After putting us through many months of mediocre Virtual Console titles, the Idiot Manager of Retro Mishandlings at Nintendo has apparently met with an untimely demise. August turned out to be an unusually great month for the VC. A couple of weeks ago, Wii owners finally got the original Mega Man. Last week, the much-requested Ys Book I & II hit the Virtual Console.
This week, we get the beloved Square Enix/Nintendo collaboration Super Mario RPG (SNES, 800 Points), at long last. To balance that out, Nintendo coincidentally chooses this week to try and sneak Clu Clu Land (NES, 500 Points) past us, but we'll just pretend that we didn't notice. After all, if you want to change someone's behavior, you need to focus on the positive. So good for you, Nintendo! You did great this week!
On the WiiWare side, Hudson blesses us with the virtual fish simulator My Aquarium (500 Points), which will be awesome if it's anything like the Destineer-published Fantasy Aquarium for the Nintendo DS, where you can have a fish tank full of tiny killer whales and make them eat garbage. Probably not, though. Full press release follows the cut.
Strike up the band and let the confetti fly! This week, the Wii Shop Channel celebrates the momentous release of its 250th game title for the Virtual Console, pushing the selection of classic games to an exhilarating new high. And because a special occasion deserves a special guest, Nintendo is thrilled to name the beloved Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars as the game to hold this exciting distinction. Along with a delightful new WiiWare title and a delirious underwater adventure, this gem from the Super NES era guarantees a festive, fun-packed Labor Day holiday for Wii owners of all stripes.
Nintendo adds new and classic games to the Wii Shop Channel at 9 a.m. Pacific time every Monday. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets. This week's new games are:
WiiWare
My Aquarium (Hudson Entertainment, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): With swaying aquatic plants and fish idly swimming about, My Aquarium is a relaxing Wii experience that allows you to enjoy a virtual aquarium in your spare time. Whether freshwater or saltwater, you can select from over 40 popular types of fish, including favorites like the Ocellaris clownfish, the freshwater angelfish and the Asian arowana. You can also create up to six different aquariums and personalize them by adding decorations like seaweed and driftwood. In My Aquarium, you can send aquariums to your registered Wii Friends. The aquariums can even be set with special dates, such as a friend's birthday, that the fish will commemorate with a dance. Feed your fish and watch them steadily grow from fry to adult. Then, after meeting certain conditions, you can breed them. Another feature will allow you to interact with your fish using your Wii Remote controller in fun ways, like "tapping" the glass of your aquarium.
Virtual Console
Clu Clu Land (NES, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): Take a deep breath and prepare for a puzzle game set in the underwater kingdom of Clu Clu Land. The greedy Sea Urchins have stolen all of Clu Clu Land's gold bars and buried them in a series of mazes. As Bubbles, a brave bubble fish, you'll set out to uncover all of the gold bars in each maze. But you'll have to be careful: Sea Urchins will relentlessly pursue Bubbles, and there are also dangerous black holes that must be avoided. Bubbles isn't defenseless, though, as she has the ability to stun Sea Urchins with sound waves and quickly change direction using posts scattered throughout the stages. Not only that, but the locations of the gold bars in each maze form the outline of another objectonce you know the object, you're well on your way to finding the gold. With 20 stages to complete and increasingly complex conditions (like having to pass over the gold bars twice to uncover them), you might just want to bring along a friend for help.
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Super NES, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points): Set in the Mushroom Kingdom and featuring its cast of well-known characters, this adventure RPG begins with a familiar scenario: Mario must rescue Princess Toadstool from Bowser. However, a mysterious new enemy named Smithy soon appears, and Mario and Bowser are forced to fight as allies for the first time in their long history. In the quest to defeat their powerful new foe, they'll journey across a wide variety of locations (a town of mining moles, a tropical forest, a thundering waterfalljust to name a few) and tackle a mix of obstacles requiring both expert timing and strategy to overcome. Along the way, they'll gain experience and grow more powerful, while also meeting new characters whose unique abilities will be needed to take on Smithy and his gang. Striking a perfect balance of traditional RPG elements and the action-packed game play Mario is famous for, it's easy to see why this title has earned "legendary" status.
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