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

Well what a month it has been... we now live in a post Nintendo Switch revealed world which will likely have its own Virtual Console, the Nintendo Classic Mini NES is out (which I played over the course of MadDog Marathon) featuring the new standard in digital NES games and two new mainline Pokémon titles have been released in the form of Sun & Moon.

Speaking of Pokémon it seems like the releases in this edition are somewhat timely, which although is completly by accident owing this once regular article taking a temporary hiatus... it's still a nice coincidence. Besides, it seems like Nintendo have almost completely slowed up on the VC release schedule so I decided to devote a fair few hours to playing my second Pokémon Mystery Dungeon title before the latest mainline game takes over my life.  

In the coming weeks I may attempt another mass catch-up so it's possible you might see a few more editions before this year is out but I can make no promises at this point, some days I just feel lucky enough to have enough time to dedicate towards my favourite hobby; let alone have the chance to review and pass on my experiences! Rest assured that more VC reviews will follow though as even at times when I'm not actively playing, you can be certain that the future of the Virtual Console is never far from my thoughts. Anyway enough from me and on with the games! 
  
Available for download this week we have...  

Initially this may seem like an odd concept but it actually works really well as it's a Pokémon game but instead of the joy derived from encasing the various creatures in small, round spherical objects and making them fight for money, you now take pictures of them and in order to fill your album, you've gotta Snap 'em All!

Set on a distant land with the overwhelmingly original name of Pokémon Island you meet up with Professor Oak who sets you (his new apprentice Todd) the task (seems he's still the master of delegation) of taking pictures of all sixty-three different types of Pokémon to the best of your ability.

Taking place across seven separate stages (including the final obtainable stage) you play a photographic passenger inside the Zero-One which is an on-rails transportation device which will take you across a Beach, through a River and even past an active Volcano on your quest for taking the most perfect Pokémon pictures possible.

Look how the Snorlax seamlessly merges with the environment, beautiful stuff.

All the main big names are here from the early era of the games from the plucky Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander  and Squirtle to the majestic and malevolent legendary Mon's such as Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres and many more besides. You get to take up to sixty shots per course of which you must select one of each type to present to the professor for points which you will receive based primarily on points and positioning.

Bonuses are awarded for various techniques such as grouping together multiple monsters in a single picture, likewise more can be scored if they are facing toward you or pulling off a pose. Items in the way of apples can be used to lure them out whereas pester balls will anger them and playing the Poké-flute can yield some quite frankly strange results but as a general rule, the more interesting the shot the better.

Look at this magnificent Arcanine! Also, this Zero-One is lava-proof... r-right?!?

Having mostly stuck to the mainline series of games over the years, I have to say that Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky has been quite the eye-opening experience for me which makes a lot more sense of the Pokémon universe in addition to furthering the potential reach of the previously rather obscure Mystery Dungeon series. After viewing a lavish intro you get asked a series of questions which will determine your aura colour in addition to both your starter and partner Pokémon for the duration of the adventure; my story started as Charmander gets washed up on a beach, Bulbasaur tries to test his courage but fails which then leads up to him meeting up with Charmander who suffers memory loss, then Bulbasaurs precious item (the Relic Fragment) gets stolen by Koffing and Zubat, you team up to get it back (because it's obviously going to be important later on) and then you end up at the Expedition Guild where the real fun begins! 

At the head of the Guild you have Wigglytuff who is the head of the organisation, he's delightfully unpredictable often leading to moments of hilarity, then you have Chatot who is right-hand bird to the pink puffball who will generally order you around while coming across as skittish at times. Of course there's also the ever-helpful Bidoof (Yup, Yup!) who's understandably overjoyed at having two new recruits join up as it means he's not the newbie anymore, the excitable Sunflora (Oh My Gosh!) who always have some sort of social commentary throughout the story which is intruiging in itself; there are plenty of other lovable characters whom I'll let you discover for yourself but essentially the character development is excellent for all NPC's in addition to your main characters who you'll surely warm to more as you advance further.

And with that, team Pokérus was formed! What do you mean it's also the name of a disease?

The story itself focuses on your much-touted expedition as you go to explore unknown territory but at the same time you'll be solving a mystery revolving around certain artifacts going missing, there is also time travel involved, certain legendary Pokémon and much more besides which I'm not about to go and spoil for you as it really will be the driving force for you wanting to continue with the game; suffice to say though that it's really well written and much more involving than a lot of the narrative contained in the the main games have ever been. For this the PMD series really should be commended as in this entry in particular a really good job has been done in building up a believable world in which you'll want to live inside for many hours at a time, even if you're just talking to one of the many critters contained within the limited but densely packed areas available to you, not to mention the variety afforded which refuses to pander to just First-Generation Pokémon! As while it's true that there are many favourites from that special, nostalgic era of Red & Blue there have been so many other wonderful creations across many games, Chunsoft have realised this as they successfully leverage a decent variety from the series' rich history.

I also really like the way in which the Guild feels like a living place as inbetween missions you'll go through a routine of partaking in an evening meal with your fellow explorers as you watch everyone scarf down their food in a hilariously good animation, then you'll settle down for the evening as your characters mull over the days events before drifting off... then getting woken up by Loudred the next morning to start all over again, after saving of course. The duties of your team (in my case Team Pokérus) will vary as well because at certain points you'll need to fill in for Diglett who's usually on sentry duty, this means you get to play a mini-game where you need to correctly identify the footprints of approaching Pokémon so that they can enter the guild, this can prove to be a lot of fun as you try to better your high-score each time and of course you'll get a good reward at the end if you do well.

So this is where Pokémon Sun & Moon got the idea from. When in doubt, borrow from the best!

With all the Poké you'll be earning (the currency used in PMD) from each of your missions, or at the least ten percent you get to keep before the rest is swallowed up by the guild, you'll of course be wanting to spend it at some point so it's a good job that there are plenty of fine establishments within Treasure Town where you can purchase fine goods which you will be making use of when you're a fair few floors deep into a dungeon. Well, in actual fact there's only one real shop as such but it really is one of the best that you could ever hope for, it has all of the much needed items such as those Apples, Throwable objects, Holdable trinkets, rare Gummi's and much more besides. It is of course the Kecleon Market which is run by quite possibly one of the greatest Pokémon ever created, of course the shop itself is the centre of its community and it blends in seamlessly with its surroundings; there are other places too which I won't spoil but the main ones you should be aware of are the slightly creepy Duskull Bank where you can save your money there to avoid losing it if you fall in battle and the ever joyful Kangaskhan Storage wich will keep your items safe no matter what happens.

Before setting off it's always a good idea to select as many requests as possible so that you can help many clients at a time within one dungeon from the main board or from the wanted board if you want to go after some outlawed creatures, once you get inside a dungeon you'll be in there until you either complete a mission which let's you warp out or if you get to the final floor thus reaching the end so it's good to be prepared as you'll run into many Pokémon down there which you'll battle by moving in their vicinity. You're movement is essentially grid-based so it's best to think of your main character movement like a Chess piece but once you get within a square or two then you can attack with moves until you hopefully vanquish your foe or recruit them by earning respect from certain ones in battle; indeed after you get to Chapter 5 you can opt to recruit more team members in this way, once you've done this you can go to Chinecho Assembly who will let you add them to your team on certain expeditions which can come in handy so do swap them out every now and then.

How do you improve your game tenfold? With the inclusion of Kecleon of course!

Other things to consider while exploring are that with each step you take inside a dungeon, your characters will become hungry as their belly gradually depletes, you'll get several warninings of this though but if you should let it empty then you'll begin to lose HP as well so it's wise to carry a fair few apples along with you in order to keep hunger at bay though once you've reached the end of the dungeon it won't matter as much so save them for when you're in a dire situation. Everything you do inside these randomly generated areas has to be carefully calculated, for instance you can try to map out the entire place at a cost of you getting hungry or you can power on through to the floors you need to reach for your objectives, there are items to pick up with some treasure chests but do you have enough inventory space for it all? You can level up, learning new moves on the way though you might not want to get into a fight every time if you're already at low health, you can choose to rest at the press of a button but when you do the enemies close in on you; it's certainly a case of constantly considering your situation while trying to maintain equilibrium and yes it can get repetitive in places but you will want to continue for the story as it really will spur you on.

Such a vibrant colour palette has been used which really brings the world to life, the main hub area of Treasure Town is teeming with tiny touches that will resonate with those players who appreciate the smaller things which are put there in order to bring a smile to your face, it's heartening to see that so much care has gone into each area and not just into the animations of every Pokémon sprite which is impressive in itself but is never the main focus; also the game looks delightful on the Gamepad so there's no need to use the blur feature by clicking the left stick as it's already nicely rendered as it is. All of the soundtrack is expertly composed, there are many tracks which are still stuck in my head as I'm typing these words which is clearly the mark of good videogame music, the sound effects are brilliant as well with only one or two in the entire game that I took a dislike to and even then that's just an odd preference of mine towards certain electronic noises.  

You'll be seeing a lot of these kinds of areas... it's a Mystery Dungeon game afterall!

Obviously you will lose some of the original Nintendo Wi-Fi connection features which were present in the DS original but it's minimal, there's a rescue feature where another player could send a Pokémon over to temporarily help you out but because there was also a password system implemented for those without Wi-Fi you can still get a helpful item instead, there were some special missions as well though I believe these can still be obtained in-game via wonder-mail in Spinda's Cafe, unless I imagined it? Either way there's plenty of content plus the added bonus of being able to use restore points, share your experience and presumably passwords over miiverse is handy as well; not to mention that this is another DS game which works really well on the Wii U VC regardless of whether you're using both screens or just the Gamepad but you will want to look up at your TV screen every now and then at crucial story-driven moments as there are some nice things to look at during your adventure.

This is an ideal point to jump in with the series because while the main action can be repetitive, it is also fun if you enjoy the gameplay along with falling into an enjoyable routine and the aforementioned story certainly will keep you interested, plus it's fun to learn more about the world of Pokémon while retaining the fundamentals of the Mystery Dungeon series in a way which respects its legacy. While it looks like the series may well have reached what looks like its zenith with the recent release of Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon which I can only assume must be wonderful to play through thanks to the immensely positive feedback I've heard from those who have played it (it's on my own personal backlog pile) I can see that this particular entry in the series represents a major step forward in shaping the formula which clearly seems to improve with each hardware generation even if the fundamentals remain largely the same. If you've played one Mystery Dungeon game and enjoyed it then it's clear to me that you must then endeavour to play them all but if you've yet to play any then there really isn't a better time or place than right here, right now. Put in the effort if you can as you'll surely be rewarded. 

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!