Following the trend of the past few weeks, another pair of Game Boy Advance titles — expected to arrive sometime soon on the Wii U Virtual Console — have been classified by Australian Classification Board.
The classifications have revealed Super Mario Ball (also known as Mario Pinball Land) and Pac-Man Collection are on their way to Nintendo’s Virtual Console library.
Super Mario Ball was developed by pinball expert Fuse Games (now known as Silverball Studios), published by Nintendo, and released in 2004. Pac-Man Collection was originally published by Namco with the development talents of Mass Media Games, and released in 2001. The digital iterations of these games will both be published under Nintendo and are rated G for General.
With the Game Boy Advance Virtual Console library continually expanding, what other games from this beloved handheld period would you like to see made available digitally?
[source twitter.com, via twitter.com]
Comments 57
Oh I hope the pinball comes to NA too that's so cool
Makes me sad they're not coming to the 3DS.
Already got Pinball land but yeah, its lame that its not for 3DS.
Excited that GBA games are only a month away! Finally something worth buying on Wii U VC...
Yay...? This sure is much more important than N64 and Gamecube games... Right?!!!
I remember playing pokemon pinball on the gba alot so this may be an enjoyable game. Unfortunately i dont own a wii U.
oh my god i am so happy! i was literally just playing Mario Pinball Land today and thinking in my head how much id love to see the game on the Virtual Consol or make a new Mario Pinball land and they did one out of the two i was hoping for. I really hope it comes in the US. it probably will though. But sadly its not also coming to the 3DS. hopefully it will later in the year? anyway.. i would love to see Mario Golf Advance Tour, Mario Party Advance, and Mario Tennis: Power Tour made available digitally since all the other Mario games i love are already on the virtual console... i think. lol
I think it's lame that the Wii U and 3ds doesn't have the same VC library. And it's lame that you have to purchase VC titles twice if you want them on your Wii U and on the go with your 3DS. I get it, it's a matter of money but still. Give a little something to the real fans..
Whoo! It's been decades since I played that, can't wait for more GB games to come.
Will we ever see n64 or GameCube on the VC? I'm starting to think porting 3d games is to difficult for nintendo.
Nice addition but echo what others have said- why these aren't on the 3ds i'll never know. Such a silly move. Only hope is if we keep making enough noise they'll listen.
When Nintendo has GBA and DS games on the 3DS eshop, I'll care enough to give them some more of my money.
I'm not buying a single GBA or DS game on wii u though (And yes, I already have a wii u)
I wish it was 3DS and Wii U!
Mario Pinball is a very bad game Pac-Man collection is a nice addition!
But I won't buy any VC game until they merge Wii U and 3DS virtual consoles.
I always thought the GBA Pac-Man/Namco compilations were the worst versions of the games because of their lack high score saving but if the GBA games on the Wii U VC have save states then the Wii U VC versions won't be completely useless.
GBA games on Wii U is so.....its so......who asked for this?!!
Time for Nintendo to lay off the wacky tobbacy
i have both of those games. but it would be nice if they put them on the 3ds for people who dont.
Pac-Man Collection? I haven't played that in YEARS! I hope that comes to North America. But then, considering their current track record, I wouldn't doubt that we'd have to wait. Heck, I bet we probably aren't even getting the three GBA VC games in April - they'll probably push them back for no apparent reason too.
Not the games I was expecting but, sure, why not? I'll get them as soon as they are available.
How much are these games gonna cost anyways?
I never got chance to try Mario Pinball land on the GBA so I would really love it on the WiiU VC.
I'd love to try Mario Pinball too. I hope all this announced releases mean we're going to have more than one VC game per week at last. Begone, drip-feeding!
Sooooooo we don't get the recent HD Collection of Pac Man games on the Wii U eShop, but we do get the GBA port?
Makes perfect sense..... XD
As long as the Pac-Man games are properly emulated I won't mind. I had Namco Museum for my GB Micro and I remember that being spot-on outside of some stretched pixels due to the screen aspect of the Micro. Both of these are games I'm happy to give a try.
Pinball Land? I'm sorry, everybody: I absolutely love Mario, but that is one of the worst Mario games I have ever played, as well as the worst pinball game I have ever played. Even if this game was on the eShop for $0.01 or free, I wouldn't even dare to DL it.
Pac Man Collection, on the other hand, I might, if it has Pac Man Arrangement...
Yes! Except GBA VC games aren't even out yet, so who knows how far off these two games are...
Never played mario pinball, looked good though. I wish they would also come to the 3ds.
Wow Mario Pinball Land was one of the first GBA games I played on my GBA when I was a little kid. Dat nostalgia!
@zerotheclown Probably 7.99 or 8.99
It made more sense when the home console would get console VC games and the handheld would get handheld VC games.
Huh, everyone's saying Mario Pinball Land is bad? That's surprising. Haven't played it, but was excited by this announcement. Why isn't it very good, exactly?
As for GBA on Wii U VC in general, I actually think it's a great move. The GamePad is basically a giant original GBA. Think of it as a GBA Macro. And since lots of GBA games were console ports/SNES-ish games, they'll play fine at home. I tend to play my handhelds more at home anyway, so the lack of portability doesn't bother me. Just hope we get a steady stream of games.... though it's unlikely
I was kinda surprise Nintendo didn't just launch the lineup with the GBA Ambassador games first then some new ones later on. They had hundreds of GBA roms sitting at the office waiting to be emulate and play but they just won't let us play them. Sad indeed.
How about online advance wars? Make it happen.
With Nintendo's catalog, I don't see why they aren't releasing at least 3 Virtual Console games a week.
1 NES/SNES/Genesis
1 N64/GCN/Dreamcast
1 GBA/DS/Saturn
These 2 games feel more suited to 3DS.
In North America these games should be played on both 3ds and Wii U.
At least if there is a drip-feed of GBA games they will be actual good games instead of obscure NES titles that nobody really cares about. Then again, everybody seems so intent on Nintendo releasing SMB3, a game that we've all played countless times already, that they will not buy anything else until it becomes available. I'd rather have GBA, SNES, N64, or Sega games than more NES titles.
I'd like to see GBA and DS games on the 3DS VC. Unfortunately it seems unlikely because they are afraid of pissing off the Ambassadors and the system is backwards compatible with DS games. I'm an Ambassador, and I want Nintendo to release GBA games on the 3DS VC so that other great GBA games can be released.
Insert whatever the most popular complaint about this topic is...
Seriously, I haven't played a lot of GBA games, I'll gladly get them on my Wii U.
@Daisaku36 Agreed. Missed way too many classic GBA games due to my Pokemon addiction.
@schizor Sony already does this with most of their Legacy titles. They even have cloud saves if you use PS+. There is no excuse why Nintendo hasn't adopted it too. I won't buy anything digital from Nintendo until they fix this either.
Warioware Twisted should be ported so the game can use senor in the gamepad to play the game, it was never Released in Europe
Ah, Mario pinball! Good news!
@jos,
It actually was, but it arrived VERY late! Luckily I had already played the American version I won in a competition!
@SchamMan89 The only reasonable explanation I can think of is they are understaffed in the vc department.If virtual console releases where like your example I would be spending a lot more money.The wii u has been out a year and this slow trickle of software needs to be resolved.
Mario Pinball is exactely that kind of game that is more fitting to 3DS than Wii U. Still think this is all really werid.
I'm still excited though to see how it'll all look on the big screen. Mario Pinball is flawed but fun. I'd actually like to see a sequel.
People say Mario Pinball Labd is bad mostly because it's very hard. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit on the GBA abd I'd gladly buy it again on the 3DS once Nintendo stop this ridiculous Wii U only practice for handheld VC titles.
Mario Pinball is good, albeit not great. Surely it would make more sense on a handheld, though.
Mario Pinball Land was one of my least favorite GBA games as a child, despite ironically being the first "Mario" game I've ever played (I think). I'll admit a big reason I don't like it is because of it's difficulty, though. It's always hard to launch Mario into (and then keep him in) areas past the first room. It makes the game more annoying than need be in my opinion.
@Superryanworld The only reasonable explanation I can think of is they don't want the VC competing with eshop indie games so they deliberately are holding it back. If it was just manpower they could just get a specialist to do it like M2 or D4 Enterprise probably end up with a better end result in a more efficient manner.
I would be much more excited about Ruby and Sapphire pinabll!
Mario pinball? I'm in. I don't care how bad you guys say it is.
@unrandomsam "The only reasonable explanation I can think of is they don't want the VC competing with eshop indie games so they deliberately are holding it back."
Never thought about it like that but now it makes sense. They know a lot of people are going to buy a 20 year old game that they've played before over a new Indie game (many of which are some of the best games I've played in years).
Mario Pinball land wasn't the worst of games but wasn't Mario's finest moment. The developers did learn their mistakes and made the quite good Metroid Prime Pinball.
Those are facts that add up.Its still not like we are talking about a sixty dollar game though.Two vc games and one indie title wouldnt break my wallet.
Pinball sounds interesting for sure.
I most definetely WILL NOT buy Super Mario Ball.
Come on, Nintendo. Get Sega aboard already.
Mario pinball land was a travesty. I would rather forget about that
Tap here to load 57 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...