Like many gamers and Nintendo fans, I own a Nintendo Switch. However, as a historian and a fan of classic video games, I probably spend less time playing new Switch games and more time playing older games on the Switch’s online service Nintendo Classics. That’s the name of the retro game emulator that allows you to play old video games going as far back as the 1980s on your Nintendo Switch console via various apps. Each app has a selection of games from one classic console, and so far the service allows you to play games from the NES, Super NES, Game Boy/Game Boy Color, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and Game Boy Advance, with GameCube games being exclusively available on the Nintendo Switch 2 and Virtual Boy games arriving this month. You need a Nintendo Switch Online subscription in order to play these games and there’s an even more expensive tier for you to access the N64, Genesis, Game Boy Advance and GameCube library, but for me the price is worth it. With each app combined, Nintendo Classics allows you to play over 300 old games.

I’m definitely not complaining about the vast and impressive selection, especially since many of my favorite video games of all time are included here. But if you were to ask me which games I would add to the service, I’ve got a long list. Keep in mind, there’s a chance some of the games I am about to mention will never be included. I suspect Nintendo will add some of these in the future, but I also suspect they have their reasons for not including others, be they licensing issues or something else more technical. But it’s not my job to speculate on why stuff isn’t included. This is simply a list of the games I want.

Just to add more context for people who are less familiar with the Nintendo Classics service, I’m going to divide each wishlist by game console and discuss the games that are currently available on the service before I start discussing the games that I want to add.

NES

Not many complaints with the NES game selection. All of Nintendo’s biggest classics are available here, including the Super Mario Bros. trilogy, both The Legend of Zelda and its sequel Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Punch-Out!!, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Excitebike, Dr. Mario, Balloon Fight, Kirby’s Adventure and other classic games that many millennials will remember from their childhoods like Battletoads, Double Dragon, Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Ninja Gaiden.

My NES Wishlist

The most obvious omissions from this list are the popular third party games owned by Capcom (Mega Man, DuckTales), Konami (Castlevania, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and Square Enix (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest), and most of those game franchises were launched on the NES and are still going strong today, which tells you how significant their NES entries are, both commercially and historically. Although I would also love to see some less obvious choices, including Batman: The Video Game. That game is based on the Tim Burton film so it would likely feel out of place in a modern-day collection, but it’s seen as one of the best Batman games of the era and developer Sunsoft followed that up with a sequel called Batman: Return of the Joker which is also highly regarded. Kickle Cubicle is another long shot NES game that I would love to see have a second life on Nintendo Classics. A puzzle game that started out on the arcade in 1988 but was ported to the NES in 1990. It was developed by a company that is now defunct, published by a company that no longer makes video games, it has never been re-released and its fan base is small, but it’s really fun and I hate to see such a brilliant gem be lost to time.

Super NES

Includes most of Nintendo’s most popular 16-bit classics. Mario is well-represented with the inclusion of Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario Kart and Mario Paint (which, just like the SNES original, requires a mouse to play) with other classic Nintendo titles including Pilotwings, F-Zero, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Star Fox, Super Metroid, Kirby Super Star, Super Punch-Out!! and Rare’s Donkey Kong Country trilogy. I was also surprised and delighted to see Capcom’s RPG Breath of Fire included as well as Nintendo’s oddball cult hit RPG Earthbound, which is known as Mother 2 in Japan. (The first game Mother was originally a Japan-exclusive on the NES but that is also included for American gamers on Nintendo Classics under the name Earthbound Beginnings).

My Super NES Wishlist

I would love to see more RPGs added to this list, because the SNES had some of the best RPGs in history. In fact Square developed Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy VI and Super Mario RPG for this console and I would love to see all three of those. Konami also has some highly regarded action games for the SNES that I am surprised are not included here, like Super Castlevania IV and Axelay.

Game Boy/Game Boy Color

Among the 43 Game Boy games currently available are Super Mario Land and its sequel Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Tetris, Alleyway, Metroid II: Return of Samus, Kirby’s Dream Land, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX, the Donkey Kong Land trilogy, Wario Land 3, both The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, Castlevania Legends, many games in the Mega Man series as well as Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble (which is a surprising inclusion because that game originally required you to physically tilt your Game Boy Color in order to move Kirby across the screen – I haven’t played it yet so don’t ask me how that works with a TV).

My Game Boy Wishlist

As I write this, it was literally just announced a few days ago at Sony’s State of Play (a livestreamed showcase of upcoming PlayStation games) that the Game Boy Color game Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, known by American gamers as simply “Metal Gear Solid for Game Boy Color,” was going to be included as a bonus game for Konami’s Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2. Before that happened I was planning to suggest Nintendo Classics be the spot for its re-release, but as long as it sees the light of day somehow … I would also like to see Game Freak’s monster-collecting RPGs Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue included (Pokémon is about to celebrate its 30th anniversary so now would be the perfect time!) and Wayforward’s Arabian-themed platformer Shantae for the Game Boy Color (which is slightly less popular than Pokémon but still deserves to be seen).

Nintendo 64

Another great selection for Nintendo fans. Among the 42 N64 games currently available are some of the best adventure and platform games of the 64-bit era, including Super Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Rayman 2, Kirby 64 and Banjo-Tooie as well as beloved N64 classics like Mario Kart 64, F-Zero X, Star Fox 64, Goldeneye 007, Perfect Dark, Wave Race 64, 1080° Snowboarding, Pokémon Snap, the Pokémon Stadium series, the Mario Party series, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Paper Mario, Ridge Racer 64, Harvest Moon 64 and even original Japan exclusive Sin and Punishment.

My Nintendo 64 Wishlist

I’m very happy with the N64 selection, but I can think of three more games I’d love to see: one that seems like a likely future addition, one that’s a bit more iffy and one that’s a total longshot. Likely: Super Smash Bros. The Nintendo crossover fighting game series is one of the company’s most popular, and it’s highly probable that many gamers both old enough to remember playing and too young to have ever played it will want to see how it all began. Iffy: Donkey Kong 64. I would be kind of surprised by this one’s inclusion. It’s such a huge and technically elaborate game and such a divisive game in terms of its artistic merit that I don’t know if Nintendo would even think it’s worth porting, even though I would love a chance to revisit it (especially since the Switch 2 game Donkey Kong Bananza recently made several references to it). A total longshot: Conker’s Bad Fur Day. An M-rated game about a drunken, cursing squirrel? I’m not holding my breath. Although I would love to be wrong. Don’t expect it to appear before Donkey Kong 64 though.

Sega Genesis

A lot of the expected inclusions are here, like Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Shining Force, Ecco the Dolphin, Dynamite Headdy, Vectorman, Phantasy Star IV and Comix Zone. Others I was less sure would appear but am glad to see are The Revenge of Shinobi, Gunstar Heroes, Castlevania: Bloodlines, ToeJam & Earl and Virtua Fighter 2.

My Sega Genesis Wishlist

Even though I agree with most people that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the best Sonic game of all time, I’m still kind of surprised that the first Sonic game isn’t here. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are also solid entries and I would love to see their eventual inclusion as well. Although I’ve already played all those games plenty of times, so if it were up to me, I would rather see some much more unlikely choices. Pac-Man 2 (released for both the Genesis and the SNES) is not a very highly regarded sequel to the arcade classic but I think it deserves another chance to be seen through a modern lens because there are things about it that I absolutely love and it goes in some very unexpected directions (which might explain why so many gamers didn’t like it). My slightly even more crazy suggestion is for Nintendo to add more Disney games because some of the best were released for the Genesis, including Aladdin, The Lion King, Gargoyles and Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse. Although no Disney games have been included in Nintendo Classics so far so I don’t even know if Disney is willing to play ball with Nintendo (although they teamed up with Digital Eclipse and Capcom to release The Disney Afternoon Collection which is available on the Switch). The biggest long shot of them all (and this is going to make me sound even crazier) would be Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, Sega’s beat-’em-up game in which you played as the prince of pop as he rescued children from Mr. Big, the villain and “smooth criminal” mastermind from Jackson’s Moonwalker film. The game was surprisingly fun and even well-received by gamers at the time, but … well, do I even NEED to explain why there’s a zero per cent chance of that one showing up?

Game Boy Advance

A lot of great Game Boy Advance games are included. Some of my favorites are Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (which gets my vote for the best of all the Mario RPGs) and the wacky and fast-paced WarioWare, Inc. as well as Golden Sun, Wario Land 4, Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, the previously Japan-exclusive Legendary Starfy series and the entire GBA Fire Emblem series (although Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is only available on Nintendo Classics in Japan, as are Magical Vacation and Mother 3).

My Game Boy Advance Wishlist

An American release for Mother 3 is the biggest thing on my wishlist but that is almost certainly never going to happen. I would love to see Game & Watch Gallery 4 included though, which I think is the highlight of the Game & Watch Gallery series. I would also like to see the Sonic Advance series and the Donkey Kong Country GBA remakes included (they are different enough from the SNES originals that they are worth a look). Some long shots I would like to see included are two Japan-exclusive games made by Mario & Luigi developer AlphaDream: the RPG Tomato Adventure and the adventure game Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue. I mean, I have never seen either of those games so I have no idea if they are any good. But I’m willing to try them because I love AlphaDream’s other games so much.

GameCube

The GameCube library was only made available last year with the release of the Nintendo Switch 2 so the amount of games you can play there is still limited. So far the 8 games included are Luigi’s Mansion, Soulcalibur II, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, Wario World, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Chibi-Robo! and Super Mario Strikers with Super Mario Sunshine, Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness on the way.

My GameCube Wishlist

I’m sure many other GameCube games will be released in the near future but it’s never too early to make a wishlist. It seems likely that Metroid Prime, Pikmin and Pikmin 2 will probably come to Nintendo Classics eventually. But I also hope to see Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess get reintroduced to new gamers as well as third party games like Sega’s Super Monkey Ball and Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (an ignored and underrated GameCube game from the makers of Sonic the Hedgehog), Capcom’s Resident Evil series, Konami’s Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (highly unlikely given the very GameCube-specific fourth-wall breaking that happens in that game) and Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Beyond Good & Evil (another overlooked GameCube game, although it was also released on the PlayStation 2 so it has a bigger cult following than Billy Hatcher).