Retro Reviews
Review Uncharted Waters: New Horizons (Wii U eShop / SNES)
As deep as the ocean
Koei released quite an arsenal of strategy titles during the 16-bit era, many of them on the Super Nintendo console. While the original Uncharted Waters laid the foundation, its sequel New Horizons picked up right where it left off and managed to add quite a few new game play ideas to the mix to form one of the most in-depth and...
Review City Connection (3DS eShop / NES)
Crash and burn
Originally released as an arcade game, City Connection puts you in the shoes of a man who wants to travel all over the world in order to paint its roads white, thus proving that he's travelled across the globe. Sounds like vandalism to us, but that's the '80s for you! Of course, this would be rather difficult to accomplish on foot, so...
Review Wario's Woods (Wii U eShop / NES)
Kinopio's Canopy
Wario's Woods has had quite a storied legacy over the last few decades, standing not only as the last officially licensed game released on Nintendo's legendary NES in North America in 1994, but also one of the very first titles available on the Wii's Virtual Console service. In-between those impressive milestones, it made an...
Review Baseball (Wii U eShop / NES)
Not quite a grand slam
Originally released alongside the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1980s, Nintendo's Baseball is one of several simple, lean titles that, while primitive and slow by today's standards, still show a special Nintendo pedigree. Ideally these games would be released as a compilation; the content in Baseball,...
Review Donkey Kong 3 (Wii U eShop / NES)
Bugging you?
When the original Donkey Kong proved immensely popular, Nintendo decided to ride off its success and create a sequel changing the roles, making Mario the villain and Donkey Kong Jr. the hero. What is surprisingly not well known, however, is that there was a third game after that. While the next logical next might have been to allow you...
Review Goof Troop (Super Nintendo)
Gawrsh!
In the late '80s and early '90s Capcom created a range of games, based on Disney franchises, for the NES and SNES. The likes of Darkwing Duck, Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers and DuckTales all made appearances, the latter of which has even been given the HD treatment for modern systems, including Wii U. One of the more interesting titles was...
Review Super Castlevania IV (Wii U eShop / SNES)
Fangs for the memories
The Castlevania series is enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment, thanks largely to MercurySteam's commercially successful Lords of Shadow sub-series. However, as many hardcore Castlevania fans will repeatedly tell you until they are blue in the face and you are deeply, deeply bored, the God of War-style gameplay...
Review Wario's Woods (3DS eShop / NES)
It's back like you wooden believe
Originally released in 1994, Wario's Woods holds the prestigious honour of being the last officially licensed game to release for the NES in North America; that's a remarkably long time after the console itself launched in the mid-eighties. Yet while it's impressive that the legendary system received a first-party...
Review Pinball (Wii U eShop / NES)
Ball out?
Back in 1985, when Nintendo launched the NES in North America, there were a slew of games released with to-the-point titles like Baseball, Golf, and the game of the hour, Pinball. At the time, inviting these simple, accessible games into your home was almost life changing, and we have great memories bouncing around our heads of how they...
Review Urban Champion (Wii U eShop / NES)
Won't somebody think of the children?
Urban Champion is back, and is a menace to society. It's a danger to young gamers for two reasons. If you're the type of gamer that thinks brutality and violence has no place in a title played by children, this tale of brawling 8-bit thugs bringing mayhem to the streets is a primitive but potent example of those...
Review Clu Clu Land (Wii U eShop / NES)
Clu Clu Bland
Back in the NES days, Nintendo had a lot of experimental, arcade-like games, many of which never quite made it into the big leagues in order to get sequels and the like. Perhaps one of the most often forgotten of these games is Clu Clu Land. Similarly to Kuru Kuru Kururin, you need to know a bit of Japanese in order to understand the...
Review GOLF (Wii U eShop / NES)
Sub-par
Before the hyper-realistic, face-deforming technology of modern Tiger Woods games was conceived in the deepest dreams of Electronic Arts (a company busy with Marble Madness at the time), there was Golf for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game wears its no-nonsense attitude on its sleeve, focusing on simulating the time-honoured sport...
Review Tennis (Wii U eShop / NES)
Net-net, a loss
Tennis — the NES game, not the actual sport — hails from an age when the most rudimentary of virtual simulations could be entertaining and notable simply by existing, perhaps causing a passing family member to comment on how it looks just like the real thing. Although a genuine novelty in the 80s, this dull-as-toast recreation of...
Review Final Fight 3 (Wii U eShop / SNES)
Third time lucky?
Following the enjoyable-but-flawed SNES conversion of the original Final Fight and its disappointing sequel, Final Fight 3 can be viewed as Capcom's attempt to atone for its previous sins and give fans a domestic exclusive worthy of the name. Released relatively late in the lifespan of Nintendo 16-bit's console, this third entry is...
Review Zombie Blaster (DSiWare)
A grave disappointment
Throughout DSiWare's long and not always distinguished history, we've seen a lot of games come and go. From puzzlers to RPGs to interactive storybooks, we've spent the past several years wading through every single release, doing our best to separate the rare diamonds from the dirt. Zombie Blaster interested us simply because,...
Review Tales to Enjoy! The Ugly Duckling (DSiWare)
A load of quack
Another Tales to Enjoy game? Yep, we regret to inform you that it’s true. But this time it’s the most repulsive of all…The Ugly Duckling. If you haven’t been following along as of late, Tales to Enjoy is a series of games that uses the same exact interface and activities, but swaps out one fairly tale or fable for another...
Review Densha de Go! 64 (Nintendo 64)
Lost in "trainslation"
The massive surge in the number of simulation games over the past few years has been nothing short of baffling. Years ago, Microsoft Flight Simulator was essentially the sole attraction in this specialist genre, but now it seems virtually anything can and should be turned into a simulation. Road Works Simulator, Farming...
Review Final Fight 2 (Wii U eShop / SNES)
The Sophomore Slump
The SNES port of the original Final Fight may have successfully translated the gameplay from arcade to home console, but it was missing some key elements: the third character Guy, an entire level and — most important of all — the vital two-player co-op mode. Capcom sought to rectify these shortcomings in the SNES-exclusive...
Review Final Fight (Wii U eShop / SNES)
Because the world needs more wrestling mayors
Back in the late '80s and early '90s — when arcades were still the biggest draw for dedicated gamers — Capcom was the company to beat when it came to coin-op success. It produced a string of classics around this time, most of which saw conversions on the popular home consoles of the period. While...
Lost in space
Just when you thought that the DSiWare service had nothing left to offer except some word puzzles and interactive children’s books, along comes Astro. It's quite clear that this is intended to pay homage to the Atari classic Asteroids in its design and gameplay, but it falls short of recapturing what continues to make the original a...
Review Milon's Secret Castle (3DS eShop / NES)
A secret best kept hidden
Hudson had many classics in its NES library - Adventure Island, Faxanadu and Bomberman are just a few of the great titles it gave us all back then. Milon's Secret Castle probably shouldn't be counted among those. As the title might reveal, you play as Milon, who has to make his way through a castle filled to the brim with...
Review Tales to Enjoy! Three Little Pigs (DSiWare)
A case of swine flu
If you’ve been hanging around the site during the past two weeks, chances are you’ve at least stumbled onto one Tales to Enjoy review. These games are compilations of activities targeted at kids who are just learning how to read, write, and develop basic problem solving skills. Each one uses an identical interface, but...
Review Letter Challenge (DSiWare)
Missing the mark
There isn’t really an interesting or unique way to introduce Letter Challenge, but that might be the point. There are plenty of word-based puzzle games available in the world, and so many of them already exist in one form or another on the Nintendo eShop, but that wasn’t enough to stop Enjoy Gaming from throwing another one...
Review Gradius (Wii U eShop / NES)
Just keeps shooting
To say that the original Gradius was influential on the evolution of the side-scrolling shoot 'em up would be a gross understatement. When it hit arcades in 1985 it was lauded for its amazing level designs and simple, yet wildly playable, power-up system. This NES release was one of the first home ports of the game and has become...
Review Tales to Enjoy! Puss In Boots (DSiWare)
Give it the boot
Tales to Enjoy! Puss in Boots is a compilation of activities and games geared towards the youngest audience, ages 3-6 years old. If you’ve taken notice of our review for Tales to Enjoy! Little Red Riding Hood, then you should know exactly what to expect here – exactly. The activities and interface are identical, but the...
Review Breath of Fire II (Wii U eShop / SNES)
Understandably lacking in freshness
The Super NES was home to what are still considered by many to be a some of the finest RPG experiences ever produced. It's a predictable lineup of big names, and Breath of Fire II doesn't often get a mention. If it was overshadowed in the past it perhaps has an early opportunity to earn new fans on the young Wii U...
Review Tales to Enjoy! Little Red Riding Hood (DSiWare)
You should probably stay out of the woods.
Tales to Enjoy! Little Red Riding Hood is a collection of activities and games designed to be accessible to young children, ages 3-6 year old. With eight modes in all – which consist of puzzles, games of memory, a digital colouring book, and of course a re-telling of the classic fairy tale – there’s...
Review Tecmo Bowl (3DS eShop / NES)
Watch that 3DS hinge on the snap
Before video game football became just as complex as real-life football, there was Tecmo Bowl. There weren't hundreds of plays with varying formations or special spin moves to worry about, in fact you didn't actually have to know much about the game of football to enjoy and play it. It was this simplicity that made...
Review Pinball: Revenge of the 'Gator (3DS eShop / GB)
A snappy pinball title
HAL's Pinball: Revenge of the 'Gator is a game which really needs to be approached with context in mind; back when it launched in 1990, real pinball games were still popular in arcades and digital representations were only just starting to offer the same level of enjoyment. Naxat's seminal Crush series — which includes Alien...
Review Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link - Unforgiving But Underappreciated
Zelda II, have you any tough dungeons? Yes sir, yes sir...
Back in the early days of several franchises, the second game in a series tended to be radically different from the first, as developers had not quite pinned down what they wanted the series to become. Take a look at Castlevania II or the Western Super Mario Bros. 2, for example. Zelda II:...
