The Combatribes
Developer: Technos Japan Corp.
Publisher: American Technos Inc.
Original Release Date: 1990
Cost: 800 Wii Points

Chuck Platt: Combatribes is only one of the best beat-em-up games of all time. Sadly, I have not played it since 1995 and there has been much drinking and depression since then, so the details are fuzzy. I do know that the color editor was pretty fun.

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D.J. Tatsujin: It’s kind of amazing how many people do not recall The Combatribes, as it was one of the most unique brawlers for its time. “For its time” is probably the real culprit here, however, as that time had arcades and 16-bit consoles filled to the brim with “walk right, kick ass, repeat” games. I remember my first experience with The Combatribes was at a local Pizza Hut, back when every one of them had a handful of cabinets, and I still remember that experience very well. But, again, given the time of its release, I also remember a bowling alley where a Combatribes machine sat all by its lonesome as kids piled on top of each other to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While I never got to see Techno’s Combatribes at too many arcades, I did rent the Super Nintendo version a number of times as a kid and a handful of years ago, I picked it up on the cheap at a local shop. Still, to this day, The Combatribes is pretty interesting.

The reason the title is interesting is because it broke the mold set by most brawlers at the time. Most games had average people that happened to know how to fight going against a large gang and encountering enemies that towered over them. The Combatribes kind of reversed the roles in regard to towering enemies, putting players in the role of one of the three Combatribes – Bullova, Blitz and Berzerker – who stand tall over the game’s standard enemies with a ripped physique and no-BS attitude. Players can just butcher the standard enemies – of course, there are your standard punches and kicks, but you can also grab them and fling them across the screen into crowds of enemies; if you are surrounded, you can press punch to grab an enemy from each side and smash their heads together; and once you have an enemy on the ground, the real fun begins. Punishing grounded enemies is a true guilty pleasure in the game as players can press punch by the enemy’s feet to grab them by the ankles and spin them around to chuck them into other enemies, they can press kick to take a flying leap and double stomp an enemy’s spine or mount an enemy and smash their face into the pavement.

As a result, the game tries to overwhelm players with large amounts of standard enemies that also begin to resort to dirty tactics and weapons to take down your character. As a whole, the game is challenging, unique and fun if you can get into brawlers and the span of levels really mixes things up – while players start on the predictable street environment, they soon find they are fighting off clowns at the circus, street hockey punks in a roller rink and deranged fighters in a stadium. By the time players are at the fourth stage, the difficulty noticeably picks up as players battle through a tower where each floor rehashes the enemies and bosses from the previous levels, which is a bit of a cheap way to extend the game, but the challenge makes reaching the top quite gratifying.

On the Super Nintendo, you definitely won’t be picking the title up for its story, but it does provide some vivid environments and large character sprites that look quite good. Tossing around the standard enemies like rag dolls is actually fairly satisfying, and there are some challenging sections of the game to master if you’re a sucker for brawlers. There are a few minor deviations in gameplay flow and presentation when you compare the title to the arcade release, but the home version does receive the standard Technos two-player versus mode, which interestingly allows you to play as the enemies and bosses in the game through codes earned as players progress through the story mode. At 800 Wii Points, though, most people can probably pass this one up. You can find the game far cheaper in cart form if you still have a Super Nintendo lying around, and if you don’t have a ton of VC downloads, there are far better ways to spend 800 Wii Points. I have fond memories of the title, but I’ll be the first to admit the game has aged quite a bit. I can find novelty in being the big guy for once and chucking enemies around into each other still makes me smile, but after more than 15 years, I can’t say most modern gamers would share that sentiment.

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Mark B.: When most people think of Technos, they think of one of two things: Double Dragon and/or the Kunio-kun/River City series. Astonishingly, Technos actually DID make a bunch of games that weren’t a part of those two franchises, of which The Combatribes is one, although less astonishingly, it’s another beat-em-up. The game itself is kind-of sort-of a more interesting version of Renegade with a Warriors bent to it; you take control of one of three characters (the average guy, the fast guy, or the strong guy) and beat up a bunch of weird themed enemies in bright, colorful stages until you win or die. The combat mechanics are a good bit more fleshed out than one might expect, there’s an amusing two-player versus mode that kind of feels like a more involved version of the versus mode from the NES Double Dragon, and the game looks pretty decent, even now.

However, the game is hard as nails, because enemies WILL surround you and pummel you into oblivion and the only way to survive is to spam jump kick, more or less. The game is also quite short, compared to something like Streets of Rage or Final Fight, featuring about six stages that are maybe twenty minutes long, if you’re lucky. If you’re a huge fan of beat-em-ups and love The Warriors you might want to consider dropping the cash for The Combatribes, but otherwise it’s not really worth it.

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Solomon’s Key
Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
Original Release Date: 1987
Cost: 500 Wii Points

Mark B.: Solomon’s Key was a wicked-hard puzzle/platformer that graced the NES back in the 80’s and is both loved and hated by pretty much everyone who’s played it. The concept is incredibly simple: you’re a wizard who can make blocks appear and disappear as needed, and you can use this ability to collect keys to new rooms and jewels to increase your score, as well as to block enemies from killing you, and time has done nothing to diminish the awesomeness of the experience. The arcade version is more or less the same game, only prettier, so fans of the NES game should be all over this game in a heartbeat.

Well, that is to say that they WOULD BE all over this game, if they didn’t buy the NES version of the game that came out almost three years ago to the day on the VC, as this version of the game is rather similar to the NES game. It also bears noting that this game is HARD AS HELL, so if you’re easily frustrated, you… might not want to invest in a game that allows you to potentially back yourself into unwinnable positions at times. If you somehow also own Tecmo Classic Arcade for the Xbox, this game is on that compilation, negating the need to buy it here entirely, though the odds of that are admittedly small. If you missed the release of the NES game, or you want to own both versions for completion’s sake, and you don’t mind playing games that unapologetically break it off in you, Solomon’s Key is pretty much a must-have, as it’s a classic game that true gamers should not do without.

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Wii Ware this week features 4 different games Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 4 (1000 points), My Zoo (500), Copter Crisis (500), and Christmas Clix (1000). So, there is definitely no shortage of new releases to choose from. Choose wisely…
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Christopher Bowen: Oh fuck you, Nintendo. There are FOUR OTHER VERSIONS of this game available via the VC – three on the SNES alone – AND this has a 100pt. premium because it’s an import, despite the fact that the game has absolutely zero need for translation? We’re supposed to suck this up on those merits? Alex says it’s as close to arcade-perfect as the 16-bit games get. Frankly, that doesn’t impress me when I can get the arcade versions on other compilations. I take this as an insult, especially when my personal favourite of the 16 bit era (Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers) is out already. Besides, after playing it for awhile, I can definitively say that I notice almost no difference between the TG-16 version and the SNES version. If there’s a difference, it’s minuscule.

Sorry, I’m passing on this one. I’d rather spend my money on Pokemon Rumble!.

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Mark B.: So, this is a first: I actually felt compelled to download a game on the VC instead of recalling my time with it from memory. This is partly because I wanted to see how the VC would handle the controls, since the game was released alongside a special six-button controller and I wanted to be certain that the Classic Controller could properly emulate it (as I believe that this was the only T-16 game to use this controller). Also, I never played the T-16 version of Street Fighter II Championship Edition and wanted to see if it was, as Alex said, close to arcade perfect.

So, the good news is that the six-button controls work pretty much perfectly, and the game plays about as you’d expect it to, so if you like Street Fighter II it’s fine enough. The bad news is that, and I am saying this openly and honestly, EVERY OTHER VERSION OF STREET FIGHTER II with the possible exception of the original game on the SNES IS BETTER THAN THIS. The graphics are more washed-out than the Genesis version, the music is pure midi-mania and is better on BOTH console versions, and the novelty of playing the Turbografx version of the game wears off in about thirty seconds once you realize it’s a crappier version of a game you can get in about a thousand other places.

Bottom line: you can get Street Fighter II Championship Edition specifically in some Capcom compilations, and Special Championship Edition is available on the VC. You can get multiple Street Fighter II versions for just about every console on Earth and then some. This particular release is unnecessary, pointless and not particularly exciting, and it does not make a compelling argument to be purchased. Pass.

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M.L. Kennedy: This is some sort of joke by Nintendo. They are obviously making fun of how many different versions of Street Fighter II exist. By my estimate, they could release a new one every week for eighteen years.






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Alex Lucard: During the 16 bit era, the TG-16 version was the holy grail for Street Fighter II fans, partly because you had to import it and the special controller to play it, and partly because the controls were so amazingly spot-on it was the original game to coin the phrase “arcade perfect.” Of course it wasn’t, but it was a good deal better gameplay-wise than the second place Genesis version and infinitely better than the SNES version, as the SNES controller was fine for everything but fighting games due to its layout.

I would strongly advise getting this if you have something other than the Classic Controller. For example, I own the Neo Geo Fighting pad for the Wii and use that for King of Fighters and Eternal Champions. I wouldn’t play either of those with the Classic Controller or GCN Controller. There is a pretty massive difference there, and fighting game addicts will continue to rant and rave until we get something similar stateside.

If you’re a pretty anal fighting gamer, than this is your best option by far on the VC for Street Fighter II, as it handles brilliantly. Musically it make your ears bleed, because even though the PC Engine had some amazing musical capabilities, it appears Capcom decided to throw their weight behind the engine and screw the music.

Still, as great as this game was during the 16 bit era, you have many other and better choices for Street Fighter II, including multiple compilations and remakes across various systems. The best home version of Street Fighter II remains the Sega Saturn version in the Street Fighter Collection, but you probably won’t ever be seeing that version unless you own a Saturn. As such, my advice is to either

A) Get one of the compilations Capcom has put it on

B) Download the HD Super Street Fighter II remake if you have a 360 or PS3

C) get this version if you only own a Wii, can put up with a SNES style joystick for fighting games, and you can remember Vega is M. Bison, Balrog is Vega and M. Bison is Balrog.

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Indiana Jones Greatest Adventures
Developer: Lucas Arts
Publisher: Lucas Arts
Original Release Date: 1994
Cost: 800 Wii Points

Charlie Marsh: Oh hell yes. In another installment from the “just because it’s hard, that doesn’t make it bad” catalog of gaming, Greatest Adventures is a great collection based on the Indiana Jones trilogy (and it is a trilogy… I’ve never heard of a 4th movie and neither have you).

Anyway, this game is pretty fun, difficulty be damned. You take Indy through levels inspired by all 3 movies, punching and whipping and shooting all manner of Nazis and wild animals, with some cool Mode 7 levels thrown in for fun. It’s definitely your classic tough-as-nails platformer that will almost certainly frustrate you, at which point you should put that rage to good use and show this game who’s boss. Definitely go for it if you’re an Indy fan.

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Mark B.: So, what Super Star Wars was for the Star Wars franchise, Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures was for the Indiana Jones franchise: a Nintendo-hard platformer with lots of charm, frustrating controls, blind jumps, respawning enemies and other annoying quirks that make it less “fun” and more “punishing”. Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures also holds the distinction of being “that game with the giant boulder”, IE there’s a stage with a huge Mode 7 boulder that takes up something like 7/8ths of the screen that you need to run away from, which was mildly impressive at the time, but is now simply horrendous.

As my cohort Mr. Marsh noted above, just because something is hard doesn’t make it bad, but when a game is hard because the controls are spotty, deaths are cheap and frequent and you have to run from a boulder that’s almost as big as the screen, well, that’s a pretty compelling argument that “just because something is hard doesn’t make it GOOD”, either.

If you’re a fan of Doctor Jones and his exploits, Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures is inoffensive for a little while, and if you like annoyingly hard platformers it’s probably something of a desirable game for you, but the only really nice thing I can say about the game is that it came out long before Crystal Skull, and thus lacks any Shia Lebouf. So, hurray for that.

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Christopher Bowen: Hey, who knew Lucasarts made non-Star Wars games!? This is a bog standard platformer with some tight controls, but also some of the cheapest hits I’ve ever seen in my life. The second level is the boulder run, which sucks because there is literally no margin for error; you have to have memorized the stage to get through it since one hit essentially kills you.

I was frustrated by this game mightily, and don’t recommend it to anyone but people that played it back on the SNES, or huge Indiana Jones fans.

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Wii Ware this week includes Pokemon Rumble, a Pokemon fighting game, for 1500 (!!) points. If you do go for it, we’ve got some cool passwords for it right here.

EDIT: 10:26am – Three more passwords for Pokemon Rumble added!
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Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Original Release Date: 1989
Cost: 500 Wii Points

Christopher Bowen: This is an inferior version of a mediocre game that is already on the system. If you really liked either Wonder Boy 3 or Dragon’s Curse, I recommend the latter – even at $1 more – which is better in every way, shape and form, be it graphics, sound, or the fact that it has a full save system instead of just a password. Maybe Mark B. – our Master System expert – could tell us if I’m wrong or not as I’m not as familiar with the MS version as I am the PC Engine version, but this looks like an easy pass to me.

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Mark B. First, Wonder Boy III is, I always thought, an interesting game that, while it didn’t amuse me as much as its predecessor, is essentially better in every way that matters. It’s more involved, more expansive, and generally more fun all in all, but for whatever reason I just didn’t feel the same about it as I did the prior game. Frankly, though, it’s a pretty neat game, and you can kind of look at it as Sega’s answer to Simon’s Quest, between the whole “bad guy from the last game curses you at the end” concept to the free access environments where the player makes progress Metroid style, by acquiring new upgrades (animal forms in this case) to progress to new areas. The game is goofy as hell, too, and it’s an amazingly charming game all around, even something like two decades after the fact.

Regarding the availability of Dragon’s Curse on the VC already, well, I wouldn’t call Dragon’s Curse a drastic improvement over Wonder Boy III, but it looks and sounds a little nicer, I’ll agree with that part. However, this is something of a reverse of what happened when Sega released Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair on the VC, as this time around the Sega release is cheaper than the T-16 release. Further, unlike the Monster Lair situation, the games are far closer technologically this time around; the music is not significantly improved from one release to the next, and while the sprites in Dragon’s Curse are redrawn, they’re not significantly better, nor are the environments. Basically, if you already downloaded Dragon’s Curse there’s no reason to download this, but if you have yet to download either game (and you should, I think), Wonder Boy III is cheaper and there aren’t enough differences to make Dragon’s Curse worth the price difference.

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Cybernoid
Developer: Raffaele Cecco
Publisher: Hewson Consultants
Original Release Date: 1987
Cost: 500 Wii Points

Charlie Marsh: This is a unique little shooter…it combines aspects of a puzzle game in with shooting alien spaceships. Instead of just blasting your way to the end of the level, you have to navigate your ship around a sort of maze, and instead of being able to control your ship, it is constantly moving downward, in some cases causing you to stop and scope out the terrain before you make your next move. It’s cheap and fun, but pretty darn tough, too, as when you die (and you will, a lot), you often get dropped right back in the middle of swarming enemies, so get ready for a challenge if you spring for it.

—

Wii Ware selections this week include updated versions of Excitebike and Frogger for 1000 and 500 points, respectively, along with Dragon Master Spell Caster, a kind of dragon-fighting fantasy adventure game for 500 points.

We’ll see you next week!
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Zombies Ate My Neighbors
Developer: LucasArts
Publisher: Konami
Original Release Date: 1993
Cost: 800 Wii Points

Matt Yeager: Great, Zombie Ate My Nieghbors is FINALLY available on the service. Now get started on an HD remake that lets me play with Friends over Xbox Live and I’ll be happy.


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Adam Powell: Oh man. I played a LOT of Zombies Ate My Neighbors back in the day. Me and my buddy Nick, a case of Diet Mountain Dew. This is pretty much what we’d do when it was too shitty out to go skate. I love that game. I like that 12 packs of soda are bombs. Awesome.

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Guy Demarais: I love Zombies Ate My Neighbors. That was the original Zombies killing game. Well, there might have been more before, but this was the first one I cared about. I never really had much fun with the single-player game, as the difficulty seems to be made just right for two players, but gets annoying when played alone. Still, if you have someone to team up with, this is a game that will keep you addicted for a while. Great shooter, highly recommended.




—

Christopher Bowen: There are two types of people that will like Zombies Ate My Neighbors: those that like B-level horror movies and anything that takes the piss out of them, and those that just like good video games.

There’s a lot of good schlock here for fans of that, but this is really a well made video game. It’s a bit hard at times, and there are a few cheap hits, but welcome to mid-90s action gaming. There’s a steady difficulty curve, a lot of different weapons to use, and a fair amount of challenge later in the game. I don’t like password save systems, but if it bothers you that much, passwords are on GameFAQs. Welcome to late-00s gaming.

I recommend this game, even at the somewhat high $8 price point that SNES games go for. It’s also nice to see the VC finally getting some really good titles for a change. I’ve been hard on the VC lately, the way an overbearing father would be hard on his underperforming son, and this gives me at least a little bit of hope the service hasn’t tuned me out completely and started hanging out with the local hooligans.

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Nathan Birch: This is not the kind of game I’d usually like, as run-and-gun shooters were never my thing, but this game is just undeniably fun. A lot of it comes down to the sheer variety and bits of classic Lucasarts cleverness sprinkled throughout. Oh, and I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere, but hopefully this is the Genesis version with the blood intact!

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Alex Lucard: While I’d prefer the Genesis version as it was a better overall game (and cheaper on the VC by two dollars), this is definitely a game that’s getting my money as I’ve been waiting for this since they announced it was coming to the Virtual Console nearly TWO YEARS AGO. Bit of a delay there guys, eh?

I love how over the top the zany parodies are and it’s as funny as the gameplay is frantic. A perfect choice for Hallowe’en.

—

Chuck Platt: Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a perfect time capsule of it’s time. The graphics are very 16-bit perfect, with enough detail to be cool and pixelly enough to remind you it started life on a cartridge. The music and voice were so good that it was one of like three or so SNES games that my friend Lang and I left the TV volume on and didn’t replace it with Pop Will Eat Itself or Weezer CDs on our boombox. Everything about Zombies Ate My Neighbors screams LucasArts in the best possible way, from the art design to the B-movie schlockiness of the plot. A true favorite of mine from the 16-bit era, a sort of pre-Loaded with one of my favorite player characters of all time. One of the few SNES games I still own and a game I recommend to anyone with a Wii and a pulse.

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M.L. Kennedy: In Zombies Ate My Neighbors, you throw forks and spoons at werewolves to kill them.

Therefore, it is one of the greatest games of all time.




—

Mark B.: Zombies Ate My Neighbors is basically the exact sort of game the VC was made for: awesome classic games that few people got to play and many people really should. Back when LucasArts cared about making awesome games, Zombies Ate My Neighbors was one of their better efforts, as it was essentially a hilarious overhead run-and-gun shooter where you fought zombies, werewolves, ghosts and ghouls with weird weapons in environments that were practically ripped from every bad horror movie ever.

In short: it was awesome.

I concur with Alex that the Genesis version of the game (IE the less edited version) would have been the better choice, but in the end, I’m willing to part with my cash for the SNES version, as quality gaming should be rewarded regardless, and it might encourage LucasArts to go back to making GOOD games instead of all of the mediocre Star Wars games they’ve been churning out. I doubt it, but one never knows.

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Golden Axe
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Original Release Date: 1989
Cost: 900 Wii Points

Mark B.: I’m not nearly as objectionable to the release of the arcade version of Golden Axe on the VC as one might think. I mean, I don’t need to own it (it was released on the Xbox Live Arcade a while back), and the Genesis version is generally better in that it plays a little better than the arcade version and offers more stages (though the arcade version looks better), but still, I’m fine with the release. As I’ve said before, I like that people are releasing arcade games for the console, I like that inevitably this means we’ll see things like Outrun and Elevator Action on the Wii, and honestly, Golden Axe is a fine game, overall.

On the other hand, the arcade version on Xbox Live is $5, almost HALF the cost on the VC, and I can get the Genesis version from like ten different places, so I don’t think this is something y’all need to run out and buy.

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Alex Lucard: Oh god Sega, give it a rest. You want to give us Arcade games. How about House of the Dead? How about Virtua Fighter? How about Spider-Man? You’ve over-exposed Golden Axe since the 16 bit era. This game hasn’t aged well, it wasn’t very good in the first place and you keeping trying to rehash it as if the 42nd port of this game is going to suddenly make people care. Stop stop stop.




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Christopher Bowen: Oh, yeah… uh, there’s another game, isn’t there?

Uh, so… OK, uh, Golden Axe, uh… ah, fuck it. This game has been shoved down our throats before, and it didn’t age well from twenty years ago. Skip it.




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Nathan Birch: Despite arcades having a reputation of being better than consoles back in the day, the arcade version of a game wasn’t always better than the console port (a point illustrated perfectly by last week’s VC release of the arcade version of Rygar). Thankfully this isn’t the case with the arcade version of Golden Axe, with looks infinitely better than the Genesis version and is generally just a more satisfying play. Yeah, the Genesis version got a couple extra levels, but the arcade version still comes out on top in my opinion.

Of course the question is whether you still want to play a Golden Axe game in 2009. They were solid brawlers, but kind of slow and clunky compared to the likes of Streets of Rage or Final Fight. If you must play Golden Axe though, this is probably the best way to do it.

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Wii Ware this week sees Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 3: Lair of the Leviathan, as usual, for 1000 points, and Ghost Mansion Party, a Halloween-themed Mario Party-ish game for the whole family, for another 1000 points. Until next time, I whole-heartily recommend Zombies Ate My Neighbors (and kind of Ghost Mansion Party, which looks okay except for the price tag) for the upcoming holiday.
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Rygar
Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
Original Release Date: 1986
Cost: 600 Wii Points.

Alex Lucard: Well, it’s a buck more for the Arcade version of Rygar, but I honestly can’t say I ever played that one. My experiences are only with the NES version.

Generally arcade versions were superior to the console games, especially back then, so if you’re REALLY in need of a Rygar game I guess paying a dollar more for better graphics and sound is the way to go.

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M.L. Kennedy: The NES game and the Arcade game are entirely different. I would gauge the general consensus to be that the NES game is the better of the two, as the arcade game is pretty much a standard platformer that hasn’t aged well.






—

Mark B.: So, Kennedy basically nailed the bullet point that you need to know down here, but speaking as someone who’s played both games, here you go: the NES version of Rygar is essentially the superior version of the title, and it’s mostly a completely different game from the arcade release. The NES version is also the superior version, as it’s essentially a more involved, more interesting game in all respects, and features a lot more play and replay value.

This isn’t to say that the arcade version of the game is bad, mind you; it’s simply kind of “meh”. The game plays okay enough, and it looks and sounds okay, but it’s obscenely hard, and can basically be described as a less interesting Strider with the difficulty cranked up to eleven. If you’re a huge fan of Nintendo-hard games, or you just want to support the continued release of arcade games, the arcade version of Rygar isn’t a terrible investment, but the NES version is pretty much superior in almost every way, so don’t think you’re getting a prettier version of that game, because you’re not. You’re getting a hard side-scroller that you probably won’t need to play much after the first hour you spend with it. Just so you know.

—

And on Wii Ware this week, the sequel to Lost Winds, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias at 1000 points, which is worth a look since the first one was awesome, and Shootanto: Evolutionary Mayhem, which sounds awesome form the name alone, but looks like a pretty cool shooter, for 500 points. Keep spending those points wisely.
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Final Fantasy
Developer: Square
Publisher: Nintendo
Original Release Date: 1987
Cost: 500 Wii Points.

Alex Lucard: The first Final Fantasy is actually my favourite. I loved the ability to mix and match characters and create your own team rather than be stuck with specific characters that. It’s one of the reasons I love games where you can change classes.

The story is quite cute and for an 8 bit game, it was the second best RPG of that generation (After Phantasy Star). At least in the US. When i finally got to play it, I felt FFII (Japanese numbering) was better, but as a kid, it never came to North America so…

My Freshman year of college, my entire dorm crowded around my Sega Saturn, but the second most popular system was the NES with people playing FFI together. This was before the FFVII blitz, so that tells you the fond memories even casual gamers had of this early RPG.

For five dollars this is a steal. You get a great game, with a ton of customization. I really enjoyed the story as a kid and all the fantasy monsters, even if I was sitting there going, “Wait. A lich is not an Earth Demon. Tiamat is not a Sky Demon” and so on.

Will I be picking this up? No, but that’s because I have a PSP and the updated version. I don’t need a second copy of the game. Still, at five dollars this is certainly a game worth considering as, time wise, you’ll be getting your money’s worth.

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Aaron Sirois: Its shocking it took this long for Final Fantasy to hit the VC. I’m one of the many who never got to play the original game when it came out, so my experiences are with the remake on the PSP.

One thing I do know, however, is that each remake changed a little bit, so the version on the Wii is going to be pure. If you’re looking for a classic RPG with some classic RPG difficulty, this is a must buy.

However, if you’ve already got multiple copies of the game, as so many of us do, there probably isn’t a point into spending even more money on it.

Now if they start putting out localizations of the other games…

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Christopher Bowen: I look at my RPG experiences like dating experiences. My first experience was with Ultima III. It was awkward, sloppy, and involved a lot of crying. After we broke up by passing notes in class, I moved onto Dragon Warrior, which was better, though it took me a year to finish it as my bumbling, untrained hands kept fumbling around it’s curves and bumps looking for the bra clasp that is Dragonlord’s Castle.

Finally, I moved onto Final Fantasy. She was a cheeky bird; she looked better than Ultima and Dragon Quest, which impressed my young eyes. She was open to trying new things, with six classes to choose from. She was even open to multiple partners, as she allowed for four party members at a time, much more than Dragon Quest. She was intelligent as well, with a story that was impressive for the era in which we met.

Yes, after early flirtations, Final Fantasy took my RPG virginity. And I can’t say I’m disappointed to have given it up, twenty years later.

In all seriousness, Final Fantasy was a good RPG for it’s time and still can survive as a game of it’s own right. The question someone has to ask themselves: is this worth $5, or are the other versions considerable first? I would say it depends on the person in question. While Final Fantasy is arguably the best RPG on the NES, it still pales compared to Phantasy Star. Furthermore, the NES version was a bit awkward compared to later versions of the game that cleaned up the interface. And RPG newbies will not appreciate the difficulty, something that was addressed in the GBA and PSP versions.

This is worth it for people who prefer the NES era difficulty or like a cheap time-sink. Other people interested in this game would do wise to look into the PSP version – I believe it’s about $10 nowadays – or the GBA version, which also includes Final Fantasy II.

—

Ashe Collins: YAY! So we can get… yet another version of Final Fantasy! Like the Playstation collections, the GBA set and the PSP enhanced version weren’t enough. Honestly, if you don’t have this one already you’re not missing out. The first is not even close to my favorite, and honestly I was really disappointed when I got I+II on the GBA.




—

Guy Desmarais: I never played a Final Fantasy game to completion. I have played many of the games, but never finished one. This one in particular was pretty painful. I was young, couldn’t understand English, and still decided to ask my mother to rent it because of the pretty pictures on the box. I didn’t make it very far.

That happened a couple of times in my youth, and over the years, I have taken the time to play these games and finish them, as a kind of late revenge. Star Tropics and Dragon Warrior are good examples of that. This would be the perfect occasion to exact my revenge on FF many years later, and in the process, finally finish one game from that series. My colleagues are actually making me want to try it out. At 5$, it would also be one of the less expensive “revenge” I have ever taken.

—

Charlie Marsh: No one can deny that this is an absolute classic that should be played by everyone at least once. But personally, I find this game to be relentlessly boring. Just way too much grinding around and not enough emphasis on the story for my taste.

Still, you should really play it for yourself, and it’s not that big a hit to your wallet at $5. Just be ready for a grindfest. Or if you want a story, head to the PSN for Final Fantasy VII.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go into hiding from my fellow staffers for suggesting such a thing.

—

Aileen Coe: Considering Square’s penchant for releasing (and rereleasing) Final Fantasies on nearly every system known to man, I’m surprised this wasn’t thrown on the VC sooner. My first experience with the game was the GBA version (and yes, I know that makes me a heathen. Or something). I didn’t really get into II, but I alone was worth the price of admission.

If you’ve got a version of this on another system, there’s not much reason to buy this version as well. But if you found the remakes too easy and/or want to experience the first Final Fantasy game ever circa 1990 (OK, 1987 in Japan), this should tickle your fancy.

—

Bebito Jackson: Hmm. I might actually pick this up. Never played it before, but the first Final Fantasy HAS to be good if they created an entire franchise from it, right?

RIGHT?






—

Nathan Birch: Well finally, I thought Nintendo and Square-Enix had forgot about thier promise they made back in like, February or March, to bring the Final Fantasy games to the VC. But hey, here it is, better late than never.

Anyways, if you’re only familiar with more recent Final Fantasy games, don’t expect this game to resemble them in almost any way. The heavy emphasis on storytelling and presentation is not present here in any way, shape or form (Phantasy Star was the big plot focused series of the era). That said, if you’re into getting into the guts of an RPG, you can have some fun with this one. The game actually features a fairly complex and well thought out job system. Hell, 20 years later tons of JRPGs are still pretty much directly ripping off the Final Fantasy job system.

I’ve never been a huge Final Fantasy nut, but hey, it’s 5 bucks. It’s worth it if only see where this mega franchise came from.

—

Mark B.: I was never really a big fan of Nintendo RPG’s during the eight and sixteen bit gaming generations; while Final Fantasy VI is probably about the greatest J-RPG ever made, I spent most of my time with Genesis RPG’s and strategy games, so most of my time was spent playing things like Phantasy Star and Shining in the Darkness. My first NES-era RPG was Dragon Warrior, which, while challenging, was not a game I enjoyed even a little bit, and to this day I don’t even know how in the hell I managed to beat it. As a result of my experience with Dragon Warrior, I ended up blowing off Final Fantasy for years, until I played Final Fantasy VI and decided I should go back and play the first game just so I could know where the sixth game came from.

Final Fantasy, at the time I played it, was still one of the best RPG experiences one could have, and while the story was incredibly basic, the game was suitably challenging and the job system was outstanding. Being able to completely customize your party how you saw fit, upgrade said party to the point where they’d be a force to be reckoned with, and buy a pretty robust amount of weapons and spells was something I wasn’t expecting from such an old game, and in general, the game was a ton of fun from start to finish.

So, as a five dollar download, Final Fantasy is fantastic.

On the other hand, you can acquire it reasonably cheaply for PS1, GBA and PSP, and the remade GBA and PSP versions are generally superior in most respects when compared to the original game. I mean, if all you have is the Wii (or you simply lack the aforementioned systems), the original NES version is by no means bad and is well worth checking out, but if you have a PS1 or PS2, a GBA or a DS with the GBA port, or a PSP, there’s really no reason to buy the VC version unless you want a historically accurate version of the game for some reason.

—

And on wii Ware this week is Word Searcher for 500 points. Yep. A word search game. Have fun with that. Until next week, let’s hope for something equally anticipated (EARTHBOUNDPLZKTHX).
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Altered Beast
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Original Release Date: 1988
Cost: 1000 Wii Points.

Christopher Bowen: Are you serious, Nintendo and Sega? No, seriously. Are you fucking serious? A shitty arcade game that hasn’t aged well since it started to stink in the early 90s, and for $2 more bucks than the (also shitty) Genesis version? Seriously?

I have nothing more to say. Don’t waste your time or money on this garbage.

—

Charlie Marsh: It’s a nostalgia buy really. If you liked this game way back when and want the arcade version, which really isn’t all that different from the Genesis version, aside from the $2 markup, then go for it. Not a must-have though.






—

M.L. Kennedy: It’s like this game keeps rising from its grave.

(see, cuz the voice said this thing. . .)

Though, I never noticed any real difference between the two, if we are allotted unlimited quarters it might be worth choosing the Arcade version over the Genesis.

Then again, I already own three copies of this game, and don’t really care for it.

I won’t be purchasing it.

—

Aileen Coe: Yeah, definite pass, especially since you can find the game in other compilations if you wanted to play it that badly. It’s not like there’s 200 points worth of differences (or much of any, really) between this version and the Genesis version.

Well, unless you have a thing for exploding limbs…actually, scratch that, still not worth the points even in that case.


—

Mark B.: Of the three versions of Altered Beast I’ve played, the Master System version is the hardest (single player only, four continues, and bosses take like an hour to fight each), the Arcade version is the prettiest (the graphics are cleaner than the Genesis version, and there are some animations and effects the Genesis version lacks), and the Genesis version is the most interesting (as it includes cheat codes that let you choose what beast form you use on each level and a level select). So, basically, if you want the prettiest game of the lot, this is the version to buy, but the Genesis version offers more interesting features to fool around with.

Personally, I have no problems with Altered Beast, as it’s still a fun, if a short, side-scrolling action game with a neat gimmick, but it’s archaic, and you probably don’t need to play it if you haven’t done so yet. Both the Genesis and arcade versions of Altered Beast come with Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection and the PS2 version of the Sega Genesis Collection, as well, so if you have access to a PS2, a 360 or a PS3, you can play BOTH versions of Altered Beast as well as a whole bunch of other games for only a little bit more than this game costs. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate the effort, as I do love the whole “let’s release arcade games” mentality here, but I think I’d sooner see something like an arcade version of Shinobi Shadow Dancer or Outrun, where there are significant enough differences to make owning the arcade version worthwhile, rather than this.

—

Wii Ware this week features Arkanoid Plus!, a remake of the arcade and NES homage to Breakout for 600 points and Driift Mania (for some reason, that’s not a typo), which looks similar to such games as R.C. Pro Am and Micro Machines for 800. Not a bad week for Wii Ware, but we hope the VC has a bit more to offer next week.
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i>Crash ‘n the Boys: Street Challenge
Developer: Technos Japan
Original Release Date: 1992
Cost: 500 Wii Points.

Alex Lucard: Crash ‘n the Boys is a hilarious combination of Track and Field and River City Ransom. Any game where you can purposely shred a hurdle and then stab your opponent with the remains is awesome in my book.

If you love River City Ransom or Super Dodge Ball, you’ll probably love this as well. It’s a button masher pure and simple, but well worth a few bucks.

—

D.J. Tatsujin: Out of all of the Kunio series games released to the United States, Crash ‘n the Boys Street Challenge is perhaps the most obscure, but that may also be its appeal – instead of focusing on a single mechanic, Street Challenge throws the infamous “River City Ransom/Super Dodge Ball” guys into a full sports spectrum where rules are for pansies.

If I can recall correctly, the story revolves around a handful of high school athletic teams. One of the school’s spoiled rich kids gets tired of losing to Crash and his school in proper academic athletics, so he has his father pull some strings to create a no-holds-barred invitational competition that consists of 100m “hurt-les,” hammer throw golf, rooftop jumping, street fighting and freestyle canal fights to name a few. As you might be able to see, even the most straight-forward sports become crazy affairs where the school athletes pretty much try to kill each other.

You actually get a lot variety among the schools, which all feature different characters with unique strengths, weaknesses and fighting styles and players can use earned medals to purchase items from stores to give them a big boost in upcoming events. The events surprisingly have a lot of variation, as Lucard has already pointed out; you can tear through hurdles and lob them at opponents, you have limited use of the environments in the street fights and the canal swimming is a real back-and-forth struggle. If you’ve ever played River City Ransom/World Cup Soccer/Super Dodge Ball, you know straight up what to expect from the game’s graphics (which feature some amusing animations, especially when you jump on someone’s back during the canal segment and plunge them into the water), sound and controls. With Street Challenge, though, you’ll have everything broken up into bite-sized segments for up to four players alternating.

For $5, you’ll be pulling in this obscure title for about half the price you can usually find it in cart form, and given the Virtual Console’s recent track record, this proves to be quite the deal. Much like the aspects of Track and Field, you’ll get segments that will test your speed, timing, skill and strategy, and the Kunio characters and environments lead to very unpredictable results that will have a multiplayer crowd roaring. This is game is truly best when played with others, as the single player wears thin easily, but at just 500 Wii Points, even the single player experience is bounds above a good heap of the garbage on the service.

—

Mark B.: Ah, the Kunio-kun games. Most American fans pretty much have experience with River City Ransom, Super Dodgeball in its multiple forms, and… Double Dragon II for Game Boy, oddly enough… but there are a ton of the games in Japan just waiting to be ported to the US (HINT HINT), and games like Renegade, Nintendo World Cup and Crash ‘n the Boys: Street Challenge, though not exactly notable to casual gamers, were actually a part of the franchise, because aside from being gang-beating hooligans, Alex/Kunio and Ryan/Riki are apparently stellar, world-class athletes.

Go figure.

Anyway, Crash ‘n the Boys: Street Challenge is, as noted above, essentially about multiple groups of thugs competing in a weird street olympics where the objective is to win the events, and if that means you have to break a face or two, hey, bonus. The games themselves are based on various olympic events, like the hammer throw, four hundred meter hurdles, swimming and judo, only done in a way where inflicting injury on your opponents is not only allowed, but ideal in most cases. The swimming event is really more about beating the other opponent into submission than anything else, the judo matches are essentially just fights with some grappling involved, and you can exploit the hurdles in said event to your advantage to screw with your opponents.

The game is essentially best with multiplayer, as the game gets boring when playing on your own and the CPU is kind of a dick, but if you have friends around to play it, for five dollars Crash ‘n the Boys: Street Challenge is freaking hilarious, fun and generally worth its asking price and then some. Now if only we could get some of the Japan only Kunio-kun games…

—

Wii Ware this week sees Spaceball Revolution, a unique, 3-Dish puzzle game that looks pretty fun for 800 points, and Texas Hold’em Poker, which poker enthusiasts might be able to get into, but I’d rather play real poker and win money.
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Super Return of the Jedi
Publisher: JVC
Developer: LucasArts
Original Release Date: 1994
Cost: 800 Wii Points.

Ashe Collins: And this one completes that collection. Let’s hope they keep it on a roll.

—

Mark B.: Well, the good news is that Super Return of the Jedi is pretty much the best game in the series. The different characters you can select (Leia, Luke, Han, Chewbacca and Wicket) all have notably different abilities they can use (Luke uses Force Powers and the lightsaber, Han uses the blaster and grenades, etc), there’s a good bit more variety to the stages and level designs, and the game finally implemented a “collect one hundred of a specific item to get a one-up” mechanic to give the player something of a fighting chance at earning more lives. Dying also doesn’t completely nerf your character, and most stages offer you a choice of playable characters instead of simply dictating who you play as, like Super Empire Strikes Back did. If you want to own a Super Star Wars game, this is probably the one to own.

But once again, the bad news is that Super Return of the Jedi is STILL a Nintendo Hard platformer with some awkward driving and flying sequences thrown in. You’ve STILL got your blind jumps, your flying enemies that try to kill you while you’re making precision jumps, your constantly respawning enemies, and your bosses that are defeated less by pattern recognition and more by just shooting and hoping for the best, only NOW they take something like a million years to kill on TOP of it all. The controls are still spotty and the jumping still feels weird, three games in, and the various platform jumping stages still aren’t very fun. Your character still doesn’t get an invincible moment between hits, so you can still get jacked-up in a corner and cheap-killed. Enemies can still push you around, so landing on a ledge an enemy is on is nearly impossible and enemies will frequently push you off of ledges to your death, just because, or they’ll push you into other enemies so you can bump back and forth into enemies and die in a cheap fashion, again, just because.

Once again, if Super Return of the Jedi weren’t a broken mess, it’d be a fun game for people who aren’t fans of the franchise and/or nostalgic; the bosses can be challenging, there’s a good variety of enemies, and there’s plenty of different weapons and powers to use and fool around with. But the game is STILL mechanically broken at a base level, and there are STILL about a hundred other, better “hard” platformers on the VC that are hard because the developers knew what they were doing, not because the developers were lazy. If you HAVE to have one of the trilogy games, Super Return of the Jedi is the one to own, but it’s still not especially good and time still hasn’t been terribly kind to it.

—

On Wii Ware this week is the revival of Contra, Contra ReBirth, at 1000 points, and some stupid looking game called ColorZ, which picked the worst time to come out between freakin’ Star Wars and freakin’ Contra! It’s 700 points if you’re interested, but I’m going for Contra. Now, if only we could get the original on here…
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>Alex Lucard: I’m torn here. On one hand, I love Phantasy Star. It’s easily the best RPG from the 8-Bit era, and it deserves to be on Virtual Console.

On the other, I own it for the SMS, for the Dreamcast, for the PS2 in two different forms (Sega ages and Genesis Collection), for the PS3 and for the Game Boy Advance. I realize Sega loves to re-release everything from the 8 and 16 bit era, but it would be nice to start seeing some CD, 32-X and Saturn titles get ported after more than a decade of dormancy.

If you don’t own a copy of this game, then yes, by all means get this. It’s got unheard of characterization for this era of gaming and it’s a lot of fun. It’s also very hard, especially the last few dungeons which are “X-Men for the Sega Genesis” stupid in terms of getting out of them, but for only a few bucks, if you’re an RPG fan, it’s worth getting this for the sheer experience. If you already own it on another system then well… why bother?

—

Ashe Collins: I’m with Lucard on this. If you don’t have it, get it, but really, I think I’ve got at least 2 or 3 copies of it now on various collections for either the PS2 or the PS3.






—

Nathan Birch: Well it’s about time!

It’s no secret that I’m a bit of a Phantasy Star fan, and have been waiting not-so-patiently for them to finally round out the collection. Phantasy Star is of remarkable quality for an 8-bit RPG. You won’t find another 500 point game on the VC this good looking, deep and well told, plain and simple.

And yeah, it’s been released on a number of platforms, but to be fair this is the first time it’s been playable in any way on the Wii, so I don’t think you can really criticize Sega on that front. If you’re a big Phantasy Star fan you’ve already played it, but those new to the series, or those who were only introduced to it through the later versions released on the VC this year, should definitely give it a try. Just keep a pad a paper and a pencil handy for some of those later dungeons.

—

Christopher Bowen: Well, that took forever.

As stated: IF you don’t have Phantasy Star in its original form yet, then yes, grab this game. It’s simply the best RPG of the 8-bit era, and yes I’m counting all three Final Fantasy titles, four Dragon Quests, and even Destiny of an Emperor.

But I have to believe that anyone that doesn’t own this yet is trying to avoid it. It’s on every system known to man at this point, on multiple compilations, and while Nate is correct that it’s not on the Wii or any Wii-derivative system yet, the only people I can think of that don’t/didn’t own a GBA, PS2, 360 or any other system that this has been ported to are casual gamers who bought a Wii because it was cool, and they’re the LAST people I would tell to get this game. They’d get killed by a scorpion before they knew what hit them, and it’d be all over.

In short, I think that by now, anyone that wants the original Phantasy Star already owns it. But if you’re curious and want to try an old-school RPG, I can’t recommend this game highly enough. Of course, that goes for the $20 Genesis Collection on the PS2 as well, or the $30 Sonic Collection on the 360, if you own those systems.

Now Sega, I have a deal for you: you release the Sega Ages versions of Phantasy Star I and II that you released in Japan years ago, the ones with the redone graphics and script, and I’ll shut the fuck up about your pathetic policy of spamming all of your decades-year old games and calling it success. Deal?

—

Mark B.: Woo Phantasy Star!

Y’know, I can actually remember, from start to finish, how to play through the entire game. I mean, I don’t remember the names of towns or the layouts of maps, and I think I might have forgotten where to find the Prism after all this time, but otherwise I can remember what you need to do from start to finish pretty vividly. Talk to everyone in the starting town until you get a Laconian Pot. Level Alis a bit until you earn at least 300 Meseta, then head of to the eastern coastal city and buy “Secrets” three times until you get a Roadpass. Head back to the main town and go to the spaceport, buy a Passport, then go to Motavia. Trade the pot to the shifty salesman who has the talking cat to get Myau. Head back to Palma, level Myau a bit. Buy a flashlight, go to the cave below town, use the Asulin to cure Odin’s petrification, find the compass, head to the forest to the east, level on Werebats for a bit, then talk to the guy in the town in the center of the forest. Head back to the home town, find the Dungeon Key…

Ahem.

Anyway, the game’s still impressive some twenty years (or thereabouts) later, and was one of the best looking 8-bit games PERIOD. The story is pretty solid, the gameplay is still interesting, and there’s a good twenty hours of game to be experienced here. The game is a bit archaic by today’s standards, but it more or less tells you where you need to go and what you need to do, so it’s easier to understand than many games from its generation, at least. It’s also hard as hell, and the last boss is a major nightmare in more ways than one.

I’m going to disagree with my compatriots on its availability, however; while the game HAS been re-released numerous times, these releases were exclusive to Japan in most cases, and in the US the only re-releases of the game amount to the GBA Phantasy Star Collection, which was buggy and crashed while saving at some points, and Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection. That’s it. It’s not on the PS2/PSP Sega Genesis Collection, unlike the other games in the series, which makes it a little less likely that you might have played it, and if you missed the GBA release and don’t own a 360 or a PS3, Phantasy Star is a worthwhile download.

Just, uh, make sure that you actually trade the merchant on Motavia the Laconian Pot to get Myau. Don’t do what I did and spend two weeks trying to earn the money, because the money counter doesn’t go up that high. Shut up, I was like eight.

—

And on Wii Ware, Tales from Monkey Island: Chapter 2 and 3-2-1, Rattle Battle!, which from its description sounds like the most stick waggling ever, for 1000 and 500 points, respectively. Choose wisely!
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Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Publisher: JVC
Developer: LucasArts
Original Release Date: 1993
Cost: 800 Wii Points.

Ashe Collins: Wait…We’re getting the sequel a week later? Where’s the wait time? The anticipation? Oh screw it. Just as much fun as Super Star Wars. Collect the whole set!






—

Guy Desmarais: Highly recommended for Star Wars fans and masochists. It’s the most fun I have had while being frustrated. This applies to the whole series by the way. Except for a few minor introductions to the series, the formula stays the same as in the first installment. It is still well worth your money.






—

Mark B.: Well, second verse, same as the first; Super Empire Strikes Back, though a better game than Super Star Wars, still isn’t especially good, and time has not been kind to it.

The good news is that the game more or less faithfully re-creates the concepts from the movie to a better extent than the previous game, IE, you’ll fight a giant Wampa, you’ll ride a Taun-Taun, the story more or less follows along with the story of the movie (but no “cave in an asteroid” battle? What’s that all about?), and you’ll recognize events and characters easily enough. The game also offers a little more variety between characters this time around; Luke now has force powers he can use in addition to his lightsaber, Han can throw grenades, and Cherbacca gets a Zangief-esque spinning clothesline he can use to take out enemies. The game also still looks and sounds pretty good for a 16-bit game, just like the last one.

The bad news is that Super Empire Strikes Back is STILL a Nintendo Hard platformer with some awkward driving sequences thrown in. You’ve STILL got your blind jumps, your flying enemies that try to kill you while you’re making precision jumps, your constantly respawning enemies, your bosses that are defeated less by pattern recognition and more by just shooting and hoping for the best, and your character still gets completely nerfed every time you die. The controls are still spotty and the jumping still feels weird. Your character still doesn’t get an invincible moment between hits, so you can still get jacked-up in a corner and cheap-killed. Enemies can still push you around, so landing on a ledge an enemy is on is nearly impossible and enemies will frequently push you off of ledges to your death, just because.

The thing is that if it WEREN’T for the broken mechanics, Super Empire Strikes Back might be a fun game for people who aren’t fans of the franchise and/or nostalgic; the bosses can be challenging and there’s a good variety of enemies, and there’s plenty of different weapons and powers to use and fool around with. But the game is mechanically broken at a base level, and there are about a hundred other, better “hard” platformers on the VC that are hard because the developers knew what they were doing, not because the developers were lazy. Pass.

—

And the only Wii Ware game released this week is Mr. Driller World, a puzzle game for 800 points. On the DS Download service, we get Pop+ Solo, a puzzle/shooter that sounds like Bust-A-Move. Until next week, let’s hope it’s something good.
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The Revenge of Shinobi
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Original Release Date: 1989
Cost: 800 Wii Points.

>Alex Lucard: I told Mark this was coming out before the end of the month…






—

Mark B.: I’m sorry, I can’t hear your bragging over the sound of how awesome this release is.

Okay, so. Revenge of Shinobi is one of those games that never pops up in compilations because of copyright issues; as Chris noted, Spider-Man (or a reasonable approximation thereof) is in the game, but there’s also a mock-up of Godzilla and Batman in the game that tends to make the game a bit of a copyright nightmare as well. The fact that it’s on the VC is a fabulous thing, and it’s worth downloading for the severe rarity if nothing else.

But it also happens that Revenge of Shinobi is, without a doubt, the best Shinobi game of the entire series.

The game is incredibly challenging and lots of fun to play. There’s a decent amount of variety to the stages and enemies. The bosses are challenging and lots of fun to fight. The graphics, though dated at this point, still look pretty solid for a sixteen-bit game. The controls are solid and responsive. Ninja Magic is no longer limited to one move, but to multiple different types that are useful in different situations. And the soundtrack is composed by one Yuzo Koshiro, maker of pretty much every awesome soundtrack from the 90’s ever. Basically, if you like side-scrolling action games or ninjas (and who doesn’t like ninjas?), you should really own this as soon as possible.

—

ML Kennedy: If memory serves, Shinobi has a lot of trouble staying alive when I tell him what to do. I’m going to leave this task up to you guys; I can’t stand it when ninjas suffer.






—

Guy Desmarais: The only thing I remember about Shinobi is that one game from the series was name-dropped in that Surf Ninjas movie with Leslie Nielsen and Rob Schneider.








—

Christopher Bowen: I’ve had an exceptionally low opinion of SegaSammy, to the point where I have to point out that it’s SegaSammy; Sammy kidnapped our beloved Sega and held it hostage, using it as it pleased, but the tale ends sadly in that Sega developed Stockholm Syndrome, and went on to live with Sammy unhappily ever after. The point of this tangent is that SegaSammy has done little of note other than continually puke out their best properties everywhere they can. For the most part, these releases have been forgettable, having been found on other compilations, or just not being good games.

This is not one of those times. Revenge of Shinobi is an amazing game, and probably the best overall Shinobi game of all time. It’s got some dated concepts – sometimes, the graphics blend together which makes it hard to see things sometimes, and cheap hits abound – but the quality in the product – tight controls, amazing graphics for it’s time, well designed stages – is obvious. Remember that this was one of the Genesis’s first titles and probably their biggest name game, pre-Sonic, and that makes it all the more amazing.

This is not available on any other notable compilation due to copyright issues with the Spiderman boss, so this is the best way to play this game. Easy recommendation for $8.

—

And on Wii Ware, we’re getting PictureBook Games: Pop-Up Pursuit, which sounds an awful lot like Mario Party, for 800 points, and Family Slot Car Racing for 500. On DSiWare, we get Guitar Rock Tour, which looks like American Popstar: Road to Celebrity without the plot, as well as Brain Age Express: Sudoku, which looks like Sudoku.

Until next week…more Star Wars please.
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Tecmo Bowl
Publisher: Tecmo
Developer: Tecmo
Original Release Date: 1986
Cost: 600 Wii Points.

D.J. Tatsujin: Japan got a flagship Tecmo arcade release in Ninja Gaiden and this week we get a shitty Tecmo football game. That seems like a fair trade.

—

Ashe Collins: Woot! Tecmo Bowl! Two weeks we get nothing and then we get….that.

Guess my Wii can sit silent for yet another week. Meh.






—

Christopher Bowen: Tecmo had a thing going on in the 80s: they would make arcade games, then make completely different versions of said games for the NES. Unlike most other companies that did this, Tecmo’s home ports were *better*. This was the case when they turned Ninja Gaiden from being a standard, everyday beat ‘em up into one of the first cinematic video game experiences, it was the case when they turned Rygar from being a platformer with the worst continue system in history (read: they stopped allowing them for the last part of the game; good thing I learned that on MAME instead of in an arcade) into one of the first instances of a game successfully mixing platform and RPG elements, and they did it with Tecmo Bowl as well.

For those unaware of the arcade version: this is *NOT* the NES version, and it’s decidedly inferior. Remember picking teams on the NES version? Not in this! You get the Wildcats or the Bulldogs, and you’ll like it. Remember playing as Bo Jackson? Not in this, as there are no identifiable players in any way, shape or form (though to be fair, the NES version didn’t have that either, due to none of those players being in the NFLPA anymore). Remember picking plays? The game picks plays for you, and you pick your receiver ahead of time; no switching off of that. Oh, and instead of button mashing to shake tackles, you have to waggle the joystick. This is painful and callous-inducing to do on a digital pad, meaning you basically must have the retro controller to prevent blisters, especially with the Wiimote’s crappy D-pad.

The original arcade game was made with one intention: eat quarters. It used to be that you had to put in a quarter for every minute of gameplay; since default settings called for four minute quarters and the only way to gain time was to kick the ball out of the endzone on kickoffs for touchbacks, you can see that the money added up quickly, depending on dipswitch settings. Thankfully, that doesn’t translate to a home conversion, but I will be interested to see how the game’s wide monitor translates over. Tecmo Bowl’s cabinet, like Darius, had an exceptionally long viewing area encompassing two monitors – as shown on this KLOV page, with this being a screenshot (via MAME). I don’t quite remember how the XBox collection pulled this off, and I’m not spending the money on a bad game to find out on the Wii.

In all, Tecmo Bowl is a game that didn’t age well. It’s decidedly worse than the NES version that’s been out for two years. It’s also available on a cheap compilation, Tecmo Classic Arcade, but I can’t even recommend that, as the games on that collection are almost universally terrible.

—

Nathan Birch: Hey, the Virtual Console is back! Oh, and we’re getting an inferior version of a game we already got? Oh Nintendo, you scamps.

—

Aileen Coe: Wow. I don’t think they’re even trying anymore. And here I thought the two week absence might’ve been due to them preparing something big to knock our socks off. Man, what a tease.






—

Mark B.:Okay, so, Tecmo Bowl, in this incarnation, stinks. You can’t pick teams, the football mechanics are inferior to those of the NES version, and the only draw is being able to play with up to four players, assuming you can convince three friends to play it at all.

I am, however, encouraged to see some developers (well, besides Namco, who always seems to feel the need to stick their arcade games EVERYWHERE) making use of the VC to upload their old arcade games. Space Harrier was a good start, and Tecmo Bowl is a continuation of that, and I’d like to see more arcade games pop up on the VC in the coming months and years. I don’t think we need an arcade-perfect release of Ninja Gaiden like the Japanese got, but I’d be fine with, say, an arcade port of Splatterhouse, or Bad Dudes (I liked it, shut up), or Outrun, or Elevator Action, or whatever. So, yeah, I don’t think Tecmo Bowl is a particularly good game, and I don’t think it needed to come out on the VC, but I find its release encouraging.

You probably wouldn’t want to buy it though. Just saying.

—

Well, that sounds like a “pass”.

OH HO HO HO HO HO ho ho… whatever.

And on the Wii Ware this week, we get Overturn, which looks suspiciously like Virtual On, Sexy Poker, which-

Christopher Bowen: Apparently, the game’s been edited to not show nudity; they instead show lingerie. Seriously, can you not get that on the internet? If you’re going to be working for your nudity, shouldn’t you actually get nudity? It’s going to be a crappy poker game (this was apparently taken off of a cell phone game… I mean, really), and from what little I’ve seen, the girls pictured within are about D-level. Seriously, if you want to work for your nudity, just download some Japanese Mahjong games or something.




–

… well, pretty much that. Also, DSi Ware gets another Art Style game, and those tend to be good, so hurrah.
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Secret Command
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Original Release Date: 1986
Cost: 600 Wii Points.

>Alex Lucard: This is Rambo: First Blood Part II without the license. Yawn. Stick with Ikari Warriors.






—

Christopher Bowen: This is basically just another Front Line/Commando/Ikari Warriors clone; at first, I laughed because the main character looked suspiciously like Rambo, until I realized that… hey, this IS Rambo: First Blood Part II! Unfortunately, unlike the NES version of Commando, this isn’t a very good game. It’s slow, stodgy, and it’s hard to get a bead on anyone. Definite recommendation to avoid, unless you’re a massive Rambo fan to the point where you can tolerate playing as “Ashura”.

—

Pulseman
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Game Freak
Original Release Date: 1994
Cost: 900 Wii Points.

Christopher Bowen: This is an import, so expect to pay another $1. This is a quirky little platformer with a look that reminds me of Mega Man, and a few innovative mechanics. You have to run to get the power (assumably static) to do your best moves, which have other uses, such as getting to higher places. However, I had problems with cheap hits, though in my time playing, power-ups were plentiful.

If you like platformers, this could be something to consider, though I think $9 is a bit pricey.

—

>Alex Lucard: As a happy employee of the company that made Pulseman, I can honestly say this is a game you really need to pick up, Much like Drill Dozer, another awesome game, Pulseman is overshadowed by Game Freak’s juggernaut known as Pokemon. In fact, it’s basically Mega Man meets Infamous. It’s a very short but very fun platformer and it’s one of the best looking games on the Sega Genesis. It’s also a pick your own stage game like Mega Man, which is always a blast. In fact, aside from Mega Man 2 and 3, it’s better than most entries in Capcom’s series.

Between Drill Dozer, this, and Pikachu I am starting to wonder about Game Freak’s hard on from electrical powered protagonists.

—

On Wii Ware, we have Bit Boy!!, in which you, “Accompany Bit Boy Kubi through a crazy pixellated adventure and battle hordes of nasty monsters in 4-bit dungeons, 8-bit caves, 16-bit strongholds, 32-bit labyrinths, 64-bit arenas and 128-bit worlds!!“, which sounds AWESOME, Ant Nation, which sounds like a semi-shameless ripoff of SimAnt, and Incoming! a strategy game.
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California Games
Publisher: Epyx
Developer: Epyx
Original Release Date: 1987
Cost: 500 Wii Points.

Nathan Birch: This is very much like Epyx developed Summer Games 2 already released on the VC, except it contains 100% more gnarly tubularosity. It’s the best known of the Epyx sports minigame collections (most of you probably remember the NES version of the game) and rightfully so. There’s just something oddly addictive about it. That said, you can also see all the game has to offer in the span of about 5 minutes, so whether you want to part with 500 points really depends on how much time you want to spend perfecting your footbag and flying disc prowess.

—

>Alex Lucard: As Nathan said, my first experience with California Games came with the NES version. I also remember it from an Episode of Captain N. I still own the Atari Lynx version and for this column I booted that up to see how it still holds up.

After some half piping goodness and surfing madness, I’d say this is worth five bucks. Of course, Bust-A-Move Plus also came out the same day and it’s only a dollar more, so the Bub and Bob Zealot in me suggest getting that instead.

—

As mentioned, BUST-A-MOVE Plus! was released on Wii Ware, along with BIT.TRIP CORE and Heracles Chariot Racing.
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Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Original Release Date: 1987
Cost: 500 Wii Points.

Christopher Bowen: What else is there to say? If you like Fantasy Zone – and I mean, really like – then you’ll want this. Otherwise, if you’ve played one, you’ve played them all, and the original Fantasy Zone is on the Ultimate Genesis Collection for anyone that has any other system.

If you’re a Fantasy Zone fan, the $5 price tag is nice. But again: it’s getting a bit tiresome to be waiting a week, then getting just another sequel for the Master System.

—

Mark B.: Woo!

Alright, let’s get this out of the way up-front: Fantasy Zone 2 is a MAJOR upgrade from the first game. It’s ultimately still a shooter in a colorful fantasy world, and it’s ultimately about a walking spaceship with wings, but it’s a far superior game to the first entry in the series. For those who are familiar with the first game, most of the basic mechanics are the same: you blow up monsters to earn cash, invest this cash into upgrades for your ship at shops in the level, and once you’ve killed all of the main stationary monsters, you go fight a boss.

Fantasy Zone 2 changes this up in a couple of notable ways, though. First off, some of the large stationary monsters you have to kill hide transportation portals that can take you to new locations in the zone with more monsters to kill, which can double or triple the length of some stages compared to the first game. Second, shops no longer float into the zone sporadically, but are instead stationary in some sections of each stage, so you can visit them whenever you want. Third, many of the items Opa-Opa used to have a timed amount of use of are now permanent until death, and there are a few more items to choose from for obliterating monsters, so there’s a little more to the actual “shooting things until they’re dead” formula from the first game.

Otherwise, the game is essentially similar to the first game, so if you didn’t like the original Fantasy Zone, you won’t like this, and I feel very bad for you. If you don’t own any versions of the game, this is pretty much the version to buy, though, and if you like Fantasy Zone, well, Fantasy Zone 2 is pretty fantastic.

Now here’s hoping we never, ever see Fantasy Zone 3: The Maze. Woof.

—

Wii Ware this week features Water Warfare an FPS with a water pistol flair. Silver Star Reversi and Reel Fishing Challenge (Does it seem like fishing games are always coming out? I mean there are only three, but it seems like more. I don’t know.) round out the rest of the week. Whatever you choose this week, have fun with it!
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SimEarth
Publisher: Maxis
Developer: Maxis
Original Release Date: 1990
Cost: 800 Wii Points.

Christopher Bowen: OK, first off, to our casual gamers: DO NOT BE FOOLED. You probably want something like The Sims. This is not like The Sims. This is a spin-off of SimCity, put on a console, where it’s possibly at its worst.

SimEarth isn’t a bad game, but this is the kind of game that needs to be on a PC. The TG-16 version doesn’t control very well because a controller is the worst kind of input device imaginable for a game this deep (even SimCity on the SNES had this problem somewhat).

If you’re a big fan of Wil Wright games, then I can give this a recommendation, but if you’re that big a fan, then just download the bloody PC version, it’s abandonware at this point

—

>Alex Lucard: I used to love the PC version of SimEarth. I remember back in high school, school was called two hours late due to a blizzard after I arrived early to put the finishing touches on an assignment. I ended up spending those two hours playing SimEarth in the library and making crocodile men. I’ve always really enjoyed this game, even moreso than SimCity, but I’ve never actually played the TG-16 version. As such I can’t honestly say whether this is worth it or not.

My advice would be to check out the abandonware version of the game per Bowen’s link and then decide if it is worth getting the TG-16 one.

—

Mark B. I’m going to have to go with the group consensus on this one. While SimEarth is a fun, if incredibly complex, world management game (think SimCity on a much larger scale), the TurboGrafx-16 version is probably about the worst version to play, both because of the mushy control compatibility and because time in general has not been kind to the game in general and the T-16 version in specific. The game looks kinda primitive and will take a good bit of time to learn, no matter what version you play, so if you’re looking for something a little less learning-intensive, this might not be for you. Just be aware.

It should also be noted that if you’re considering downloading the abandonware version of SimEarth, unless you’re running an ancient PC, you’ll probably need to download DOSBox to run the game… which means you’ll probably need to know how to run DOS. Installing and running DOSBox shouldn’t be too hard, since it, too, is free, but in case you’ve managed to get to this point in your life without using DOS in any form or fashion, you’ll probably want to know that “cd..” goes backwards a directory, “cd (directory name)” changes to that directory, and typing in the name of the “.EXE” file runs the program you’re looking to run. So, y’know. Have fun.

—

And on Wii Ware, we’re getting Drill Sergeant Mindstrong (party games), NEVES Plus (puzzle game), and Family Mini Golf (another mini golf game) going for 800, 600 and 500 points, respectively.
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Space Harrier
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega
Original Release Date: 1985
Cost: 800 Wii Points.

Christopher Bowen: Sega’s doing really well at throwing their older games at us lately. Last week, they released a bunch of Genesis games on XBLA as if that freaking meant something (Oh boy! My 234023th way to purchase Phantasy Star II!), and now we’re getting a shooter that’s at least fifteen years past it’s sell-by date, and has not aged well.

Put it this way: unless you’re sitting here, specifically saying “oh boy! The arcade version of Space Harrier!”, and you don’t own a 360 (meaning you can purchase Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection), this game isn’t for you; it’s outdated, antiquated, and doesn’t entertain beyond five minute bursts, at which point you realise just how poor it really is. This is specifically for people who grew up on Space Harrier and routinely put their names on the top 10 scoreboards.

—

Alex Lucard: This is another example of where we pat Chris on the head and push him into the dark corner he usually resides in with Sports games and Fire Emblem…

Although you CAN get the arcade version of Space Harrier on the Ultimate Genesis Collection, you A) Have to unlock it and B) The sound is pretty messed up on it. It’s not a good port.

The Wii version here actually has the original surround sound CD quality soundtrack you would have found in the arcade cabinet rather than well, the squarkiness of the Ultimate Genesis Collection version.

You should also ignore Chris in the following areas:

A) “Outdated” as the gameplay remains one of the most unique shoot ‘em up experiences of all time.

B) “Antiquated” as the game holds up amazingly well today unlike a lot of things on the virtual console, including other shoot ‘em ups.

C) “Doesn’t entertain beyond five minute bursts” as the game is only 15 minutes long at max if you’re halfway decent at it. It is an old school shoot ‘em up after all. We used to beat Gradius before the bus came to take us to school in the morning.

The Space Harrier franchise is arguably the fastest-paced shoot ‘em up series of all time. It’s insane. The graphics still look great for a game that’s two and a half decades old. The sound quality is where it should be meaning we finally have the arcade perfect version of this game for home play and it’s a game that will wipe the floor with 75% of the people who play it because it’s that hard and outside the box with gameplay.

There are only two problems with this. The cost, which is eight bucks. Unless you are an audiophile or want the true arcade experience, the Ultimate Genesis Collection can be found for about twenty bucks these days and it gives a hell of a lot more games (But no Sword of Vermillion. Booo.) The second is that the wiimote is a piece of shit for this game so you’re going to need the Classic Controller for this. For the love of god, use the D-pad and not the analog stick. Analog sticks are shit for Shoot ‘Em Ups and it will just end up hurting you rather than helping you.

As this version of the game nets you unlimited continues a lot of thrill of finally beating this is gone. My advice is to try and beat the game will only a few continues for that realistic Arcade experience. Or you know, when you would bring twenty dollars in quarters to the arcade so you and your friends could finally take down the Lich King in Dungeons and Dragons the Arcade Game.

If you are even REMOTELY a fan of shoot-em up’s, you’ll want this game. There’s a reason why Space Harrier 2 was one of the top five most requested games Sega had for Genesis games when they first opened up the VC back in 2006. The arcade version of SH1 is EVEN f’n better, so if you’ve never played it and you don’t have a PS3 or 360, this is a must buy.

In other news what the fuck has Wii Ware and Square-Enix done to my lovely Rainbow Islands???

—

On that note, yes, one of the three (!?) new Wii Ware games this week is Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure, which indeed looks like ass, though I felt it looked like ass the first time around. It’s 800 points if you’re interested. Rounding out this week’s releases is Let’s Catch, a game about playing catch for 1000 points (yes, seriously, catch, for 1000 points) and Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, which looks so bizarre in every possible way that it has to be good, for 800 points. Choose wisely…
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Genghis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf
Publisher: Koei
Developer: Koei
Original Release Date: 1993
Cost: 800 Wii Points.

Ashe Collins: KHHHHAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!








—

Christopher Bowen: Jesus Christ. I’m a Koei geek, and even I think they’re cleaning out the bins at this point.

When it comes to Koei’s strategy games, essentially, if you like that era of history, then you’ll like that particular game. That said, there’s a reason we don’t hear about the Genghis Kahn games anymore: they weren’t popular with an already insular fanbase. I BARELY remember this game, and remember that I pretty much went back to ROTK II anyway.

I can’t recommend this for the price that Nintendo is asking for.

—

Nathan Birch: Christ, someone at Nintendo sure has a hard-on for the old Koei historical sim games, don’t they? Romance, Nobunaga, Genghis Khan…all the games are basically the same aside from characters/setting. It’s probably worth picking up at least one of these games, but not all 3. Pick which subject matter you find most interesting.

—

Alex Lucard: I have to admit, I preferred the first GK game to the first Rot5S or NA1. That was mainly because I really was into Mongolian history as a child. I mean dude, Genghis Kahn freakin’ rocked. A benevolent bad ass that united ala the Mongol tribes akin to Alexander of Macedonia. In the world history scheme of things the events in GK I and II are more important and far reaching than those of Koei’s other video games.

That being said, it’s also the game that has aged the worst out of the three series. There’s just not as much to do or encounter here. I like that there are different modes in this game, but it just doesn’t have the depth or complexity of the other Koei games available on the Virtual Console. If you’re new to these type of games, this is probably a nice intro for you since the difficulty is lower and the options are less. For the long time Strategy fan this is more a thumbs up for making it available and a nice piece of curiosity than an actual purchase.

—

Wii Ware features another RTS game in Swords and Soldiers for 1000 points, as well as Fish ‘em All for 800. If there’s nothing for you this week, there’s always next week. We’ll be here.
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Boulder Dash
Publisher: Commodore
Original Release Date: 1984
Cost: 500 Wii Points.

Nathan Birch: A classic action-puzzler that essentially plays like Dig Dug mixed with the intelligent level design of something like Lode Runner. Boulder Dash, like a lot of old games that relied on a puzzle element rather than pure action, still holds up pretty damn well today.

What doesn’t hold up as well are the visuals. If you’re mostly familiar with the later NES version you’re in for a shock. While later Commodore 64 games could be almost NES quality, this game is closer to Atari 2600 territory. Your character is a non-descript little stickman, the enemies are just flashing squares, and so on. It’s perhaps the most primitive looking game on the VC so far, but if you can overlook that there’s still some addictive gameplay hiding underneath the ugly exterior.

—

And your Wii Ware games of the week are Final Fantasy IV: The After Years at 800 points and Texas Hold’em Tournament at 500 points for you card enthusiasts. I never got how people could watch other people play cards on TV, much less play a game about it, but if it’s your thing, go for it.
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