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

Quite a cause for celebration as a much requested title finally makes its way to the European Wii U VC in style. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

Spelunker
Shantae
Earthbound


 
Price: GB £3.49, EU €3.99
Publisher: Tozai Games
Developer: Irem
Released: 1985
System: NES

Oh dear what has fallen before my eyes, but a rather nasty surprise in disguise; sneaking in alongside the quality is this freakish abnormality. Created way back in nineteen-eighty-five I am surprised that this download ever went live; Spelunker is over two decades old but this game really should have been put on hold.

You play as an explorer of caves, as the darkness our young hero braves; you are there in the pursuit of a long rumored treasure and getting to it shall be no small endeavor. As you make your way to the bottom from the top many creatures will chase you and in your tracks you will stop.

Many more dangers will challenge your wits as you are faced with water, chasms, small ledges and pits. Visually and audibly it's an abomination and the broken gameplay leads to frustration; limited controls that play like a chore and repetitive tasks assure it's a bore.

At times it's enough to make the player cry, when they discover yet another method to die; it may have been good if they had put in some thought, rather than flawed mechanics which may leave you distraught. As much as I would like to take this as a serious game, that I can't do because it truly is lame.

Worth its points it most certainly is not, it's gameplay as dull as it's wafer-thin plot; more I could say about it's infinite flaws, but I cannot be bothered to waste my time or yours.

Verdict : Crushingly crud cave crawler.

Price: GB £4.49, EU €4.99
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: WayForward
Released: 2002
System: Game Boy Color

Despite the sequel being released a few years back on DSi Ware in Europe we never actually got a release of the Game Boy Color original title, so it should come as no surprise that it has been one of the most often requested titles to see appear on the 3DS Virtual Console; fortunately WayForward have been aware of this for some time and now we can finally play Shantae as it has now been released, for a very reasonable price too when you consider the price of the last few remaining copies that are currently for sale online. So what makes it so special? Well for those unaware you take on the role of a half-genie named Shantae who is the guardian of a small place named Scuttle Town, everything is good until the female pirate Risky Boots and her crew raid the place making off with a steam engine, as she's planning on using it to take over the world; so naturally as you're the protector of the town, you take it upon yourself to recover the item thus saving the day.

Starting out you only have fairly basic moves including a jump plus the ability to whip your purple hair at enemies, doing this wil often net you some gems so if you collect enough of these you can opt to purchase some rather useful moves which while optional will certainly prove invaluable during your quest, so if you get the chance I would advise finding a spot where enemies repeatedly spawn so that you can farm those gems! Cheap? Possibly but you will definitely want to obtain all the abilities you can early on if you can. You explore the whole world like it's one large platforming stage for you to journey across, you can go where you please but you'll only get so far as there is an order to things but the perceived level of freedom is still refreshing; as you play you'll even notice everything turn from day to night, it only takes a matter of minutes but it's a nice touch all the same.

When you reach a town the perspective changes to third person looking from behind Shantae almost as if you're actually walking around, it's an impressive use of perspective adding even more charm to the proceedings, within the town you can visit many places including a Save Room, the bath house where you can restore hearts, huts where you drop off warp squid and fireflies that you may have collected, plus there are mini-games which vary between towns plus a context sensitive area which will usually tell you where to go next. There are a few dungeons spread throughout the game which will provide you with many tricks, traps, the odd puzzle plus loads of enemies to defeat; at the end of each of these you will have to fight a boss but these are usually quite simple in comparison to actually navigating the dungeons themselves as you don't even have a map so you'll be relying on your memory and wits to get through which is a good thing in this pathetic age of hand-holding in games that we live in today, this is a game that requires a bit of skill.

One of the best elements of Shantae is the ability to dance anywhere by pressing the 'Select' button, from there you can perform moves using the d-pad plus the face buttons, this actually has a purpose though because during the adventure you will learn certain songs that will transform your half-genie into an animal; the Monkey is the first one you will get which allows for higher jumping plus wall-climbing while other transformations such as the Elephant allows you to charge through stuff. Naturally you will be using these abilities and more besides in order to progress, everything comes together to form one cohesive experience which is quite simply unlike any other platform game out there, this is one that you will most likely play to the end as while it's not the longest example of the genre but it is one of the most enjoyable.

Visually the game is a technical marvel as it's hard to believe that a portable 8-Bit game could look so good, the colour palette used is consistently striking as the world around you is filled with colour along with bucket loads of charm; what's perhaps even more impressive though is the astounding level of animation that WayForward have put into the characters, Shantae in particular who is fully formed and just amazing to look at as a sprite really showing what could be done at the time... this may have come out a year after the Game Boy Advance launched but the extra power clearly wasn't needed. Musically this game is something else as there are so many stunning midi tracks within, these range from appropriate Arabian themes, to relaxed ditties right through to intense techno when night-fall arrives, audibly this is a masterpiece all the way through.

I really can't praise Shantae enough so it's best that you simply see for yourself by downloading it, never before have I had the pleasure of playing such a wonderfully crafted platform game which oozes charm and creativity around every corner, you will never be bored of this adventure as there is always something spurring you on to keep playing so while it may be short it's a very small price to pay for such a wonderful experience. If you've played all the general examples of the genre out there then I implore you to try something different as if this title surprises you even half as much as it pleasantly surprised me, then you know it's something really special.

Verdict : Shantae is definitely the way forward for the platforming genre.

Price: GB £6.99, EU €9.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Released: 1995
System: SNES

Nintendo may have taken their sweet time but Earthbound has now finally been released in Europe, originally the game came out on the SNES in 1995 but only for America and Japan, it didn't even sell phenomally well at the time though it's still a classic RPG developed in-house, it's one that we never got over here so it has become something of a cult classic over the years; most people wanting to buy a physical copy of the game would probably have shyed away from it due to the high price-tag as just the cartridge has been known to sell for around One hundred pounds or more. You would have thought that knowing this Nintendo might have released the game sooner than this on the Wii VC but apparently there were several barriers in place, for whatever reason though we now have this fabled game which can now be purchased for a very reasonable price, indeed I'm sure many of you will have already downloaded the game - and rightly so - but the big question now that it's available is not 'is it any good?' but instead 'just how good is it?' read on to find out just how much our patience has been rewarded.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Earthbound is that it's set in a gloriously historically inaccurate, warped version of modern-day Earth but what makes it even more brilliant is that it's all seen from a Japanese viewpoint which makes for some particularly amusing cultural references; you consume junk food to replenish HP for example, if one of your party falls in battle you have to pick them up from the local hospital. All these things might seem very small but the more you play it becomes apparent that this is a truly one-off RPG, for instance you will suffer from the usual status effects but I don't think I've ever encountered a game where you can catch a cold before; the whole thing plays out as a parody of the genre, this is expressed regularly through the dialogue which is often extremely humorous making you want to explore everywhere so that you can appreciate all that it has to offer.

Indeed exploration is integral to Earthbound as you set off from your home-town of Onett in Eagleland - the main country in the game where you'll be spending the first half of the game - you are always encouraged to look everywhere, note that this is optional but you will 'want' to as each area, cave, city or town is full of life with lots of interesting things going on as the NPC's seem to quietly go about their everyday lives. Of course you have your own quest to complete which I won't spoil but needless to say it does revolve around saving the universe from a hostile alien threat, in order to advance further in the storyline though you will need to talk to many people, engage in many battles, defeat a range of strange but powerful bosses, acquire astounding psychic abilities in addition to assembling your formidable team of four including Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo... or whatever you decided to name them at the start during the games initial near interrogation where it asks you to name all of the main characters, your dog, favourite food and favourite thing.

Battling is handled brilliantly as on the face of things what you have is a turn-based system which works really well, you see the enemy over a rather phychedelic background along with some text boxes but that's it, your party only appears outside of these encounters; you can opt to 'Bash' if you have a melee weapon equipped or 'Shoot' if using a projectile-based weapon, this will be your default attack whereas your more special abilities will come under 'PSI' which refers to the phychic abilities which your characters have. These tend to include elemental attacks plus pure psychic ones including an attack in particular which will be named after your favourite item, each of these attacks will start out dealing a standard amount of damage but as you gradually level up your characters will tend to learn new attacks in addition to upgraded versions of existing ones which the strength of is denoted by 'Alpha', 'Beta', 'Delta', 'Sigma' and 'Omega' symbols, which is a rather refreshing way of doing things.

Other in-battle options include 'Goods' which as you'd expect allows you to use various items - including a few joke ones - which can be useful, you can also opt to 'Defend' if things are dire or 'Run Away if you really have no other option; curiously there is an 'Auto-Battle' command which will allow the game to fight for you which can be very handy indeed if you simply don't wish to fight yourself when grinding for exp or if you just want to explore different tactics, even better than that though is the way in which you can bypass a battle completely if you are significantly over-levelled for the area as the screen will cut to a green tint and you win automatically! Perhaps most impressive of all is the 'Rolling HP Counter' which ticks down slowly so if you are unfortunate enough to take a critical hit for example, if you are able to heal before it counts down to zero you can avoid fainting, it's an extremely unique feature that I've not seen anywhere else before, further demonstrating just how different this title is.

As you travel between the varying locales you will be able to take in some of the most simply striking visuals perhaps ever used in a 16-Bit era RPG, not because they are the most detailed but because they take on all of that lovely presentation from the original NES game which then simply takes advantage of the improved hardware, adding in simple but effectively used touches here and there while creating quite a bold colour palette meaning that wherever you are in the game you won't find any two towns looking the same; this is an example of consistent art-style winning out over flashy visuals. The soundtrack is nothing short of spectacular either featuring a broad range of tracks ranging from marverlous melodies which feel wonderfully uplifiting, to quite solemn sounds for more 'serious' parts of the game, along with other pieces which are just plain odd even though they still have plenty of charm; there are certainly many memorable, musical moments throughout the adventure and when you couple these with some very nicely sampled sound effects, you have an amazing journey which stands out aesthetically in addition to being immensely playable.

Getting around is made very easy thanks to precise eight-way directional control as this is another area where the game should be praised, for the best experience I would recommend using the SNES classic controller if you're lucky enough to own one but if not then using the Gamepad or even the Pro Controller works very well indeed with the off-screen play being a nice bonus too. Saving is made rather simple as you just call your Dad in the game via any phone, these can be found in every town along with some places you might not expect, of course taking advantage of the save states is also advised as this will no doubt save you some time should it all go wrong in battle; your cash is all stored in your account so you'll need to make use of the ATM's inside the shops which is a nice touch, also you'll need to be on top of your item managment as you only get fourteen spaces per party member to store everything which can make things rather interesting later on.

Earthbound is a genuinely amazing RPG that anyone would be wise to invest in, not just because its release in Europe was delayed for so long but more for just how well it has aged in that time or in this case hasn't aged, it's a timeless adventure which will remind you of your childhood while keeping you gripped from start to finish. If you have become tired of the genre in recent years then you really owe it to yourself and Nintendo as a gamer to buy this classic game as I will guarantee you now that this is as original an experience you can get from an RPG; quite simply nothing else compares, it never will, so please don't hesitate in downloading this charming title as it's well worth the asking price and has most certainly been worth the wait as Earthbound deserves a space on your Wii U and in your heart.    
         
Verdict : One of the finest RPG's that I have ever had the pleasure of playing.

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!