News Bomberman Blasting Into Japan This Month
Hudson Soft has released a new trailer for the Japanese version of Bomberman Blast on the Nintendo Channel, which will be released in the land of the rising sun on the 25th of this month.
The video shows some of the new features the game will have, such as the new weapons - If you ever wanted to actually block the fire from bombs, or use a rocket...
News USA VC Releases: Cho Aniki and Final Soldier
Something which many thought would never happen is occurring today: Cho Aniki is being released in the US! Accompanying it is another TurboGrafx-16 import shooter: Final Soldier.
Cho Aniki and its sequels have received both a lot of love and a lot of hate over the years. This is because the series' storyline is based mostly on protein and...
News Get Your Groove On With Groovin' Blocks
Prepare to be amazed - Groovin' Blocks was announced for WiiWare today, but is already being released in the US next Monday.
The game, developed by Empty Clip Studios, is a music-based puzzle game. Combining the rhythm genre (Judging by the song selection screenshot, it will have indie songs) with a falling block puzzler (It seems to be in the style...
News EU VC Releases: DoReMi Fantasy and Ys Book I & II
Can you believe it? It's already time to say goodbye to the Hanabi Festival, as this is presumably the last week with imports. But it goes out with a bang - Not only are there two more imports available, they're accompanied by two Turbografx games, one of which is spectacular.
First, the new imports: DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure was...
News USA VC Releases: Super Mario RPG and Clu Clu Land
If you're one of those people who, for some reason, didn't care that great games like Ys Book I & II, Samurai Shodown II and Mega Man came out recently, and only care about Nintendo games, maybe you can finally stop complaining this week - There's not one but two Nintendo games available later today.
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars...
News Drake's Ratings Roundup - August 2008
You might remember back in June we posted a decently sized list of all games that got rated recently which had not yet been released. We also promised this feature would return every month - Sadly not too many games got rated in July, so for now we've decided to just keep it as a bi-monthly feature instead, meaning that it is now time to make another!
We already explained the various ratings board acronyms last time - If you've forgotten them, just check out the June list again! This time we'll list all games rated in July and August which have not yet been released in the region they were rated for: ESRB rat...
Review MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade (WiiWare)
Three games in one - Triple the fun or triple the terror?
MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade is a rather unique game from Mindware, a company that's relatively unknown outside of Japan. As the title suggests, MaBoShi is based around three shapes - Circle, Stick and Square. The gameplay comprises three mini-games based on these shapes, which all...
News TurboGrafx-16 Releases - September
It's the last Friday of the month, so Hudson has outlined their VC plans for next month. There appears to be a "game swap" of sorts taking place - The US is getting two games that Europe has had for a few months, while Europe is getting two games the US recently got!
The US can look forward to sampling the delights of two import shooters -...
News Japanese Virtual Console list - September 2008
Some big things in Japan next month. After taking a multi-month break, the N64 is finally back in action! Square Enix is also finally putting up one of their most wanted RPGs for the SNES (That isn't Super Mario RPG). It's obviously not Chrono Trigger, nor is it Final Fantasy. Look below if you want to know!
The full list of games to be released in...
News EU VC Releases: Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa and Dig Dug
Finally breaking the annoying pattern which has been going on the past few months, Nintendo of Europe has not only released WiiWare games today. They've released both Virtual Console AND WiiWare games!
On the Virtual Console you can now pick up two more imports. Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa is a platformer from the brilliant minds at Konami. It stars the...
News Hanabi Festival 3 Kicks Off
Our expectations have been confirmed - Today marks the start of the third Hanabi Festival. The Hanabi icons in the Wii Shop, next to the names of today's released games, Super Mario RPG and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, should have already tipped this off to you, but Nintendo of Europe has now published a short press release on the matter.
Thi...
News EU VC Releases: Super Mario RPG and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
Exciting times for Europe today, as it seems to be the start of the third Hanabi Festival - That means that you can once again probably expect a bunch of import games the coming weeks!
The Festival starts off with a bang, just like the first one from 2007. Finally making its debut in Europe (After 12 years!) is the fantastic Square/Nintendo...
News USA VC Releases: Mega Man and Neo Turf Masters
The time has finally come! The Blue Bomber arrives on the US Virtual Console today after paying Europe a visit over a year ago! Accompanying everybody's favourite blue robot is the rather good Neo Geo golf game, Neo Turf Masters.
Mega Man really needs no introduction. After Mario and Zelda he was perhaps the biggest NES icon, and the Mega Man series...
News Get Ready To Go To Battle In Swords & Soldiers!
Exciting times today, as Dutch developer Ronimo Games has announced their plans to bring their new game, Swords & Soldiers, to WiiWare. They are a new studio which includes people who created the original version of de Blob, a game which is being remade for the Wii.
Seemingly taking inspiration from Castle Crashers' visual style, which will be...
If you are too busy to take care of real fish then Hudson’s virtual aquarium might be perfect for you.
Let’s make this clear right from the very start of this review -- My Aquarium is not a game. Unlike Nintendo's deep sea diving title for the Wii, Endless Ocean, there is no adventuring or exploring of any sort. My Aquarium consists solely of...
News EU WiiWare Update: Strong Bad Episode 1 and My Aquarium
Not much of a surprise in Europe today, as both of today's releases were already confirmed by their publishers beforehand! You have the choice of relaxing by watching virtual fish, or helping out the most awesome guy on the planet (Well, according to himself!).
The first episode of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Homestar Ruiner, is...
News USA VC Releases: Star Parodier and Break In
If you were hoping for Hudson's TurboGrafx-16 import duo to be released two weeks ago (As Hudson "confirmed"), you were probably disappointed. Today, however, the disappointment will be lifted, as both games are coming out.
If you're at all familiar with Konami's Gradius series, you should know that it eventually got a...
News EU VC Update - Samurai Shodown II
Samurai Shodown II was supposed to be released in the US last Monday, according to SNK. Sadly, this ended up not happening. Europeans, however, are now able to buy SNK's fighter masterpiece on Virtual Console. It is flanked by a cult Commodore 64 game and two Mega Drive games.
Obviously, Samurai Shodown II is the pick of the bunch. We got...
News USA VC Update: Sonic (Master System) and Splatterhouse 2
If you've been keeping up with the news and saw our recent articles, you would've known that Capcom, Hudson Soft and SNK Playmore all "confirmed" that one of their games would be released on VC today in the US. These games would have been Mega Man, Ys Book I & II, and Samurai Shodown II, all classics and very well liked among retro gamers. Sadly, it appears that Nintendo of America is having none of that (Just like two weeks ago with Star Parodier and Break In) and has chosen to release completely different games instead.
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Review Splatterhouse 2 (Virtual Console / Sega Mega Drive)
Rick, once again encounters the Terror Mask and must use its powers to rescue his beloved Jennifer.
Rick is back! After the Terror Mask from the first Splatterhouse comes back and tells him his girlfriend (Who seemingly meets an unpleasant fate in the first game) can still be saved, Rick puts on the mask again, and goes back to the remains of the...
News Ys Book I & II Released in US Next Week
After Hudson updated their VC site with their planned upcoming TurboGrafx-16 releases for America, and all games except Ys Book I & II had specific dates, people were assuming it would be released last. This has turned out to not be true however, as it's being released before the now remaining two games with dates (Star Parodier and Break In), meaning that it's coming out on Monday!
Ys Book I & II is really a must-play if you're even a little bit of an RPG fan. Consider the fact it was originally released in 1989 and then look at its features - CD-quality music, voice acting, anime cutscenes (...
News OFLC Update: Wonder Boy in Monster Land
The OFLC has rated one new game today: Wonder Boy in Monster Land is the second game in the Wonder Boy series and the last game in the series we didn't have on VC yet (Not counting the Japan-only Monster World IV). The game ditched the original Wonder Boy's gameplay entirely, instead going for a more RPG-oriented gameplay style. Alongside simple platforming, you will also have to defeat enemies for money to buy better equipment, and experience.
Once the game has been released, we will have at least one version of each game in the series on VC...
News RPG Action Comes to the US Next Month in Ys Book I & II
Following Nintendo of Japan's August schedule, Hudson has revealed their plans for the US next month, and they are quite good indeed! Sadly, it appears Europe and Australia will not be getting any new Turbografx games in August.
The US will start off by getting Chase H.Q. next week. This was the last listed game for July, and with the other two...
News Japanese Virtual Console list - August 2008
It's the last Friday of the month again, and you know what that means - Nintendo of Japan has revealed their plans for August. There are no big surprises this month, but there is one small surprise that everybody expected: Capcom has managed to sneak an extra release into July to milk out its main franchise even further! Aside from Nintendo releasing one of their more obscure classics, there is nothing too interesting to speak of here.
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