Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe's guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo's download service. Written by Sam C Gittins.

If you like strategy or fighting games then this edition is sure to be a treat for you as we have reviews of two games from these very genres. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!

Available for download this week we have...

• Ogre Battle 64
• Fatal Fury Special

Points: 1200
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Quest
Released: 1999
System: N64

Strategy games are often relatively few and far between on consoles but none so sparse as the Nintendo 64 where next to none seem to exist bar one particular title that has never been available in Europe, until now that is. The game in question is of course Ogre Battle 64 and while it may be seemingly the only strategy game on the console it's regarded as one of the best in existence by many fans of the genre for reasons which shall now be known.

In the SNES title which proceeded this the standard was already raised very high indeed and so even for the developers to match that quality would have been an achievement in itself but what they instead did was to expand on everything and managed to make a sequel that by far surpasses the original. Starting from where the previous game left off you take on the role of Magnus Gallant who's a graduate of the Palatinean Army; you are assigned to defend the upper classes within your land but defect to protect the lower classes instead upon realising that things aren't quite as the upper crust would have you believe.

Essentially the game plays similarly to that which has come before it but with some well worthwhile enhancements; your basic goal is to defeat all enemies and take over their bases, to do this you send out troops, commanding them to either walk around, find items, fight enemies or capture bases. You have complete control of how many units can be sent out but be wary of sending out too many for if you leave your base unguarded then it could be captured resulting in an instant loss, this can happen quicker than you may think because enemies aren't visible until they are within a certain range so leaving a few troops behind to 'hold the fort' is advised.

While on the map time passes which brings into play the day/night element where certain tasks are easier to perform at certain times; not only that though as you need to keep an eye on your troops for they will get tired if they've been walking for too long and when this happens you need to either set up camp or place them in a town where they can rest. Setting up Unit Squads is where a great deal of the strategy comes in as you are given a nine square grid on which you may place up to five units, placement is crucial if you want to succeed in battle so taking care to place your swordsmen at the front for example will result in them doing more damage than if they were at the back.

There's a huge amount of depth as each squad is assigned a leader which you must endeavour to protect at all costs for if he is defeated then the rest of the units become useless, you can of course take advantage of this though because enemy units are the same so taking out their leader will make your tasks just that little bit easier. Delving even deeper you can assign items to each individual unit making for some rather rewarding gameplay particularly when your strategy pays off.

Literally there is too much in this game to list in a mere review and going into every intricate detail would actually be doing the game a disservice as most of the depth in this stunning title is best discovered by the player. Just know this, what you get from this title depends on what you put in but if you're willing to put in the time and love your strategy games then there is no finer example of such a beautifully crafted game within this genre as this, it doesn't just raise the bar but places it almost out of reach, in terms of quality it really doesn't get better than this and now you can own this game for a fraction of its import price... a rare treat indeed, enjoy it.

Verdict : The best strategy game that ever was and most likely ever will be.

Points: 900
Publisher: SNK
Developer: SNK
Released: 1993
System: Neo Geo CD

In the never ending bid to improve on what came before SNK made a great deal of headway with Fatal Fury 2 but when they decided to tweak things even further with the release of Fatal Fury Special they managed to transform what was already a decent fighter into something rather spectacular indeed.

Core gameplay remains thankfully unchanged and at first you may even think you're playing the same game as the initial character roster and beautiful backdrops are the same as they ever were; however after a few rounds you should notice the dramatic increase in speed which improves the games combat system no end and allows you to string together combos with relative ease as opposed to using only one or two strikes at a time.

Being able to play as the boss characters from the previous game is a huge plus-point and one that almost makes it a worthwhile purchase based on that merit but when you add in the other aforementioned improvements it really does become an essential purchase for fighting game fans.

Audio and visuals remain relatively unchanged however both of these aspects have been cleaned-up somewhat, not that there was anything wrong with these parts of the game before but it now both looks and sounds even better than before and gives the fans even more of a reason to purchase this excellent addition to the series.

You will no doubt like this if you enjoyed Fatal Fury 2 because this title takes everything that was great about it and then simply improves upon it tenfold. If you've never played a Fatal Fury game before then you'd do well to start here and as for fans of the series... you know what to do, download without delay.

Verdict : An improved version of an already classic fighter.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!

Sam Gittins
[email protected]

Looking for reviews on other Virtual Console games? Or a full list of games available on the system? Then Check out our Virtual Console Index Page.