The third installment in the Mega Man series hits the Virtual Console this week alongside the fourth Phantasy Star game.

European gamers are this week bombarded by a duo of hard-as-nails retro games, the sheer difficulty of which will have them sobbing themselves into a coma.

Capcom's Mega Man 3, originally released in 1992 for the NES, follows the depressingly difficult structure on which the recent Mega Man 9 on WiiWare was based. An apparently reformed Dr. Wily teams up with Dr. Light to make a peace-keeping robot, before revealing his own hidden agenda and having his metal henchmen make off with Light's power crystals. 500 Wii Points is what you'll be needing if you want to stop the fiend.

Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millenium from SEGA originally saw a release in 1995 on the SEGA Mega Drive. This fourth installment is set 1,000 years after the events of the second game and sees you playing as a bounty hunter charged with saving an ecosystem (and thus the universe) by kicking some "biomonster" rears. 800 Wii Points for this one.

Watch out for resident VC guru Sam's reviews of these titles over the coming days.