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This Week's Virtual Console Arcade

by Neal Ronaghan - March 25, 2009, 11:19 pm EDT
Total comments: 20 Source: Press Release

Arcade games are now available on Virtual Console! The launch slate contains four classics from Namco Bandai and Tecmo.

One of the surprising announcements that came out of Iwata's keynote at GDC 2009 was the addition of Virtual Console Arcade, which adds arcade games to the ever-expanding list of platforms available through Wii. The first games, available today, are from Namco Bandai and Tecmo.

Game Developers Conference 2009: Virtual Console Arcade Logo

Gaplus, from Namco Bandai, is the successor to Galaga and is very similar to the arcade classic. It is a vertical shoot-'em-up that features various different Blaster Heads, such as the Phalanx and the Sidewinder. These power-ups give the player various abilities – like the ability to get help from enemies. Gaplus is available now for 600 Wii Points ($6).

The second game, also from Namco Bandai, is Mappy. It puts the player in control of a police-mouse who must recover stolen goods from criminal cats. The titular mouse travels through the villainous Goro's mansion navigating through different obstacles, such as trampolines and dead ends. Mappy is now available for 500 Wii Points ($5).

The Tower of Druaga is the final game of the week from Namco Bandai and takes place in a large skyscraper where the intrepid Gil sets out to rescue his lost love. Armed with only a sword and a shield, Gil must travel through each maze-like floor searching for a key. He can also find hidden treasure in the levels. The Tower of Druaga is available now for 500 Wii Points ($5).

The lone game from Tecmo is STARFORCE, another vertical shoot-'em-up. STARFORCE features 25 levels, hordes of enemies, and plenty of hidden bonuses. One super-secret target in the game even doles out a million bonus points. STARFORCE is available now for 500 Wii Points ($5).

Seen on the projector screen behind Iwata were logos for the above four games and Sega's Space Harrier as well as Namco Bandai's Emeralda, The Return of Ishtar, and Solvalou, but no information was released as to when they will come out. It is also still unknown if Virtual Console Arcade releases will occur separately or if they will merge with the weekly Virtual Console and WiiWare updates.

Note: The below press release is from Nintendo of Europe, but the games are the same as the North American ones.

WELCOME TO VIRTUAL CONSOLE ARCADE – LEGENDARY ARCADE GAMES NOW AVAILABLE TO PLAY AT HOME!

25th March 2009 – Say hello to Virtual Console Arcade - our new addition to the Virtual Console family of retro gaming systems! Inserting coins is now a thing of the past, as classic arcade games become available to download through the Wii Shop Channel, starting with Gaplus, Mappy, The Tower of Druaga and STARFORCE!

VIRTUAL CONSOLE ARCADE:

Each game features virtual credits that you can add at will. In some games you can also access a special menu to change settings such as game difficulty or number of lives.

Our Virtual Console Arcade line-up begins with four favourites from Namco Bandai and Tecmo (Gaplus, Mappy, The Tower of Druaga and STARFORCE) and other big-name publishers will also be bringing their wares to the Wii Shop Channel in the future, so watch this space!

GAPLUS® (NAMCO BANDAI, 500 Wii Points):

Remember the timeless classic, Galaga? Say hello to its successor, as the arcade version of Gaplus hits Virtual Console!

As before, you command a lone fighter ship, facing down hordes of invading aliens. Their mission: to take over your world. Your mission: to stop them at all costs. This time around you'll have the use of a number of collectable Blaster Heads, such as the Phalanx and Sidewinder, which will aid you in your battle - and some even let you bring enemies over to your side!

MAPPY® (NAMCO BANDAI, 500 Wii Points):

It's a cat-and-mouse game like no other as you take control of Mappy, a brave police-mouse, in this arcade classic!

A gang of thieving cats have stolen treasures from all over the city and brought them back to their mansion! Your job is to infiltrate their mansion and negotiate traps, trampolines and dead ends to find all of the treasures and bring them back to their rightful owners. But watch out! Goro and his hench-cats are stalking the mansion and if they find you, you're finished!

THE TOWER OF DRUAGA® (NAMCO BANDAI, 500 Wii Points):

Scale a skyscraper to rescue your lost love in The Tower of Druaga, the well-loved arcade classic!

Armed only with his trusty sword and shield, Gil has to battle his way through monsters and mazes to find the key to each floor and ascend to the next. As a bonus, Druaga's treasures are scattered throughout his tower. If Gil manages to grab even a few of them, he'll be a rich man...if he ever gets out of the tower.

STARFORCE™ (TECMO, 500 Wii Points):

A huge global hit at the arcades, this classic shooter blasts its way back on Virtual Console!

STARFORCE is an exhilarating vertical shooter, in which one button is your key to shooting down hordes of attacking enemy units. Sound simple? Try finding all of the hidden special bonuses scattered across 25 areas! Hunt down the super-secret target in the game for a whopping 1 million bonus points!

Note: The below press release is from Nintendo of Europe, but the games are the same as the North American ones, with the exception of Gaplus, which costs 600 Wii Points in North America.

Talkback

This brings us to what...9 systems in the US?

PopeRealMarch 26, 2009

Hummm... any chance that Galaga comes out? (the awesome arcade version, not the NES one we already have...)


Michael8983March 26, 2009

Non-butchered Donkey Kong anyone?

Gaplus is actually 600 points in NA.

I wonder why it is 600 in NA and 500 in Europe. Is it an import title or something?

BranDonk KongMarch 26, 2009

Now that there's SDHC support, and VC Arcade, if Midway wants to turn a quick profit, they should put alll of the Mortal Kombat arcade games (1-4) on the service.

Flames_of_chaosLukasz Balicki, Staff AlumnusMarch 26, 2009

Quote from: nron10

I wonder why it is 600 in NA and 500 in Europe. Is it an import title or something?

If you notice in the bottom of the article you will see note pertaining to the NA price difference ;), I guess NOE provided this press release. Actually it's not uncommon to have price differences. In NA Pool Cue Revolution is 500 Wii Points and it's 800 Wii Points in Europe. One other Hudson game is 800 points here and it's 500 points in Europe but the name escapes me right now.

My only guess is Namco Bandai wanted Gaplus 600 points here and 500 points in Europe.

Quote from: Brandogg

Now that there's SDHC support, and VC Arcade, if Midway wants to turn a quick profit, they should put alll of the Mortal Kombat arcade games (1-4) on the service.

Now there's something I would jump on.  There has never been a good port of the first Mortal Kombat game on a home system, except for maybe in one of those Midway Arcade compilations for PS2.  I seem to recall, though, that they pulled MK from those collections so they could hide it as an unlockable in one of the PS2 MK games.

I really hope they don't stick to games released before I was old enough to play them.  There's a lot of late 80s, early 90s arcade games that I would jump all over.

With these releases and the other announced games it seems like Namco is specifically going for the obscure titles, which is fine by me since I already have Galaga, Ms. Pac Man and Dig Dug on XBLA but probably less fine for people who only own Wiis.

Ian SaneMarch 26, 2009

I think it's great that we've got arcade games now.  I've wanted this from the beginning and hopefully Nintendo will finally give us arcade perfect Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Mario Bros.

But this particular group of games is pretty lame.  It's good for obscure games to get exposure through the VC but, man, couldn't they launch this with something more grand?  Yeah everyone can get Pac-Man but why not have it available anyway?  There are three versions of Puyo Puyo 2 on the VC!  Who cares if there are duplicates?

BranDonk KongMarch 26, 2009

MK1 is on the Mortal Kombat Deception bonus disc for Xbox. According to IGN, the GameCube version of Midway Arcade Treasures 2 ran best, so they should just fix minor issues (shadows, sound), add UMK3 and MK4, and send them over to the Virtual Console Arcade. There would be very little work involved.

PaleMike Gamin, Contributing EditorMarch 26, 2009

The famicom version of druaga is already out in Japan, so they obviously aren't worried about rereleasing the "same" game.

TJ SpykeMarch 26, 2009

Quote from: Brandogg

Now that there's SDHC support, and VC Arcade, if Midway wants to turn a quick profit, they should put alll of the Mortal Kombat arcade games (1-4) on the service.

Midway announced way back in March 2007 that they were gonna release the Mortal Kombat games on the Virtual Console. 2 years later and none have been added, I have my doubts they will come anytime soon.

TanookisuitMarch 26, 2009

I want Ms Pacman so bad.  It's not even on the big list of confirmed games on IGN.  Damn. 

Mop it upMarch 26, 2009

I have never heard of any of those games. Is this really the best batch to be debuting this service with?

The arcade version of Donkey Kong is in Donkey Kong 64. If that's ever released on VC, I wonder if they will remove it from the game? It could cause some problems though because you need to beat it to obtain one of the game's collectibles.

vuduMarch 26, 2009

No big deal--there are still 999,999 other collectibles to ... collect.

Mop it upMarch 26, 2009

Yeah, but then there would be no way to complete the game 101%, you'd have to settle for 100%. The very idea of that is ridiculous.

TJ SpykeMarch 27, 2009

Quote from: Mop_it_up

I have never heard of any of those games. Is this really the best batch to be debuting this service with?

The arcade version of Donkey Kong is in Donkey Kong 64. If that's ever released on VC, I wonder if they will remove it from the game? It could cause some problems though because you need to beat it to obtain one of the game's collectibles.

That's not the only problem they would need to solve. DK64 also required you to play "Jetpac", which is an IP now owned by Microsoft. DK64 would require too many changes to probably be worth it to Nintendo.

BlackNMild2k1March 27, 2009

Maybe making Nintendo fans remember how much they used to love Rare is in MS' best interest.
Who else is gonna be interested in the games Rare has made since they left Nintendo?

MorariMarch 27, 2009

Quote from: Brandogg

MK1 is on the Mortal Kombat Deception bonus disc for Xbox. According to IGN, the GameCube version of Midway Arcade Treasures 2 ran best, so they should just fix minor issues (shadows, sound), add UMK3 and MK4, and send them over to the Virtual Console Arcade. There would be very little work involved.

Let's leave MK4 to in the past, please. I wouldn't mind seeing Mortal Kombat Trilogy, personally.

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