Formerly only available in Japan, the first three Starfy GBA games have been released on NSO

Nintendo has made an interesting addition to the Nintendo Switch Online GBA catalog. The first three Densetsu no Starfy games have been added to the service, which makes it the first time they’ve been available outside of Japan.

If Starfy sounds familiar to you, it might be because one game from the series was localized. That would be 2008’s The Legendary Starfy for DS, which is the fifth game of the series. There were four before that one.

The Starfy games were made by Tose and published by Nintendo. They’re cute platformers in a similar vein as the Kirby series. While I don’t really have a more compelling way to describe them, they are rather beloved games. While only having one game reach outside of Japan, the series has cultivated a fanbase in other territories.

There is one caveat here. The games are still in Japanese. Nintendo released the games as is without bothering to translate the text. That’s not really anything new, since the company has been filling out the NSO catalogs for many of its consoles with Japanese games, it’s just a bit disappointing that they don’t go the extra mile. It means most of these games will remain a curiosity when they could have a better chance at reaching a new audience.

With that in mind, the Densetsu no Starfy games are platformers and can be enjoyed without understanding the story. You’re just not getting the full story, and that’s unfortunate.

Densetsu no Starfy, Densetsu no Starfy 2, and Densetsu no Starfy 3 are all available on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack GBA service.