Virtual Console Reviews - Page 4

Two isn't always better than one

When approaching Jaleco’s Rival Turf! (known as Rushing Beat in Japan), it’s important to understand the context of its release. In the early days of the Super NES, Capcom duly ported over its illustrious arcade brawler Final Fight, which dazzled gamers with its arcade-quality visuals and sound. It was a tremendous achievement given the relative gulf that..

A simplified Final Fantasy experience

Back in 1992, role-playing games were still largely ignored outside of Japan, but Square tried to remedy this with the release of Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. The game not only added a bit more action to the experience, it also greatly simplified the gameplay mechanics as well. While this certainly offered up a more user-friendly RPG experience for gamers who..

A new spin on the popular fighting series

It's no secret that the Samurai Shodown series played a huge role in vaulting SNK up to the big boy fighting game table. And as popular as the original release was, it was the sequel that would set the standard by which all future titles of the franchise would be judged. Samurai Shodown III would mark the...

Fatal Fury Extra Special

With the release of Fatal Fury Special, Neo Geo fighting fans were treated to a rather significant upgrade from the previous release of Fatal Fury 2. Not content to rest on its laurels, SNK decided to give the standard series one last hurrah with this fourth and final instalment. And while long-time fans will appreciate the...

Everything you could want out of a sequel

About the time mascot games began exploding on the Super Nintendo console, Sunsoft jumped on the bandwagon with the release of their original platformer Aero the Acrobat. While the game featured many of the classic platforming elements that were showing up in the games of the time period, it was criticized for its bland play control and limited level..

Will you go aerobatty for Aero?

Everybody into gaming at the time remembers the "cool mascot" craze during the early 90's; Sega was heavily in on it with Sonic and a whole bunch of other companies tried to cash in on it as well. Sunsoft's attempt came in the form of Aero the Acrobat – a bat with attitude who works as an acrobat in the...

Easy Mode Metroid

The original Metroid was a ground-breaking game for its time, but it feels incredibly dated to anyone playing it for the first time now. The lack of a map makes navigating the seemingly endless identical corridors way more annoying than it should be for newcomers, whereas those who know the game inside out can beat it within an hour. Ufouria takes heavy inspiration from the first..

Ace

When Mario Golf was released back in 1999, it was already known that Camelot was working on another Mario sports title for the N64. After a decent title released for the sadly ill-fated Virtual Boy a few years before, Camelot gave Mario another go at tennis. Mario Tennis on the N64 functions a bit differently from Mario Golf in that you do not have to sit through a cumbersome (and honestly..

Ninja master or a shadow of glory?

Ninjas suddenly gained popularity during the 1980s, what with their cool moves, cool clothes and unashamed ability to kick ass. It's murky as to why exactly this happened but the legacy left within the fields of media was huge, ranging from the American Ninja films, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Last Ninja series of games and a fistful of arcade coin-op..

Wild West or limp at best?

Whether the game had any influence over the film Wild Wild West is debatable, but what can't be denied is that the two have a similar, inextricable link between cowboys and steampunk. While the traditional steampunk time period might still be Victorian England in the late 19th Century, the setting for both is somewhat...

Suck on this!

Kirby Super Star made its debut on the Super Nintendo console in 1996, and although the game came late in the system's lifecycle, it's gone on to become one of the most sought-after games in the series. Now with the release of the game on the Virtual Console, Wii fans can enjoy the classic in all of its original glory. The gameplay of...

For those who like having their asses handed to them

After having some solid success in arcades with the inaugural game in the series The King of Fighters '94, SNK wanted to try to address some of the complaints players had with the game in the sequel. Two of the biggest complaints were the inability to customise your own team lineups and the inherent lack of challenge with the CPU-controlled..

A bit weak, but still a good game

With both Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3 ranking among the best NES games ever made, many people were quite excited when Capcom announced a fourth entry in the series back in 1991. After all, if they managed to make it even better, it would be pretty much near perfection! Sadly, it didn't quite turn out as people hoped...

One of the N64's only strategy titles, but also the best

Last year, the Virtual Console brought us Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, the "fifth" title in the Ogre Battle series (although none of the first four chapters in the story actually exist.) An incredibly rare game, it was also one of the best strategy titles on the SNES, allowing for an enormous deal of micro-management..

A guilty pleasure for import PC Engine fans

You cannot be blamed for not having heard of Wonder Momo, a Namco arcade game from the mid-late 80s which was never released outside of Japan. It belongs in the box of "odd" Japanese games, being a beat-em-up with the unusual setting of a Super Sentai (Power Rangers to the gaijin amongst you) stage show, like you'd find performed in Japanese..

The PC Engine classic finally arrives on the Virtual Console

The Castlevania titles have seen releases on a variety of game consoles over the years, but it's this PC Engine release that's garnered a lot of attention and focus among diehard game fans and collectors over the years. Since the game was only released in Japan, gamers who wanted to play the game have long been forced to pay the lofty..

Still a timeless RPG classic.

While the game was the second numbered Final Fantasy when it was released in North America back in 1991, it's actually the fourth entry in the series due to the second and third 8-bit releases remaining in Japan at the time. It marked the series debut on Nintendo's 16-bit console and added quite a few new gameplay elements to the mix, namely Square's new Active-Time..

Is it really all that special?

There's no question that Fatal Fury 2 was quite a step up in quality from the original, but it seems SNK still wasn't completely satisfied with the game and decided to release an upgrade in the form of Fatal Fury Special. Rather than start from scratch, they basically took Fatal Fury 2, added in the ability to play as...

One for the history books, but not for everyone

In 1982 Sega made a little gaming history with Zaxxon: the first 3D arcade game to use an isometric perspective – even more shockingly, it used sprite-based graphics at a time when 3D games were pretty much all being done with vectors. Whilst Zaxxon got a lot of attention due to its flashy graphics and fancy analogue flight stick, even in 1982 it..