Category: Wii Reviews

Dragon Buster (Virtual Console Arcade)

A prototypical dungeon-crawling RPG. You guide the hero through a map consisting of a series of monster-infested dungeons towards a final date with a dragon. The action sections are 2D with one button to swing your adventurer’s sword and another to jump. Not the greatest game in the world, but it really grew on me back when I played it in the original Namco Museum on the Playstation so I had to have it again. A Famicom or PC Engine port is also available. Strictly for nostalgia buffs.

Dragon Saber (Virtual Console Arcade)

The sequel to Dragon Spirit only with different enemies, more power-ups and the ability to play with two players on screen at once. If you liked the first game, you’ll like this.

Penguin Diving Hooper Looper is Agenda’s 3rd WiiWare effort and concerns diving penguins — a premise which is simple and nicely executed, but falls short of being the classic arcade-style game it could have been.

This is a budget release at only 500 Nintendo Points, so it lacks anything in the way of frills: you won’t find any speech, full-motion video or even basic sound configuration options here folks, but you will have a bit of fun steering a diving cartoon penguin through hoops as he plunges off a clifftop into the antarctic waters below.

After choosing one of six profiles you assign a Mii to it which serves as your name for the online leaderboards (that makes it simple, eh?). You then progress through six different dives with the goal being to get the best score possible and earn a medal. The controls are motion-based and well-implemented. After jumping from a colorful diving board your penguin plunges down the side of a cliff. You can rotate in a full circle holding the remote in your hands sideways a la Excite Truck. Tipping the left end up and the right down you rotate clockwise and doing the reverse will rotate you anti-clockwise. The control is quite tight and you’re able to reverse directions well in order to avoid obstacles like cliff edges and pick up rings to boost your score.

Pressing the 2 button causes your penguin to streamline his profile and accelerate; pressing 1 causes him to flap his wings and slow down a bit. The former is key to getting a better bonus for finishing the dive more quickly and also to stop red birds which appear in some of the courses from stealing red triple score rings from you. Plunging through different kinds of rings scores points with a bonus assigned for every ring obtained up to a set maximum for the dive. At the bottom you’ll also find a floating ring to plunge through for an extra 5000 points. Points between 20-30,000 earn you a silver medal whilst anything over 30,000 gets you a gold. You need to complete each dive in order to unlock the next; if you get gold in all six dives you unlock a bonus one that sees you jumping off the rings of another planet and diving back to Earth against a display of the developer credits.

Whilst this is fun – and to the developer’s credit there are enough rings that there are many scoring variations present, the longevity of the game is let down by the fact that there’s only seven dives in total and the ring patterns are fixed so that eventually you’ll max out the number of points you can score. There’s not too much challenge on offer so the game does seem targeted at more casual players or children. There’s nothing wrong with that, but with a little more effort – say randomising the ring patterns at each dive or allowing a player to play them all back-to-back for a cumulative score, the game could have invited more replay action from both casual and more serious players.

Certainly the addition of online leaderboards is welcome and having a split-screen multiplayer option is also nice. For 500 points it’s not a bad little game, but a little more substance would have been appreciated.

Bonsai Barber (WiiWare)

If I didn’t know Zoonami was a British company I’d think this game had been developed by the Japanese. It’s the first Western game I’ve laid eyes on that perfectly captures the bizarre, yet endearing tone of many unusual Japanese games, much to its credit.

The premise is that you’re the new barber at a village populated by vegetables who all like rather bizarre “hairdos.” This might sound a bit daft – and it is – but it’s actually quite fun trying to do styling using the Wii Remote’s tilt sensor to control the attitude of your scissors or clippers and B button for cutting.

The talking fruit and veg (sounds only – the actual conversation is text-based; no doubt due to ease of localisation and the 40MB WiiWare limit) have their own personalities and desires when it comes to getting their foliage trimmed. Your cuts are based upon a variety of styles and even after a few weeks play you’ll still be seeing new ones. You can tease out branches with the comb and add colour with the paint brush. If you really like your creation you can take a photo for the album which can then be sent on to a Wii friend to view whether or not they have the game.

Your cuts are rated from 1-5 stars and will reflect upon how close you come to the selected style pattern; reflecting how much your client likes the job you did. You can practice on a potted shrub if you’re feeling the need for extra training (or just to have a nice decoration on the waiting room coffee table). Also on the table is a nice album containing profiles on all the customers, a datebook with the clients you’ve seen (and the ability to schedule three clients of your choice in advance), awards won for achieving various milestones, photos you’ve taken, newspapers delivered and postcards and gifts from your appreciative customers (the latter also show up as messages in the main Wii messenger).

The character design is quite appealing and they all have their own little quirks. Cuts are wisely rationed out with only five appointments per day, each taking about 15min. It’s a nice relaxing routine to get into, which gets changed up a bit by having the odd bout of rain, power outages, flies and sprouting apples that have different effects on the game. This title has done pretty well in the States and Europe and I have no doubt the same is true in Japan.

It’s clearly a good fit for Nintendo and Zoonami should be applauded for bringing something fun and unique to the Wii.

RYGAR (Virtual Console Arcade)

Rygar is not the name it actually has in the Japanese Wii shop where I bought it (that’s something like Warrior of Argos), but the name I remember it having in American arcades when I played it back in the day. Classic side-scrolling action from Tecmo where the goal is to run a gauntlet of bizarre critters from sanctuary to sanctuary with only your spinning yo-yo blade standing between you and oblivion. As with Tecmo’s other VCA titles the conversion is flawless and you can fully remap buttons as well as set the number of starting lives, difficulty and points for awarding extra lives. This one stands alongside Ninja Gaiden as Tecmo’s greatest arcade game and should not be missed.

Dragon Spirit (Virtual Console Arcade)

Another in the seemingly endless series of Namco games to grace the Virtual Console. As with all Namco VCA releases you can remap the buttons and choose the starting number of lives and points required to earn more, but unlike Tecmo’s releases the difficulty bar is fixed. In this game it’s a little on the high side, but not too bad. Dragon Spirit looks and sounds absolutely fantastic, so if you’re a fan of vertical shooters definitely give it a look. Until Namco sees fit to release their arcade games outside of Japan, folk in North America or PAL territories will just have to settle for the sub-par Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary collection in the meantime.

Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars

Yet another great 3D action platformer on the Wii – it’s so nice to see these finding a home on this system. The only real negative is the use of Remote wave for primary attack: it’s completely unnecessary (how about combining the block/roll moves on C, use Z for jump and attack with A guys? It’s been done before!), but the motion detection is good and you’re doing more exploring than fighting so it’s not a big deal. The spore powers add a lot of depth in giving the player different ways to approach combat and puzzle solving with great use of the pointer and motion controls for flinging things about via “sporekinesis.”

The visuals are incredible as are the character designs and the soundtrack and audio effects are wonderful complements to the look of the game. It’s a good thing there’s a strong focus on exploration as there’s a lot to see in the huge levels filled with nooks and crannies to check for items that unlock concept artwork, “scav” you use to build your weaponry and meteorite chunks for powering up your little ‘shroom man.

The game doesn’t overstay its welcome at under 7 hours (depending on how much exploring you do) and there’s no settable difficulty level, but the manageable length and fun factor should encourage repeat plays on their own. There’s also bonuses in the form of the aforementioned art gallery, a music station for listening to the soundtrack (where’s the CD guys?) and some mini-games.

It’s a great package which can be had for a bargain price, so check it out!

The Three Musketeers: One for All! (WiiWare)

Legendo should be proud of the technical achievement in managing to cram a PC port into the WiiWare format size limit without compromising it overmuch. There are some load times due to decompression, but the artwork and voice samples are terrific.

The game plays well enough generally with some decent platforming action, but the motion control implementation clearly could have used a little work. Using a remote swipe for your sword isn’t an automatically bad decision, though the amount of motion required for your swipe to register does cause wrist/shoulder strain during sequences requiring you to fight multiple consecutive enemies.

The most irritating part of the game actually had nothing to do with motion, but bouncing on the top of barrels to reach high places. You’re told to hold the A button to bounce high, but there are multiple degrees of “high” most of which aren’t enough. You get so used to failure that when you do bounce high enough you’ll forget to move the stick and be forced to continue the senseless bouncing in a vain hope of attaining the right altitude again.

Most of the game was pretty decent for a platformer, but the rooftop sequence – which I presume is towards the end – used up the last of my good will. The typical platforming “repeat death syndrome” combined with the broken barrel bouncing forced me to purge the game from my SD card or risk certain damage to my remote and TV. The potential is clearly there, so hopefully the next Legendo release will be more to my taste. Strictly for hardcore platforming game fans who have patience in abundance.

Front Line (Virtual Console Famicom)

This arcade game featured some unconventional controls with a rotary click dial that could turn your soldier’s arm in a complete circle, allowing him to shoot and move in different directions simultaneously. The Famicom controls are much more conventional with the d-pad controlling both movement and aiming, but the gameplay is the same and is easier to control. The home conversion looks very much the same as the arcade, with the main differences being more muted sound effects, abbreviated death animations and no snipers in the trees. Also worth noting is that the big tanks die after one hit regardless of whether you’re shooting them with the small tank gun or the big one. Still it’s a decent quality port fans of the arcade game should be able to enjoy. Hopefully someday Taito will give us the real thing with a VCA release.

Pooyan (Virtual Console Famicom)

This home conversion is courtesy of Hudson Soft, so you won’t find it under the Konami listings in the Japanese Wii Shop despite it being a Konami arcade game. The conversion is terrific and fans of the arcade game will be pleased to find the graphics are extremely close to the arcade, the music is intact and best of all the interstitials with the little pigs chasing the wolves from stage to stage is present as well. Definitely worth checking out if you have a Japanese Wii and like the classics.

Bit.Trip CORE (WiiWare)

2nd in the Bit.Trip series, this one is possibly harder than Bit.Trip BEAT – which is saying something! Still, the sounds are excellent and the simple 8-bit Atari 2600-style visuals are impeccable. As with BEAT the Wii Remote is also held on its side, though no motion is used. Instead you need to press the d-pad in the direction the dots are coming from and then press the 2 button at the right time to eliminate them. It gets frantic at times and demands excellent reflexes. 3 levels with high-quality audio tracks are on offer as with the first game. Not for the faint-hearted or easily frustrated!

Bomberman ’94 (Virtual Console PC Engine)

This is regarded as one of the better Bomberman games from the 8/16-bit era and it’s not hard to see why. It maintains the concept of multiple worlds subdivided into stages, but rather than simply eliminating all enemies on the screen you need to retrieve pieces of a shattered emblem. There are naturally enemies to dispatch on the way and help is available in the form of a kangaroo you can ride which is able to kick bombs and increase your movement speed. The kangaroo also features in the multiplayer game which is like normal multiplayer Bomberman. The difficulty curve in the single-player game is more forgiving than Bomberman ’93 and different enough that they’re both worth having so give it a go!

Heracles Chariot Racing started out life as a PS2 game released in Europe by developer Neko and it shows in terms of medium poly-count 3D graphics and overall appearance. Of course on the WiiWare service this is actually quite impressive; even moreso when you consider the number of racers and tracks on offer and the low price of 800 Nintendo Points.

This actually feels like a full retail release in terms of content: there are 10 tracks (though 5 of these are repeats with some different sections) with 9 different racers (though this is mostly cosmetic) and 2-4 splitscreen multiplayer. You can race tournaments, individual tracks or time trials as single player and tournaments, individual tracks or Battle Mode in multiplayer.

The visuals are quite nice with colourful tracks and backgrounds containing static 3D elements like looming gods and animated obstacles to avoid such as giant rats in the Augean Stables and the 3-headed dog Cerberus spewing out great fireballs in the Realm of Hades. Chariot drivers are well-animated and turn to face the camera before the green light is given for the race starts; miss a turn and go off the track and they’ll look back again as if to ask what your problem was!

Sound consists of a dramatic fanfare whilst the camera does a quick run around the track before the race starts and some quiet in-game music that’s nondescript but pleasant. The characters driving the chariots make the odd exclamation after being hit with weapons fired from opposing racers or flying off the track after missing a turn. Chariots themselves make a rather pleasing sound of wood wheels rolling across various surfaces in place of the usual engine noise you’d associate with a kart racing game.

The chariots have colourful characters driving them like the titular Heracles; all of them introduce themselves with a little “hello” as you point at each in turn. There are differences between chariots in handling and acceleration, but you’re not likely to notice until rounding bends at high speed. There are bonus items which will give you a boost of speed or harry your opponents that vary according to the character such as homing projectiles like nasty beetles or Zeus Himself. None of them are very special, but they do add some spice to the race without feeling cheap like the infamous Blue Shells of Mario Kart.

Your primary offering as a solo player is the Championship tournaments. There are three tournaments creatively labeled Bronze, Silver and Gold. Achieving a top 3 placing in Bronze unlocks Silver and doing the same in Silver unlocks Gold, which is simply the Bronze and Silver tracks raced back-to-back. It’s unnecessary padding and really could have been left out; especially as there’s nothing further to be gained by getting a top placing in the Gold tournament other than signing your name up. The Bronze and Silver tracks have the same names, but parts of the tracks are changed about which keeps them fresh. The tracks are impressively large by any standards and well-designed except for the use of nearly 180-degree turns in the last two tracks of the Bronze and Silver tournaments.

The final Mount Olympus track is the worst with a series of hairpin turns linked by brief straightaways. The problem is not just the fact that the bends are at the top of hills or that the AI drivers rarely have difficulties with them, but more that the colour schemes are badly chosen. The track is often made up of light rainbow colours against a light sky background with gold railings; it’s often hard to tell you’re hitting the bend until you’ve come to a stop against a wall or flown off into space. Add the fact that the reverse control takes a few seconds to engage and you’re lucky to place anything other than dead last.

Wii Remote and Nunchuk are the only supported controls which seems an odd choice given this game was originally on a system using a controller similar to the Classic Controller. The omission of any alternative control schemes will make getting a 4-player game going (no online play is supported) more challenging, but the controls are well implemented. A on the Remote is the accelerator, B activates bonus items, Z is brake/reverse and C jumps (alternatively move the Remote upward) — though jumping is something I didn’t see much use for during the game. The Nunchuk control stick steers and, in a great implementation of motion control, tilting the Nunchuk allows for a “drift” manoeuvre that’s intuitive and makes racing the non-Olympian tracks a lot of fun.

There’s no camera control, but you can change view by pressing down on the D-Pad to see behind your chariot and up for another alternate view, but if you can press up on the D-Pad whilst accelerating I’ll shake your hand! As with the lack of controller options the lack of configuration options is strange in its omission, though the game works well enough with the default button layout.

If you want a change from going up against other racers you can also go for high scores in the Time Trials which features the full selection of unlocked tracks. It’s missing a 1st place ghost racer to spur you on towards a better result, but if you want to simply see how fast you can run through a given track it does the job. There is selectable difficulty, though opponents offer a decent challenge at the Normal difficulty setting. It’s a bit annoying that the high score tables simply present initials and times regardless of difficulty chosen; taking away from score attacking a bit.

The main multiplayer addition is Battle mode where up to four players can fight it out in one of five themed arenas based up on the tracks. Bonus items are scattered about with which to dispatch your friends/foes. Each match is a last-man-standing affair where each player is knocked out after taking three hits and the last one remaining wins. A nice extra if you want a change from racing.

Neko has done a great job in bringing a retail PS2 title to WiiWare and the game stands out as a result. There’s nothing really competing with it on the service presently, though that will change when Super Mario Kart eventually gets released to the Virtual Console outside of Japan. Noted issues aside, it’s a fun racing experience on the Wii at a great price and definitely worth a punt.

The Munchables

Excellent arcade-style game that’s sort of like a free-form Pac-Man. You control one of two “munchables” which are cute aliens from the planet of Star Ving (get it?) that eat all the time. When their planet is invaded by aliens that look like fruit and veg the only thing for it is to EAT THEM! Two player co-op is implemented a la Super Mario Galaxy (player 2 controls a reticule and zaps baddies) as you move through different islands on Star Ving ridding the world of veggie critters; growing as you eat more and more of them. The giant bosses are hilarious and look great. Replay incentive is present in the form of unlockable accessories for dressing your munchables. It’s charming, goofy and fun and has quality written all over it. Namco has really served up something special at a budget price, so please check this out – oh and cheers to Atari for publishing it in Europe!

Cosmo Gang: The Video (Virtual Console Arcade)

This is the second Cosmo Gang arcade game to grace the Japanese VC. Unlike the first – which was basically a Columns clone, this one is a cutesy version of Galaga – basically Namco’s version of Parodius. It’s got all the gameplay appeal of Galaga with cutesy graphics – hard to go wrong there. If you have the means, I do recommend getting this one.

Pengo (Virtual Console Mega Drive)

A Bomberman-style version of the classic Sega arcade game. You can play with one or two players as you try to get your source of power back from some naughty creatures. Pengo can create ice blocks as well as push them to smash enemies as in the original arcade. There are several worlds made of a few stages each and ending in boss fights. It’s not a pushover, but there are 4-digit passwords so you can continue your game later. There’s also a decent port of the arcade original, though the graphics suffer in comparison and the music isn’t present, so if that’s your only reason for buying better wait to see if the arcade game comes to VCA on its own in the future. Great title for the Japanese VC; hopefully it will be coming to other territories eventually.

Phelios (Virtual Console Arcade)

A little-known shooter that has already had a port released for the Mega Drive in Japan. It’s graphically impressive and has simple controls: fly your pegasus through environments that rotate and scale to create a 3D feel as you change elevation. Press one button to fire; hold to charge the shot so you can take out multiple enemies. Sub-bosses and bosses appear with regularity. It’s not going to set the world on fire, but it’s a fun vertical scroller and has the normal level of button customisation and widescreen-friendly display we’ve come to expect from Namco’s VCA releases.

Toki Tori (WiiWare)

One of the WiiWare launch titles, this is a nice puzzler where you need to guide your funny-looking chick to his eggs. Quite challenging at times and a real noodle-bender, so people addicted to action games need not apply. I made it all the way to the underwater levels before throwing in the towel, but there’s always a chance I’ll revisit it.

Lost Winds (WiiWare)

Another early WiiWare entry and one that got a lot of well-deserved press and a long run in the Top 20 downloads list in the Wii Shop. It’s a great-looking platform game using wind generated by motions to help a little boy jump and get through various puzzles to help out a Wind Spirit in his quest to stop an ancient evil that’s been freed. A longer sequel has also been released, so if you’re a fan you’ll want to give that a go as well.

Nyxquest (Icarian): Kindred Spirits (WiiWare)

Another platform game with excellent visuals and interesting mechanics like Lost Winds; these are the twin champions of platforming on WiiWare at the moment and not to be missed by genre fans. Players guide Nyx on her quest to find Icarus and save the world using the remote to create updrafts. The developers at Over The Top games have really done themselves proud with this title so definitely give it a try!

Shinobi (Virtual Console Arcade)

Classic action game from Sega and far superior to its Mega Drive Sequel: The Super Shinobi. The emulation is excellent bar one change no doubt made to avoid lawyers: the “Spider-Man” character seen in the first three stages has had a paint job and is now yellow and green; otherwise the game is the same. Typical for Sega VCA releases the screen is not preformatted for widescreen display, so you’ll need to adjust your TV settings for 4:3 display if you have a modern flat panel. Controls are fully customisable and there’s an extra button available which does a shuriken burst fire of 3 at once. Definitely one to pick up.

Volfied (Virtual Console PC Engine)

A Taito import that I wasn’t aware of until I saw it featured in an episode of Game Center CX on the Japanese Nintendo Channel. It’s basically a tarted-up version of Qix (or clean version of Gal’s Panic – if you’re familiar with that “H” arcade title), where the object is to draw squares on a playfield to fill in as much territory as possible whilst avoiding enemies which are bouncing all over the place. This port is substantially different from the arcade game and the Mega Drive port so it’s definitely worth a look even if you know those two games (and have a Japanese Wii, of course).

Rolling Thunder (Virtual Console Arcade)

Namco continues their seemingly endless release schedule for the VCA in Japan with a classic action platformer that was published in the USA and elsewhere by Atari Games. As with all Namco games on the VCA the screen is already formatted for widescreen display with bars on the sides and control customisation is limited to the main game buttons. I prefer the Classic Controller for Namco VCA titles because that way ZL and ZR are used for coin insertion and game start rather than the awkward +1 and +2 they’ve chosen for the Wii Remote on its own. The only game setting is adjusting the number of starting lives. I was surprised not to see some kind of settable difficulty in terms of the score required for an extra life as has usually been the case with Namco VCA titles, but the game is challenging enough anyway. People familiar with the MAME ROM will note that some of the enemies in the stairway part of Stage 2 are different so looks like this is a different build of the game from that commonly seen ROM.