The DSi has certainly been getting some love lately, with a whopping six new titles released on the DSiWare service this week. But first, this week’s VC release, which has been ported to various systems and released in the The King of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga compilation…
The King of Fighters ’95
Developer: SNK
Publisher: SNK
Original System: NeoGeo
Original Release Date: 1995
Price: 900 Points/$9
Chris Bowen: So let me get this straight, Nintendo… you’re giving me one (1) outdated fighting game, for $9, when there’s a compilation that has five (5) similarly outdated fighting games, for almost the same money? Seriously?
Looks like we know who this week’s Falco Lombardi “I Guess We Should Be Thankful” Award…
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Mark B.: So, first, the obvious observation here is that there is a compilation of FIVE King of Fighters games available for the Wii, of which this is a part. You can, if you look around, probably find it for twenty dollars or less, meaning that, for a little more than double the cost of this ONE game you can get five, and the lot of them are all pretty well represented. So, that’s a big knock against this release from the get-go.
That said, King of Fighters ’95 is not an especially good investment even if you wanted to acquire the games through the Virtual Console for… some reason. It’s better than King of Fighters ’94, thanks to some major roster improvements and the ability to customize your own teams, but it’s an incredibly weak game that has not held up well at all in comparison to its sequels. The gameplay is a little stiff, the game doesn’t look especially good at this point in comparison, and the super moves are a total bitch to pull off for like half the cast. It also doesn’t help that the game is unbalanced a bit, as some characters are MASSIVELY over-powered in comparison, something that wouldn’t really be appropriately be addressed until King of Fighters ’96 and beyond.
Basically, there are probably like five other fighting games on the VC you’d be better off buying. Pass.
On the WiiWare service are two games, 5 Arcade Gems for 700 Wii points/$7 and Brain Drain for 500 Wii points/$5. 5 Arcade Gems, as you could probably deduce from the title, is a collection of five arcade games: Templar Bashing, which entails avoiding getting knocked off the tower; Pizza Jungle Delivery, an obstacle course featuring pizza deliverymen; RC Buggy Madness, a racing game that’s a scramble to collect items; Lumberjack Trials, which involves hitting logs so they strike different targets; and Whirling Rangers, a shooter wherein each ship moves in a circle. Brain Drain is a puzzle game wherein you move pieces on a chess board so that the final formation matches the image shown. Neither of them are standouts or must purchases, especially not for their asking price.
As for the DSiWare service, there’s plenty of options, with two going for 800 DSi points/$8 and four priced at 500 DSi points/$5. Ferrari GT: Evolution is a racing game with 32 actual Ferrari models, so if you wanted to live vicariously speeding around in a Ferrari. Even then, there are better options. DodoGo!, the other game going for $8, involves saving as many eggs as possible by guiding them through obstacles, repairing, soothing them. System Flaw Recruit is a shooter that uses the DSi’s camera to turn your surroundings into the stages you play in, as well as to aim and move with. It seems gimmicky with a finicky control scheme. Don’t Feed the Animals is a tower defense game wherein you defend a fort filled with candy from animals looking to indulge their sweet tooth. If you’re in need of a tower defense game on the DS (and/or if the overall feel of this game doesn’t appeal to you), Desktop Tower Defense might be a better bet. Puffins: Let’s Roll is another game in which you guide eggs back to safety (their mothers in this case). Finally, Scrabble Slam! is another portable version of the popular board game we all know and love.
So there we have it for this week: a VC release that be more cheaply purchased in other forms, two unexciting WiiWare titles, and a mixed bag of DSiWare releases. Join us next week for recap of another bunch of Nintendo’s weekly releases.
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