Nintendo fans are rejoicing over leaked data that suggests a Game Boy Advance emulator has been unearthed within hidden Nintendo Switch files.
Rumors of Nintendo Switch Online’s service expanding to include Game Boy games have lingered for months now. Reports circulated in September 2021 saying that a Game Boy emulator was set to launch on Nintendo Switch “soon.” This didn’t materialize at the time, but Nintendo did announce and released the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service that included Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64 games shortly thereafter.
Rumors of the Nintendo Switch supporting Game Boy games continued to swirl. It may be that these rumors are now finally materializing.
According to numerous leaks on social media, files have been discovered suggesting that there’s a long list of Game Boy Advance games that have been used in a yet-to-be-released emulator for the system. This would likely be released as a GBA expansion to Nintendo Switch Online and it includes a long list of prominent first-party and third-party games for the platform.
A long list of games were leaked in files related to this Nintendo Switch Game Boy Advance emulator. They were also referenced in a variety of different ways including a straightforward list of ROMs, media assets such as screenshots, and scenario lists related to multiplayer support. Mondo_Mega on Twitter discovered a list of games that were tested and was able to leak that list of GBA titles. Not all were included in the discovered build.
The list of games includes in the built emulator includes:
Alongside these are several other games that were tested but not included in the build. This list includes Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team, and more.
According to Mondo_Mega, there are also separate apps for four games for older Game Boy hardware including The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX, Tetris, Super Mario Land, and Qix. Alongside these games listed are screenshots for several other games, most notably what appears to be a screenshot from Pokemon Ruby or Sapphire.
There are several significant omissions from the list including Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen, but the list of GBA games is still quite long. It also boasts a number of big third-party titles including Tactics Ogre, Astro Boy, and Harvest Moon.
Unfortunately, fans shouldn’t expect all these games to actually launch.
Though many of these games are classics, the fact that there are multiple games involving licensed characters suggests that developers were testing a broad number of titles. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories was one of the games listed as being a part of the testing process and it’s unlikely that Nintendo would be able to rope both Square Enix and Disney into giving over games for somebody else’s subscription service.
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