Oops, I'm a little late getting to this, sorry about that.
So, on Thursday, I had a really strong gut feeling that, come 9pm EST, not only would Super Mario Sunshine be added to Nintendo GameCube - Nintendo Classics, but its soundtrack would be added to Nintendo Music as well.
My reasoning was simple. It was July 30th, and we had yet to receive our 'big' Nintendo Classics game for the month. We had gotten the Game Boy and GBA update earlier in the month, but we typically get at least one 'big' game for N64, GameCube, or some other system each month, even in the months when we get those batch updates for the older systems.
Super Mario Sunshine felt overdue to arrive, being one of the games initially announced to be coming later to the GameCube library, and being the sole original Mario platformer on the console. On top of that, it's been a bit since we got a new GameCube game, the last being Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness back in March.
And on top of ALL of that, there's the fact that Mario Sunshine is one of the few core Mario soundtracks still missing from Nintendo Music's library. Considering Nintendo Music and Classics drops have been coordinated in the past, like with Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance earlier this year, or Mario Paint last summer, it just felt like it made all the sense in the world.
Well, that didn't exactly happen, but I was kinda right... even if 'kinda right' comes with an asterisk, as I specifically said Sunshine would be added that very night. Haha... nope! It's two weeks away!
Super Mario Sunshine makes its long overdue arrival on Nintendo GameCube - Nintendo Classics on Thursday, August 13th, 2026. Gotta say, though, I'm looking forward to this one, even though I have played it once before.
It wasn't until 2020's 3D All-Stars collection that I was able to play Sunshine for the first time, and I did enjoy it, though it's definitely one of my lesser favorite 3D Mario games. Still a good game, and I'm looking forward to revisiting it on Nintendo Classics! Perhaps I'll learn to appreciate it even more this time... or maybe I'll end up hating it afterwards, who knows. Regardless, I'm very glad we're finally getting it, and I can move on to asking for Double Dash and Mario Party 4-7.
That wasn't all the Nintendo Classics news from last Thursday, however, as Nintendo also announced the release date of the final two Virtual Boy titles that were announced in the overview trailer released back in January, and they happen to be the most intriguing of the bunch: the previously unreleased games Zero Racers and D-Hopper.
Getting Zero Racers in particular is a BIG deal, as it's a pretty well known cancelled Virtual Boy game. The game is a part of the F-Zero series, and it was supposedly close to completion, being shown off at events such as E3 before being cancelled due to, well, being a Virtual Boy game. This is very similar to how Nintendo finally released Star Fox 2 on the SNES Classic Edition almost a decade ago now, with that game having also originally been cancelled despite being close to completion before being brought back. I'd say Star Fox 2 was probably a bigger deal overall, but this is still REALLY cool.
Also, with Zero Racers being an F-Zero game, that technically means this will be the first brand new F-Zero game to be released in over two decades, since the GBA entries in the early to mid 2000s (not counting 99 as it's based on the original SNES game). That's gotta count for something, right?
No but, for real, it's really cool, and I can't wait to take it for a spin.
The other unreleased game, D-Hopper, I knew nothing about so I had to do a bit of research to learn its background (to be fair, I also had to look some things up for Zero Racers, but I knew the general gist of that game already, I just wanted to confirm some details).
D-Hopper, originally known as Dragon Hopper (it was shortened for the Nintendo Classics release for some reason), is a top-down action-adventure game that was being developed for the Virtual Boy by Intelligent Systems before its original cancellation due to, well, being a Virtual Boy game (wow). Based on the gameplay I've seen of the game, it looks to make great use of the VB's stereoscopic 3D as you hop between platforms on different layers. As with Zero Racers, I'm looking forward to trying this one!
Both previously unreleased games hit Virtual Boy - Nintendo Classics on Switch 1 and 2 on Tuesday, August 4th, 2026. In fact, due to the way Nintendo Classics releases are usually rolled out, they'll actually be available to play later tonight (I'm writing this on Monday, August 3rd) at 9pm EST! Of course, that's dependent on your time zone.
That's still not everything, though, as a new feature is being added to VB - Nintendo Classics the same day. It'll allow you to change the screen color from the infamous default red and black simply by holding the Right Stick and using the shoulder buttons to cycle through different options. This is a very welcome addition that'll allow for a bit more customization over how you experience these games. Sadly, there still isn't a flatscreen mode, but I'm not giving up on the idea of one eventually being added.
But, yeah, with these two games, the lineup of upcoming titles announced at the beginning of the year has been exhausted. These could very well be the last games added to the Virtual Boy library, as looking at the list of Virtual Boy games, there's not much else they could really add. Stuff like Panic Bomber, Space Squash, Virtual Fishing, and Virtual League Baseball stand out as potential candidates, but it wouldn't surprise me if this library is left as is. They could potentially put out some more unreleased games, but I feel like that would require any potential unreleased games to already be basically complete. For example, I'd love to see something like VB Mario Land resurface, but I heavily doubt that game was close enough to being finished to be a possibility. It would be really cool if they put in the work to finish it and release essentially a brand new Virtual Boy game in the modern day, but I don't see it happening.
Regardless, August looks to be a solid month for Nintendo Classics between these unreleased Virtual Boy titles and Mario Sunshine. I'll list the release dates here one more time:
- Zero Racers, D-Hopper, and screen color customization (VB - NC): Tuesday, August 4th, 2026
- Super Mario Sunshine (GC - NC): Thursday, August 13th, 2026
Oh and, Mario Sunshine's soundtrack to Nintendo Music on the 13th, you heard it here first.
