EUROPE / AUSTRALIA

JANUARY
Prince of Persia - SNES

FEBRUARY
The King of Fighters '97 - NeoGeo

MARCH
Samurai Shodown IV - NeoGeo
Mega Man X - SNES
Strider - Mega Drive
Mega Man 5 - NES

APRIL
Super Street Fighter II - Mega Drive

MAY
Super Hang On - arcade
Wonder Boy in Monster Land - arcade
Monster World IV - Mega Drive
Metal Slug 3 - NeoGeo
Mega Man X2 - SNES

JUNE
no games

JULY
Double Dragon II - NES

AUGUST
The Last Blade - NeoGeo
2020 Super Baseball - NeoGeo

SEPTEMBER
Real Bout Fatal Fury Special - NeoGeo
Metal Slug X - NeoGeo

OCTOBER
Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 - NeoGeo
World Heroes Perfect -NeoGeo

NOVEMBER
Shock Troopers - NeoGeo
The King of Fighters '96 - NeoGeo

DECEMBER
The Last Blade 2 - NeoGeo
World Heroes 2 - NeoGeo

******************************************************************

AMERICA

JANUARY
no games

FEBRUARY
Strider - Genesis

MARCH
The King of Fighters '97 - NeoGeo
Samurai Shodown IV - NeoGeo

APRIL
Super Street Fighter II - Genesis

MAY
Super Hang On - arcade
Wonder Boy in Monster Land - arcade
Monster World IV -Genesis
Metal Slug 3 - NeoGeo

JUNE
The Last Blade - NeoGeo
Mega Man X2 - SNES
Double Dragon II - NES

JULY
2020 Super Baseball - NeoGeo
The King of Fighters '96 - NeoGeo
World Heroes Perfect - NeoGeo

AUGUST
Real Bout Fatal Fury Special - NeoGeo
Metal Slug X - NeoGeo

SEPTEMBER
Prince of Persia - SNES
Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 - NeoGeo

OCTOBER
The Last Blade 2 - NeoGeo

NOVEMBER
BurgerTime - NES
Ninja Master's - NeoGeo

DECEMBER
Real Bout Fatal Fury - NeoGeo
Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad - NeoGeo

So a good year if you are a fan of the NeoGeo. And despite it feeling otherwise at times, each country recieved 23 games each.

Honestly, while I can't vouch for Burger Time, 2020 Baseball, or World Heroes 2, nearly every game released this year was pretty damn good. I'd say this was a good year for VC, even if it was quality over quantity.

For what it's worth, I can't see a single bad, or even mediocre, game. If you were a NeoGeo fan, then it was a pretty freaking amazing year. The stuff that wasn't NeoGeo stood out too. Strider is pretty great, as is Mega Man X2 and Double Dragon 2 (if you're into old school beat em ups.) Prince of Persia is a classic, and BurgerTime is too.

23 games in the year...so about one game every 16 days (more than every 2 weeks). Still not exactly desirable statistics for such a service.

Yeah, it's shocking when you compare it to back when the service was young and they were pushing out 2(sometimes even 3) games every single week. But I guess that's to be expected now that 3rd party support is nearly extinct and Nintendo's own well has run dry, especially since we're never going to get FX chip games like Star Fox and Yoshi's Island. Oh well, at least we got SNK.

Great games, but yeah there should have been more.

Metal Slug X and Double Dragon 2 were some of my most wanted though, so it's hard for me to complain.

I can't remember when it released, but Sengoku 2 also came to North America. Also Bass, would you mind making a list of all the VC games that were removed this year?

I would have preferred more VC games of course, but I suppose I am happy we still get anything. I downloaded 11 of the 24 released this year. I would have downloaded more of them, but Neo Geo fighting games just don't appeal to me (although I will get one of the Last Blade games eventually). I am pretty bummed that we don't get anymore TG16 games, and in fact lost several of them this year. I was lucky enough to get all of Irem's games before they were pulled, but sadly I missed out on G-Mode's 3 TG16 games because Nintendo did not give NA advance warning. It is also strange for G-Mode to pull those games, but then release BurgerTime later on in the year. I guess maybe there are other issues behind the scenes, or maybe they felt BurgerTime would sell better, who knows? I hope they put them back up, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. And on the topic of removed games, I am very upset at Nintendo for not letting NA know that they were pulling the DKC games. I held off on buying them as I figured they would be safe because they were first party. Ah well.

And since this is the VC year in review, I think the Wii U should be mentioned. VC games do transfer to the Wii U, but are only playable in Wii Mode. This to me is a big misstep, and frankly it's one of the main reasons I don't want a Wii U at the moment. That, and the fact that VC games are not on the eShop. You still have to go through the Wii Shop, in Wii Mode, and from what I understand you don't get Club Nintendo coins for purchasing VC games on the Wii U. It's all a big mess in my opinion, and I wish Nintendo would tell us something about it's plans for VC on Wii U. In the meantime, I'm perfectly happy downloading VC games on my regular Wii as there are still plenty I want to get.

2012 was a much better year for the wii V.C compared to 2011, 2010 when developers didn't even bother. SNK neo geo games were a good selection, with some unknown gems thrown in. i don't know what the future holds for the wii V.C next year, but still if developers continue putting more games for the wii U V.C from NES, SNES, gamecube, N64 as well as the sega and SNK consoles and turbografix and some more arcade hits, then ultimately that would be fantastic.

i know some people are sick of the SNK fighting games, but not me. i want SNK/D4 enterprises to release the remaining king of fighters games up to 2003, as well as garou and rage of the dragons to name but many. also for the wii U V.C, sega saturn and dreamcast games would be great too.

I don't get the hate on NeoGeo games. If it weren't for D4 Enterprises supporting the Virtual Console, we would get a lot less Virrtual Console games. NeoGeo support does not effect other companies choice to support or not. And besides, they are only 100 points more expensive than 16-bit games console games, but they look so much better.

Many NeoGeo games were ported to the SNES and Genesis but were greatly inferior to the NeoGeo originals.

Yeah, I am very thankful for D4 Enterprises sticking around. I got 3 of their non-fighting games this year (Metal Slug 3, Sengoku 2 and 2020 Super Baseball) and I plan on buying Shock Troopers 2nd Squad and one of the Last Blade games soon. I'm really hoping they bring out Pulstar and Blazing Star soon. I am also pretty sure that D4 Enterprises has a catalog of NES games they could release too, so here's hoping they do that as well.

Yeah, the Neo Geo stuff was more than welcome since few other companies seemed interested in supporting the VC. Besides, with stuff like Metal Slug X, Real Bout, and Shock Troopers, it's hard to complain.

Well said. I was unable to own a Neo Geo as a child because, as we all know, it was a prohibitively expensive luxury item. So the VC is giving me a way to play all these games. You could argue that there's simply too many fighting games on the NeoGeo, but at least most of them are quality. Where are the shumps that were supposed to come out though, ie. Last Resort and Pulstar?

I do wish other 3rd parties would come back. : Capcom needs to finish up Mega Man at the very least(6, 7 and X3) and put Demon Crest on the service. And the fact that Konami never put Contra 1, Contra Hard Corps or Castlevania Bloodlines on the service is plain ridiculous.

that is a good point you made there about the neo geo and its games being ridiculously expensive. being able to play them on V.C is a way of experiencing what we missed out on and of when we couldn't afford a neo geo.