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Virtual Console Most Wanted

Golden Bananas and Projectile Leaves!

by Andrew Brown - February 11, 2012, 10:55 am EST

Donkey Kong's 3D fetch quest and an obscure duo from the Super NES!

Game title: Donkey Kong 64
System: Nintendo 64
Developer: Rare

Why it's so cool: This game was Rare's final hurrah for the Donkey Kong series. Donkey, Diddy, and a bunch of other Kongs heavily reminiscent of their DKC Trilogy relatives explore gigantic worlds in search of the elusive Golden Bananas and lay a gorilla-sized smackdown on K.Rool and his Kremling crew. Often called the king of collectathons, the game's levels had literally hundreds of things to find and keep tabs on, while old Cranky Kong would gradually upgrade your abilities to gain access to new areas and challenges. Much of the traditional barrel hurling was taken out to make room for first-person weaponry and puzzles revolving around the Kongs' individual strengths and magical powers. Like Super Mario 64, levels could only be accessed once a certain amount of Golden Bananas had been obtained, and each Kong could access different places in each level. They each had their own set of color-coded bananas and items to find, and their individual weapons could activate different switches, requiring you to hop into a Tag Barrel to swap your character frequently.

The whole game was overflowing with kooky, cartoony humor, and every Kong, enemy, boss character or otherwise interactive creature in the game had their own personality and flair.

DK64 had a slightly different flavor to the platforming games that preceded it, but this game was gigantic, tough as nails, crammed with secrets and was a blast to play. With the Wii's enhanced rendering of N64 software such as Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, DK64 would definitely benefit from the crisper, cleaner polygon edges.

So why isn't it out already? Now that Rare has moved on to... other avenues in the gaming industry, there may have been some question of who holds the license for this game. This is likely not the case, as when Rare left, Nintendo took on board all series developments and characters that Rare had done and even included the Kong Family and Kremlings in a few of their own first party titles since then. Rare themselves have also stated on their Scribes site that they have no issues with the game being re-released by Nintendo, much like the SNES Donkey Kong games that are already available on the system.

Another reason may be that the game includes the arcade versions of the original Donkey Kong and Rare's own Jetpac (which Nintendo doesn't hold the rights to), both of which must be completed in order to access the final boss. With the NES version of DK already out on Wii's Virtual Console and a fully playable free version packed in here, it may be considered counterproductive to business. I say just charge an extra 100 Wii Points, I'm sure gamers would be happy with that.


Game title: Pocky & Rocky 1 and 2
System: SNES
Developer: Natsume

Why they're so cool: This adorable and addictive shooter series was a remake/sequel to Taito's old top-down arcade classic KiKi KaiKai (Mysterious Ghost World) and featured a young shrine maiden and her tanuki friend questing across the land of Edo-period Japan to defeat hordes of evil yokai demons. Players had to navigate huge, folklore-inspired levels teeming with vicious monsters and hostile wildlife, obliterating everything in their path by throwing demon-warding seals and magic leaves in some of the best arcade shoot 'em up action on the SNES. Add to this a catchy soundtrack, gorgeous, colorful landscapes and quirky, charming character animation (as well as hilarious mistranslations of the exchanges between the heroes and the boss monsters) and you have a recipe for a great adventure. It's even better in multiplayer with a crazy sliding team-attack that sends you both ricocheting around the levels like pinballs! The second game on the SNES had swappable characters that could open new paths in each labyrinthine level and a ramped-up difficulty. You can't have one without the other, so this is my vote to see both make a Virtual Console comeback!

So why aren't they out already? At the launch of the GBA, Natsume created a third game in the series, Pocky & Rocky with Becky. While promising, the full capabilities of the GBA were not taken into consideration and ultimately we were left with a lackluster game. There was also a sequel being made known as KiKi Kai World in recent years, which changed developers several times, had the original license taken away, and ultimately became a spiritual sequel called Heavenly Guardian (Legend of Sayuki in Europe). While attempting to capture the feel and style of the original games, something was lost amongst all the red tape, and the game turned out to be a major disappointment. These collective drawbacks may have made Natsume wary to re-release their classic entries into the series for the new generation. I can only hope the series has not been soured permanently, as these are games that need to be played.

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Talkback

broodwarsFebruary 11, 2012

Well, these are some nice picks to start with, but here are some more (taking into account, of course, that Rare-published games have to be excluded):

NES:

Base Wars (the only baseball game I have ever liked)
TMNT 2: The Arcade Game and TMNT 3 (licensing rights, I know. But it's still worth mentioning)

SNES:

Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinestrals
Illusion of Gaia
Terranigma
Soul Blazer
TMNT 4: Turtles in Time (licensing rights, I know. But it's still worth mentioning)

N64:

Space Station Silicon Valley
Body Harvest
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Star Wars - Episode 1: Battle for Naboo
Hybrid Heaven
Rayman 2 (hey, Ubisoft's released it on just about everything else, so we might as well have the N64 port)

xcwarriorFebruary 11, 2012

I'm too tired to think of VC games that should be on there, I only know there are plenty of games they SHOULD put on there.

Nintendo, you're so close to getting it right with the Club Nintendo points for games.

Now just do some sales each week. Take the 5 minutes to update the Wii Shop and streamline the damn store and promo it. Say its a preview of what's coming for Wii U. Just fix it and and bring back the Wii Virtual Console!

If we're going to get a Stadium game, it has to be 1. 2's actually too big for the Wii's file size limit (it filled a 64MB cart... same reason we'll never see N64 RE2).

Also, Earthbound and Mother. But you already knew that.

SarailFebruary 11, 2012

I have the PAL cart for Terranigma, which doesn't work with my converter cart. :/ But I long so very badly for this game to hit the VC. Day one purchase guaranteed.

CalibanFebruary 11, 2012

I've got my Faxanadu, so all I need now is Terranigma.

JRokujuushiFebruary 11, 2012

There was actually a game earlier than Yoshi's Safari that called the princess Peach.  In Yoshi's Cookie, you can select the princess in versus mode, and if you just select "end" without entering a name, it will use one of two default names, PEA and PRI.  Of course, since it only lets you enter three letters, it doesn't fully reveal the name Peach, but that's clearly what it's alluding to.

http://i.imgur.com/0YyBB.png

Kytim89February 11, 2012

Here is my Virtual Console Most Wanted List:

Genesis:

Castlevania: Bloodlines
Contra: Hard Corps
Rocket Knight Adventures
TMNT Tournament Fighters
Strider
Alisia Dragoon

Nintendo 64:

Donkey Kong 64
Winback
Resident Evil 2
Mischief Makers
Bomberman 64
Megaman 64

Arcade:

Contra
The Simpsons
Punch-Out!
X-Men
Out Run

NES:

Strider
Mighty Final Fight
Dragon Warrior 1 through 4
Megaman 6
TMNT 2
Batman
Power Blade
Metal Gear 1 and 2
Duck Hunt
Contra
Crystalis

SNES:

Treasure of the Rudras
Bahamut Lagoon
Weapon Lord
TMNT: Turtles in Time
Hagane: The Final Conflict
Lufia one and two
Secret of Evermore
Soul Blazer
Star Ocean
Demon's Crest
Breath of Fire
Star Fox
Yoshi's Island
Super Mario All-Stars
Earthbound

Gamecube:

Everything that is possible

Dreamcast:

Grandia 2
Soul Caliber
Skies of Arcadia
Resident Evil: Code Veronica


What the Hell? All of the NES, SNES, and N64 Rare developed games.

I plan to make a seperate Gamecube VC list later.

GKFebruary 12, 2012

I certainly would like a Goemon's Great Adventure VC release just so I can finally finish it & not have the Memory Pak wiping me save data clean. As much as I loved the N64 controller, putting something as vital & fragile as a memory card in the most abused part of the console was a bad idea...

If Wii doesn't add more VC stuff, I hope Wii U will have some of these missed titles & rig in an online play to the multiplayer games as well. I probably would have downloaded more games if online play was possible.

TrueNerdFebruary 12, 2012

Earthbound. I've never had the pleasure.

UncleBobRichard Cook, Guest ContributorFebruary 12, 2012

Virtual Arcade: Super Mario Vs. Please.

Fatty The HuttFebruary 13, 2012

Pilotwings 64 please.
Never played it but love the SNES and 3DS versions dearly. Anyone have any idea why they didn't release thsi to help promote the 3DS game? Some technical issue or something?

StrawHousePigFebruary 13, 2012

I'll second Mystical Ninja. Not sure why now, but I remember enjoying it.


I'd also like to add:


Cubivore
Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
Mario & Luigi

Mop it upFebruary 27, 2012

The only game that I would want to come to the Virtual Console is Blaster Master 2 for the Sega Genesis. I have no idea if this game was actually good or if I was just excited that I finally had a sequel to an NES game I enjoyed, so I really want to play it again. I'm never going to buy another Sega Genesis because every other game I liked is available on some sort of game collection. Blaster Master 2 is the only game that hasn't ever been re-released, to my knowledge.

Also of note, Pokémon Stadium 2 is on a 64MB cartridge, so it can't come to the Wii VC because it is over the download file size limit.

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