Nintendos Music App: First Impressions

 I have not talked about anything gaming-related on here for a while, and I want to change that, amidst movies, shows, music, or whatever I feel like talking about here, I want to bring video games back on the table (Which is also how this blog started). Something that came out of nowhere this past week was Nintendo dropping a music app for NSO (Nintendo Switch Online) members at no cost. There is no AD model or a premium one, it is just the music as is and it comes with your subscription, so far there is music ranging from current Switch titles to Wii Channels and even the NES. Some Mario, Animal Crossing, Kirby, Zelda, and more, so what do I think? Let's download this app and find out! 

The app is modeled as a standard music app and works as such. You can mark favorites, make playlists, and extend some songs, not all but some. You can extend a song to 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour, causing one of my minor gripes I will get into later. Overall the presentation of this app is good, not great, it is easy to navigate and even gives you suggestions based on your picks or community picks which is good. You can also take music out of your feed and viewing vision by using a feature that blocks out games you mark as spoilers until you beat them and unmark them, which is super cool. I opened it up and said "This does look like a music app", so it does its job and that is all we need it to do. 

When I fired this up, I was surprised at the variety given from the start, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Galaxy, Ocarina Of Time, Animal Crossing New Horizons, The Wii Channel Music, and so many more, even NES games like Metroid or N64 games like Star Fox 64. There is a good amount at the start and at the time of this post, Super Mario Wonder was already added. There are so many more games I want to see both modern and classic Nintendo but some of these picks are fantastic.

The first soundtrack I went to was Super Mario Odessy, I fired up Jump Up Superstar, one of my favorite videogames of all time, and rocked out. This made me so happy, and so glad this app existed, it really was a surprise that came out of nowhere and I was so delighted, but next it was time for childhood nostalgia. 

Firing up the music from the Wii Channels from the Check Mii Out Channel to Everybody Votes and even the Photo Channel, brought me back to lazy childhood afternoons. In between games or watching shows over the weekends I would love to use these channels to find new Miis to make, edit photos, or just relax. I would listen to the music of the news or weather channels on the Wii and be lulled into an afternoon nap sometimes, they were great to vibe to. I would love to even just check the news or weather for fun sometimes, and I loved the music, on all these Wii channels there is a large amount of nostalgia. Of course without need for mention but I will, THE WII SHOP CHANNEL THEME. The masterpiece itself is here and can be listened to for two minutes or two hours, there is no wrong answer to this jingle that used to greet me when I would buy NES games or WiiWare games that I regret still to this day. 

Now it is time to give a few gripes, the app crashes on me multiple times, and some of the selection is a tad baffling, also some of the songs can not be extended, and not all songs have a cool image tied to them, some are just the box art. That is about it, sometimes there are songs that you can't extend and I don't know why, but I still mostly really like this app. The future of this app is very bright, and I am beyond excited, I have used it a good number of times and plan on using it more when I don't feel like listening to other music, or musicals. I plan on using this app, and now I can tune into Nintendo Directs and hope to see more soundtracks announced for the app, the same way people get excited about NSO. I hope the updates are not a drip feed style akin to NSO, here's hoping, that the future is bright and full of music for this wonderful app, as a wonderful gift for people with NSO subscriptions. And I mean we literally got the Wii Channels and Wii Shop Channel theme that can be looped so that is proof we are starting off incredibly strong.