NES News, NES Features - Page 8 of 9

With the US releases of Do Re Mi Fantasy and Puyo Puyo 2 last Monday, and both having an OFLC rating already, you'd think that Nintendo of Europe would release them over here as well - Unfortunately, it's not the case this week.

Prepare for a pretty bad week if you don't like shooters - Then again, it's also not very good even if you do like them...

Two classic NES games join the European Virtual Console library today! First up we have Street Gangs (River City Ransom in the USA). This is a scrolling beat-em-up in the same vein as Double Dragon, but it is also much more! The characters are all in Japanese super deformed manga style for starters. It’s not as shallow as your average beat-em-up either, there are some basic RPG elements on offer here: you have an inventory, can buy and sell items, and you can learn new abilities and skills. The co-operative play is also really good in this game, so it comes highly recommended from the VC:R team.

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There’s a bit of a surprise this week for North American Virtual Console fans - seemingly out of nowhere comes Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden III.

We’ve already had the first two Ninja Gaiden NES titles and this release completes the trilogy, but sadly it also turns out to be the weakest of the three in terms of gameplay. This game is so frustrating it should really come with a health warning – or at..

You can practically hear the sound of a funeral march as this week’s North American Virtual Console releases slowly appear from out of the impenetrable mist…

Those of you that moaned about the solo-game weeks will be heartened to learn that you have two games to choose from today, but the bad news is that both aren’t really worth downloading. Operation Wolf on the NES may cause some to prick..

The drought on new games coming to the Virtual Console continues for yet another week as Europe gets just one game today. We’ll try our best to smile because Adventures of Lolo 2 is a great game for anyone who likes puzzlers but we can’t help feeling a little disappointed at Nintendo’s lack of support for the VC of late.

Lolo and Lala are back in this sequel to the popular puzzle game..

The second update to Capcom's legendary fighter Street Fighter II arrives in the US today - Super Street Fighter II introduces many new things (Including fan favourite fighter Cammy), but also removes some things from the first update - Street Fighter II Turbo. There's only one SNES Street Fighter game left now - Street Fighter Alpha 2!

It was a bit of a hard pick to decide what game to..

Once again, Europe does not get 3 or more games this week. And once again, Nintendo seems to try and make up for it by making one of the games they do release a great one (The other is ok). Well, at least it wasn't just one game again! The great game this time is StarTropics, the first of only two games in Nintendo's (unfortunately) dead franchise of the same name. It's a lot like the original The Legend of Zelda, with some improvements, leading some to refer to it as "everything Zelda II should've been". It's still a mystery why Nintendo killed this franchise off. Let's hope for StarTropics 3 someday!

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Forget all you've been told. This film kicks all kinds of ass

In a world where everyone seems to have an opinion and they’re all too happy to force it upon others, it’s worth remembering that when judging something (be it a book, film or videogame) it all depends on your connection with that particular piece of media. For example, watching a...

Two cult classics for the US today. First is StarTropics, the first in an (unfortunately) dead Nintendo series which spanned only two games. The game borrows heavily from Zelda, but is a lot more light-hearted and, according to quite a few people, more fun. The original game required a letter which came packed with the game in order to progress at one point - If anybody who played the game on NES can download it on VC and see for us how they fixed this, it would be appreciated.

King of Fighters fans in the US can FINALLY stop moaning abo..

The US plays catchup today, as they get three games Europe's already had a while. All of them are good, though, so hopefully no complaining this time!

Leading the pack is Treasure's Genesis RPG, Light Crusader. This is to this day probably Treasure's only Western game, featuring almost no obvious Japanese influence. It's also usually named as one of Treasure's worse games, but that's a bit wrong,..

Merry Christmas! Nintendo's gift for Americans is the final game in the DKC trilogy, Donkey Kong Country 3! The game was released late in the SNES's life, meaning a lot of people missed out on it. Now is the time to make up for that mistake, as it's a great game, although not as good as DKC2. Here's a secret - Enter your name on the file select screen as "MERRY" for a very Christmas-y experience!

Today's other releases probably won't cater to as much people, unfortunately. Blades of Steel is one of very few NES sports games that has held up to this day, but if you don't like ice hockey it's probably n..

Our pals at Nintendo haven't exactly pushed the boat out this week with festive spirit sadly. Still it could be worse! We finally have Blades of Steel on the NES, even before North America! For those not in the know this is one of the best, if not THE best ice hockey game from the 8-bit era. Very often NES games feel tired with age but the gameplay is still as much fun as ever with this one!

Anothe..

After already releasing Pokemon Snap earlier in the week, some people wondered whether Nintendo would release games at the normal time as well. Thankfully they did - And they included one of the greatest NES games in the update as well! Mega Man 2 is usually called the best classic Mega Man series game ever made (With heavy competition from Mega Man 3 - Which I personally find better). It's the only Mega Man game with an easier mode (Making it perfect for series newcomers), it's got an absolutely amazing soundtrack for the time, it's slightly less linear, and it's just plain fun! If you've never played it, do yourself a favour and do so now!

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The first Pokemon game hits VC in the US today! It's the strange but fun Pokemon Snap for Nintendo 64, where instead of capturing Pokemon in Pokeballs, you capture them on film. The game itself is good fun, but as an overall package it is a bit lacking. Still, if you're a Pokemon fan, better make do with this, because this will most likely be one of extremely few Pokemon titles to come to VC (We think the only other one will be Pokemon Puzzle League). Another thing worth considering is that this version of Pokemon Snap has a VC-exclusive feature!

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After last week's disaster, this week's releases are a bit more bearable. First up is Sega's answer to Street Fighter - Eternal Champions. Instead of having fighters from around the world, Eternal Champions has fighters from various time periods! This of course leads to wildly different movesets for each character. The formula has obviously been bettered nowadays, but if you like the genre it's still worthwhile to check out the game.

Hot on the heels of Eternal Champions for pick of the week is Zanac. You might be thinking - "A NES shoot 'em up? Aren't all of those average at best?" For the most part, yeah, they..

After last week's "big" releases for the Wii's one year anniversary, calling this week "underwhelming" would be an understatement. While it's a total of three games, we can't really seriously recommend any of them to everybody. The only good game this week is Vegas Stakes, a gambling simulation for the SNES. It's all well and good for gambling fans, but everybody else (Which is very likely a lot of people) would be better off skipping it unless they're really interested in finding out how the casino world works.

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Only two games for Europe this week, but who cares? Both of them are fantastic games, each with their own cult following! First off, we have The King of Fighters '94, the first in a long, long SNK fighting series, which has yearly installments (It's still going!). The series combines characters and stages from various SNK series into one massive game, which provides tons and tons of entertainment. There's a reason it's loved by so much people!

Second this week, it's Taito's classic arcade game, Bubble Bobble! As Bub and Bob your objective is to trap enemies in bubbles and then pop them to defeat them. Sou..

The Wii's out a year today in the US, so to celebrate, have another Mario game! Wrecking Crew is one of the more unknown Mario games, frequently not even being mentioned in lists of his games. Despite this, the game has held up very well, and those who've played it agree that's it really fun. With 100 stages and a level editor it's more than worth the price.

Nintendo also apparently found it a good..

If you were expecting another hugely popular, great game today to coincide with the release of Super Mario Galaxy, you are, sadly, wrong. While the game (Yes, GAME) was indeed quite popular, I wouldn't quite call it good these days.

Today's ONLY new game is Double Dribble for the NES. It's another one of those games like China Warrior - The game attracted many people because of it's good graphics,..