LuigiBlood said:
You say that but several popular first party games have this feature, some even added this feature outright post release (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Mario Party), so I don't really think that's the problem, there are definitely games where Nintendo assumes the fans will pick up the slack themselves.

EDIT: To sum it up more clearly: Nintendo is not aiming to have a platform where it ignores the rest of them. They clearly made decisions for games where it assumes people will use other platforms for contact and sharing.
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The issue is less about the voice chat with randoms and more that the experience would be terrible with randoms if it functions as it currently does with friends where the host has total control over everything rather than it being a system built with random players in mind like with Mario Kart, for example. Having voice chat allows for the potential to have coordination…but random players are still gonna do whatever the fuck they want in many cases and it’ll be a frustrating experience for anyone besides the host.

LuigiBlood said:
I didn't say random lobbies though, I said public lobbies but I meant with a ID you have to pass around. All it needs is a way for you to control the lobby and it'll be fine.
And if a player quits, well, there's genuinely nothing you can do, you'll have to live with that possibility.
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EDIT: Okay, this would be better than totally random lobbies, yes. However at that point I feel like there’s not much difference from just adding people as friends, anyway…
 
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Personally I would say the greatest success is a brand new official wireless N64 controller. It’s nice that NSO is so good it has multiple great successes!
 
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Tye said:
The issue is less about the voice chat with randoms and more that the experience would be terrible with randoms if it functions as it currently does with friends where the host has total control over everything rather than it being a system built with random players in mind like with Mario Kart, for example. Having voice chat allows for the potential to have coordination…but random players are still gonna do whatever the fuck they want in many cases and it’ll be a frustrating experience for anyone besides the host.
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I never meant anything about voice chat, actually.
The thing about randoms though, if you really want that kind of matchmaking: The only way to do it safely is to provide basic save states, with like everything unlocked to make sure no one's save can be affected, and I guess some hacks to prevent issues... but at that point you'd be asking very controlled environments and it doesn't sound like Nintendo is interested to do it for NSO retro games.

But what I meant about lobbies I just mean to have a lobby, share a pass to anyone (including people who aren't friends on the system) and they can join directly. That's what I want in NSO.
 
LuigiBlood said:
I never meant anything about voice chat, actually.
The thing about randoms though, if you really want that kind of matchmaking: The only way to do it safely is to provide basic save states, with like everything unlocked to make sure no one's save can be affected, and I guess some hacks to prevent issues... but at that point you'd be asking very controlled environments and it doesn't sound like Nintendo is interested to do it for NSO retro games.

But what I meant about lobbies I just mean to have a lobby, share a pass to anyone (including people who aren't friends on the system) and they can join directly. That's what I want in NSO.
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I absolutely do not want that kind of random matchmaking, personally, lol; I was just explaining why I believe Nintendo probably hasn’t supported it.

But yeah, as I said above with my edit, lobbies which you can share a pass to anyone with would be much better, though while it’s more convenient than just being limited to friends…it’s really not that much different because you’re still having to find other people to share a pass with, anyway, and having to find people to play with is the main reason why most people would want online play with non-friends in the NSO apps. Yes, lobbies like that would be better, but is it even worth it if it’s not addressing the bigger issue that people have? Probably not.
 
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LuigiBlood said:
I never meant anything about voice chat, actually.
The thing about randoms though, if you really want that kind of matchmaking: The only way to do it safely is to provide basic save states, with like everything unlocked to make sure no one's save can be affected, and I guess some hacks to prevent issues... but at that point you'd be asking very controlled environments and it doesn't sound like Nintendo is interested to do it for NSO retro games.

But what I meant about lobbies I just mean to have a lobby, share a pass to anyone (including people who aren't friends on the system) and they can join directly. That's what I want in NSO.
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You know what, that's fair and perfectly reasonable.
 
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