Nintendo Music 4+

Knowing Nintendo’s copyright habits and overall how they handle their music online, I expected this app to be a cheap excuse as ‘now there’s a place to officially listen to our music.’ But after using the app and finding my way through it, it’s actually pretty good and acts just as any other music app would. I found it very intuitive to use and simple to understand.

There is the major drawback of putting this service behind the paywall of Nintendo Switch Online, but I honestly think this is the best way to handle an app like this, especially knowing Nintendo would likely not put any ads anywhere. There’s also the fact that there’s only a handful of game soundtracks currently available, but as more are added, I’m sure it will get even better.

Overall, there’s a lot of stuff done right here and even more potential for the future. Of course I would prefer that Nintendo distribute their music to other platforms to make everything easier, but this app manages to make it work just fine.

I am pleasantly surprised by this app. It might sound silly to have an entire app for music when plenty of others exist, but the app’s features are well made and actually work well with the kind of music on offer. Since video game music is meant to repeat, the app offers the ability to extend tracks instead of simply looping to the beginning. That sounds minor, but is honestly feels great, and I use it a lot.

The sound quality is very good, every instrument is audible, and the chiptune music is crisp without sounding distorted. All of the features you would expect such as playlists, shuffle, recommendations, and downloading is present. Logging in is easy too, since once you link your Nintendo account, the app doesn’t make you sign in every time. There aren’t any ads either.

While it’s true that their isn’t a lot of games at launch, it’s worth noting that the annual price is significantly lower than similar services. I am confident that time will be very kind to the library. The only downside is the lack of CarPlay compatibility, but if you don’t listen to music while driving, that won’t matter too much. Overall, I am very impressed with the app, and I recommend it, as it does justice for the OSTs it hosts.

Honestly I was pretty exited for this app. It looked cool and the no spoiler feature is an awesome idea. The app is free, which is cool, but you have to have an online membership to use any function of the app. Honestly I am not really surprised but still disappointed to realize this. I don’t believe that Nintendo will change this either, but having a pay wall to listen to music like this is just kind of unfair to the people who like their games and music but can’t afford to have an online membership; or people who don’t have internet and don’t want to spend extra money on something that they can’t get the most out of anyway. -- I also think that having to sign in at all is not needed. Not everybody who has a switch has a linked Nintendo account. So I think it would be cool if you could listen as a guest, but have the option to sign in. When signed in as a guest, you are not given many recommendations just songs that are popular. But when you are logged in, the app will look at the games you have and the amount of time that you have spent on these applications. My most played game on my switch is “The Legend of Zelda Breath of The Wild”, so the app could pick up on this and give me more recommendations from this title then say “Tears of the Kingdom”, which I have less time put into. But that is just a recommendation.