[skuthus]

To the OP's point, You can play some games with virtual console, but many games were released on only one or two newer consoles so you would effectively need to spend hundreds and sometimes thousands in order to actually play them all legally.

[Hamuko]

The strategy for Nintendo Switch Online is apparently to dripfeed classic games onto it. So if you for example want to play Mother (NES) or Mother 2 (SNES), you either need to emulate it on a PC, buy the actual retro consoles and games (or the SNES Classic for Mother 2), or get a Wii U and play it on the Wii U Virtual Console.

(If you want to play Mother 3 in English, you're going to have to resort to PC emulators.)

[skuthus]

I definitely don't blame Nintendo for using this strategy - I do however find it frustrating how unintuitive finding the games feels. Want to play Earthbound? Get a SNES classic. Want to play LOZ:Link to the Past? You can do it on the switch. Want to play Mario 2? Too bad. Its japan only. Etc.

[Hamuko]

Mario 2 is on the Switch in the west as well.