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

Two revamped reviews originally written by my predecessor Jordan Khoviteri-Zadeh without whom VC Weekly most likely wouldn't have existed, I owe him a debt of gratitutde for this reviewing position and so I like to keep repurposing his original reviews as I for one still think they are fantastic and are a reminder of just how far this feature has come over the years. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

 
Price: GB £4.49, EU €4.99
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Released: 1994
System: NES

The series which this game is from is without a doubt one of the most insane and misunderstood franchises ever made; The Legend of the Mystical Ninja will be unknown to most however, the N64 sequels Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon plus Goemon's Great Adventure are cult classics, it will be a great day when we finally get those two titles and indeed N64 games on the Virtual Console. For now though we have the rather brilliant SNES iteration to be very thankful for this rather original platform game set in a fictional version of feudal Japan that's about as grounded as a helium-filled balloon on its way to the earth's atmosphere, this wacky approach makes for a rather refreshing adventure.  

When it comes to the storyline introduction it is to put it simply a little weird; Goemon and Ebsisu-Maru (known as Kid Ying and Dr. Yang in the Western releases) are sat at home when they hear about strange sprits are their local temple, taking control of other villagers oh and naturally a princess - named Yuki - gets captured so you'll have to rescue her too. There are some comedic touches within the game that will make you laugh, for example sometimes the enemies will wear random hats or differentiate themselves in some way, the character designs themselves are quite funny as well, just one look at Goemon himself is usually enough to put a smile on most peoples faces.

Playing a little like the great NES title 'River City Ransom' you run in either direction attacking and killing enemies and collect money from them which you can take into stores to buy items, food and talk to people for information plus play mini games such as: whack-a-mole, mazes, lottery dice, a trivia quiz and a 3D labyrinth style puzzle. You start the game with just, what seems to be a smoking pipe to attack with. Later on, once you have money you can throw that at your enemies to kill them. You can also equip certain special moves which can be bought from judo training centres. The great thing is, this game can be played with two players. Making it even more frantic as you can ride piggy back on each other making this is blast to play.

Graphics are another strong point as the game uses nicely detailed, colourful sprite work, the cut-scenes are also extremely well done with some early 'voice acting' used while backgrounds plus scrolling foregrounds are also utilised to give a slight depth of scale to the proceedings. The musical score is well suited to each area and the sound effects are well placed, always remaining relevant and constantly keeping that all-important Japanese feeling running through it all the time so as to keep you encapsulated within its wonderful world.

It's a shame that you just don't tend to get games like this any more as The Legend of the Mystical Ninja is a rare example of a charming, colourful adventure title which actually has a fair amount of depth to it which used to be more frequently witnessed during the nineties, in today's market though you very rarely get to see such brilliance which is why releasing it today is a stroke of genius. For those of you who have yet to play this gem then I absolutely implore you to do so, especially if you happened to miss your chance when it appeared on the Wii VC a few years back; don't make the same mistake again as here we have a true classic which deserves the new lease of life that it's getting on the Wii U plus all of the positive praise from the Miiverse community. Now we wait in patience for the N64 sequels, it won't take that long for them to appear surely?

Verdict: A quirky title that may just hook you with its charm.

Price: GB £4.49, EU €4.99
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Released: 1990
System: NES

Castlevania was originally a classic for it's time; albeit a difficult example of it's genre which had some annoyingly designed parts but despite that it quickly gained a cult following. So what next for Konami? Oh yes a sequel and with a sequel comes more of the same but bigger and better; well sort of...

In fact this is more a case of Konami doing for Castlevania what Nintendo did for Mario and Zelda's second outing; instead of being purely limited to side scrolling sections you start off exploring an overworld which contains multiple dungeons (cleverly dubbed Mansions in keeping with the theme) and towns much like in true RPG fashion.

Dracula has been resurrected in a weakened form, his body parts have been scattered around the world inside mansions and he needs them to become stronger (which then later became a popular trait for the series ). Simon Belmont is tasked with collecting all of the body parts to revive Dracula and then kill him for good, though to be honest destroying the parts might have been simpler but I digress.

The meat of this game can be found in the mansions where you must do battle with many minions of the count who are much stronger than those found elsewhere; the main goal here is to find a salesperson who will sell you a solid oak steak which you must use to break an Orb at the end of the mansion which will grant you access to one of the body parts which you seek. Upon collection of all severed limbs and associated appendages   off to Dracula's castle you go to “own” Dracula, which coincidentally is disappointingly easy to do, some replay value can be derived from treading the game once more to get the better endings.

It's a reasonably decent game for the console it was released on which has some distinctly detailed graphics combined with a haunting soundtrack which plays throughout, setting the scene nicely. As a Castlevania game though and indeed the first sequel it falls short a bit, yes it adds some interesting traits (some of which got recycled in later outings) and a very different brand of gameplay from the original, but thats all it really is, different; no better than the original, not terrible but just not as good.

Verdict : A fun follow-up to the fang-tastic original.

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!