ICEknight

@Chunky_Droid "If zip is right, then that might be why Balloon Fight isn't 60hz, it could be more complicated than changing one value."
In the case of Balloon Fight, not even "one value" would need to be changed. Since the European version wasn't optimized to begin with, it will run properly at 60Hz.
So let's start asking Nintendo to release a patch, before they release more NES games running at 50Hz and they can say "it's too late to patch all the games now".

@Gavin_Rozee "Having the option to choose would probably significantly delay VC games in Europe"
Nope. Just slap two ROMs when needed and choose one or the other depending on the TV settings, simple as that.

@GiftedGimp "In fact back in the day Some US players used to import Pal Systems as they prefered the Higher resolution of 50hz pal games over the Faster Screen refresh."
Highly doubtful, first time somebody says this on the internet.

@GiftedGimp "Even with the border it was generally excepted because of the slower refresh game looked sharper. (Arguably)"
Now this just makes no sense, really.

@GiftedGimp "However Shemnue was often played in 50hz to take advatage of the sharper image."
No. Dude. Shenmue 1 and 2 supported PAL 60, which has both the best resolution and 60Hz refresh rate.

The arcade version was a great game. This NES version... really isn't.

It has aged very poorly and they could have easily released the arcade game like they did on the Wii.

What's the appeal of this game? I must have missed something.

I can't stand playing in 50Hz mode, so Xbox 360 version for me.

Why wasn't this mentioned in the review, anyway? Games locked at 50Hz should have 2 points automatically removed from their overall score.

5 out of 10? Dude, like, seriously.

You guys kind of make it sound like Super Fighter Team has actually developed the games they're releasing, but that would be wrong.

This game was actually pretty good for its time, and it's still a fun little portable gem. Needless to say, I've never gotten any of the mentioned glitches in this article. What emulator were you using?

It has some nice tunes, decent graphics (there's some neat screen effects gong on in the very first boss battle against Eyeclop) and a bit of a challenge, even.

The only odd thing about the controls is that releasing the jump button makes your character fall immediately, just like in Tiny Toon Adventures for the Mega Drive/Genesis, but it's not something hard to get used to.

I didn't know reviews nowadays made fun of the games' actual features... He can hit a tree stump for energy? Well, Mario hits "?" blocks for coins, perhaps that makes more sense.

In any case, I see this review was more about making fun of this game than anything else (how can a game with such a terrible cover be any good, right?) so, in this case, I've found the review worse than the game, sorry...

The graphics and animations look really sloppy, even for Game Boy Color standards... I can't imagine why anyone would praise this terrible sprite work in a review.

And yes, the similarities between the main character and Earthworm Jim are quite obvious; the game's creator already admitted they took inspiration from the EWJ series.

What a shameless ripoff of Earthworm Jim. Just watched the trailer and it looks terrible.

Hardly an "original 3DSware" when it oozes so much plagiarism.

It's a cheap Solomon's Key ripoff, only this time with damn ugly visuals, no charm to it whatsoever and a 3D effect that fails when you look at the background and there's two blocks of the same kind one next to the other (if you have access to the 3DS store, try watching the video and looking at the background).

Can't wait for more games from this company, including "Buzzle Pobble", "Metal Smug" and fan-favorite "Shawneek The Hog"!

Dibs on this being released untranslated and downgraded to 50Hz in Europe.

You know there's a 99% chance of it happening, and I don't see how a Japanese Virtual Console Arcade release with multiplayer could change SEGA of America/Europe's way of handling the VC Mega Drive releases.

"No, it sounds like a good game, except for being slow and tedious (it never says boring, and plenty of people find fun in tedious gameplay over short spurts)"
Except that "tedious" is a synonym for "boring". Only masochists would have fun with something tedious, really.

It would be nice if these reviews actually compared the DSi releases to the Game & Watch originals.

If I remember correctly, the graphics here are just upscaled from the GBA version, which were upscaled from the GBC version, so they don't look as similar to the original machines as they could have been.

@Betagam7
In case you need it, I've put a list of Mega Drive games that can be set to 60Hz without having to change a thing, over here:
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=9674&view=findpost&p=223074

Also, there's some info on how to convert most of them between regions.

Are you kidding? What license issues could Capcom possibly have with the name "Street Fighter"?

Please release the (faster and less censored) US version in Europe...

By the way, Ghoul Patrol isn't a "real sequel". The original ZAMN team had nothing to do with its development, and it wasn't even going to feature the same characters, originally.

It's usually the Genesis version, but you know, not all compilations are the same.

Hey, looks like Japan got this same game [b[with better music[/b]:

http://vc.sega.jp/vc_ms_rtype/

I now officially hate whoever is handling the SEGA VC releases in Europe.

Considering they'd release a 60Hz version of this in Europe, since it was never released over here, it would be an instant buy for me.

This review talks much about the TG16 version, but people should also know that the main character and the transformations were altered for that one (resulting in some less charming graphics, in my oppinion).

Also, it doesn't mention that this (European) SMS version runs slower than the TG16 version, including slowed down music during the whole game.

For those asking for Monster World IV, just forget about it. They would only release it completely untranslated, and playing such a game in Japanese is not the most fun experience you can have.

So, I got it and turns out the music sounds worse than the original arcade.
Why isn't this mentioned in the review? I thought you guys were reviewing the Virtual Console releases. >=(

EDIT: Looks like Altered Beast also suffers from the same sound issues that nobody mentioned here.

So you reset the game once and the sound issues never appear again?

"the touchscreen isn’t used nearly as much as it should be – most of the adventure is played using the D-pad and action buttons"

...You wanted to control a SNES platformer with the touch screen? Insane. =P

I'm amazed at how a game that's always been considered a classic gets a 3/10 in here and only then people start saying it sucks. The Mega Drive conversion was bad, but this?

This game's quite good for the 9 bucks it costs, very original in concept, has great graphics (the bosses really standing out), awesome music, many cool different characters to play as, and just deserves to be played by anybody who thinks of him/herself as a real gamer.

The only gripe this review has with the game is its repetitiveness...due to there only being two kinds of attacks (when many other games have just one), that the first and last beasts are the same (when there's 4 different beasts you can play as, unlike in any other game), and that you must go to one enemy, tap the buttons so it will die, then repeat? By that logic, almost any 16 bit game is likely to get another poor rating because of this.

So it looks like the point for this rating doesn't make any sense. I demand a re-review. =|

PS: Also, it runs at 60Hz instead of the 50Hz of the PAL Mega Drive version, so it deserves a better rating than that one.

It's quite better than the Mega Drive version... But if you already have it, you've already seen all there is to it albeit in a dumbed down form (and also with slower music and game speed, seeing how you live in PAL territory and the Mega Drive version runs at 50Hz instead of 60).

I agree 100% with Betamangam7's views on the 50Hz PAL issue. In fact, that's precisely the reason why I ended up not buying the highly-anticipated Hanabi Festival releases of Pulseman and Puyo Puyo 2... So yes, they're even losing money due to somebody's 50Hz fetish, everybody would win if they added optional 60Hz support.

It's not that hard to convert the European games to run at 60Hz, and most of them don't even need any changes, as I've documented at some other forums. At most, they'd just need to edit a few values in the header and, for a few games, patch some additional startup routine.

And in fact that's just what they did for the American release of Alien Soldier! From what I saw by dissecting that release, they just applied a small patch to the European version so it would boot and run at 60Hz with the correct music speed. That was already one of the most complicated cases (including startup and music speed patches), so they're obviously capable of doing it with the other games. Why not? Probably because, as Damo said, most people just don't know about this.

The strangest thing is how they deliberately dumb down their Hanabi releases. They changed parts of the code in them so they would boot in the slower 50Hz mode, instead of doing it the other way around! So instead of improving the games, they put their efforts on making them play and sound worse. How odd (and stupid) does that seem?

So please, let's make people aware of this issue instead of pretending it doesn't exist. I also missed in this review any mentions of the MD version of Golden Axe running slower than it should, which is one reason why PAL users should pick the Arcade version instead.

If there's a site that should make a noise about it, I think it's this one. I feel it even deserves its own small mention in each PAL review (something I've always missed, so I know what I'm buying), and at least an article on the issue, which I'd be more than pleased to help with, if needed.

*@brooks83 * Does the speed in those C64 games change to 50Hz when you change the Wii's configuration? If so, at least they let you choose between one speed and the other (there were NTSC C64 systems as well, after all).

No rumble makes me sad.

Funny how NEO-GEO games like Magical Drop 3 can see a release through a non-SNK collection.

Infidels! How dare you not see Calculon's oppinion as the only truth? =P

MegaMan 3 for me. =P

...Or perhaps Devil World. Gotta love obscure first-party titles.

@38. LEGEND MARIOID
"I think people are being to over-strict on the fact its only got d-pad support. Its still a banging download. Download it even if you have a passing interest in the game, no matter your contol method preference"
So you're basically telling us: Just quit complaining and spend your money on this game, even if there's other similar alternatives with better controls.

@39. Sean Aaron
"Taito did a really good job of adapting the d-pad; it never feels like compromising."
Adjusting left/right movement to a D-pad doesn't exactly require rocket science. It's precisely the easiest way to do it.

The controls in Block Breaker Deluxe were perfect for this kind of game... It's quite lame to only have D-pad support for this. Maybe next time.

Sheesh, this game hasn't been released over NA yet? Everybody else and the people who import games have already played it and probably gotten tired of it.

Why the huge delay, anyway? They only had to change the title screen, didn't they?

First screen unveils "remastered" 2D graphics. There's still hope.

Okay. Why does Doh look so much like a penis in this version.

16-Kirk Wrote:
"I don't think it's bad but it just didn't feel like it was a genuine Nintendo platformer and instead felt more like a fan project that tried to copy Nintendo but never got it quite right."

And that's exactly how I feel about this game. It feels like they just took the original and hacked it with worse sound and visuals.

It's a shame Artoon is wasting the opportunity of working on new IPs with the talent of Naoto Oshima (Sonic's creator).

"Good looking" game? What screens are you guys looking at?

Instant buy, if it's not too expensive. I just love the original.

Who is that DeceasedCrab and why should we care.

Oops, since Gameloft just got the rights to EWJ we might never see this game on the VC.

2D graphics or bust.

@32. redflicky said:
"To me it runs kinda ok."
Thing is, at 60Hz it runs as it was intended, not just "kinda ok". =|
Did I mention that there's no reason at all for them to lock this game at 50Hz, anyway? The reasons why they'd do it are still unknown.

@redflicky- Yes, these games do run too slowly at 50Hz, a speed at which they weren't designed to run. If you haven't played them at 60Hz you just don't know what you're missing. They can make them run at 60Hz without any effort, so why not? (Also, continuous exposure to a 50Hz display does much more damage to your eyes, if you didn't know)

And since my previous post was deleted (lol forum censorship), I stand by my point that this site should inform people about any changes made to these games, be it a pink spiderman or anything noticeable. That's something that should differentiate these reviews from, say, Gamefaqs'.

@Damo - That's what I meant, I think the reviews should be given scores more based on how they've aged, and not just copy whatever ratings they got back then.

A rating as high as a 7 for a game that was admittedly not too good by the reviewer, just isn't fair to other games that ended up being overlooked jewels.

So the review says it has aged terribly, and it gives it a 7? What.

Zombies Ate my Neighbors for SNES (the Mega Drive version was terrible in comparison).

Also... the US version, please, not the censored crap that was released in Europe back then.

Pink. Right.

What in the world were they thinking?

The games I'd buy:

-Puzzle Bobble
-Windjammers
-Magical Drop 3
-Aero Fighters 2
-Viewpoint
-Neo Bomberman

...But they'll be released running at crappy 50Hz over here, so I won't be getting any NEO-GEO stuff from the VC.

Instant buy for me, unless they screw it up for some odd reason (50hz, bad sound emulation, etc).

Games I'd buy as soon as they're released:

-Earth Bound (SNES)
-Donkey Kong (Arcade)
-Mario Bros (Arcade)

I give up on any console game that has been released previously in Europe, as they'll run at crappy 50Hz and I don't want my eyes to bleed and explode. Else, I'd ask for Tetris Attack.