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

Continuing the current trend of releasing two games per week, we have an interesting pairing this week of an actual decent sports game and a retread of an adventure title already available. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!

Available for download this week we have...

• Baseball Stars 2
• The Dynastic Hero

Points: 900
Publisher: SNK
Developer: SNK
Released: 1994
System: NeoGeo CD

Yay another sports title hits the VC but rather than adding to the current majority of substandard sporting efforts which fall short of the bat, this title is a fine example of a how to hit a home-run in this overpopulated genre.

Basically you get everything that you'd expect from a baseball game, you step up to the field, take a few swings, hit a few, miss a few and try to make it all the way around the field in one try. A main selling point of the game however is that it features power-bats which you can use to increase your chances of hitting a home run; lose a game and you won't get any more than the ten you start with but win and you'll start with ten more in the next run.

It's a gameplay mechanic which encourages you to be the best you can at the game which is a plus or a negative depending on how much you decide to persevere with it. Even with it's various traits it's more the way that it all comes together as opposed the features themselves that help the game to make the cut.

Everything is fast, fluid and flashy from the top tier animation on the well polished character models to the frankly feverish pace of the way each game plays out. Batters blasting balls out of the park, making a mad dash round the field, touching down first, second, third and the final base and the crowd going wild; all the while these events are interlaced with split second cut-scenes all crammed into about ten seconds per run, so yeah it's fast.

Couple all of the above with some well sampled vocals from the announcer who insists on announcing everything in a ridiculously over the top fashion which is always both amusing and entertaining and you have what is quite possibly one of the best baseball games you might ever play. Easily blowing every other sports game currently available on the VC clean out of the park this is "the" sports game to download just for it's pure entertainment value alone.

Verdict : Hitting a home run has never been so much fun.

Points: 800
Publisher: Hudson
Developer: Westone
Released: 1993
System: Turbografx

If you've played Wonderboy IV before then you've basically already played this as it's the same game but with different characters due to issues with direct porting to rival formats at the time.

It still plays the same though and what you get is one of the best games in the series just under a different name and branding. The plot has also been altered slightly but this doesn't take anything away from the experience which is comparable to both Faxanadu and Zelda II on the NES due to it's platform like action/adventure genre.

You get to talk to NPC's, explore the lands and seas, solve puzzles that rarely tease; the usual stuff you would come to expect can all be found here both present and correct. Visually it's well on par with the Megadrive version if slightly worse off in a few areas, while the audio department is clearly where this version shines through.

Other than that though it is literally the same as the aforementioned Wonderboy IV so if you already have that then there is little point to downloading this. If you don't have it however then it's basically just down to preference over which version you'd like to sample as they are the same brilliant game; personally I would go for the Sega original but if you aren't too concerned about the smaller details then pick this up for an engaging game that will entertain you for a good few hours.

Verdict : It's Wonderboy for the hoi poloi.

Thats 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
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