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US VC: Castlevania, Goemon

NoA catches up with Europe.

Nintendo of America did a bit of catch-up this week with the addition of Castlevania (NES, 500 Wii points) and The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES, 800 points) to the US Virtual Console ranks.

Neither of those need much introduction, but that's not their decision: Castlevania has you battle through six floors of Dracula's castle hopping between combat and exploration, while Mystical Ninja (Goemon to its friends in Japan) is an amusing little platformer that splits levels between exploration of a town, where you acquire information, items and abilities through banter and mini-games, and 2D platform levels that culminate in a boss fight.

Those two - already available in Europe - are joined by Shockman (TurboGrafx-16, 600 points), which appears to be a 2D platformer with eight stages split between hopping around and shooting, and a two-player mode. If you remember it, perhaps you'd like to spill your brains below, as I think I failed to be either Japanese or American in 1991, and it's damaging my career prospects. Help me out.

And watch out for European Virtual Console releases on Friday, obviously.