Monster Rancher, Metal Slug, and Kururin Paradise hit Switch Online

Nintendo added three Game Boy Advance games to the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack today. Subscribers can now play Monster Rancher Advance, Metal Slug Advance, and Kururin Paradise through the service's dedicated handheld app. The drop is live right now, according to the announcement from Nintendo of America.

The standout addition is Kururin Paradise, which is getting its first official North American release 24 years after it launched in Japan. You can find the full details on the official store page.

24 years late to the party

Developer Eighting released Kururin Paradise in December 2002. It's the direct sequel to Kuru Kuru Kururin, a puzzle game about navigating a constantly rotating stick through narrow mazes. Nintendo actually showed the sequel to Western press at E3 2002. They just never bothered to localize or release the cartridge outside of Japan.

The premise sounds simple. You pilot a slow-moving helicopter craft that spins in a circle. You have to guide it through tight corridors without hitting the walls. It starts out relaxing and quickly becomes a test of spatial awareness and patience. I want to see if the later levels are as punishing as the original game's final worlds. The timing windows get incredibly tight.

The sequel adds a few new mechanics to the formula. You'll find mini-games scattered throughout the map, and the level designs incorporate more moving obstacles than the first entry. It's a great fit for a portable console.

Typing instead of swapping

Monster Rancher Advance arrived in late 2001. Tecmo had a massive hit on the PlayStation with the mainline Monster Rancher games, which generated unique creatures by reading the data on whatever audio CDs you put into the console. The Game Boy Advance obviously didn't have a disc drive.

To solve the hardware constraint, the developers built a text-phrase generator. You type in words or passwords, and the game spits out a monster based on the text string. Typing words to spawn a creature is slightly less magical than swapping out a copy of a music album, but it beats carrying a binder of CDs on the bus.

The rest of the game follows the standard simulation formula. You train your monster, feed it, and send it into tournaments. The GBA version simplifies some of the deeper breeding mechanics from the PlayStation games, but it retains the core loop of raising a creature until it retires.

A health bar in an SNK shooter

Metal Slug Advance is a strange artifact from 2004. Developer Noise Factory and publisher SNK Playmore had to figure out how to squeeze a chaotic arcade run-and-gun shooter onto a portable screen. They made a few major concessions to the format.

The biggest change is the health system. Arcade Metal Slug games kill you in one hit. The GBA spin-off gives protagonists Walter Ryan and Tyra Elson a dedicated health bar, making it far more forgiving for a handheld audience. It also ditches the linear arcade progression for a mission-based structure.

The developers added a 100-card collectible system to encourage replayability. Finding hidden prisoners and completing specific objectives unlocks cards that grant new abilities or upgrade your weapons. It works well enough for a portable game, even if it lacks the arcade purity of the mainline entries.

All three titles require the $49.99 annual Expansion Pack tier. They aren't included in the base subscription.