Plays Like Summer

School is out, the pool is open, and I made a list: the ten Super Nintendo games that actually play like summer, ranked, with one rule. A summer game plays like summer. The release date does not get a vote.

Nintendo Month opens with an ending: Nintendo will stop selling the original Switch in Europe in February 2027 under the EU’s new battery rules, and I make the case that a replaceable battery is a preservation feature. Mario Kart Tour and Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis get shutdown dates, Germany’s national game archive, the largest public game archive in the world, loses its funding, and the Xbox reset goes from reports to an official announcement: 3,200 jobs, four studios spun out, and John Carmack on what happened to id. Part Three of The Subsidy is live on the site.

A new segment debuts: What It Plays. One device held up to the camera and the honest answer to the only question that matters. First up, the ANBERNIC RG CubeXX, the sixty dollar square-screen handheld that runs every game on tonight’s list. Bought with my own money, no affiliate links, full review on the site.

Then the feature: Donkey Kong Country’s warm water at number one, EarthBound’s great American road trip at number two, Zombies Ate My Neighbors as the sleeper, and some very famous cartridges left off on purpose. The full ranked ten, rejects footnote included, is in the Top Loader series.

This month in POCG history: July 1999, from the restored archive, including the Might and Magic VII review that just went back up with its original date and byline.