Killer Instinct Gold is the latest game to be added to the Nintendo 64 collection on Nintendo Switch Online.
Despite the name suggesting a special edition of the original game, Killer Instinct Gold is in fact a home port of arcade game Killer Instinct 2.
Three characters from the original game (Chief Thunder, Riptor and Cinder) have been removed and replaced with three newcomers – teenage ninja Kim, Amazonian warrior Maya and musclebound warrior Tusk.
The first game’s combo system is given more prominence here, while the combo breaker system has also been made easier for those on the receiving end.
Perhaps the most notable aspect of Killer Instinct Gold, however, is the way in which its art style differs from that of its arcade counterpart.
The arcade version of Killer Instinct 2 essentially uses pre-rendered movies as backgrounds, which play forwards and backwards when the screen scrolls to give the illusion that the perspective is changing as the camera moves.
The N64 port replaces this with fully polygonal backgrounds, which are lower quality but give a more realistic sense of movement, run at a full 60 frames per second and allow for dramatic camera zooms.
The addition of Killer Instinct Gold brings the total number of N64 games available on Switch Online to 39 in the West. Recent additions have included Ridge Racer 64, Banjo-Tooie and a new Mature 17+ version of the app, including games with higher age ratings like Perfect Dark, Turko, Turok 2 and Shadow Man.
NES, SNES, Game Boy and Game Boy Colour games are available as part of the standard Switch Online subscription, which costs £3.49/€3.99/$3.99 for a one-month membership, £6.99/€7.99/$7.99 for a three-month membership, and £17.99/€19.99/$19.99 for a 12-month membership.
Switch Online’s Expansion Pack add-on, which is needed to play Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance and Sega Mega Drive / Genesis games, costs $49.99 / £34.99 / €39.99 per year.
