Adamant

@cheetahman91: Uh, you know Tecmo is a japanese company, right? Also, they (obviously enough) got this game back in the day, too.

The Master System version of R-Type is far from pointless - it's notably different enough from the Turbografx version to be worth a look. The arcade version, on the other hand, would be more pointless - the TG game is more or less arcade-perfect already anyway.

I also really want the PC Engine version of Gradius on the service. Come on, Hudson/Konami/whomever.

@Drake: "If you mean that in Last Ninja 1 you cycle through items using the virtual keyboard, yes, that's fixed, in 2 you use the minus and plus buttons.
"

It's been a while since I've played it, but I'm pretty sure that was the case with the American VC release of Last Ninja 1 as well.

@Link79: "Is the jumping in Last Ninja 2 any less frustrating?"

Do you mean the river and swamp crossing scenes? If so, yes, they're thankfully gone.

@longtimegamer: "I never played the 1st Last Ninja is this one where you should play the first one first?"

Nah. The plot got summd up in the blurb for LN2 anyway.

"Is #2 better gameplay wise?"

Yes.

@Aquateen510: "WHERE ARE THE NINTENDO PUBLISHED OR HARDCORE GAMES?!?!? This VC game is NOT one of them!"

The Last Ninja 2 is not a "hardcore" game? Dude, do some research on the games you pretend to know anything about before making a complete idiot of yourself next time, eh?

For faults, the only thing that comes to mind is that it can get a bit tiresome at times when the game keeps sending wave after wave after wave of enemies at you, none of which are particularly hard to kill. The two sequels toned down the fighting a bit.

But yeah, absolutely brilliant game, very well-deserving of a VC release.

Ludo obscure? It's one of the most well-known board games ever. And what is "Pachisi"? Never heard of.

@Corbie - Yeah, that I can agree with (though there's still 5 characters per team, not 4 ) - the game will seem very overwhelming at first, throwing a whole ton of characters at you and expect you to make educated choices as for whom to use. All the Kunio sports games do this, but since you only use one character at a time here, it's more involving than it usually is.

Still a good game, though.

No, Drake said it came recommended. Corbie (who, for the record, hadn't even played the game when Drake wrote that) said you might want to take a pass. Nintendolife isn't one giant hive mind, of course there's going to be differing opinions.

(and as you might have figured, I'm with Drake here. This is a game well worth picking up)

Come on, guys, preschoolers are allowed to have games aimed at them, too. You're not forced to buy this, so don't fill the comments with complaints about how bad this is, eh?

"Having to control four characters per team also adds a layer of redundancy to the package that tends to make the events feel a bit too repetitive at times."

Uh.. I don't see what you're getting at here? You only use one character per event, the idea is to choose the one most suited for the event, but also keep HP in mind, since you don't recover between events.
(also, five characters per team, not four )

Not really sure what you mean by control problems, either - they work fine here. The learning curve is quite steep, and the lack of a selectable difficulty curve makes it hard to practice since the computer is permanently stuck on "kill the newbie" level, but that's the only real fault I have with the game.

It's primarily a multiplayer game, though - did you try it with others?

Yeah, I say you missed the mark on this one - this is easily a 7 or 8.

Well, it does have something else - the cheating aspect. You collect medals from events, then you trade them in for items in stores to make upcoming events easier. What else are you expecting, really?

And yes, some of the cheating involves buying new moves.

@Stuffgamer1: Did you not read the part where it was an olympics-style sports game? How long did you expect it to be?

Hell, it takes more time than Smash Bros 64, which everyone is constanly whining about here, if that puts it into perspective.

@longtimegamer: "Anyone know how long Crash n' the Boys is?"

Long? Uh, it's an olympics-style sports game with 5 events, hardly the type of game you judge by the length. Takes roughly 15 minutes to play through, I'd say.

It's also an awesome game, and well worth your money.

(ah yeah, and for people worried about button mashing, there really isn't a whole lot of it. Hammer Throw aside, all the events focus much more on timing and technique than how fast you can hammer a button.)

Heh, this is the kind of game where the weakness of a score-based review system rears it's ugly head. The score is accurate, it's a simplistic solitaire game and nothing more, and all the review really needs to do is inform about what features the game has and any eventual problems. But you just know the score is going to attract the usual crowd that only looks at the score and whines about shovelware in the comment section.
Definitely a worthy addition to the DSi library, but not an overly exciting one, and people already knew whether they wanted to buy it or not when it was first announced anyway. I'd get it if I had a DSi.

(Never heard of "Klondike solitaire" before - is that the same as Seven Solitaire? The one included in Windows under the name "Solitaire"?)

About time.
Yeah, it's not a particularly GOOD game in the eyes of most people, but it's a significant hole in the VC library, and it's got to have a larger audience than yet 'another' SF2 version that's not SSF2T.

Yep.

SF2':CE was also the last hucard release for the PC Engine, and is pretty notable for that.
Though yeah, I can't see much of an audience for this. Why not release something we DON'T have an almost identical version of?

As stated in the review, yes.

@maka: "Are the levels for the arcade version of Salomon's Key different than the ones in the NES version?"

Solomon's Key for the NES is based off the original arcade game, but isn't a direct port, more of a console-styled remake. Some levels in the NES game are based off levels from the arcade game, others aren't. Both games are very deserving of a place in your collection.

But it's the Jedi's Super Return, dude. Are you saying it's fitting for a Jedi to just get a regular old Return?

Havinf played it a bit more, I kind of start seeing where they were going with it, and it's somewhat starting to grow on me (The Bit Boy Wii stages got somewhat interesting towards the end, too). far from being a good game, and the entire "cheat the system" concept for hi scores is still absolutely ridiculous. The main quest is too easy and quick, the score system is too badly thought out, and "warp mode"gets really luck-oriented. The idea IS good, but it's just too badly executed to work very well. I assume an eventual sequel will address a lot of these complaints.

Ow, NGamer lost some credibility there. Online leaderboards? People play Contra for points? Saves? The game takes like 15 minutes to beat. And "only two players"? Come on. As for the "getting hit by things you can't see" complaint, all it takes is to pay attention to enemies that can fire projectiles when they are on-screen.

So, uh, I bought this, probably against my better judgement, and I'll have to echo the review - this isn't good. Hell, it's downright bad at places. "Bit Boy 64" has some of the most unfair and downright moronic level design I've ever seen in a game. The AI is essentially random, the game has zillions of dead ends you're forced into while hoping the AI chooses not to send a monster in there after you, and the placement of "friends" around the enemy base is just stupid. On top of that, there's way too little change between "eras". Bit Boy 2 adds an attack, and that's essentially it until Bit Boy Wii throws in a jump button. Where is the ability for extra lives, ammo refills, more hit points, actually evolving gameplay aside from graphics, anything? There's no feel on evolving through the eras here, it's just the same mazes with changing graphics growing more and more unfair as you go. "Bit Boy" and "Bit Boy 2" feel sort of like (bad) 2600 and NES games respetively, but from that point it loses all connection with the core era it's supposed to emulate (oh, and "Super Bit Boy", which is supposed to represent the 16-bit era, looks more like an early Master System game than anything).

The game also challenges you to gain hi scores, and I took it up on that, uncovering the most ridiculous problem of all - the key to reaching the top of the hi score list involves essentially cheating the game mechanic, deliberately killing yourself to gain points for the enemy's death, using the attack in enemy swarms to get in multiple kills then hoping you don't run into any situations where you need the weapon to survive, and worst of all, getting deliberate game overs at pre-planned points in order to continue with half your score restocked attacks, and respawned friends and fruit. What. The. Hell?

Warp mode is infinitely more enjoyable, due to the score actually being affected by skill rather than planning on when to cheat the game, then hope you get lucky enough to last all the way to the end, but the awful level design plagues this mode, too.

The idea is cute, but the core gameplay is ill-concieved (nothing but a similiar-playing maze game all the way through?) and the execution is beyond awful. A 5 is generous. The game feels much more like a 3.

Hard mode is about as hard as it should be, actually (though level 4 is still oddly easy). So yeah.

This actually looks quite enjoyable for 500 points.
It's going to be mostly a non-interactive background program, right?

Too easy, yeah, somewhat, but I wouldn't say it's too short. It's 5 full levels (none of that overhead sillyness from Contra 3) of Contra action for 10$. I'd say that's quite fitting.
While it definitely isn't as good as Contra 4, it's still very much worth your money.

"Gradius ReBirth was a bit too short and easy compared to previous Gradius games (especially because previous games in the series already were pretty short), but with Contra ReBirth, Konami has struck the balance just right: there's only five levels, but they're all decently sized and quite challening to get through."

Eh, I wouldn't say that's completely correct. Contra Rebirth is much easier than earlier entires in the series, too.

@Ratengo: Yeah, to tell the truth, I'm actually thinking about doing just that. The Japanese DSiWare library is so much more impressive than the others.

The Namco Museum compilations have always been a source of frustration. Ever since Namco's 6-game Playstation series ended (plagued by few games per disc, but otherwise good), Namco has done little but repackage the same games over and over again. Yes, Namco, Pac-man, Galaga and Dig Dug ARE great games, but don't you think we own them already? For a company with so many great classics on their resume, you really have to wonder why they're so reluctant to actually let us play them.

Amazing collection, this, with tons of great classics, as well as a couple great games I hadn't even heard of before. Bubbles is absolutely brilliant.

Should be mentioned that 720 has control issues, too. The arcade game was controlled with this weird "joy-disc" that didn't have a neutral position, but would always point in one direction. This can, logically enough, not be emulated very well with... any controller ever produced, really. The game is relatively playable, but it's still a notable problem.

Sounds like it. Damn, now I want those games even more. Come on, Nintendo, I'll even buy a DSi for these.

(from what you're saying, the wording should probably be "Blood/Dungeon of the Cursed Game" or something like that. Silly Japanese and it's lack of plural forms)

I translated the titles for someone else, so might as well post them here, too:

The Most Evil 2D Action Game Ever Volume 1: The Blood of Cursed Games
The Most Evil 2D Action Game Ever Volume 2: The Dungeon of Cursed Games

Let's Start Facening Today - Face Training Mini 1: Plain Small Face Course
Let's Start Facening Today - Face Training Mini 2: Lovely Smile Course
Let's Start Facening Today - Face Training Mini 3: Youthful Face Course
Let's Start Facening Today - Face Training Mini 4: Healthy Eyes and Mouth Course
Let's Start Facening Today - Face Training Mini 5: Face Refresh Course

They're a bit freely translated (the facening titles don't liteally say "let's start", but it's the best way to get the mening across in English, really), but you should get the idea.

(the "ketsu" in the first title should be "chi", btw)

(the 2D games have somewhat of a pun in the title - "saikyou" would normally be understood as "greatest", so if you don't see the kanji used, you get the complete opposite meaning of what these games REALLY are)

Data East was a rather low-key developer. They had a number of good games on the reperoire, but outside of Burger Time and Bump'n Jump, they never realeased any big classics.

Still, this collection should absolutely be worth getting.

I have to agree it was a mistake not having Shortay review this. The two Texas Hold'em games are so similiar people will want to know which is the one to spring money for, and when neither review references the other game and offers a comparison, it's impossible to read anything into the more or less identical scores. What people first and foremost want to know about this game is how it stacks up to it's competition, which can only be properly addressed by having both games reviewed by the same person.

While this is, essentially, the same game already available on the service, this version has it's own definite charm to it, and is still absolutely worth looking into.

Plus hey, it's 500 points versus the Turbografx game's 800.

(psst, it's "Dasshutsu". And yeah, the title more or less translates to "The Room Escape")

Never liked these Room Escape games, and from the review, it doesn't look like this one's going to convince me they're worth spending time on, but hey, 3 rooms of escalating complexity/difficulty for 500 points is probably a good deal for those who enjoy these things.

And yeah, this one has a decent chance of making it here. It's not like these games are completely unknown on these shores or anything.

It's worth noting that Pitfall is actually an import title. The Mega Drive version of the game has never been released in Japan before (they got it fo the SNES, though).

Yes. The "Seal of Quality" doesn't mean Uncle Nintendo has playtested the game and determined that this is something E-160 Feraligatr is going to personally enjoy. Is that really so hard to get into your heads, people? The seal means the game will work as advertised, and Nintendo will take responsibility if it doesn't.

@Turbo Genesis 64: The door to the boss was in a place where you'd have to turn towards the wall to see it, yes, but it's located in a tiny area with no way out, and the door is found in the most logical place it could be. It's extremely easy to find.

@Turbo Genesis 64: "The only major flaw I see is the last dungeon has the last Boss at such an insane place you probaly would never find him out of sheer luck or by going to a map of it on a fan site."

Bollocks, I found him right away. It's the obvious place to look.

@SSBFan 12: It's not. Super Empire Strikes Back has been confirmed for that day, and the chance of a 2-game week is next to zero.

FM sound isn't supported because this is the European version of Phantasy Star, which didn't have FM sound.
The European version of Wonder Boy II did, there was just no way to activate it.

Yeah, amazing game.
Don't be put off by the "grinding" comment either - as mentioned, it's only something you have to do at the very very very beginning of the game, it's not going to take long, and it's made relatively clear when you're strong enough. The power of your enemies will rise at a much more acceptable rate than grind-heavy computer RPGs from the time, so you'll always be ready for what comes at you.

@Ricardo91: "Is that an import? I've never heard of it."

It's an "import" in the sense that it was released in Japan and Europe only. So, uh, it's an import just as much as Dragon Warrior and Mega Man 6 were imports.

Yep, great stuff.
It's worth noting that this game can be found on "Konami GB Collection vol 1" (along with Castlevania Adventure, Nemesis and F1 Spirit), which is probably easier to get ahold of nowadays.

@Sean Aaron: "Yo, the guy from Dodgeball isn't exactly Mario or Mr. Driller is he?"
Kunio? Yeah, he's the mascot of the series, and a fairly well-known video game character in Japan. The series also have a lot of other distinct characters who appear in most of the games and have about as complex backstories as your average Mario character.

"Oh no, Nintendo is giving away stuff for free! Let's complain because we'd prefer being given something else for free instead!"

So is this a port, a remake, or a sequel to the Famicom game? How different is it? I only played the Famicom one.

Oh, and "Sai Kyoo Silver Star Shogi." - "Sai Kyoo" should be "Saikyou", meaning "Ultimate".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlMIDOc3YMk

Gameplay video. Looks pretty fun, actually.

"A hockey game with characters that resemble those from the Technos Dodgeball game"

Resemble? They ARE for the most part the same characters. It's like saying the Mario Kart characters resemble the Mario Tennis characters. Same franchise.

This game is awesome, hope we get it soon.

@29. E-160 Feraligatr: "Are there any other versions of Star Wars Racer?"

There's an arcade version, the best of them all, though it probably loses a lot of it's appeal without the Podracer cabinet. But it's awesome in the arcades.

As for the topic, meh, I'm a boring person. Give me Indy for the SNES, Zombies and Star Wars for the NES (and the other Super Star Wars games, but e know they're coming), and I'll be happy.

Oh, and point-and-click stuff on WiiWare, if they can get that working.