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

Yet more from Capcom's favourite mascot, one title from their lesser-known pile plus a Konami classic. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Gargoyle's Quest II: The Demon Darkness
Mega Man Xtreme

 

Price: GB £3.49, EU €4.99
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Released: 1992
System: NES
 
There is no denying that the original Castlevania was a classic with it's simple but spectacular structure that worked so well and earned it much well deserved praise; for the second outing however Konami proceeded to eschew the basic formula in favour of a fuller RPG flavour which added depth but displeased fans. So it came as no surprise that for this third installment everything has been taken back to the roots of the first game.

You assume the role of Simon's ancestor Trevor Belmont who must go up against Dracula armed with the traditional Mystic Whip, journeying through many deviously designed dungeons and choosing your own path between each ensuring a varied experience with each subsequent play-through and promotes an immense level of replay value.

Along with the action of old there are a few newly introduced elements that work well with the game; namely a collection of companions who Trevor will meet on his quest and will aid him en-route. Each has their own unique ability, from Grant the Pirate who excels in climbing, Syfa the Magician who can summon powerful spells and Alucard who is Dracula's son and can turn into a bat to assist you for however long your hearts remain.

The aforementioned adds a certain tactical element as you can only have one of these assist characters in your party at once so choosing the best use of them based on your immediate situation is wise; the element thankfully only serves to back up whats already there as opposed to detracting from what makes it so brilliant.



Visually it's an excellent effort and audibly the score further backs up everything admirably but other than that the most important fact is that it's the Castlevania that fans know and love; you carry your whip which gets longer and stronger the further you progress, there are many varied locations ranging from a Clock Tower, Forest and a Ghost Ship. Trademark items such as the Holy Cross and Magic Potion make themselves known once more and everything comes together to form an altogether awe inspiring experience for fans and newcomers alike.

Considered by many to be the best ever created in the series and with very good reason, you only have to play this stunning title for a short while to understand why that statement is entirely justified. Be you a fan or just someone looking for their next platforming fix, you truly can't go wrong either way with this fine example of just how well a sequel can be made when the developers decide to put all their creative efforts into it.

Verdict :  As classic a Castlevania as they come.



Price: GB £3.49, EU €4.99
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Released: 1993
System: NES

Undoubtedly everyone remembers the Capcom classic Ghosts 'n Goblins but when it comes to Gargoyle's Quest the chances are you'll be met with a few blank stares despite it being a decent spin-off on the GameBoy in which you play the role of Firebrand who is one of the Red Arremers - an enemy who you fight off in the GnG series - though this time he's a good guy, though this may be a numbered title it's actually a prequel to the other game in which we see Firebrand as a young demon in training who has been given the task of vanquising an evil dark light which threatens his home. This merely serves as an excuse for an RPG-flavoured platforming adventure which will have you exploring the realm, increasing your capabilities so that you can fly higher, jump further and weild powerful magic as you battle against bosses in order to extinguish evil for eternity.

Starting out you have a quaint overworld map which you can traverse which features many towns plus other demons to talk with, then if you enter a significant area the action will then shift to a side-scrolling perspective where you can enjoy some classic platforming, you get to use your powers here which includes flight in addition to fireballs which are two staple abilities that every Red Arremer should have. Flying is a simple case of jumping in the air then pressing the button again which allows you to hover but only moving left or right at that height until your flight meter is drained after which point normal gravity will resume so that once you touch down on the ground your metre will refill; while you might not move with the same kind of grace as portrayed in Ghosts 'n Goblins it's still a solid ability, your fireballs are much more simple as you just shoot them, they travel very far hopefully hitting their target.

Once you get to grips with the beautifully simple controls you'll be able to make decent progress rather quickly so you'll soon be collecting upgrades for your health bar, jumping capability plus the different magical projectiles which are infinitely useful being you you can alternate between them easily enough at the touch of a button. Thankfully the rather frustrating element from the first game which would frequently thrust you into a random enemy encounter every few steps as you tirelessly tried to travel across the map have now been abolished meaning that actually getting to where you want to be is now a much friendlier process which reduces the annoyance level, of course the restore points are useful for this title even if it's not nearly the same difficulty as the other titles in the series it should still be considered as a light challenge.



Largely thanks to the NES hardware all of the visual elements have had a significant bump from the monochrome modesty of the GameBoy original which charming as it is could never hope to attain the same level of detail that is on display here, even if this isn't the best game from the system graphically it still looks lovely as it is managing to retain some of that classic Capcom charm which many will appreciate. There is a nicely composed soundtrack which sounds perfectly reasonable for what it is offering a nice gothic feel which naturally suits the on-screen action even if it's not exactly top-tier stuff, all of the sound effects are solid enough at least which is a plus.

In many ways it's easier to recommend Gargoyle's Quest II as an easy entry point into the series thanks to is being easy on the eye, simple to get to grips with while remaining enjoyable at all times but then again no matter how good it is I can never shake the feeling that it's never really quite hitting those high marks like it should be, by all means it is still a very good game judged on its own merits though, it's a very good NES title. If you can hold out for a while longer though that might be the better option because the inifnitely better Demon's Crest will surely be surfacing on the Wii U VC very soon so if you can hold fire(ball) for a while then you're sure to be rewarded with a far superior SNES title rather than just a reasonable NES game; by all means give it a go if you're curious though as it's still money well spent and will certainly further secure the future release of the 16-bit sequel which is almost good enough reason in itself.   
 
Verdict : A solid spin-off sequel that's surprisingly enjoyable.



Price: GB £4.49, EU €4.99
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Released: 2001
System: GameBoy Color

With the original Mega Man X being considered an undisputed all time classic you would naturally think that a portable title which takes elements from the first two games in the series to end up being nothing short of hand-held gold, sadly this isn't quite the case as Mega Man Xtreme seems to be more the equivelant of not even being up to the quality of even the first GameBoy title to feture the blue bomber Mega Man: Dr Wily's Revenge which itself has more than its fair share of issues so this is clearly a problem. The story is set after the first two original SNES titles where Mega Man X along with Zero plus Dr. Cain have to contend with yet more Maverick malevolence, so we have 'X' battling against bosses which have been seen before in the other games while Zero must do battle with many new foes instead instantly making this a game of two halves from the very outset.

Things get off to a very slow start indeed as you begin to battle your way through stages that you'll have seen before on the big screen - assuming you've played Mega Man X - except in less detail, seemingly lacking the original complexity and crucially the spirit which is very much not with us here in this portable approximation, now I realise that the Game Boy Color is only 8-bit hardware compared to the SNES's super 16-Bit raw power but still you can't help but wonder if things would have been better had Capcom played more to the hardware limitations by tailoring the experience more instead of jarringly down-sizing what was a good game but breaking it in the process. To its credit though there are a couple of additions including a new 'good guy' character called Middy whose role is rather short-lived only lasting half-way through the game, plus you have two brand new bosses but these leave a lot to be desired as their designs are actually rather amateurish at best featuring very similar attack patterns and not putting up much of a fight before, really they don't even feel good enough to be in a fan-made game let alone an actual Mega Man title.

Everything is unfortunately held back by the less than ideal control scheme which tries its best to make Mega Man X work on the Game Boy Color with its limited face buttons but ultimately just creates a rather awkward compromise which is only just about workable, the actual character movement is a bit stiff yet the real irritation comes from the 'dash' ability being mapped to the start button which is hardly intuitive at the best of times; fortunately though you can opt to use an alternate control scheme which lets you double tap in the direction you're travelling or press Down plus 'A' but neither option is responsive enough sadly but this could have been alleviated if we had the option to remap buttons through the 3DS VC options. There is also a lot of repetition in the gameplay as a certain stage is repeated three times over across the various modes which doesn't help, there isn't much variation to the boss battles either and certain parts of the game don't even feel that well optimised for the small screen either.



Visually there really isn't a lot else to say aside from it's the 'best bits' of the Mega Man X games squashed onto a tiny screen, with a massive downgrade in the fidelity until the point of it feeling like a significantly smaller shadow of its former self which could never live up to anyone's expectations coupled with some decidedly dodgy animations. I don't even wish to really speak about the music as there is nothing worse than hearing some of the greatest music ever to grace the series watered down until it barely even attempts to sound like a credible imitation, at least the weapon fire sound is intact though.

I would only recommend Mega Man Xtreme to the most die-hard of Mega Man fans and even then it would only be out of morbid curiosity because I think that if you've become accustomed to the classic games then this is just going to feel like a cheap knock-off rather than a proper game though you might be able to glean some fun from it. For anyone else who has yet to play the brilliant Mega Man NES titles or the sublime Mega Man X series on the Wii U VC then by all means please go and play those first or even instead; if it's just a 3DS that you have then pick up the later Mega Man Gameboy titles as they are a good deal better than this half-way compromise which doesn't even live up to the promise of its premise.     

Verdict : An Xtremely sub-standard mess of a Mega Man 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!