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

Fans of a certain pink puffball rejoice for Nintendo have finally seen fit to release a much awaited classic SNES title on the Virtual Console, and about time too after missing a week. Anyway enough from me and on with the game!

Available for download this week we have...

• Kirby's Fun Pak

Points: 800
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: HAL Laboratory
Released: 1996
System: SNES

A legendary title Kirby's Fun Pak consists of eight 'mini' games starring everyones favourite pink blob and is highly regarded as being one of the best games ever released in the series and with good reason. Read on to find out what makes this excellent collection of games such a strong entry for the Pink Puffball that everyone knows and loves.

In the first game 'Spring Breeze' King Dedede has stolen all the food in the land and so it's up to the ball of 'pink fudge' himself to save the day! You control Kirby by moving with the d-pad, jumping and floating with the 'B' button and of course inhaling enemies with a press - and hold - of the 'Y' button; once inhaled you can press 'down' on the d-pad to absorb abilities from your foe, the effect varies depending on the enemy. That's not all though because you can then press the 'A' button to 'release' the enemy turning them into a CPU controlled helper complete with their own health bar which can be very useful indeed.

Next up is 'Gourmet Race' in which you must race King Dedede through three small stages eating as much food as you can before reaching the finish line, it's challenging as no matter how hard you try your rival will always seem to eat more than you but with a bit of practice it is possible to win plus there's always the time to improve on so plenty of replay value here. Another more traditional Kirby game can be found in 'Dynablade' in which you must traverse a handful of levels and eventually go up against the titular menace which is a huge multicoloured bird of prey, this proves to be an enjoyable boss battle even if it isn't quite as entertaining as the ring fight against Kind Dedede at the end of Spring Breeze.

Taking a change of pace we have 'The Great Cave Offensive' which sees you working your way through a huge set of levels trying to collect all sixty treasure chests along the way, it may sound simple enough but believe me it's a challenge and you'll need to make use of the helpful save rooms along the way not to mention using a bit of ingenuity to solve some puzzles along the way. Smaller games 'Megaton Punch' and 'Samurai Kirby' offer more of a reactions test as the former has you pressing a button at the right moment to fill a bar, line up a cursor and time a pendulum swing resulting in you cracking the ground beneath you and hopefully beating your opponent whereas the latter is a showdown between you and various 'boss' characters where pressing a button at exactly the right moment is crucial to your victory, watch out for Meta Knight as his lightning speed is a force to be reckoned with!

Which brings me nicely onto 'The Revenge Of Meta Knight' which is another reasonably sized adventure which sees Kirby taking out the flying ship 'Halberd' and its crew piece by piece not to mention clearing a few stages in-between; it all of course ends in an epic battle which fans of the series are sure to enjoy, it's one of the most satisfying games in this most generous package. If you wish to see the final game 'Milky Way Wishes' you need to unlock it by beating each of the other games at which point it will unlock, it's most definitely worth it though because it's yet another adventure but with a twist... you cannot copy the abilities of enemies you inhale, instead you collect 'Deluxe Ability Pedestals' which allow you to choose from a list of abilities, other major changes include an excellent shoot-em-up stage which while short-lived is very enjoyable indeed.

If you're a Kirby fan or even if you aren't I'd advise you pick this up because not only is this one of the most highly regarded games in the series, it's actually an ideal starting point for anyone new to Kirby as it takes some of the best bits from many of the previous games. Graphically gorgeous, audibly astounding and just fantastic fun to play, if you've never played this before and need another reason just get it if you're a 'sucker' for good games.

Verdict : A 'killer' Kirby title.

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.