It's the final week of the year, which means that we're finally getting those last two Game Boy Advance games Nintendo promised for 2023, right? Sadly, that is not the case. It looks like F-Zero Maximum Velocity and Golden Sun will just have to wait for another month. The good news is that we still have a handful of Super NES games on the Nintendo Switch Online service that are in need of the Review Crew treatment, including sports classics like Super Soccer, Super Tennis and Natsume Championship Wrestling. Sure, these games hit the subscription service years ago, but I still need to ask: Are any of these games worth playing? To answer that question, I decided to flip through the pages of GamePro, Next Generation, Nintendo Power and more classic magazines to see what the critics said back when these games first came out. So, go and grab a jock strap and maybe a ball or something, because it's time for a very sporty episode of the Nintendo Switch Online Review Crew.


Nintendo is no stranger to sports games, but some younger players may be surprised to learn that not all of them star Mario and Luigi. For a while, in the 16-bit generation, they dabbled with licensed sports games, including Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball and NCAA Basketball. Sometimes they didn't even need the license to sell the game, which brings us to Super Soccer, one of only two soccer games on the Nintendo Switch Online service. This one comes with a surprising amount of history, as it's part of the long-running Formation Soccer franchise, which was created by Human Entertainment and bounced from the TurboGrafx-16 to the Super NES to the PlayStation. This 1992 Super NES game is the only one published by Nintendo, with most of the sequels not finding much play outside of Japan. It is a straight-forward soccer simulation made in the early days of the Super NES, which is something that may or may not appeal to you. Let's see if it appealed to the critics in 1992.

We're going to start with GamePro, who ended up having a great time with Super Soccer and giving it a score of 4 out of 5. “Although Super Soccer is somewhat limited in options, it does offer enough solid graphics and smooth gameplay to make it a contender for any World Cup. If you prefer to play soccer on the field, instead of from a skycam, set your heading on the center circle of Nintendo's Super Soccer and kick off a sporting spectacular.”

GamePro's score is more of less in line with Nintendo Magazine System, which gave the game a score of 79%. Nintendo Power more or less agreed with this verdict, going slightly lower with an average of 3.8 out of 5. This is the same score we saw from Mean Machines, with Rad arguing that “Super Soccer defies the laws of tradition in its presentation. The viewpoint is quite original and this coupled with the fine graphics makes Super Soccer right tasty visually. Sadly, this isn't true for the gameplay. For starters, when you're playing downfield, hardly any of your forward players are displayed on-screen, which makes passing a little difficult, especially as there's no radar. Secondly, Super Soccer is lacking in realism. Most of the time it seems as if the ball is one of those plastic 99p ones such are its fly-away qualities. In an average match, the ball may only touch the ground three or four times, the rest of the while it's suspended in a state of one volley after another. All in all, Super Soccer is a potentially fantastic release spoilt by careless playtesting and minor design faults.”

As one of only two soccer games on the Nintendo Switch Online, your options are limited. My guess is that most soccer fans have already made their decision, so let's go ahead and move on.

If there's one thing the Nintendo Switch Online service can teach us, it's that you don't need a license to create a good sports game. That goes for wrestling, too. While other games slapped the WWF and WCW logos all over their boxes, Natsume Championship Wrestling managed to win over fans with its solid gameplay, generous modes, unique wrestlers and, most importantly, four-player support. Released in 1994, this is a wrestling game that learned some valuable lessons from the influx of fighting games that flooded the market, especially when it came to the amount of different moves each wrestler could pull off. The result is a well-regarded wrestling game that holds up a lot better than most of its licensed competition.

That is not necessarily how the critics saw it back in 1994. This is one of those games where you either really liked it or you couldn't stand it. GamePro was on the hating it side, giving it a 2.5 out of 5, one of the magazine's lowest scores. “If you think you've seen all that wrestling games have to offer, think again. This group of washed-out, overweight super-stars shouldn't even be wrestling. They should be doing time. Natsume Championship Wrestling looks and plays like an 8-bit pretender. The undersized sprites and the run-of-the-mill moves are as unsatisfying as the bad music and poor sound effects. Maybe this is what it's really like when you go to a wrestling match.”

Over at Nintendo Power, the magazine barely even reviewed the game. They gave it a very short paragraph description, followed by only four pros and cons. They liked the “good graphics” and credited the game for having “lots of moves,” but hated that it didn't have “real wrestlers” and were frustrated by the “complex play control.” They gave Natsume Championship Wrestling a middling 2.7 out of 5.

It's not all bad news, as Game Players liked the wrestling game substantially more than their peers, giving the game an impressive 84%. Sure, they agreed that the “overall graphics are average with small characters” and that ‘there's little variety, with ugly one ring and largely identical characters.” However, they liked that there are “lots of ways to play, from round robin to tag-team.” They explained that the “wrestlers respond smoothly, and the button combos are well laid out” and praised the “varied attacks that let you experiment with neat combos and other strategies.” “It's got flaws, but the action on the mat more than makes up for them.”

This is another example of a genre being under-represented on the Nintendo Switch Online service. Natsume Championship Wrestling may scratch that itch, but it's sort of a love it or hate it kind of thing.

Here we have yet another straight-forward sports simulator published by Nintendo. It's Super Tennis, an early Super NES sports game with twenty unlicensed players and a handful modes. Okay, maybe it's not as flashy as later tennis games, but what it lacks in pizzazz it more than makes it for with great gameplay. This is an early example of a tennis game done right, and Super Tennis excels as both a lengthy single-player game and a competitive multiplayer game. If you're looking for fun tennis action and don't care that much about real players, then you might be surprised by how well this game holds up. Let's see if the critics agreed with me back in 1991.

Unlike the other sports games on the Nintendo Switch Online service, there was no debate when it came to this game – the critics LOVED Super Tennis. You saw rave reviews across the board, with more than a few magazines giving it near-perfect marks. Because of this, I would normally start with the lowest score, which just so happens to be a 3.9 out of 5 from Nintendo Power. Frustratingly, this came from an era when the magazine didn't back-up their scores with actual reviews, so we can only guess at what drove the score down. Instead what we're going to do is look at the second-worst review, which comes from Super Gaming's third issue, where they gave it an average of 8 out of 10. Mike loved the game, giving it a nine and calling it very cool: “Now here's a game that I can really sit back and enjoy for a long time. Super Tennis is well done all the way through. Everything is just about perfect, with enough challenge to keep me coming back for more. Doubles games are especially fun. This game is more than the real thing!” Samrye disagreed, giving it a seven: “This is a pretty good tennis simulation for the Super Fami. The sounds are truly amazing and the digitized voices are very cool and sometimes even humorous. The game play is easy to pick up on and the two-player tournaments are the highlight of the cart. I'm not into sports carts, but this one is actually pretty good.”

Believe it or not, every review we're going to talk about from here on out is above the 90% threshold. For example, Super Play gave Super Tennis a score of 92 in their very first issue. That's basically the same score we saw over at ACE, though their ridiculous 1,000-point-scale makes that 920 look even more impressive. Mean Machines went one tick higher, giving it a 93%. And then there's Computer & Video Games, who went as high as a 96%, making it one of their highest scoring games of that year. “Super Tennis is quite simply the most fun you'll have outside the Centre Court – and just make sure there's nothing breakable around when you play! First of all, there's the quite breathtaking speed of the game: you have to be quick of the mark to return those rocket-hot serves and follow them up with an almost limitless variety of moves. Then there's the cutesy graphics and quite superb sound – so good you'd almost swear you were there! Above all, there's the unbelievable tension generated by the game. It's hard to explain, but you've just GOT to win! Super Tennis is a killer of a game and any hotshot Famicom owner who doesn't bust his balls for a copy should get his head examined. It's that good!”

If you've come here looking for the absolute highest marks you can find for Super Tennis, then look no further than GamePro, who is no stranger to the perfect 5 out of 5 score. They concluded that “Super Tennis serves up some of the best gameplay, graphics, sounds and all-around fast action in a tennis, or for that matter any sports cart ever. The realism is uncanny, right down to the obnoxious ball boys who prowl the net between points. Super Tennis delivers!”

Of the three sports games we covered this week, Super Tennis is by far the one that holds up the best. Sure, there are newer, better tennis games on the market, including a few from Nintendo, but you're not going to be disappointed when you use the Nintendo Switch Online service to play Super Tennis.