Official bitching about Hudson abandoning VC support. [VC/WiiWare = lost cause]

Wow, thanks for the great responses Jiggy37, A Black Falcon, and DaBargainHunta!

I am going to pick up DoReMi Fantasy: Milon’s DokiDoki Adventure today, and I'm sure I'll eventually grab The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I had that game when I owned a physical SNES, so that's one reason I hadn't gone back to it (for whatever reason, I got stuck/bored with it and never finished it back in the day, so that's why I'm a bit averse to try again).

I enjoyed the DKC games back in the day (again, owned them on cart) but they're not as interesting to me now. If this drought continues, I'm sure I'll end up with them. :)

I tried ActRaiser on an emulator one time back in the day and it didn't grab me. It gets such universal praise that I will definitely have to grab it on VC and give it a go with a proper SNES pad.

Final Fight is awesome, but I do have SoR2 and I was more of a Sega guy back in the day (I had Final Fight on Sega CD...awesome version!) so I'm not as inclined to pick up FF gimped.

I'll put Harvest Moon a bit down on the list. Not much love for it here.

Again, thanks guys!
 
sk3tch said:
I finally managed to snag one of those Super Famicom Classic Controllers for the Wii (it arrived today). Because of its arrival, I'm on a SNES kick!

I have:

Super Mario World (my favorite Mario ever)
Super Metroid (finally getting unstuck after consulting Gamefaqs)
Super Castlevania IV (thanks GAF VC Secret Santa '07!)

I'm debating buying:

Harvest Moon
DoReMi Fantasy: Milon’s DokiDoki Adventure

Or anything else you guys highly suggest. Slim pickins' on SNES! Can't wait until they drop some more games for it on VC.

OH! Before I go - one note is that I'm a tad averse to high difficulty. I'm looking for a fun game that I can stick to (I don't have a ton of time to game, so I'd prefer to avoid repetition). Thanks!!

Hey, where can you find one of those controllers?
 
Jiggy37 said:
A significant enough difference, I think, that it can't be accounted for merely by concern over what level of effort went into making a game available.

Well, that's probably accurate: by current accounts, I think WiiWare is a service that's being handled extremely well and delivering on the level I would have expected and hoped at its announcement; I think VC is a service that's failed to achieve its full potential thus far, and I know that there is no meaningful administrative cost or other such barrier that prevents it from improving.

I've never seen anyone claim that a price is too high purely because the price will make the game more profitable for its publisher than that publisher deserves, but that's an interesting perspective.

I wouldn't characterize my position in quite such a... vengeful way. It's more like: as a relatively educated game consumer, I use my dollars partially to subsidize things I'd like to see more of: I try to buy promising new IPs right away to support their developers and publishers in the decision to create and release them, for example.

If you put Lost Winds next to a title of "identical" quality, length, etc. for the same price, or even for a greater price (as it currently is), I'm going to preferentially support Lost Winds because it's something new and supporting it will have the effect of supporting more such new products in the future.

The "triple-dip" comment was also an overly-oblique reference to the fact that for many VC games, the current price is not actually an efficient means of acquiring them: many of them have already been rereleased at a cheaper price per game than the VC offers, for example. (Unsurprisingly, this makes games like SMB3, which was last released by Nintendo at a $30 pricepoint, some of the better deals on the system.)

When I think of VC in the same sort of light, I have to concede that, although the prices are entirely fine in my own eyes (with the exception of N64), they're sabotaging the sales potential of VC since others find them excessive.

Right. It's also worth taking this into account in context of the current release situation. If the VC were a relatively all-encompassing catalog of games for all of the relevant systems, priced at this level, I'd have less room to complain because the sheer volume of titles available would be a powerful argument: I couldn't really complain about an $8 price point if it meant that every time someone on GAF made an LTTP on some semi-obscure SNES title I could sit down and be legally playing it on my TV in about 10 minutes. When you combine the prices with the selection, though, I'm much less interested in trying out whatever random sort-of-good title comes out each week than I would be at, say, the 3-5-8 price points most people were proposing pre-release.

As for the profit split: if that was more in favor of third-parties, Nintendo would have even less incentive to make games available (and they're already running a shoddy job with the weekly releases as is, at least outside of Japan), so the library could still wind up being smaller since Nintendo itself is ultimately the greatest bottleneck to VC releases. Which would be their own fault, obviously, but knowing who's to blame wouldn't change the situation for gamers, and I'm saying it could be worse than it is.

That's all true, and pretty much in keeping with the problem I brought up. And I think that pretty much the analysis you spell out is, in fact, what led Nintendo to price the system the way it's priced, and to release games at the slow-ass trickle they release them at, as much as it irritates me.
 
MoxManiac said:
Hey, where can you find one of those controllers?

On eBay my friend. I paid ~$50 shipped for one. They're not cheap. But hey, I think it's worth it. :)

jarrod said:
DRMF is actually pretty... average. You'd be much better served going with a different 16bit platfomer imo, maybe Ristar.

I'm looking for SNES games right now (to use my new controller) - do you have any recommendations there (I posted a list above of what I already have)? Ristar is pretty rad. I also own a JPN Wii and I love Pulseman!
 
Hopefully someone can help me out here (gamefaqs didnt help) I'm playing Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and I was in the dark world and transferred back into the light world and I can't find away back to the dark world. The little portal thingy is nowhere to be found. Can anyone help please?
 
charlequin said:
Right. That's because $10 for a brand new, inventive game that's just been developed is a fantastic deal and $10 for an N64 game isn't.
Ehh. If you haven't played it, it's new to you. The $10 N64 games are a much more complete experience than anything I can get for $10 or even $15 on WiiWare.
 
Parasol Stars was a Taito game, so any potential VC release would probably have to go through them, and they haven't been very supportive on the VC so far, since they've only released Bubble Bobble, Elevator Action, Operation Wolf, and The Legend of Kage so far, along with Front Line in Japan.
 
sk3tch said:
I'm looking for SNES games right now (to use my new controller) - do you have any recommendations there (I posted a list above of what I already have)? Ristar is pretty rad. I also own a JPN Wii and I love Pulseman!
For SNES? It's pretty barren honestly.... after Mario World and DKC1-3, DRMF might actually be the best option. :/

I'd suggest dipping into other genres or platforms tbh... but if you *must* have a SNES platformer, DRMF seems like your best option.
 
After I finished bitching and bitching and bitching about the state of VC I went and played some games.

Lords of Thunder- I picked this one up despite the fact that it's +200 blocks and now I have zero space left for new VC games. Luckily IMO this one is a keeper. I'm kind of disappointed in myself for losing all of my continues at the last boss though(on NORMAL even!) so it's pretty obvious my skills have waned quite a bit. Too bad there's no way to mute those sound effects though...yeesh!

River City Ransom- Seeing as how I may never find RCR EX for a decent price I decided to grab this. My uncle(who hasn't played this game in over 10 years) recognized it right off the bat which I thought was pretty cool as he taught me everything there is to know about the game(he always loaded up on Isis Scrolls so a single rock could kill anyone).

Super Mario World- Still a great game. Actually had a bit of fun with it despite the fact that I played through it some thirty times(especially since for a year or so it was the only game I owned since at the time I sold my Genesis and NES). I had 22 lives by the time I left the first world...yeesh.

Top Hunter- Man I suck so bad at this game. I'm not used to the fact that you take damage if enemies walk into you and all too often guys just walk into me and I get clobbered. It doesn't help that the demo that plays when you leave the game idle shows off a lot of interesting tricks and skills that I have yet to grasp despite playing through the game.

Simon's Quest- Got the Cross and Dracula's Ring so I guess I can beat the game now...whoo. Maybe I'll just wander around and see what all of the townspeople say instead.

Beyond Oasis- I'm kind of annoyed at myself because I wasn't paying attention and I ruined my ranked 1 playthrough. I guess it's not a huge deal because I've done everything there is to do in this game(hell I've even put in more than 80 hours...remember when Sega actually advertised that this game is 70 to 80 hours long?) but damned if it isn't annoying going without the "Super-Hero" rank. I also got the infinite explosion bow which is always fun to play around with and now I guess I'll get the infinite Omega Sword at the bottom of the 100 floor dungeon. I'm disappointed so many people get put off by the low-quality sound effects and music because this is without a doubt one of the best action-adventure games ever made.

Gradius III- After finding out that the "reduce" shield actually allows you to take two hits while also reducing your hitbox I decided to make that my shield for all future playthroughs. I also made the switch to the E-Laser because it is fucking ridiculous! A good direct shot from an E-Laser will kill most any boss in 1 or 2 hits!

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja- Got through stage 7(which was pretty easy) but now in stage 8 I have to buy a book to translate the moon language all of the townspeople speak(which costs 800+) and then play through the hardest stage in the game...looking forward to that! =(

Magician Lord- Shame there's no way to gift games you've already purchased. I'd love to get rid of this one.
 
SFGamer said:
Hopefully someone can help me out here (gamefaqs didnt help) I'm playing Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and I was in the dark world and transferred back into the light world and I can't find away back to the dark world. The little portal thingy is nowhere to be found. Can anyone help please?
Assuming you haven't already figured it out, the mirror can only be used to go from Dark World -> Light World. In order to get to the Dark World from the Light World you need to find one of the portals on the map. Here is a map of all their locations. I didn't make it!

@DavidDayton --

I shouldn't have said that 'I can't count how many times..." because truthfully I probably could (exaggeration on my part, apologies). And I wasn't trying to suggest that my own anecdotal experiences are true for the vast majority of the Wii userbase, just that it's an example of a larger problem (which is Nintendo's unwillingness to fill out the VC library at any kind of reasonable pace). If you're curious, some of the games that came up a lot were Mario Party 1,2, Super Mario Kart (much better than MK64), Kirby Superstar (I know it's getting a DS remake), Super Smash Bros (awesome party game, yes, even with Brawl out), and yeah, Goldeneye/Perfect Dark.

What it basically comes down to is what I've said before -- people can't buy games that aren't available, and the larger and more appealing the lineup of VC games is at the moment, the more likely that people will have something there that immediately grabs their eye. Which is a start, and at least gets them interested in checking out what the service has to offer immediately.
 
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Magician Lord- Shame there's no way to gift games you've already purchased. I'd love to get rid of this one.
Magician Lord hasn't aged all that well, but it's pretty notable for how amazing it looks given it was 1989. If I still had a Neo Geo cart system, I'd own it again.
 
sfog said:
Parasol Stars was a Taito game, so any potential VC release would probably have to go through them, and they haven't been very supportive on the VC so far, since they've only released Bubble Bobble, Elevator Action, and The Legend of Kage so far, along with Front Line in Japan.

Hey, as long as they've supported it in some way, I have hope! And, the fact that they've Ok'd the release of Bubble Bobble has to help a little...
 
jarrod said:
For SNES? It's pretty barren honestly.... after Mario World and DKC1-3, DRMF might actually be the best option. :/

I'd suggest dipping into other genres or platforms tbh... but if you *must* have a SNES platformer, DRMF seems like your best option.

I'm not stuck on platformers, but with the SNES only having 32 U.S. VC releases, it's hard not to. :)

I am putting off my purchase of a game for a bit. I've become completely immersed into Super Metroid after taking months off because I was stuck. Thank you GameFAQs! Although now that I've abandoned the walkthrough and it seems I'm stuck again. Haha. This game rocks.
 
Meloche said:
Assuming you haven't already figured it out, the mirror can only be used to go from Dark World -> Light World. In order to get to the Dark World from the Light World you need to find one of the portals on the map. Here is a map of all their locations. I didn't make it!


Thank you, now maybe I will be able to beat this game (had it for months now)
 
Meloche said:
If you're curious, some of the games that came up a lot were Mario Party 1,2, Super Mario Kart (much better than MK64), Kirby Superstar (I know it's getting a DS remake), Super Smash Bros (awesome party game, yes, even with Brawl out), and yeah, Goldeneye/Perfect Dark.

I'll admit, I had forgotten about Mario Party... still, I find it unlikely that the majority of folks would be disappointed by the current VC lineup. Most folks I run into want the standard stuff that's on VC at the moment... Mario, Zelda, Metroid... stuff like that. The N64 lineup is depressingly dismal at the moment, though... where's my Majora's Mask?
 
hey, i know it's a topic that probably hasn't come up in a while since it was one of the first v.c. games released, but on the topic of solomon's key: have you guys played the gbc game that was its follow-up, monster rancher explorer?

this game rocks so hard.
 
beelzebozo said:
hey, i know it's a topic that probably hasn't come up in a while since it was one of the first v.c. games released, but on the topic of solomon's key: have you guys played the gbc game that was its follow-up, monster rancher explorer?

this game rocks so hard.

Is it easier than the NES' ? Seriously i stopped playing Solomon's Key because way too damn hard.
 
I don't know if knowing that a Solomon's Key sequel was released for the GBC but had the "Monster Rancher" name slapped onto it makes me want to laugh or weep.

I mean, of all the franchises to shoehorn Solomon's Key into...
 
DavidSupina said:
Look, I'd much rather know of Friday what we're getting the following Monday, but from a business perspective, it makes more sense for people not to know until Monday.

VC games are impulse driven. If you find out about a game on Friday, and have to wait until Monday, you might think twice.

This is just one of those instances where screwing the fans slightly happens to be a better business practise.
Because of my tiny fridge I can't impulse buy on the VC. Doesn't JP get them monthly. Not to mention the load time and poor category listings detere impulse buying. Games like SMB should be listed under platforms and there should be a pinball cat instead of putting them in misc... etc. etc.
 
Iam Canadian said:
I don't know if knowing that a Solomon's Key sequel was released for the GBC but had the "Monster Rancher" name slapped onto it makes me want to laugh or weep.

I mean, of all the franchises to shoehorn Solomon's Key into...

yeah. really bizarre. i read about it on wikipedia after discovering fire n ice and falling in love, so i went through some exhaustive efforts to track down a copy. the opening cinema had me confused as hell, and a little worried i'd bought the wrong game. but the gameplay itself is rock solid.
 
I'm on the verge of wondering if i should dress up a list of SNES and NES games i'd like to buy on VC and then starting to hunt them down in real life.

One part of me want them on the cheap + better image (VC) but i'm at a point of discouragement where i really wonder if the games will ever get uploaded.
If i wait a couple of years i might have a harder time finding in real life those games that never showed up on the VC...

That's really bad that the VC gave me this taste for retro gaming to begin with. :(
 
Dave Long said:
Magician Lord hasn't aged all that well, but it's pretty notable for how amazing it looks given it was 1989. If I still had a Neo Geo cart system, I'd own it again.

Do you remember that nickeloden game show Nick Arcade? I remember seeing the contestants play Magician Lord on there, always wanted to play it back then.
 
ESRB update, nothing "new" but at least you're getting some of our imports:

City Connection Jaleco Everyone Comic Mischief, Tobacco Reference Wii
Biomiracle Bokutte Upa Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. Everyone Comic Mischief Wii
Alex Kidd In Miracle World SEGA of America Everyone Comic Mischief Wii
Gley Lancer SEGA of America Everyone 10+ Mild Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes Wii
 
1) Yay for Gley Lancer being rated. Boo for that potentially not meaning much of anything since we're still waiting on Shining Force II, Ys Book I & II, Final Soldier, Super Fantasy Zone, and however many other games have been rated for a while now. :/


2)
PepsimanvsJoe said:
Lords of Thunder- I picked this one up despite the fact that it's +200 blocks and now I have zero space left for new VC games. Luckily IMO this one is a keeper. I'm kind of disappointed in myself for losing all of my continues at the last boss though(on NORMAL even!) so it's pretty obvious my skills have waned quite a bit. Too bad there's no way to mute those sound effects though...yeesh!
You sure you didn't pick up Gate of Thunder? In Lords (an even better game, though movement speed is slower) the shots don't even make noise, so the only thing that might be annoying is the gem collection sound effect... But in Gate you honestly can't hear hear the flipping music because the sounds are so loud. Sucks. :|


3) Just want to momentarily revisit something I said earlier.
Jiggy37 said:
Honestly, for me the slowdown of quality VC releases only highlights the status of the Wii retail library--now that I'm more heavily forced to pay attention to it.
You know, it's actually kind of interesting. Reggie's the one who's claimed repeatedly that Nintendo is an "and" company, not an "or" company; accordingly, I expect them to be able to cater to fans of new games "and" fans of classic games. Since the beginning of 2008, they've been on top of the new games side of things, with Smash Bros, Mario Kart, and Wii Fit (regardless of individual opinions, they are new and they do cater to millions of people each), but VC happens to turn up good titles only on occasion and ostensibly by accident, which really kind of sucks.

But the greatest hilarity is that for the forseeable future they don't seem to be doing a good job of managing either new or classic releases. And by "greatest hilarity" I mean "most depressing truth," so apparently I'm masochistic. (Guess I'd have to be to stick with Nintendo?) We know about Wii Music and Kirby, whenever they get around to either of those, but off the top of my head that's it aside from those vaunted titles of Nothing, Nada, Zip, Unannounced, Never Heard of It, To Be Cancelled Soon, and Too Ambitious For This Gen.
 
Next month Ill be downloading devils crush. Military Madness sounds intriguing. How does it compare to Advance Wars?

edit: Jiggy, better buy boom blox! Blast works looks awesome as well and ships june 10th. Its like lego shmup with a user generated database where you can browse and send individual ship designs/levels/enemies/bullet patterns right to your wii straight from the opera channel.
 
Between being 3D and being a puzzle game that isn't $30 or less, Boom Blox really isn't my type of thing. :P (I don't hate the puzzle genre, but it's pretty far down my list.) Blast Works, however, looks awesome. :D

In any case, I was only criticizing the lack of first-party Wii retail releases. Third-parties have their own unique set of problems when it comes to Wii, but I'd at least expect Nintendo to take care of its current "primary" system. (Edit to explain: It's supposed to be "primary" in theory, since they claimed to shift resources away from DS and toward Wii, yet DS has Kirby Ultra Super Deluxe, Pokemon Platinum, and Fire Emblem DS known to be on the way, along with some other things that just need to be translated like ASH, Pokemon Ranger 2, Soma Bringer, and probably Card Hero since they gave it an English title in Smash Bros, but the future Wii first-party lineup looks barren despite what they're saying. Odd stuff.)
 
Really, you think Nintendo has been slacking on releasing retail games? I actually was rather surprised by how many of their top 'franchise' games are already available. They've already gotten Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Smash, Mario Kart, Wario Ware, Excitetruck, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, Mario Party, and Battalion Wars.

The only thing I can think of that's left are Kirby, Donkey Kong(platformer or arcade), F-Zero, and Star Fox.

They've already got most of their major franchise titles out already.

T'would be nice to get a little Kid Icarus and Punch-Out!!, but until something is announced, I won't count on either one. I assume Mother and 'traditional' Pokemon are out of the question as well.

If there is one criticism for Nintendo, is that there aren't really any *new* franchises for the traditional gamer available for the Wii that weren't already available recently for the GameCube. Something new like Pikmin. Zelda, Metroid Prime, and Mario Kart are really starting to become played out. And how many times can we buy Mario *insert sports game here*?

But more to the point, I can't imagine that Nintendo is going to rest on their laurels with Wii Fit and whatever else is coming out soon. There's bound to be a couple of major releases in the pike that have yet to be announced.
 
SonicMegaDrive said:
Really, you think Nintendo has been slacking on releasing retail games?
No, I said they've done well in 2008 so far. (And they also did in 2007, although I didn't cover that.) But for the future, they've got pretty much nothing announced. They're probably working on something or other, sure, but they're so secretive that I have no idea what those projects are.
 
Jiggy37 said:
Between being 3D and being a puzzle game that isn't $30 or less, Boom Blox really isn't my type of thing. :P (I don't hate the puzzle genre, but it's pretty far down my list.) Blast Works, however, looks awesome. :D

In any case, I was only criticizing the lack of first-party Wii retail releases. Third-parties have their own unique set of problems when it comes to Wii, but I'd at least expect Nintendo to take care of its current "primary" system. (Edit to explain: It's supposed to be "primary" in theory, since they claimed to shift resources away from DS and toward Wii, yet DS has Kirby Ultra Super Deluxe, Pokemon Platinum, and Fire Emblem DS known to be on the way, along with some other things that just need to be translated like ASH, Pokemon Ranger 2, Soma Bringer, and probably Card Hero since they gave it an English title in Smash Bros, but the future Wii first-party lineup looks barren despite what they're saying. Odd stuff.)

Im sure nintendo has alot in development. If youll notice there ds announcements are remakes for the most part. That means hal labs, int sys, ead, etc have idle hands aplenty. Theyre up to something. The silence coincides with iwata's recent philosophy of not announcing games until theyre almost ready. I dont have to guess you disagree based on the dojo, but it is their policy now.
 
I know they're working on something. I just don't know what, so I'm not going to assume that the future library is necessarily good or that there are a good number of games in it. I'm not expecting a big Zelda for another year or two, mainline Mario is probably done this generation, Smash and Mario Kart are definitely not happening, and it seems like Retro wanted to move on from Metroid (and they take two or three years for their games too), so I have my doubts about 2008. Animal Crossing and a Colosseum/XD-style Pokemon are about the extent of what I can imagine, alongside Kirby and Wii Music, as I mentioned, but I can't just assume they're all getting release dates this year.

Anyway, yeah, not really going any further into this discussion in the Virtual Console thread--it was probably a bad idea for me to start with the off-topic jab in the first place--so if anyone wants to get in a last word after this, go ahead. I'll only say this much: I think that Wii retail for the rest of 2008 could be good, or it could be... not. It could be that Nintendo has practically nothing left for 2008. (And, hey, if that was true, maybe 2009 would turn out to be amazing because they were working so hard.) I don't know how things will go either way; there are too many possibilities to consider. I'm just suggesting that I think it's sad that the best possible thing I can fairly say, going strictly by what's been announced (i.e. almost nothing), is "Maybe they'll surprise us." That's not a good situation, in my opinion.



Also, last note... The Smash Dojo is an outlier because it was Sakurai's own idea instead of Nintendo's, so I wouldn't have mentioned it. :P It doesn't really disprove Iwata's philosophy since it's such a unique situation.
 
I wonder if EU will get the 0-game week tonight?

My hunch is that we might get the missing games for Wiiware tonight from the 8 originally announced "Launch Window" titles, but no VC ones. Would make sense to keep Wiiware in the public eye as they move into a bank holiday weekend.

(On that note, surprised Wiiware's not been announced with a blue light yet - spreading demand, perhaps, releasing the big-name titles on the Tuesday with little fanfare, but having the main launch on the Friday?)
 
mclem said:
I wonder if EU will get the 0-game week tonight?

My hunch is that we might get the missing games for Wiiware tonight from the 8 originally announced "Launch Window" titles, but no VC ones. Would make sense to keep Wiiware forward as they move into a bank holiday weekend.
We've got a contact at Commodore who hinted that there would most likely at least be C64 games tonight, so no 0-game week for us :D
 
magiustra said:
Yep, a great "crazy shoot'em up/speedy puzzle game". It's from Braybrook (the Uridum guy: you can play it on the Virtual Console) :)

I can see why you used the word 'crazy' there, I watched a video and couldn't make head nor tail of it! VC-Reviews' review of it cleared things up though. I shall consider it :) (As my first VC C64 game!)
 
Can't connect to the European shopping channel I'm getting all kinds of weird error messages but there's nothing wrong with the connection since the other channels work, anyone else having problems?
 
[Nintex] said:
Can't connect to the European shopping channel I'm getting all kinds of weird error messages but there's nothing wrong with the connection since the other channels work, anyone else having problems?
Yes, my connection works allright but i couldn't access to the shopping channel a few hours ago (didnt' try since then).
 
Japan gets these on Tuesday:

-Ganbare Goemon 2 (SFC)
-Fire Pro Wrestling 2nd Bout (TG)
-Ninja Combat (Neo Geo)

The two MSX games are still listed for May with no specific date, I think they're gonna be delayed again :lol
 
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