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WiiWare and Virtual Console Roundup Review
Wii Retro Review by Dan Whitehead
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Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition
- Platform: Megadrive
- Wii Points: 800
- In Real Money: GBP 6 / EUR 7.70 (approx)
I hate it when they do this. Quite apart from the wisdom of having three versions of essentially the same game on the VC, it means I have to rummage around in the internet yet again to remind myself what makes this version of Street Fighter II different to the others.
The main difference, it transpires, is that it came out on the Megadrive - the first in the series to do so. Other than that, it actually predates the other Street Fighter IIs already available - Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting and Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers - and while it offers yet another slightly tweaked rule-set, and a group battle mode, it's really not enough to make it an urgent purchase, especially since the Megadrive version's best feature - the six-button joypad - is no longer a factor.
Trouble is, Street Fighter II is an undeniably great game in pretty much all its forms, so logic means I can't really mark this particular one down too much just because it's a variation on a theme. Suffice to say, as always, that if you've yet to download a Street Fighter II then this one is as good as any. Or one of the others.
I do, however, find myself wishing that Nintendo would just upload the best entry from all these really long-running series and then move on to harvesting some of the games as yet untouched by the Virtual Console.
8/10
Mayhem in Monsterland
- Platform: C64
- Wii Points: 500
- In Real Money: GBP 3.50 / EUR 4.50 (approx)
The Commodore 64 clearly has a vocal and powerful defender in the Virtual Console control room. Ever since the format was added to the VC, the selections from its vast software library have been mostly shrewd and knowledgeable picks, clearly made by someone who actually knows which titles are worth the effort.
Case in point: this utterly obscure yet rather wonderful platform game, which was one of the last commercial games to make its mark on the moribund home computer. Only a true C64 geek would even know about Mayhem in Monsterland, so to find it on the Virtual Console is a real treat. If you listen very carefully, you can still hear Kristan squealing in excitement. [Incorrect. I shot him. - Ed]
Mayhem owes a very obvious debt to Mario, but what impressed back in 1993 was the way it managed to make the creaky Commodore architecture look and behave so much like an NES. There's even smooth horizontal scrolling!
Even the gameplay is clever, making you tackle each level twice. First time through, the world is sad and must be cheered up by collecting a set number of magic bags. After that, the world is happy and you're now seeking gold coins. Okay, it's a fairly obvious bit of padding, but it's done with such verve that it's almost impossible to be aggrieved by the repetition.
It's just a shame that, once again, the Wii remote proves a poor substitute for a proper 8-bit joystick. Jumping is mapped to the up direction on the d-pad, rather than a button, which makes the game's many lengthy leaps across deadly gaps slightly hit or miss. Aggravating, but not enough to dim the shine of a lovely little game.
It's also worth pointing out that the original creators, Steve and John Rowlands, will receive royalties for all Virtual Console purchases, so retro fans can spend their points in good conscience.
8/10
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stallion185
22/10/08 @ 06:21
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"First!
Sold my Wii, got a 360. Xbox Arcade beats Wiiware and VC hands down, sorry big N." Now there is an example of an absolutely useless post. Earthworm Jim stole many hours of my life away and looks set to take even more now. |
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CordableTuna
22/10/08 @ 06:27
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How about tweaking your review scores a little? If the review says "It's crap, basically.", I think 0/10 would be about right.
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Why the comment about smooth horizontal scrolling on the C64... like the Amiga, the C64 was adept at doing smooth scrolling in all directions as it used hardware scrolling. Is the reviewer perhaps thinking of the Atari ST which couldn't do horizontal scrolling very well (vertical was fine though) so we started seeing more flip screen scrolling games, something which ruined many games of that era including Bionic Commando?
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Arkeologen
22/10/08 @ 07:19
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Any chance of you in the reviews could also state how big the game is in size?
Especially Wii-games. |
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My brother and I bought Street Fighter II - Special Champion Edition on the Sega Megadrive between us. We pre-ordered it from some specialist shop, months in advance of its release! I had the duty of guarding our sales receipt for all that time. The game cost us £60 (SIXTY FUCKING POUNDS), so when I lost my wallet, I did all I could to get it back - not because of the money in it, but because of that receipt.
Anyway, I found my wallet and the receipt was still there. Release day finally came and we bought Street Fighter II on the Megadrive - THAT'S THE MEGADRIVE BABY, NOT THE SNES! :-) On our way home, to play the game we had waited so long for, we read in MEAN MACHINES, that Super Street Fighter II would be coming out! :-( Nevertheless, our first Megadrive version of Street Fighter II turned out to be AMAZING! The only downside was, that unlike the machine we used to play on in the grubby arcade we used to go to (we weren't old enough to go into the big 'posh' one), you couldn't move Blanka while using his electric shock. As you can tell, I remember that time quite vividly. Everybody though the Megadrive version would be crap compared to the SNES version, but I thought it compared very well. Anyway, even though Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is coming out, I might get this, just for the sake of that memory - although, I probably won't even play it that much. I'm not even that much of a Street Fighter II fan, but back then, the choices were rather thinner. |
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paul_haine
22/10/08 @ 07:44
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I sold my Spectrum, 300 or so games and a stack of Your Sinclairs to part-fund my purchase of SFII on the Megadrive. Not sure where I got the other £30 from. Probably stole it.
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Eighthours
22/10/08 @ 08:23
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There's even smooth horizontal scrolling!
The C64 was awesome at horizontal scrolling, Dan. How dare you blacken its name! |
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groovychainsaw
22/10/08 @ 08:46
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They still need to sort their pricing and storage out. I know only the hardcore care about such things, and they dont care about the hardcore anymore, but when a C64 game is the same price as a ps1 game on the psn, something is wrong, surely.
Oh, and earthworm Jim IS rubbish. Nice animation and all, but a terrible game.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 22/10/08 @ 09:46
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@Zomoniac:
I can only assume that you're being sarcastic. I don't recognise your authority to call a classic game like Street Fighter II "shit". One of the defining games of our particular medium of choice that still holds up and plays remarkably well today (which is more than can be said for most). |
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@redneon:
No, I wasn't being sarcastic. I wasn't trying to be authoratative, just saying it's not undeniable because I'm denying it. I played it when it first game out and I've played it recently and have always hated it. Even prior to 3D fighting games existing I've always hated 2D fighting games. They feel so wrong and unnatural and artificial. The Soul games were amazing for me, the first fighting games I ever really enjoyed as they were the first well-made games to realise that pressing up should never, ever, ever under any circumstances make a character jump. |
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canIdoyabombsforya
22/10/08 @ 09:19
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"They still need to sort their pricing and storage out. I know only the hardcore care about such things, and they dont care about the hardcore anymore, but when a C64 game is the same price as a ps1 game on the psn, something is wrong, surely.
" Im pretty sure the Sony and Nintendo staff who work on the emulation/testing/server support, earn roughly the same salaries. Then they still have to pay ERSB to have the game approved. The pricing has nothing to do with the power and quality of the original code. Of course if you want to see cheaper games, go and offer you services to Nintendo for free. |
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Space Harrier may have been a wow in the arcades...but I don't think I've ever played a home port that was worth the effort.
You ought to try it on Sega Ages on Sega Saturn - arcade perfect. The PC Engine version was also very good. Oh, and the C64 was king of scrollers. It may not have had Super Mario or Metroid Samus but it did have a few tricks of its own.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 22/10/08 @ 10:27
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IronCladChicken
22/10/08 @ 09:29
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>it managed to make the creaky Commodore architecture look and behave so much like an NES
But... Wasnt the C64's architecture superior to the NES architecture? |
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canIdoyabombsforya
22/10/08 @ 09:37
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"I just think its sad that today's games journos seem to know so little about one of the most significant platforms in the entire history of video gaming. Without the C64 the UK industry would not be where it is today"
Home computer/console evolution is more complicated than you think. The C64 was a blatant copy of the Atari 800 that originally competed with the Vic 20. The 800 was an upgrade of the 2600 that had worldwide success. The Amiga was designed by the same now ex Atari staff and was the true successor to the 8-bit Atari's. The Apple was also designed by ex Atari staff. The UK industry might not have be were it is without any of this evolution. |
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canIdoyabombsforya
22/10/08 @ 09:53
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@MrZ
"Sold my Wii, got a 360. Xbox Arcade beats Wiiware and VC hands down, sorry big N. " At least your Wii was worth something, I bet you got a pretty good return on it. My 360 is worth 1/5 of what I paid for it and not worth selling. The irony is that the people bashing Nintendo's pricing and marketing policies, are the same people claiming they had a Wii, it was shit and they sold it. If the Wii was that shit, you'd have virtually no interest in your ad or you'd have got £35 for it on auction. |
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groovychainsaw
22/10/08 @ 10:23
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I am pretty sure putting a ROM on an already written emulator doesn't cost that much in staff, although I must admit, i don't know what the royalty costs are on a C64 game, so you could be right, canIdobombs.. in which case its a wonder that all games aren't exactly the same price eh. No loss leaders, nothing to pull us in, some games obviously overpriced (given that its the same cost for all games to be put up there). Given the choice of an old C64 game or a PS1 game for the same price, I've got a good idea which to go for. (I now expect the argument of 'crap game on ps1 is worse than good game on c64', but you're missing the point... the c64 game, on the whole, just won't have the depth of experience, if my retrogaming is anything to go by...)
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electrolite
22/10/08 @ 10:29
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That first post-did 'MrZ' quickly, excitedly type that in just to post first in a Wii article that he sold his Wii. Oh my word. I'm embarrassed on MrZ's behalf.
The 32X version of Space Harrier was pretty good, surely they can resurrect that on VC. Along with Virtua Racing and Star Wars Arcade |
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illusiondance
22/10/08 @ 11:31
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excellent, the Shining Force collection grows.
i just hope Sega have the sense to transfer the Saturn trilogy across at some point. (Holy Ark/Wisdom wouldnt go amiss either) i do miss proper sega |
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insane_cobra
22/10/08 @ 11:32
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Shining Force 2 is the best JRPG I've ever played (never played SF3, but I should really get to it soon, especially now that there are fan-made translations for the second and the third disc). It's hard, yes, but so damn rewarding. Finished it at least four times already, even though I discovered it long after Sega Genesis faded away from the gaming scene (well, unless you live in Brazil :-)).
Space Harrier, on the other hand, wasn't that great, but the C64 rendition of its main theme is probably the best piece of game music ever recorded. |
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"Methinks Mr Whitehead was a bitter Amstrad CPC owner with a bit of transference there ;p "
Oh, yeah, that's it, isn't it? I was an Amstrad owner and very jealous of my C64 owning friends whose games scrolled smoothly as if sliding over well oiled surfaces. In comparison, Amstrad's scrolling was in many cases a jerky series of crude screen movements. Some games that used to be scrollers on other platforms (take Renegade for instance) were actually turned into a series of separate screens just to spare the coder the trouble of dealing with scrolling... Argh.... Remembering those days reminds me why I grew up to be such a bitter, cynical adult... Anyway, to confirm what everyone is saying: C64 had hardware supported scrolling and it did scrolling very well. |
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Still intrigued on Earthworm Jim's journey to the Wii, as I'm sure that wasn't a first party Sega release (Virgin Interactive, iirc), I know rights are always a big issue, so it would be good if this was a positive sign of things to come.
If EA could sign up that would be a very welcome addition to the Mega Drive catalogue (and it's not like them to turn down free money), and my dream of somehow seeing the Disney games released one day is still there.l |
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"Mayhem owes a very obvious debt to Mario, but what impressed back in 1993 was the way it managed to make the creaky Commodore architecture look and behave so much like an NES. There's even smooth horizontal scrolling!"
I'm wondering if Dan actually means that Mayhem runs better than it would have on the NES where it would have had jerky scrolling? Either that's badly worded or the statement is completely inaccurate as the C64 was definitely *the* home computer for scrolling games like Uridium, Grubby's Day Out et all, all silky-smooth. The C64 was my first computer and my first taste of video games at home so it holds a very special place in my heart. I even have a C64 emulator and dozens of games on my PC although sadly many haven't stood the test of time very well. The music is still excellent though considering the limited technology. Odd that I've never heard of Mayhem before though... |
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Nice find there... so the Wii version is not the same as the original but an inferior copy? And I'm surprised Nintendo didn't sue the developers because it is a blatant clone of Mario yet Great Gianni Sisters got banned for being too similar (fortunately I managed to grab a pirate copy of that little gem! :) ).
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