Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for March 1st, 2010
Sometimes, being a Nintendo fan gives that person something to cheer about, especially if they’re dealing with fans of the other two consoles. From innocuous things like “We have Mario and Zelda!” to obscure musings like “Hey, nice of your entertainment divisions to finally be seeing a profit!” to low blows like “We didn’t just have to spend two days not playing our consoles because your engineers are too stupid to know that 2010 isn’t a leap year!”, people that actually engage in console fanboyism sometimes have reasons to cheer.
Seeing Mega Man 10 weeks before the other consoles is as good a reason as any.
But before we get to the big weight sitting on the rest of the update like a log, we have a Virtual Console game to look at first. Best of all, it doesn’t suck!
Fatal Fury Special
Developer: SNK
Publisher: SNK
Original System: Neo Geo CD/Arcade
Original Release Date: September 16th, 1993
Price: 900 Wii Points/$9
Mark B: Fatal Fury Special is essentially Fatal Fury 2: Turbo, and I mean that in the most flattering way possible. A larger character roster than either of its predecessors, a mild speed increase and a general overall improvement to the flow of combat makes Fatal Fury Special the point in the franchise where it actually became, at the risk of pissing off some SNK fans, playable. Fatal Fury prior to this game was something of a stiff mess, and while there were some neat ideas in the series, it took Fatal Fury Special to really bring them together with a game that was enjoyable and well designed, especially when compared to something like Street Fighter II and the eight million version of that on the market.
As a 900 point/$9 download, so long as you don’t own the Fatal Fury compilation for PS2 or this game specifically for XBLA, this is a worthwhile buy if you like fighting games in general. You’ll want to have a Classic Controller or Gamecube controller do to anything with it, mind you, but if you like fighting games I imagine you’d have one already. Fatal Fury Special is one of the better games in the series, and fighting fans have every reason to buy this, both because it’s a classic and because it’s still pretty solid, all in all.
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Christopher Bowen: I usually don’t tell people to buy these types of games because they’re available elsewhere, and not for an outlandish fee. For PS2 owners, that’s exactly what I’m doing; as Mark stated, it’s on the Fatal Fury compilation. However, for those that don’t already own it, this is a solid purchase, even at $9. The game is well balanced and controls great, and due to the fact that this is a direct Neo Geo port, and not like the crummy console ports I grew up with, there’s no worries about it not being Arcade Perfect™
Fatal Fury Special is worth $9 for fighting fans, and especially worth it for Neo Geo fans.
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Now, let’s address the big issue this week. There are three games for the WiiWare, but due to the other two being extremely casual in nature, Mega Man 10 – at $10, plus another $8 for all of the DLC – is really the only one that matters. I don’t think I need to describe this for most people here – if I do, get one of the earlier Mega Man games on Virtual Console, imagine one of those made in 2010, and there you go – but I do have something to say on this subject. For those of you who don’t want to hear me rant for a few paragraphs, just go past the cut, but for everyone else, allow me a bit of soapbox time.
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Back in 2008, when Capcom made Mega Man 9, I loved it. For me, and a lot of other people, it was a return to roots for a series of games that had strayed from those roots to pander to the type of people that get their anime fix from 4Kids. I hated most of the new Mega Man games, which were being spit out by Capcom at a record pace while they spent the rest of their spare time closing down studios that were making games worth playing. To me, Mega Man 9 was worth it; even if you have to go back twenty years to make something worth playing, just make something worth playing.
In one of our first Ask the Kliq articles, Mark B. did something that was almost unheard of at the time: he criticized Mega Man 9. Let me state that at the time, this was almost heretical:
First off, while I imagine I’m going to be branded a heathen by the staff for this, it needs to be said: unless Mega Man 9 is coming to WiiWare, XBLA and PSN for five dollars (which, by all indications, it is not), I’m not at all excited about it. Bionic Commando Re-Armed and Mega Man Powered Up are perfectly fine examples of “retro” gaming, in that they mostly retain the old, 8-bit play mechanics of the games they’re based on, while also featuring updated visuals and audio, and as such, they’re pretty neat. Releasing a four megabyte NES game as a grand celebration of all things old-school and charging me ten dollars for it is highway robbery, and while I’m absolutely certain that most people don’t agree with me, I don’t care. If you think that paying ten dollars for an NES game when Nintendo is charging five for almost all of the other NES games is fine and dandy, be my guest, and when you’re sitting around complaining about how no one makes original games anymore I’ll be certain to stop off and spit in your eye.
In my staff commentaries that year, I had Mega Man 9 on my list of games at #3. I addressed this criticism thusly:
I remember our own Mark B. telling us that we were idiots for actually buying Mega Man 9, because once developers see that they can make easy money resurrecting 20 year old technology at 2008 prices, that’s all we’ll get. Though I can see his point, when it comes to things being done on occasion, it doesn’t get better than what Capcom gave us this year. So long as it doesn’t get back to NES-era levels of ridiculous, I’m happy. Besides, would we all rather have a game as awesome as Mega Man 9, or Mega Man Advent: ZX? I’ll have more of the former, thank you.
Looking back, I wonder if Mark was onto something, as we might be going back to just that: NES-era levels of ridiculousness.
It’s been a whole sixteen months since Mega Man 9 was initially released on WiiWare. There’s already talk about Mega Man 11. Yet, even now, the high-water marks for the series are either Mega Man 2 or 3, depending on who you ask. This isn’t because Mega Man 4-8 were bad games; they were very good. It’s because once Mega Man 4 hit, the market started to become saturated, and 5 + 6 didn’t do anything to help that. The market was becoming so inundated to the series that Capcom decided to spin it off with Mega Man X, in an effort to mature the series. It worked, so naturally, we’re up to Mega Man X8 now. Now, in 2010, Capcom’s seen that retro works… so we’re up to two “new” retro games in sixteen months.
Capcom is the Starbucks of videogame franchisers, more so than even Activision. If something works, they will drive it into the ground, and keep driving until there’s nothing left. I was so excited in 2008 because even if it was a case of “been there, done that”, it was better than all of the other stuff Capcom was driving into the ground at that time. Now that I see we’re returning to our roots in more ways than one, I am not as excited. I just wish I had Mark’s initial foresight on this matter.
Will I buy it? Just like I bought the first six Mega Man games and both the Mega Man Anniversary Collection and the Mega Man X Collection, I probably will, eventually. So maybe I’m part of the problem.
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Yeah… so we have other games, too! Happy Hammerin’ is a $5 game of Whack-a-Mole. You read that right; a $5 game of Whack-a-Mole, with admittedly some novel ideas regarding incorporating play mechanics from a carnival into a videogame. In all actuality, I think it’s interesting; not as interesting as a new Mega Man, but I can definitely see this being worth $5, especially for people with kids. Also, we have Rage Darts for $6. Didn’t I just chronicle another dart game on this system recently? Do we really need another one?
We have four games on the DSiWare, one of which I’m actually familiar with. Let’s Golf is a golf game very similar to other meter-based golf games like Hot Shots Golf and Pangya: Fantasy Golf, with four courses overall to play, and decent responsiveness for being on a touch screen. I own the iPhone version, which I bought at $2. The DSiWare game, on the other hand, it a mystifyingly high EIGHT DOLLARS. This is unbelievable, especially when considering that the text for the DSi version specifies three courses and forty-five holes. That’s one course and twenty-seven holes LESS than the iPhone’s version, with the same graphics and gameplay, for $6 MORE. Why? I’m tempted to call Gameloft and seriously ask them this. I’m sure I won’t get an answer – a company like Gameloft can’t afford to piss Nintendo or Apple off – but needless to say, you should buy this game ONLY for the iPhone. For DSi owners, ignore this, unless you like being fleeced. If I was a DSi owner, I’d be livid.
We also have VT Tennis, a $5 alternative to Virtua Tennis. I won’t hazard a guess as to how this one is; tennis games all look the same, and I’d have to play a bit of this first, but oh look at that, Nintendo doesn’t give out “Lite” or demo versions of their games. Gobulous Party is a $5 collection of minigames. And Flips: Terror in Cubicle Four is an “interactive book” from Electronic Arts. I remember they used to have toys that did things similar to what this does; meaning, you hit an image and see a closer look, or hit something and hear a sound. I forget what they were called, but the idea was great. This is a 397 page book with large font and pictures, so there’s a lot to look at, and this looks very interesting for young readers – I’m thinking ages nine through twelve – with a $5 price tag.
Overall, we have a pretty decent week. A good VC game, a good VC game regardless of my opinions on Capcom, and a couple of other worthy purchases. Until next time, this is Christopher Bowen, who just remembered they put an “Easy Mode” into the newest Mega Man. He is sighing at the state of modern gamers, and will now go back to telling kids to get off his doggone lawn.
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Nintendo Download Wrap-Up for February 15th, 2010
In the two plus years that we’ve been doing these wrap-ups, whether just for the Virtual Console or for the entire service, just about every article has had a lot of comments about whatever the Virtual Console has put out. When we started profiling the other downloadable titles on the WiiWare and DSiWare, most of them only got as many comments as the article’s writer gave; most of the attention went to the VC game, as that’s what we know.
This week sets a precedent: despite a big-name VC release, it’s the first time we’ve had many more responses to a WiiWare title than we have for a Virtual Console title. In fact, we had one response for the VC game, and that one comes from me only because I’m writing the piece and don’t want to screw up my formatting.
Again, that might be surprising considering the name of the game, but then again, maybe we’re all just fatigued by the franchise…
Sonic & Knuckles
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Original System: Sega Genesis
Original Release Date: October 17th, 1994 (NA)
Price: 800 Wii Points/$8
Christopher Bowen: Well, when it comes to milking and whoring out their old franchises, Sega can’t be accused of half-assing it. They’re completionists!
Sonic & Knuckles itself was an OK game. It played very similar to Sonic 3, only with the addition of Knuckles as a good guy, in the start of the unfortunate trend of bringing the focus of Sonic games away from Sonic himself. But what made it stand out was that it supported lock-on technology that made Knuckles a playable character in Sonic 2 + 3. The best part of the VC port is that it supports the lock-on technology for anyone that owns the other versions of Sonic already, meaning you can play the VC Sonic 2 with Knuckles if you want.
That sounds like a great deal, but anyone who knows me know can sense the gigantic “BUT” coming, and here it is. For one, this isn’t new technology. The first emulation of the lock-on technology was put into Sonic Jam, which was released only fourteen years ago. While I realize that most people cannot play Sonic Jam anymore, anyone with a Wii can play the Sonic Mega Collection, which is available right now on eBay for literally under $10. If you own a PS2, Sonic Mega Collection + is also available for about the same price, and comes with extra games as well. In short, it’s laughably easy to find a compilation that has more than what the Virtual Console is offering in terms of what works with Sonic & Knuckles – three games – at under half the price.
In short, if you bought Sonic 2 + 3 for the Virtual Console for a combined $16, you already got taken for a ride, so what’s another $8, if only to justify a dumb purchase?
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Of course, no one really cares about yet another Sonic title, and our staff was no different. Due to the high volume of feedback we received about our premier WiiWare title, I’m going to give it it’s own section in the write-up.
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney : JUSTICE FOR ALL
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Original Systems: Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS
Original Release Date: October 22, 2002 (JP GBA), January 16, 2007 (NA DS)
Price: 1000 Wii Points/$10
Mohamed Al-Saadoon: If you’ve ever played the game on the DS, there really is no reason to buy it again on the Wii, seeing as they’re the exact same game.
As for the game itself: If you loved the first game, you’ll love the second one. I’d venture to say that Justice for All is more of an expansion of the first game than a true sequel (this being Capcom after all) and the only real “feature” is the addition of “Psyche-locks” which are mostly lazy efforts to artificially extend game time and keep you from the best part of the game: The Courtroom (now with extra whips!).
All in all, the weakest entry in the original trilogy but still worth 10$ in my opinion.
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Aileen Coe: Justice For All is a good continuation of where the first game left off, and introduces the Psyche-Lock feature, though if you own the DS version, it’s not really worth it to get this version as well since both versions are identical. However, if you picked up the Wii version of the first game, this is pretty much a necessity. While it’s not the strongest entry in the series (my vote would go to the third game) and is the shortest of the trilogy (unless for some kooky reason you want to pretend Rise From the Ashes doesn’t exist), it’s still well worth playing.
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Aaron Sirois: I can say without any problems that Justice For All is the reason I bought a DS. A couple of hours spent playing my friend’s copy and I knew I had to play the whole series.
Nonetheless, it is the weakest game of the original trilogy. With only four cases, it is also the shortest. There are still plenty of great moments, and the end case has some really great characters. It just isn’t as strong as the first game and can’t compare with the sheer brilliance that was Trials and Tribulations
If you’ve played the first game but not this one, you should get your hands on it. Whether that means searching for a DS copy or just buying it off of the WiiWare service, it doesn’t matter. This game is worth your time.
Of course, fans of the series are probably just going to spend their time on the new game.
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There are two other WiiWare releases. The first is WarMen Tactics, what appears to be a shooter with some confusing gameplay and a LAUGHABLY bad trailer video. The story is that, in the near future, the world can no longer be controlled by normal means, so all the governments of the world decide to ally with the UN to create a singular Department of Control to police all countries of the world. You are a member of a resistance of former conventional police and military members, resisting the “new world order”, as the narrator of the video puts it. In other words, it’s basically old-fashioned police (who I hate) vs. a new, modern police force of what appear to be mechs and RoboCop wannabes (who I also hate). Can I root for a meteor shower? It appears that hiding, moving and shooting are all done via the Wiimote, though I’m not quite sure how it’s supposed to be intuitive with that control scheme. At $8, I would say wait for reviews before deciding to plunk down any money on what appears to be a clunker at first glance. Also out is Art of Balance, which surprisingly isn’t a game that requires the Balance Board, but is instead a puzzle game involving placing various objects on a pedestal so that they stay balanced, and don’t fall off into the water. It seems a bit costly at $8, though to be fair, there are a fair amount of options thrown in such as competitive and cooperative play modes. I can honestly say this title has me intrigued.
On DSiWare, we have no less than five new titles. The big name of the lot is Prehistorik Man. If this name sounds familiar to gamers who were around for the 16 bit era, it should be; it was a DOS game that was ported to the Super Nintendo and later the Game Boy Advance. Having played the Super Nintendo version, I can confirm that it is a paint-by-numbers, era-specific platformer that will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s played any remotely similar title, ever. Needless to say, I’m not too enamoured with it, especially at $8, but anyone desperate for a new game, or who liked the previous iterations (especially old PC gamers) could stand to check it out. Another big name is out, in the form of Scrabble Classic, what appears to be a functional form of the classic board game for $8. This sounds like a safer purchase, especially for people who want something to do on a long trip. Real Soccer 2010 is a football game from Gameloft that uses the touchscreen for trick moves and the like. Anyone desperate for a football game might give it a passing glance, but for $8, I want a little more than a gimmick for my football fix. Spaceball: Revolution is a puzzle game that involves copying on the bottom screen what appears on the top screen, and though I can’t get any gameplay videos to check out what the gameplay actually is, looking at screenshots is giving me Super Glove Ball flashbacks. At least we finally found a game that costs less than $8 ($5). Finally, we have Spotto!, a game about a duck trying to save his friends from ghosts by using bombs. I have absolutely no clue how it plays, as there are no videos, screenshots are inconclusive and Google is no help, but Nintendo’s description makes it sound like Yoshi’s Island for kids. At least it’s cheap, at $2.
Overall, we have an overpriced game that requires two other overpriced games to make it worthwhile, but we also have a huge release with the second Phoenix Wright game making it onto WiiWare. At $10, that one’s definitely a steal. Everything else is buyer beware, but PW will get anyone that buys it a lot of gameplay.
Until next time, this is Christopher Bowen, who is currently getting the stink-eye from his fiancée because he never got into the Phoenix Wright games.
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Virtual Console Wrap-Up for December 28th, 2009
Downloadable services are almost like children. They start out awkward and wobbly, eventually grow a bit, and make people cry as they reach full maturation and show their full potential. Lately, we’ve seen Nintendo’s downloadable services take their SATs and apply for colleges with some solid weeks, including the expansion into arcade titles and some very good WiiWare titles. In all, Nintendo is hosting over five-hundred games for download, and like most of the past few weeks, this week carries a few notable titles.
Let’s start with an original Super Nintendo launch title on the VC:
Pilotwings
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Original System: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Original Release Date: 8/13/1991
Price: 800 Wii Points/$8
Mohamed Al-Saadoon: I remember Pilotwings was one of the the first titles my rich cousins (the ones that always get the shiniest new consoles first) got for their SNES and when I saw it for the first time (it was the first sky diving mission I recall) it blew my freaking mind. Mode 7 may be a byword for primitive and nostalgic today but at the time it was like the time you first laid eyes on Crysis, a metaphorical leap in graphics compared to the 8 bit NES.
Even when I got my own SNES I could never track down a copy of the game so I resorted to playing the game whenever I visited my cousins and thoroughly enjoyed getting all the licenses and surprising my trainers with perfect scores. The final missions on the “Expert” mode were very difficult and I never got to finish the game thanks to the damn hang gliding missions (Which were also the worst missions in the sequel) but the Desert Strike-esque helicopter missions more than made up for it (even though they made no sense within the context of the game).
I can point to Pilotwings and it’s sequel Pilotwings 64 as the single most influential things that got me interested in aviation. It’s because of them I’m a fan of Ace Combat, IL-2 Strumovik and the Strike series of games (Desert Strike, Nuclear Strike,…etc).
This is a definite must buy for me until Pilotwings 64 comes out on Virtual Console.
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Christopher Bowen: Pilotwings blew my mind when I was a kid; it doesn’t seem like a lot now, but Mode 7 was amazing when I was eleven, especially after playing the NES for so many years. It was one step closer to getting arcade perfection at home, as some arcade games were using similar technology by this point. Furthermore, the controls were very nice, and the game had a good progression system, combining graphics, gameplay and a good difficulty curve.
In 2009, I can see Pilotwings more for what it was: a tech demo that tried some new things, knowing that there wasn’t much competition on a new system. In short, it’s a strategy Rockstar tried years later with Table Tennis on the 360. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that this was a great game for it’s time, and is worth $8.
Pilotwings might be the only game on the VC, but Nintendo’s other downloadable services are loaded for bear with quality titles. To start with, the big release on the WiiWare service is Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth, a $10 remake of The Castlevania Adventure, the ancient Game Boy title. While the original game wasn’t very good, Rebirth promises to clean up a lot of the issues that a twenty year old, grayscale Game Boy game had. Our own Alex Lucard has already beaten the game, and states that it’s not bad for $10; however, he was able to beat it in two hours, so if you need your games to be long affairs, beware of that.
Also on the service is Rabbids Lab, a $5 game from Ubisoft that features the Rabbids that started in Rayman. Unlike most of those other games, this seems to be nothing more than a way to interact with the little critters, such as dressing them up, putting clothes on them or just shaking them around. This doesn’t seem to me like a good choice for money, but Lucard is the authority on these guys. Eat! Eat! Fight! is also out, via Tecmo. For $10, it seems to be a combination of a button mashing fighter and a puzzle game, and while it doesn’t look well balanced, it does seem to be a lot of fun at the very least. Finally, we have The Magic Obelisk, an action adventure game for $5, which is most notable because it’s developed by Game Arts, of Lunar, Grandia, Thexder, Slipheed and Super Smash Bros. Brawl fame. Just being a Game Arts game, to me, makes this a worthy $5 purchase, not to mention the fact that from what I’ve seen, it looks outstanding.
The DSi service has no fewer than five new titles, including another huge name: The Oregon Trail. I don’t have a DSi, but I can talk definitively about this game seeing as it’s the same game that I’ve had for my iPhone for almost a year. It’s the same gameplay we grew up with on old Tandy computers, but it’s been simplified a bit; on the one hand, the interface isn’t as punishing as those old floppy disc games were, and there are a lot more minigames to keep people invested in the game. On the other hand, it’s much easier unless it’s jacked to the hardest difficulty level, and the new additions – basically, using the DSi camera in-game – seem to be needless. Furthermore, the $8 price tag is $2 more than the iPhone’s price, which might have gone down since I originally bought it (postscript: after spanking iTunes for misbehaving, I checked; it’s down to $5). Anyone who really liked the old game should consider this, but if you have both an iPhone and a DSi, get the iPhone version instead.
Along with The Oregon Trail is Sudoku Sensei, a $5 game of Sudoku for anyone who hasn’t played enough Sudoku by now. This game sells itself on being extra hard for Sudoku veterans, so if you need super-hard Sudoku, this might be worth your money. There is also Master of Illusion Express: Psychic Camera for $2, an app that lets you use your DS to do cheap parlour tricks; it’s only $2, and at first glance, that seems to be $3 too many. Glow Artisan is a puzzle game that advertises 100 levels in it; for $5, puzzle fans might be intrigued, though I think that’s a bit much for a game like this in a crowded market. Finally, there’s Arcade Hoops Basketball, a $2 game that tries to replace the ball shooting games one would see in an arcade or a bar. Whether this game also has the tiny rims that are virtually impossible to put anything into remains to be seen.
Finally, we have a programming note for our regular readers. Starting next week, we’re going to be expanding our downloadable title articles into three parts:
Tuesdays: Nintendo Download Wrap-Up
Thursdays: Microsoft Download Wrap-Up
Fridays: Sony Download Wrap-Up
The Nintendo piece will be structurally no different than past editions; we will still give our thoughts on the Virtual Console games (since we can speak definitively about them) and will strive to get you as much information as we can about the other services and their games, so that we can help you make the most informed purchasing decisions possible. We look forward to bringing this to you in 2010, and expanding our coverage for our readers.
Until then, this is Christopher Bowen, who is treating himself for dysentery.
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Virtual Console Wrap-Up – 12/21
Nintendo hit a milestone this week: their 500th downloadable title! Nintendo is celebrating by releasing a couple of very big-name titles for the Virtual Console. The question is: are these titles worth your money?
Let’s find out.
Super Smash Bros.
Developer: HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo
Original System: Nintendo 64
Original Release Date: 4/27/1999
Price: 1000 Wii Points/$10
Aaron Sirois: You can say what you want about the SSB series. That the gameplay isn’t deep enough. That’s it’s just a cash in. Whatever. All I know is that I’ve had more fun Falcon Punching Mario off of the Grey Fox than in almost any other game I’ve played.
When I dig out the old N64, there are generally only a small handful of games that I play for old time’s sake. I have to get the new high score on Starfox, I have to defeat Gannon one more time in Ocarina of Time, I have to beat the Joker Cup on F-Zero X, and I have to beat some skulls in the original Smash Bros.
It might not have the sheer number of characters and options that Melee and Brawl offer, but you can’t beat the original for nostalgic goodness. If you don’t already have a copy for the N64, picking it up on the VC will be nothing short of a sweet blast from the past.
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Mohamed Al-Saadoon: Super Smash Bros was awesome when it came out and managed to give Nintendo a new system selling franchise to wield next to Mario, Zelda and Mario Kart.
The N64 versions pretty much covers all the basic gameplay mechanics in Melee and Brawl but, but it just has less of everything. Less characters, less stages, less items and less moves. There really is no reason to buy this game if you already have Melee or Brawl other than for sheer nostalgia value because it has not aged well.
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Alex Lucard: Although I am very hesitant to call the SSB series a fighting game, I won’t hesitate in saying that the games are fun. They feature simple to learn controls and a wide range of characters that are sure to please anyone who picks it up. Oddly enough, even though F-Zero has never been that big state-side, I know a lot of people who love Captain Falcon.
Anyway, SSB featured a such a simple concept, I’m surprised it hadn’t been done before. Nintendo gathered up it’s biggest characters from all its major franchises and made a game where you could beat the hell out of them with each other. Simple addicting gameplay and the ability to finally let Donkey Kong murder Mario for taking away his precious Pauline was possible.
The series has proved to be one of Nintendo’s most popular, to the point where Sega and Konami have asked to have some famous characters of their own make it in. Speaking of Konami, we’ve seen them try a version of their own with a Japanese only game that was nowhere as good, as well as Castlevania: Judgement. Even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have gotten into the act. Although all of these have been fun to varying degrees, none have matched the SSB series for fun and quality.
For ten bucks, this is a pretty good deal. At the same time, you can get the expanded (and superior) GCN version for about $19.99 (or less) these days, and Brawl for the Wii for a little bit more than that. The newer games feature more characters, moves and other modes of play if you’re into that. But if you want to see the series’ origin, this is where to look.
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Guy Desmarais: Super Smash Bros. is a game that I have spent quite a bit of time on back in the days. The simple controls, combined with gameplay that was so much fun we wondered how we could have lived so long without it, have made this game a huge hit at parties.
Still, the same thing happened with Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. We also lost many nights paying these games, which were just as fun, if not more, than the original. After all, the sequels keep more or less the same controls (only the additions of grappling recoveries and the Final Smash comes to mind as new) but greatly improved the characters roster and the number of modes. The latest even offers a competent platformer that could have been a decent game on its own and a story that made all Nintendo fan-fiction writers’ pants explode.
So if you have never, ever played a Smash Bros. game before and would really like to start with the first game because you are that much of a collector, then go for it. Hell, even if you own the latest instalment, this game will not let you down. It’s just that both games after that were basically the same, but more and more stuff added on top with each passing version. Super Smash Bros. is a great game, it just might feel a bit outdated when compared to its younger brothers.
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Aileen Coe: Considering how large the series has gotten and how much hype each release gets (especially with Brawl), I’m kind of surprised this hasn’t happened sooner, even as another way to build up hype for Brawl. Nonetheless, it’s simple good fun, and the sheer number of crossovers is many a Nintendo fanboy’s wet dream.
That being said, if you’ve played the later two iterations, this may feel like a step back, considering the expanded rosters and added mechanics in those versions. But if you’re feeling particularly nostalgic and no longer have the original to play, or if you’re a stickler for playing things in order, this may be worth the points for you.
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Chris Bowen: I remember when this came out how excited Nintendo fans were for the crossover potential; it would have made an even bigger dent, I feel, if 1) the N64 wasn’t a virtually dead console by this point, and 2) the controller wasn’t the worst in history.
Once all is considered, this is a good Smash Bros. game for people that don’t have Smash Bros. It’s only $10, and though it’s a bit of a step back compared to the seminal Gamecube and Wii games, it’s not THAT much of a step back; the fighting is the same, retarded button-mashing that I’ve personally despised for years. With that said, Gamestop has the far superior Brawl for $15 used (verified literally five minutes ago); considering the Wii is backwards compatible, it’s hard to justify this $10 download over that.
With that said, for the eighteen people left in North America that don’t have any version of Smash Bros. and are interested in trying it, this is at least always guaranteed to be in stock.
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DJ Tatsujin: It’s interesting to note that not only does this entry come in amid the 500th downloadable offering available on the Nintendo Wii, but this title has also recognized 10 years recently. As such, given how weak most of the year has been, Super Smash Bros. is a strong card to play from Nintendo’s hand. Really, the only thing going against picking this one up for $10 are the two other Smash Bros. games you can pick up for play on the system. The title’s visuals haven’t aged the most gracefully due to the blocky nature of some of the models, but it still sounds fantastic and although the single-player mode is frankly pathetic, the classic multiplayer still lives in this original effort.
It’s hard to type up something that most of our staff hasn’t already said, but in the series’ humble beginnings, the frantic fighting was still fun, just not anywhere near perfect. Aside from some graphical quirks and meager offerings for a single player, four players can easily make a night out of Super Smash Bros. When you bring the title into today’s world, however, after a brawl or two, players will be more than ready to move on to either Melee or Brawl for their much more expansive offering of features. If you’re curious about the series’ origin, Super Smash Bros. still holds up in its crazy multiplayer bouts and features classic game play, however, for the most part, players today will be better off holding onto their cash in exchange for Melee or Brawl. It can’t be argued though, that $10 for the title is a bit of a deal compared to the $20 area you usually see this cart floating at.
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Mark B.: Well, on one hand, Super Smash Brothers is still a fun and entertaining game ten years later, and it’s honestly worth downloading if you don’t own Super Smash Brothers Brawl or want to own every version of the series released. The game is still fun to play even now, and there’s a wide variety of characters to play as, so you can rest assured that this is a full-on game and not some sort of hacked-off prototype that gave way to the later, awesome games. Super Smash Brothers does feature some interesting novelty challenges that the Wii version doesn’t have, also, which could be worth the download alone if you’re interested, and the character tuning is different from one game to the next, which might be fun if you want to play with Ness back when he was broken, for example.
That said, Super Smash Brothers is functionally the Wii game with less characters and stages, so unless you’re dying to replay it or feel like you need to own it, you can pass it by if you own the Wii version. This is less Street Fighter II compared to Street Fighter III and more Street Fighter II Championship Edition compared to Super Street Fighter II, and while there will be people out there who want to own every revision of the franchise, most folks will be happy with the Wii game and can safely pass the N64 version by. If you don’t own the Wii version, this isn’t a bad purchase, as it’s still a whole lot of fun with friends, but if you do, there’s really not enough different between the games to make Super Smash Brothers worth downloading unless you’re a hardcore fan.
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Ninja Gaiden
Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
Original System: Arcade
Original Release Date: 1988
Price: 600 Wii Points/$6
March 2010
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