Every SEGA game with the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion at a glance

Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master

Shinobi III has everything a game needed to be a hit in the 90s. You got your ninjas, you got magic spells, and of course, you got a stage where you spend the whole time on a rocket-powered surfboard.

It’s a pretty okay side-scroller but the hitboxes are really bizarre. You can even see it in the commercial where Shinobi gets knocked back twice by an enemy that isn’t even attacking and is about three feet away. This can cause a lot of frustration. Especially in the horseback stage which…ugh. They’re lucky I grew up obsessed with animals or I’d have an unrelenting hatred of horses due to that stage.

Luckily, don’t tell no one, but if you go into the sound test area and play these sounds in the following order: “He Runs,” “Japonesque,” “Shinobi Walk,” “Sakura,” and “Getufu”, you’ll find yourself invincible for the rest of the game. You’re welcome.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 can be summed up with two words. Blast. Processing.

Blast Processing was a made-up marketing term used to describe the fact that the game had a special way of tricking the system into doing super fast DMA transfers which allowed the game to load up a bunch of stuff all at once. Long story short, it’s that thing that happens in the Chemical Night Zone where the screen shifts to keep up with you after you hit a giant ramp.

Almost everything about Sonic 2 is good. The art is wonderful. The addition of Tails (and the ability to control Tails via second controller) is good. Enemy design. Stage variation. All good. And the soundtrack? Not even a game of whack-a-mole has seen this many bops.

There’s a reason why Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was added and the first one wasn’t. It’s considered by many to be the peak Sonic game. While I don’t necessarily agree, I can definitely see why people would think that.

Streets of Rage 2

Is your child distracted in school by larger kids obsessed with seducing classmates through aggressive ear play? Get your child Streets of Rage 2 and turn your kid into a tiny yakuza member. I think that’s what the commercial was supposed to say.

Streets of Rage 2 took everything from the fantastic Streets of Rage and built upon it heavily. Instead of having three street brawlers, you get two from the first game, a kid on rollerblades who does fast attacks and is all over the place, and Max, a wrestler so strong but so slow he makes Mike Haggar look like the Flash (and speaking of flashing, wears less clothing than Mike Haggar too).

This game is a remarkably solid side-scrolling beat ’em up that holds up so well and is going to be most people’s go-to multiplayer.