A Beloved Fire Emblem Game is Coming to Nintendo Switch Online… In Japan

For decades, Fire Emblem fans the world over have been clamoring to get their hands on an official release of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. Adored both for its storyline and its challenging combat encounters, Genealogy of the Holy War occupies the higher rung in the list of dozens of SNES JRPGs that never made the journey overseas.

Now, Japanese fans can celebrate a modern port of this beloved game whilst the rest of us loudly kick aluminum cans in the middle of our driveway, causing our neighbors to worry if we’re OK.

Nintendo rewards members of its Switch Online service with irregular helpings of old NES and SNES games, but the Japanese and Western offerings aren’t always the same. This time around, three games are the same but Japan gets Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War and Shadow Warrior whilst we’re stuck with Spanky’s Quest and Super Baseball 1,000.

Look, no offense intended toward any and all fans of Spanky. I’m sure his titular quest is a strong one. Unless it isn’t. I’ll readily admit I have no idea. And I can only imagine a baseball video game that’s not only super but a thousand times super, must surely be glorious. But Genealogy of the Holy War has been re-released in Japan for Wii, Wii U, and as of May 26th, Switch. I would sacrifice one thousand Spankys for one (!) localization.

You can technically set up a Japanese Switch account and download the Super Famicom app with it, in which case you’re all set… so long as you can read hiragana, katakana, and/or kanji. For the rest of us, there’s always a fifth playthrough of Fire Emblem: Three Houses on the table, right?