VC-ism: May 2007 Archives

This week, the slightly slimline offerings on the Virtual Console (VC) stand at two; Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES 1995) for 800 Wii points and Mario & Yoshi (NES 1992) for 500, adding an adventure platformer and a puzzle title to the already delightfully diverse selection of retro titles available for Wii gamers.

We'd like to see a few more, but apparently patience is a virtue ...

As for these two, are they worth your hard earned 'Nindollars'? It's a case of yes for some and no for others this week; both titles are essentially decent games, though not the best offerings from their genre. If you enjoy the Donkey Kong platformers, then playing this one through again should please you. Puzzle games really are either something you know that's your bag or it isn't - so it's simply a case of each to his own.

Personally? We're just playing Wonderboy in Monster World through as much as we can get away with!

What's that you say? There's only TWO Wii Virtual Console releases this week in Europe & the UK? Fiddle faddle!

We're not sure why, but for whatever reason this is the case. This week's offerings come from two retro machines - Nintendo's NES and the Turbografx (PC Engine). Firstly, Mario and Luigi strike the greens in the golf simulator, NES Open Tournament Golf (1992). Bringing up the rear for the Turbografx is something of a different genre entirely; the action title Ninja Spirit! Donning your black Ninja costume will set you back 600 Wii points, whilst swinging out the clubs on the green will only cost you a piddling 500.

Compared to last week, it feels a little quiet - golf being very much a pick-up-and-play experience and only Ninja Spirit to pick up the adventure or action line. Considering last week's offerings included several games with adventuring and even RPG elements, we think Nintendo can be forgiven for balancing it off with this week.

This week's Virtual Console releases for the Wii saw the usual batch of retro titles, with most hailing from Sega's Mega Drive along with Shockman (PC Engine).

We've been playing Wonderboy in Monster World for hours, and in true blog tradition, we'd like to tell you why you should be playing this too.

Graphically simple and straightforward in 2D, you take on the role of young lad Shion and it ss your task to free the world from Monsters who've decided to make it their favoured place to stay. The history of the original game is somewhat complex; this is actually the fifth game in the Wonderboy line and part of the Monster World sub-set of games. Graphically for the day it was released, it's awesome.

In terms of game play, this game will hook you from the start with a cunning mixture of platform gaming (walk along horizontally most of the time and progress through the game in levels) and role playing (upgrading your weapons, magic and equipment whilst learning new things to search for and do by speaking to towns folk).

The game can be played on your Wii using any controller; the Wii remote, classic pad or the Game Cube pad. We'd recommend using the classic pad though, to produce a close example of the original type of pad you'd have been using back in the day. It's also the easiest to handle, we think.
The game plays excellently all the way through, giving you a constant stream of alternative directions to try to travel in and new things to do or look for. If you complete an area, often there will appear a new way to teleport straight there in the future, cutting down the labours of plodding endlessly through field after field of bad guys; a problem that plagues many modern RPG games. Nice to see this classic title handling boredom and slam-dunking it!

At no point were we bored. The challenges are enough so that anyone can have a go at it, but there will be points where some quite accurate game play and determined skill use will be the only way to progress. In the traditonal way, items are your way into new areas and so you'll be able to roam quite freely ... but at the same time find your path directed for you by what you need to carry on.

The different sectors of the game are varied; desert land, ice, jungle etc. You can save your progress but only in Inns scattered through the game's villages. This will cost you a small fee.

As you improve your weapons and armour, Wonderboy's actual armour and so on will change, giving you a feeling somewhat of satisfaction. It's annoying when playing an RPG and the armour doesn't change depending upon what armour you're actually wearing.

All in all, this is well worth the 800 Wii points that you'll have to shell out to get it. Even if you played the Mega Drive/Gensis release, we say play it again Sam! It gets the firm thumbs up as this week's one to watch out for. Although ... we'd love someone to explain the connection between ceramics and ice to us. Ahem.

News has reached us that the Virtual Console will soon be graced with another TMNT outing from the past. This game for the NES catalogue will be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game.

March this year also saw the original Ninja Turtles game from Konami surfacing on the Virtual Console, a game that Nintendo used to boost sales of the NES in the console wars with Sega. The second NES TMNT outing is a version of the popular original arcade machine which saw Mike, Raph, Don and Leo fight their way through Shredder and the Foot Clan in true old-skool scrolling beat em up fun.

This weekend also marks the 24th anniversary of the Ninja Turtles, so this game is likely to be very welcomed by Wii owning TMNT fans.