ESauced wrote:I was already into retro gaming when the Wii came out but the Wii shop was my first exposure to turbografx games. I bought Bonk’s Adventure the day it came out and have since picked up the entire bonk series and a couple other TG-16 games. I played Gunstar Heroes and the original Torjam and Earl for the first time on Wii too.
I didn't know what a Turbografx was at all when the VC console list was first announced! I only bought a few TG16 games on the service (Bonk's Adventure, Bomberman 93, Air Zonk, Lords of Thunder) but they convinced me I needed to own the console. Now I have a PAL Turbografx and a Japanese PC Engine Duo R along with about 25 games - for a system I'd not even heard of until the Wii came out.
In fact, the Wii VC was a treasure trove for me in discovering games that I never even had a chance to play due to them never being released here too. I'll write about that shortly though...
Xeogred wrote:Kind of surprised the Wii shop got some of you into retro gaming, huh...
Overall, I think the Virtual Console was mostly a disappointment to me. The Wii menu is also atrocious.
My expectations were really overblown I guess. Initially I thought it all sounded amazing. I figured that we would virtually get 90% of the entire NES, SNES, N64, GC, libraries on there and then some. Along with thinking that Nintendo and other companies would bother to bring over some games we never got before, with new official translations.
I mean, when the Wii came out I'd only been actively following the current gaming trends for one console generation, so it was a big deal for me.
I actually really like the Wii menu because it's simple to find what you want due to it being clearly visible and almost totally customisable. The only issue was when you used to have to 'clear out the fridge' back in the early days of VC because the Wii's piddly internal memory didn't let you fit many games. Luckily they added the ability to load games from SD card later, so that's where I kept all of my VC stuff - which I should also back up, now I think about it! I cannot comprehend the menus of modern games which load icons for physical games - even when they're not in the system. Why do I have icons of 28 games on my Vita menu page that I can't actually play? Just add one bubble for 'cartridge' and leave it be.
I think everyone had the idea that more stuff might have come to the Virtual Console, but I also think that everyone overlooked a lot of stuff - licensing of some of these games is complex, especially with many of the companies long dead. Significant portions of the library wouldn't be worth porting due to the cost of getting them rated and probably low sales for the likes of 'Super Morph' or whatever. And also, the service at it's prime still had almost 400 games on it, which is a thoroughly solid selection. Compare that to Sony's handful of PS1 and PS2 releases on their service and the Virtual Console library is actually pretty impressive if you ask me.
And there are plenty of oddities and rarities in there - check out the likes of Sin & Punishment, Wild Guns, Rondo of Blood, Ufouria: The Saga, Pulseman, DoReMi Fantasy and the half the freaking Turbografx library that's on there!
Also, it's only a couple of games, but there were a few which had features added - including, notably the translation of Monster World 4, in English for the first time (fortunately still available on PSN and XB Live though), as well as online play added to Puyo Puyo Tsuu.