The biggest failure in Nintendo’s history has gotten a new release and it’s the best video game on the console

Nintendo has quite a few failures behind it. Although the company has some of the most successful consoles in history alongside Sony, it also has the dubious honor of having created some of the most spectacular flops. Which shows its willingness to experiment and try new things. Sometimes getting ahead of its time in a way that didn’t make much sense, but that, in the process, makes it try interesting things.

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That was the case with the Virtual Boy. A very interesting console that experimented with virtual reality, but that, besides being expensive, was uncomfortable, couldn’t be used for very long, caused eye strain, and burned through batteries at an alarming rate. But there’s something often said about it that’s a lie: that it had a bad catalog. It didn’t. And even so, its most interesting game didn’t come out until 2026. Its name is Dragon Hopper and Nintendo rescued it just this week.

A revolutionary dragon

Dragon Hopper is an action-platformer where you play as a young dragon prince who must save his girlfriend from a corrupt prime minister who is destroying his peaceful kingdom. To do so we’ll have to jump and float between platforms, moving across objects, interacting with characters, and defeating enemies in a relatively simple game.

What’s most interesting about the game isn’t that it’s revolutionary, but how interesting and solid it turns out to be. Dorin moves fluidly, the combination of action and platforming feels good, and the 3D effect works really well. What’s more, for a technology as questionable and as underpowered as the Virtual Boy, there’s never any doubt about where we’re going to land or whether a jump is possible, making the game always feel extraordinarily interesting.

In 2026, the game isn’t going to change anyone’s life, but in 1996, when it was going to come out, it would’ve been a groundbreaking game that shows an intelligence and a capacity to exploit its console’s technology that we rarely see. Which is why, even today, it’s interesting to play. Even in 2026 it’s interesting to see a game capable of exploring and exploiting in such a singular way the possibilities of such primitive 3D tech, both in terms of 3D textures and of 3D graphics and their possible uses.

A canceled game revived for good reasons

The story of why Dragon Hopper never came to be released is one we’ve heard many times before with other titles. Although Intelligent Systems’ game was finished and was shown both at trade shows and in magazines, even being demoed to players and the press, it was planned for release in 1996. Unfortunately, the Virtual Boy’s days were already numbered by then and they didn’t give the green light for its release, leaving the game relegated to the scrap heap of canceled projects.

At least until Nintendo has decided, with Nintendo Switch 2, to release a collection of Virtual Boy games through its Nintendo Classics service. To play it you’ll need a Switch Online subscription and an accessory that imitates the original Virtual Boy —of which there are two models, one cardboard one where you insert the Switch 2 screen and one plastic one based on the original console—, to play the games.

It’s thanks to this initiative that not only the entire Virtual Boy catalog is being rescued, which has excellent games like The Mansion of Innsmouth, Jack Bros., or Virtual Boy Wario Land, but also games previously unreleased like this Dragon Hopper or Zero Racers. This makes this initiative a major preservation win by allowing us to play games we considered lost forever, but that we can now enjoy and, with luck, help ensure they don’t disappear again.