Virtual Console Wrap-up – 12/07

This week’s VC theme is “martial arts”, as we have a fighting game and an action game starring a ninja for you. Capcom’s brought us the SNES version of Street Fighter Alpha 2, while Sega has seen fit to give us the arcade version of one of their classics, Shinobi. How did they fare? Let’s find out!

Street Fighter Alpha 2
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Original Release Date: 12/19/1996
Cost: 800 Wii Points

Chris Bowen: Home console ports don’t get much worse than this. This is an awful rendition of a game that never should have been put on 16 bit consoles. There’s not much to say about it; SFA2 is not nearly as good as the other versions of Street Fighter out for the other consoles on the VC, and really, anyone that likes SFA should just find Street Fighter Alpha 3 for their console of choice.

The only way this could have been worse is if they found a way to put Street Fighter: The Movie on the VC. That was atrocious.

M.L. Kennedy: Okay, so I was wrong.

A few weeks ago I said that Nintendo was probably planning on releasing a different Street Fighter II every week as a way to make fun of the huge array of different versions of that game.

Apparently, Nintendo is content to merely release a different iteration of Street Fighter II every month.

Kudos.

Alex Lucard: Why Capcom, why? Seriously, are you that money hungry or hate-filled towards your fans? Why else would you inflicted the SNES version of Street Fighter Alpha 2, the worst SF port EVER, onto Wii owners?

Seriously guys, this is as shitty as it gets. I’d rather play Time Killers or Guardians of the Hood than this version of SFA2. Just go buy the Alpha collection for PS2. You’ll get the GOOD version of this game, along with the superior Alpha 1 and Alpha 3. Stay the hell away from this. It will scar you for life.

Mark B.: Street Fighter Alpha 2? Really? Wow, okay. Uh… well. I guess if you really want to play Street Fighter Alpha in some form or fashion, and you somehow only own a Wii, this might be okay? Maybe? For everyone else, though, the game is ugly, missing frames, slow, and simply not very good in any possible respects. If you somehow have to have a version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 and can’t get it anywhere else, I suppose a crippled version is acceptable enough, but anyone who wants the game could find far better versions on practically every other system on the market. Boo.

Shinobi
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Original Release Date: 1987
Cost: 800 Wii Points

Chris Bowen: This is an all-time classic, and unlike other Sega arcade games, it’s aged relatively well. It’s got good gameplay, a good difficulty curve, and isn’t TOO cheap considering it’s an arcade game (it’s certainly not like Rygar).

I can absolutely recommend Shinobi. Excellent choice from a company not known for them.

Alex Lucard: Arcade! This is pretty awesome. I always loved this game, especially the first person throwing star bits. Sure Spider-Man has been edited out of THIS version as well, but it saves Sega from a lawsuit. It’s a fine side scrolling beat ’em up and although it’ll only appeal to long time Shinobi fans, it’s still a lot of fun.




Mark B.: Shinobi is an awesome arcade game even now, and has held up incredibly well over the years. The game is a stunningly simple “move in a direction and kill everything” game that is given legs years later thanks to the solid difficulty of the game, the ability to jump between multiple areas in the stage, the requirement that you rescue power-up and point providing hostages, and the generally interesting presentation. The between-stage shooting gallery mini-game doesn’t hurt either, mind you, as it’s still great fun years later and still looks good even now.

You can find the arcade game on Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, mind you, so if you have a 360 or PS3 around you can get this and a bunch of other great games on the cheap instead of only grabbing one great game, but if you don’t have either system and you want some of the games from that collection, Shinobi is easily one of the games you SHOULD buy. it’s still fun and challenging and makes a strong case for ownership years after the fact, and any fan should not be without this classic.

Well, one out of two ain’t bad. Anyway, on WiiWare this week we’ve got a whopping FOUR releases this week: Flowerworks for 1,000 points, which looks to be a cross between Fantavision and Harvest Moon or… something; Stop Stress: A Day of Fury for 800 points, which looks to be an FPS of sorts that looks vaguely like a more PC version of Postal; My Dolphin for 500 points, where you can train and play with a dolphin; and Magnetis for 500 points, which looks to be an oddball Tetris-like puzzle game.

On DSWare this week we have five new downloads: myNotebook: Red for 200 points, which… looks like a notebook program, like myNotebook: Blue; Army Defender for 200 points, which looks like yet another tower defense game, only on the DSi; Pop Island for 500 points, which looks like a goofy capture the flag action game that might be fun; Ball Fighter for 500 points, which looks to be a cross between Puzzle Quest and Puzzle Bobble, only not as fun as either; and Rayman for 800 points, which claims to be the first Rayman game with DSi-specific features… so you can safely assume IT SUCKS and move on. Yay!

See you all next week!


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