This is the story of someone with blue hair...

The lack of any updates for the Wii last Tuesday in the absence of any public holiday was a bit ominous and this week's WiiWare-less update makes us wonder if this means that developers are turning away from Nintendo's service in its home country – or it could simply be that we'll be seeing less quantity and more quality as some of our recent previews from developers in Europe and North America might indicate.

Virtual Console

Heisei Shin Onigashima: Zenpen (800pts Super Famicom – Nintendo) – An enhanced SNES port of Shin Onigashima: Zenpen for the Famicom Disk System, the first part of a story divided over two games. None of them were ever released outside Japan, but you might've heard of them through trophies and other information in the Smash Bros. series.

Magical Drop 2 (900pts Neo Geo – D4 Enterprise) – A fast-paced puzzler which is sort of a combination of Puzzle Bobble and Puyo Puyo. It plays mostly like Puyo Puyo, but instead of the objects all being at the bottom of the screen, they slowly descend onto the playing field from above, just like in Puzzle Bobble.

Japanese card games on your Japanese DSi

DSiWare

at Enter! Taisen Hanafuda Koi Koi Gassen (200pts – Tasuke) – The classic hanafuda game "Koi Koi" on your DSi. Play against the computer or a friend, via Download Play!

at Enter! Taisen Reversi (200pts – Tasuke) – Tasuke keeps the budget board game flow coming with a reversi (othello) game that can be played against a series of AI opponents or a friend using the Download Play feature of your DS.

Suku Suku Native English Nikki Calendar (500pts – I.E. Institute) – Having apparently exhausted its supply of kanji training applications, I.E. Institute is turning its attentions back to helping Japanese folk practise their English. In this application the idea is that keeping a diary in English will help you learn the language more easily. Whilst that idea has merit, having to peck out the words with a stylus would seem to cause more frustration with what is already a difficult language, than foster mastery of it.

Real Soccer 2010 (800pts – Gameloft) – Better late than never, especially as this version of the game seems to support local WiFi play if you have a friend with an import DSi and copy of the game. In case you're wondering if this game of electronic football is for you, check out our Real Soccer 2010 review.