The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) has been a huge win for the Nintendo Switch Online service. Not only is it one of the biggest libraries of any NSO app, but it also has some of the best games available to players with the base subscription. These include Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country, Kirby’s Dream Land 3, Star Fox, Super Metroid, and others out of a library with over 100 titles. Playing those games just got a whole lot better, apparently.
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Old games were played on different controllers. The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is very different from the NES controller. The GameCube controller, SNES controller, and Game Boy controls all differ a little bit, too. In the past, that was just an annoyance to work through for SNES games. Now, it doesn’t have to be as the latest update has changed that.
The latest patch to Nintendo Switch Online allows for button-mapping for SNES games. If you are struggling with the controls for a certain game, you can change them to better fit your controller or what buttons are most comfortable to you.
This can be especially important if you also play on Xbox or PlayStation, two consoles with controllers that have different button layouts. Going back and forth can be challenging and confusing, and this is an easy way to alleviate it if you’re playing Ghost of Tsushima and A Link to the Past at the same time.
The controls will be game-specific, so you won’t have to wonder what you’re changing. In the game, it will say what that button does. For example, you can change the buttons for Diddy and Dixie Kong in Donkey Kong Country without any confusion. You can also reset the controls back to the defaults if things don’t work out right.
This comes alongside two other major changes to the SNES Nintendo Switch Online app. First, it got a slight makeover to more closely resemble the N64 and GameCube apps. It’s not a major change, but the CRT filter is a little smoother. It’s essentially a shader, and while the games aren’t going to look like they were made this century or anything, it is a slight quality-of-life upgrade to better the experience.
Finally, the SNES app also now has a major reason to play. Nintendo just added Mario Paint, a very popular art video game on the console, to the library. Now, you can revisit the unheralded fan favorite and change the controls for it as you see fit.
The button remapping feature is a big one for other Nintendo Switch Online apps, too. While the SNES controller isn’t as different as the N64 one is, it’s still really helpful to be able to customize it. As with all of them, the changes are on a game-by-game basis, so there’s really a lot of different ways to play Switch Online titles. This update is available for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System regardless of whether you’re on Switch or Switch 2.