Virtual Console Roundup Review

By Dan Whitehead Published 24 November, 2007

Double Dribble, King of Fighters '94 and Bubble Bobble.

Version tested: Wii

It's been a very quiet few weeks on the Virtual Console front, no doubt thanks to the arrival of a long awaited plumber, so hopefully you'll forgive us the indulgence of rolling last week's solitary release into this week's roundup. Luckily, although the number of new games is nothing to write home about, this week's two new additions are both classics of their genre.

King of Fighters '94

  • Platform: NeoGeo
  • Wii Points: 900
  • In Real Money: GBP 6.30 / EUR 9 (approx)

Nobody is likely to be surprised at yet another NeoGeo fighting game but, as with so many of that overlooked handheld's line-up, SNK's King of Fighters is a superbly accomplished entry in beat-em-up pantheon. [Editor's note: Handheld, eh? We think he's gone mad. Watch out.]

The idea was to combine as many of the company's characters into one game as possible, a sort of prototype for Smash Bros, so obscure fighting fans will be happy to see brawlers from Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting and even vertical shoot-em-up Ikari Warriors. There's also innovation on the gameplay front, with a three-man team set up in which you choose what order your fighters will battle, and then scrap in a winner-stays-on style until one team is completely beaten.

'Virtual Console Roundup' Screenshot kof

There are some weird quirks as well. You can't choose which fighters make up your team, for instance. Instead you choose from pre-selected trios assigned by country. There are eight such national teams, though only three of them bear any resemblance to their supposed home countries. The England team, for instance, features two Japanese girls.

Still, it's a solid, technical fighting game that, like most SNK outings, skews more towards the hardcore player than the casual punching aficionado. It also looks very nice, with some impressive-for-the-time 3D scrolling and beefy sprites. With so many fighting games available on the VC now, I suspect that only an obsessive completist would want to own them all but, taken on its own merits, King of Fighters is a damn fine game.

8/10

Bubble Bobble

  • Platform: NES
  • Wii Points: 500
  • In Real Money: GBP 3.50 / EUR 5 (approx)

Here's another classic - Taito's seminal 1986 arcade platformer, although it appears here in its 1987 NES incarnation for obvious reasons. Although it's not quite as good as the original coin-op, it's certainly not the worst conversion around either.

'Virtual Console Roundup' Screenshot bb

The gameplay survived the translation process pretty much unscathed, keeping the simple purity of 100 levels of monster-bubbling, fruit-gobbling fun, while the general feel of the thing is virtually identical in all the ways that matter. It's only the music that suffers noticeably, with one of gaming's all-time greatest themes rendered squawky and annoying by the struggling NES sound chip.

Like all the best videogame pioneers, Bubble Bobble combines simplicity and accessibility with a surprisingly clever learning curve to keep you hooked for the many hours it takes to obtain the "true ending". Thankfully, the NES version uses a password system so you won't have to start over each time.

Time may not have been kind to its utilitarian looks, but if you can play one level of Bubble Bobble and not feel a glimmer of joy then you are dead inside. Plus, of course, this means we may yet see Rainbow Islands on the VC, and that's something we should all close our eyes and wish really hard for.

9/10

Double Dribble

  • Platform: NES
  • Wii Points: 500
  • In Real Money: GBP 3.50 / EUR 5 (approx)

Hmm. So, this was last week's solitary VC offering. It sounds like a senile sequel to Double Dragon, but is actually a basketball game that tries oh-so-very hard to be a glitzy and accurate version of the real thing, but can't help being tripped up by the limitations of the hardware.

'Virtual Console Roundup' Screenshot dd

You can tell it was trying to appear all "next gen" because it opens with actual sampled speech! Admittedly, it sounds like you're about to play a game called Wubble Wiffle, but the effort is there. You can choose from four 5-man teams, and the game even goes so far as to include penalties for time wasting but, while it amuses in the most basic "look at what we used to play" kind of way, it's too clunky to hold much real entertainment value in 2007.

There are numerous bugs, allowing you to score every time by throwing in the right place, while the collision detection makes stealing - and often just running near an opponent - a real gamble. Many times you'll give up a penalty for "pushing" when all you did was stray one pixel to close to a defender.

Better than Nintendo's own NES Basketball, certainly, but only worth the points to the hardiest retro sports fan.

4/10

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Picture of Dan.

About Dan Whitehead

Dan has been writing for Eurogamer since 2006 and specialises in RPGs, shooters and games for children. His bestest game ever is Julian Gollop's Chaos.

Read more articles from Dan by visiting the Dan Whitehead archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Xerx3s #1 4 years ago

    The good, the bad & the ugly?

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #2 4 years ago

    Hang on - we're supposed to be *thankful* that Bubble Bobble has a fricking password system in 2007, rather than Nintendo earning their money with the 10 minutes' work required to give it a save function?

  • OnlyMe #3 4 years ago

    Here comes the games journalist that doesn't love games. ;)

  • pyrat6 #4 4 years ago

    Bubble Bobble on the nes *always* had a password system, non ?

    I play VC games for the nostalgia as much as the 'enduring gameplay' (which is often a lie anyway).

    Would prefer them untouched please. Save systems indeed ....

  • ThreeOutsideDown #5 4 years ago

    "Nobody is likely to be surprised at yet another NeoGeo fighting game but, as with so many of that overlooked handheld's line-up, SNK's King of Fighters is a superbly accomplished entry in beat-em-up pantheon."

    article written in a rush was it?

  • the_tellurian #6 4 years ago

    I GUESS that handheld comment has turned into some sort of running gag among the EG reviewers... O_ô

  • afray #7 4 years ago

    Hang on - we're supposed to be *thankful* that Bubble Bobble has a fricking password system in 2007, rather than Nintendo earning their money with the 10 minutes' work required to give it a save function?

    Well it does have the restore system, so you can stop at any time and restart from where you left off. All VC games have that.

  • Verwandlung #8 4 years ago

    http://bp 0.blogger.com/_WbM5_GOCcGo/Rt_A...

  • KraftWerk #9 4 years ago

    All except N64 games, to be precise. :)

  • Cannibal #10 4 years ago

    Give me NBA Jam!!

  • aine #11 4 years ago

    Better than Nintendo's own NES Basketball, certainly

    ...would that be because they didn't make one?

  • dirigiblebill #12 4 years ago

    That front page image is... suggestive, don't you think? Good thing we can only see their faces.

  • SeesThroughAll #13 4 years ago

    heh, what a cute little "retro" icon you did! :)

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #14 4 years ago

    "Well it does have the restore system, so you can stop at any time and restart from where you left off. All VC games have that."

    Oh well, that's not so bad. (I've only bought one VC game so far and haven't had a chance to play it properly yet, so I wasn't aware. Still not a reason to be thankful for a password system, though...)

  • Verwandlung #15 4 years ago

    Oops wrong website, don't click on that link if you don't like bugs..

  • aine #16 4 years ago

    I actually like password systems, as long as they don't get ridiculously long or use a bunch of weird characters or anything. Means I can use the same password from an original NES cart on an emulator, or the VC or whatever. Unless they went and changed the password system, like in bloody Kid Icarus.

  • erp #17 4 years ago

    NES Bubble Bobble music suffers...?

    FAIL.

    /hums along to the memories of the amazing SID rendition...

  • LazyDan #18 4 years ago

    Curse you reviewer man for mentioning Rainbow Islands, which has gotten me all excited at the prospect of it arriving one day all over again. It'll take me hours to get it out of my head now :(

    The problem is we -don't- want the NES or Megadrive versions of the game at all. The NES version was as close to the original game as Barbie's Horse Adventure is to Halo, and the Megadrive version was just the mutilated Extra version.

    The only chance of seeing Rainbow Islands in all its original glory would be for Nintendo to somehow release the original arcade version, which'll never happen :( Even a spruced up enhanced version wouldn't be any good, because it wouldn't have the music.

    BAH.

    /rant.

  • PameBoy #19 4 years ago

    "overlooked handheld"?!

    You're either thinking of the Neo Geo Pocket, which was indeed a severely underrated machine (I've still got mine) or that's some kind of extremely subtle ironic joke about the NeoGeo's immense size.

    Oh and I'm probably not buying any of these Neo Geo fighting games until they release Garou.
    Edited by 1 at 24/11/07 @ 14:42

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #20 4 years ago

    There were actually two entirely (and I mean entirely) different versions of Rainbow Islands on the NES. One of them was pretty close to the coin-op, the other miles away.

  • Kon #21 4 years ago

    It would be nice if these VC roundups would state if the games are 50Hz only or not as well as other minor annoyances regarding exactly what rom version are we seeing released.

    Love it as I do, I would not have downloaded KoF'94 had I known it plays like the DURAL underwater stage from VF2. Shame I had to part with 10€ to find this out.

    Also, what we have here is the censored version of the game, meaning no blood and no "bounce".

    Another weak effort from the boys and girls over at NoE.
    Edited by 1 at 24/11/07 @ 17:43

  • aine #22 4 years ago

    There were actually two entirely (and I mean entirely) different versions of Rainbow Islands on the NES. One of them was pretty close to the coin-op, the other miles away.

    yeah, one was the Japanese and US version (by Taito/"Disco"(?)) and the other was the European version (by Ocean). but I suspect if it's ever released on the European VC we'll just end up with the US version.

  • MGG #23 4 years ago

    Bubble Bobble, even on the NES, was one of the greatest moments in my gaming life - the only game that my father has ever been discovered on *of his own accord* (at 3am one morning, as he "couldnt sleep". Ahem.)

    Superb simple game that was a great laugh in 2 player, even my sisters loved it. And call me strange, but I prefer it to rainbow islands.