The Australian government's Classification Board is infamous for its censorship of violence in games, hindering the release of dozens of highly-anticipated titles over the years. But sometimes its ratings bring us good news: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and F-Zero: GP Legend look like they'll join the ranks of Game Boy Advance classics on Wii U Virtual Console this year.
Both games are interesting choices. Aria of Sorrow is the last of three Castlevania games on GBA. It's perhaps the most highly-regarded in the trilogy so it makes sense that it's the first to hit the eShop, but hopefully Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance are also in the works. The likely release of this title on the Wii U Virtual Console would also mark the first third-party GBA game to arrive on the service.
We already know F-Zero's first GBA title, Maximum Velocity, will hit Virtual Console on 17th April; the arrival of its sequel, GP Legend, gives us hope we'll see other GBA sequels on the eShop. It'll be interesting to see if Nintendo eventually brings F-Zero's third GBA entry, the Japan-only F-Zero Climax, to Western shores.
Will you be picking up either of these games when they arrive on the Virtual Console? What other GBA sequels are you looking forward to playing on Wii U? Metroid: Zero Mission, anyone? Let us know in the comments.
[source ign.com, via classification.gov.au]
Comments 49
YES!!! I love Aria of Sorrow. Hopefully Harmony of Dissonance isn't too far behind! I may be in the minority but I am extremely happy GBA games are coming to Wii U.
Is Aria of Sorrow truely part of a Trilogy or are there just three Castlevania games for the GBA? Regardless, I'm really glad to see it coming to VC. I hope it comes out in the states, I don't see why it wouldn't.
i missed out on the gba castlevanias so this is awesome
GP Legend is pretty much my go-to portable F-Zero game. It's great.
Castlevania will be mine. Hopefully we won't have to wait an eternity for it.
How funny. Just last week most people were complaining that GBA games were coming to the Wii U eShop. Today (so far) everybody seems to be happy GBA titles are coming to the Wii U eShop.
I guess Nintendo is not as stupid as most believe them to be.
@Dark-Link73 Some people are impossible to please.
Weren't me who was complaining.
Gimme Aria of Sorrow, it's a great game. How do I know it's a great game when it is only just being rated for Australian release? Imports...yes imports.
Are all the GBA Castlevania's Metroidvania's ? (If they are then that is one situation where I would prefer the second Gameboy one or NES Castlevania III).
@Spuratis No they're separate titles. You can play them in any order.
@Spuratis
The 3 GBA titles are separate games and aria of sorrow has a sequel, dawn of sorrow, for the DS, which will hopefully come to the Wii U DS VC
@unrandomsam
Not sure about Circle of the Moon (20 seconds of it I've played suggest it is), but the other two are
@Ash_Anne @cheetahman91 I know. I posted someplace else that had the same article that Nintendo is dammed if they do and dammed if they don't.
@shaneoh Oh don't worry. I wasn't referring to anybody in particular. I was just making a general observation.
Ah, one of the handheld Castlevania's! Nice! This isn't April fools, right?
Aria of Sorrow is my favorite of the three. I played it first and regretted that a little because it plays the best out of the three and it is hard to get into the other two after playing it. All three are great games though.
I lost my copy of Circle of the Moon. Kind of hope they get that up soon.
An odd choice, maybe, but I'd really like Double Dragon Advance.
@Henmii
No it's not a joke, if anyone at the Australian Classification Board had a sense of humour then then they wouldn''t be working for the ACB
@Dark-Link73 You do realise the people complaining pretty much consisted of 3DS owners who don't want to buy a Wii U but want GBA VC on 3DS.
@unrandomsam There are already plenty of traditional Castlevanias on Virtual Console, including Rondo of Blood, and even a new one in Castlevania Rebirth on WiiWare. It's about time to get at least one Metroidvania game to the selection.
GP Legend is a thousand times better then Maximum Velocity, I hope this comes soon!
YES! I'll finally be able to play Aria of Sorrow.
@Dark-Link73
I think most of the people 'complaining' are just baffled that the GBA and DS VC's aren't coming to the 3DS when there's no technical reason they shouldn't.
i missed playing the GBA castlevanias games, i will try them out cause alot of people told me Aria of Sorrow is amazing.
Just for the record, I have few problems with the current announced GBA VC lineup. I'm somewhat surprised there's no Fire Emblem game included, though that's not really an issue for me since I own both Blazing Sword and Sacred Stones. I'm also somewhat dissapointed that there's no import titles in sight, but that's nothing new for the VC.
Great news for Australia! Hopefully these will go elsewhere, too.
I just had a thought. Why isn't the WiiU getting Gameboy and Gameboy Color games?
@Dark-Link73
weeeell, im not that interested, and have yet to express my opinion
guess only people that really care about GBA games on the wiiu express their happiness.
Have already GP Legend for my SP, it's great, much better than Maximum Velocity. But, boy, would I love to see Climax release on VC!
Nice to see that the GBA games are starting to come in, hopefully they keep coming for awhile as there is plenty of games that they could bring over!
yaaay
awesome, I hope this come to NA too, then I'll get to watch people complain and whine while playing Aria of Sorrow as well. I am going to enjoy next week with the first 3 games release.
VC needs to stop period or atleast from what we have gotten, nothing really all that great has hit the eshop and I'd rather they used that extra man power towards newer ip's. IMHO all the oldies are good but maybe nintendo should focus on making updated sequels to them instead of re-re-releasing.
I will insta-buy Aria of Sorrow! Yes!
GP Legend was never released in Europe wasn't it? A VC release would be awesome then.
@BoltedArc
it takes a very small team of people to do the VC titles, a team so small that there would be hardly make a difference with other major title releases...
Just need some Minish Cap
Yes! Castlevania games were my main interest when GBA VC games were announced! Day one buy for every one one that comes out!
Aria of Sorrow is still in my Gameboy Advance SP and Metroid Fusion spent a lot of time in there too. Anyone tried playing GBA after getting a 3DS XL? I can't believe how small that screen was.
"GP Legend is way better than Maximum Velocity" comments always puzzle me.
@Xilef GP Legend was released in the EU I have it.
Aria of Sorrow!
My favorite Castlevania of all time!!!...okay now I may have to break down and buy a GBA on Wii U Virtual Console lol.
@ikki5 - agreed, not only does it take a small amount of manpower to convert game to VC, but it's a specific discipline that is separate from other areas of game development. More then likely they hired a few coders and network guys specifically for VC conversions.
I'm worried that circle of the moon is being skipped because it can't be released for some reason. I guess it might be jumping to conclusions as after all it could be a case of both games being submitted at the same time but the rating board is still looking at circle of the moon.
@Xilef Climax is the one that was not released outside of Japan (and has a course editor). Mainly due to GP legend selling so badly (apparently off the record in North America it was the worst selling first party GBA game) but maybe also due to being after the events of the anime that flopped everywhere (I think 4kids stopped dubbing it after 13 episodes). I managed to get a sealed copy of it for £2. These days sealed copies are not hard to find for less than £20.
Next give us F-Zero Climax.
Yes, I hope the whole Castlevania portable series comes to Wii U VC with trilogy of GBA and trilogy of DS games.
Metroid Zero Mission! And all of the Final Fantasy Games as well please!
Hopefully Climax will see a release. It'll be worth translating just to keep the F Zero fans happy....for a little while.
Sweet for Castlevania though. I missed out on the handheld ones.
Nothing wrong with GBA to be in the WiiU, but why can't they release them in the 3DS too? It doesn't make sense to me!
"No it's not a joke, if anyone at the Australian Classification Board had a sense of humour then then they wouldn''t be working for the ACB"
Lol!
Wow, suddenly a lot of love for the f-zero crowd! Maybe if sales of these games are good, we will finally get a new entry!
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