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

In this edition we have one of the greatest RPG's ever to come out of Squaresoft, no not Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI! - even though those titles are spectacular in their own right - no I'm talking about one featuring a Plumber, "Tadpole", Wizard and a whole host of craziness; oh and we also have an upgraded - yet technically flawed - version of a classic N64 title. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!
 
Available for download this week we have...   

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
Super Mario 64 DS  

Twas a mere twenty years ago when legendary RPG developer Square teamed up with Nintendo to create a role playing game starring none other than the portly plumber himself, Mario; as skeptical as some fans were at the time, their fears where swiftly swept aside when the game was released to much critical acclaim. It's somewhat baffling then as to why when the game was so successful in both its Eastern and Western territories that it was denied a release in Europe... whatever the reason though, it's better late than never and now “you” can see for yourself why this title is held in such high regard. If you didn't already play it on the Wii VC that is or indeed in original cartridge form on a SNES using adapters.

Starting near the serene and peaceful Mushroom Kingdom, Princess Toadstool is peacefully picking flowers in Mario's garden when all of a sudden the blue skies fade to black, Bowser is back, as he swoops in and snatches the Princess, taking her back to his “humble home”. Hearing the commotion outside, Mario naturally races to be at Toadstool's side, running all the way to Bowser's castle and atop the chandeliers for an epic battle. Mario of course emerges victorious but just as he is about to untie the princess a huge explosion shakes the very foundations of the castle, flinging all three main characters in opposite directions across the surrounding lands; returning to the scene Mario soon discovers that the cause is a giant sword which has plunged straight into Bowser's Castle and destroyed the Star Road en-route. And so it falls upon the legendary hero Mario to recover the seven shattered star pieces, repair the Star Road, save the princess and restore peace to the Mushroom Kingdom. All in a day's work, eh?

What ensues is an epic adventure which will take you from the green lands of the Mushroom Kingdom, through Forest, River, Sea, Valley and even Volcano locations before you can come full circle to Bowser's Castle to save the day from the evil Smithy. Yes that's right, Bowser's not the bad guy this time around (or at least not the baddest), in fact you even get to team up with him along with other characters including Mallow (the frog who is anything but), the mysterious Geno and a host of other surprise characters each with their own unique abilities to use in battle.

Exiting the Forest is super simple you know...

In fact the battle system itself is pretty damned excellent, differing slightly from most but taking a leaf out of Chrono Trigger's book in the sense that you may only have a three character team at any one team; yes it is turn based but with a twist, if you press the action button at specific times you will deal more damage and turn the battle in your favour. There is a great range of varied and entertaining attacks ranging from Mario's Fireball ability to Bowser wielding a live Chain Chomp as a weapon! Enemies can attack you with some frankly bizarre abilities including being able to transform you into scarecrows and mushrooms; outside of battle it's part platforming and puzzle pondering with a wide variety of enemies to avoid or jump upon (triggering a battle), or if you find a Starman power up you can just run around steamrolling them as you jump around the colourful backdrops that are plastered throughout the game.

Indeed the game's visual style is what you are most likely to notice straight off, it's predominantly presented in a well-realised pseudo three-dimensional isometric view and while this type of style hasn't aged well in a lot of cases here it's the exception to the rule as it works in the games favour, not just because it pushed the SNES hardware to it's limits but mainly because there is so much detail that has been poured into the characters and the surrounding environment with some excellent animation which when coupled with the superbly scripted dialogue makes it easy to see that this game was very much a labour of love for all concerned in its conception and creation. Audio used here is also top-tier stuff, with several remixes of familiar favourites as well as some of the original music used from previous Mario games which are all excellently executed and further enhance the experience providing something both old and new which will appeal to the ears of hardcore fans or newcomers alike; it's just seemingly impossible not to hum along to what is considered one of the strongest soundtracks ever compiled in a Nintendo game, Mario or otherwise.

An evil levitating carrot? I thought I'd seen it all!

While we may well still be waiting for a true portable version of this amazing title at least by playing it on the Gamepad you can get a sense of what it might be like, it actually feels surprsingly comfortable even though ultimately I'd advise experiencing the whole adventure on the big screen if you can as it's just that much more absorbing. Having access to those restore points is surely tempting, I can see many points in this game where they will likely be used, for instance when getting lost in a certain maze you could always go back a bit if you save regularly to make your escape less sapping on your sanity; the Miiverse community is clearly thriving as well and will continue to do so over the years, it's good to finally have a place to share your thoughts on such an iconic part of Nintendo history.

If it's appeal that you're after then this game has it in spades, it's a game for fans of old, comers of new, a game that's been enjoyed by myself but above all this game is for you; seriously, if you have not yet played this then you really owe it to yourself to do so. There is much more to this superb title that I purposely haven't touched upon in this review and that is for the sole reason that there is so much brilliance in it that I personally feel should be experienced first-hand; it's very rare that a game of this calibre should come along, and even rarer that it gets released in a territory over a decade after its original release - and now around a decade later still - but rest assured it's been well worth the wait, so please do not delay purchase or deny yourself this any longer. Play and enjoy this masterpiece just as it was originally intended.

Well over ten years ago - at the end of 2004 even - I remember getting my hands on an original Nintendo DS, it was such a monumental day because not only way this a brand new console featuring a unique way to play including new games at launch such as the beautifully bizarre Feel the Magic: XY/XX but it was also the first time which I got to play the classic Super Mario 64 in portable form on my newly purchased imported American DS console; it was both a game-changing and simultaneously game-breaking experience which has stuck with me to this day. It was initially all very exciting as I had read up before on there being now four characters to control starting with Yoshi who has set off to rescue Mario, Luigi and even Wario as they go missing after entering Peach's Castle on the promise of cake, so it's up to everyone's favourite green dinosaur to save the day.

At least initially you would have thought that this sounds like a pretty decent title as it's a portable version of one of the greatest games of all time complete with brand new characters, challenges and content so what's not to like? Well the issue lies with the DS hardware itself as although it brought touch-screen gaming to the masses - which was used for many inventive concepts, sadly now that everyone owns a touch-based device the games released tend to be more bland, banal experiences - when it came to moving characters within a 3D space the device was clearly lacking in any form of traditional, physical analog form of control. The developers clearly tried to get around this by mapping analog control to the touch screen, even going so far as to include a "Thumb Slider" which was a thin bobble of plastic which you would secure to your thumb and the unit in an attempt to replicate the innovative controls found on the N64 and Gamecube, this was in addition to having the stylus as an option so it's not surprising the slider never caught on, sadly your only other option is the resort to using the d-pad which offers rather crude control and obviously because of the way it was originally coded playing with a 3DS slider or in this case a control stick on the Wii U Gamepad adds no real advantage either so you'll find yourself alternating most likely which isn't ideal.

You can just see the future post-mortem report for that Goomba... "Death by egg!"

But we shouldn't dwell on the worst aspect of this charming remake, at least you get four aforementioned characters to play as - once you rescue them at certain points - being able to change via a certain room in the castle is rather handy as well for certain star challenges, otherwise you can also change into other characters by finding their corresponding hats; each character has different properties to start with but Yoshi is perhaps the most unique as he can eat enemies, turn them into eggs and throw them at other enemies just like in previous two-dimensional games. Obtaining a Power Flower will bestow a unique ability upon the character who collected it, Mario blows up like a balloon just like in Super Mario World while Luigi gains invisibility allowing the aptly ghost-like ability of passing through certain surfaces, Wario of course takes on the form of Heavy Metal allowing him to dive deep into underwater sections and Yoshi regains another of his old abilities which is that of Fire-Breathing! All of these abilities are required in order to obtain the main 120 stars, but the fun doesn't end there because there are a further 30 secret stars which now takes the grand total up to 150 stars needed for full completion, a lot of the latter stars will require running after rascally rabbits so have fun with that!  

Even when all the fun is over or if you just want a break from the main game the other half of this previously portable package can be found in the marvelous mini-games, you get eight of them unlocked to start with - two for each playable character - but there are a further twenty-eight which are linked to those aforementioned rabbits you need to catch so chances are you will be jumping between these and the main adventure. All of the games utilise the touch screen to great effect, indeed my favourite has to be Bob-omb Squad where you have to launch cannonballs from a sling-shot in order to hit Para-bombs as they slowly descend towards the ground where you have four Power Flowers which you are trying to protect, more appear as you play but if you can hit Lakitu then that destroys all enemies on screen but if you let four bombs through then the game ends; there are many others though including some great card games where Luigi dresses up as a Croupier which has got to be one of those legendary outfits not really seen since the good old days of having Mario dressed up in a top-hat and suit on the box of the original Super Mario All Stars... but I digress there are too many mini-games to list, suffice to say you should find at least a handful of them to enjoy so don't forget to post those high-score to Miiverse!

Luigi - "Marrriiooo! M-m-m-Mario?" How many times can one famous Plumber go missing?

Onto the subject of visuals, the original version of Super Mario 64 still comes across as nothing sort of polygonal perfect for the time of its release, although this newer DS version does have a higher polygon count - as far as I'm aware - the different resolution means that it doesn't exactly show all of the elements in the best possible light on a large TV screen being that it was originally made for portable play, of course the mini-games look a bit better because they were presumably coded from the ground-up but the main adventure shows many flaws mixed in with a multitude of improvements; if you've never played this version it's still worth playing despite not looking its absolute best. There are improvements in the audio department though as the game originally had a psuedo-surround sound mode made for the DS but this has translated across rather well indeed to home surround sound, I'd even rate it as sounding better in places than the original game plus all of the original sound effects are there and a whole load more for good measure owing to the new characters which adds more variety then just Mario's familiar enthusiastic soundbites provided by the legendary Charles Martinet who incidentally voices Luigi and Wario whereas Yoshi's voice is by Kazumi Totaka - who also voice Professor Elvin Gadd in the Luigi's Mansion games - and let's not forget Leslie Swan for the lovely tones of Princess Peach of course.

Personally I've already had a lot of fun thanks to Super Mario 64 DS as I enjoyed it immensely at the original time of release on the console it was intended for despite its obvious control issues as they aren't completely insurmountable otherwise I wouldn't have finished it to completion including all stars and reasonable high scores in all mini-games. If you've yet to play this version then you really don't have anything to lose unless you'd rather play it on a portable machine in which case you can buy the DS game quite easily still thanks to the millions it surely sold; but if you're one of the few who hasn't played Super Mario 64 yet - and who's old enough to remember it - then you have a choice to make, I'd go for the original if it was me but at least you have the option of going for this competent trade-off which offers you more content in exchange for some technical teething issues which can at the very least be aided with restore points, for that feature alone I envy anyone playing this version for the first time today.

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!