Poll: What classic games do you want on the Wii?
by Kyle Orland 
{ Sep 10th 2006 at 10:00PM }
We're not so sure that this rumored list of 26 titles for the Wii's virtual console launch is accurate, even if it's supposedly from a "trustworthy source." But we figured this was as good a chance as any to start a discussion of what games readers are actually interested in playing on Nintendo's enormously backwards-compatible system. Continue reading for a quick little poll on which of the listed games Joystiq readers would buy. Your favorite's not listed? Name drop it in the comments.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Psaakyrn @ Sep 10th 2006 10:09PM
Can we choose a specific Castlevenia? Cause I'd rather have Simon's Quest other than the other "classic" Castlevanias. There're way too few sidescroller RPGs/adventure games.
Lansing @ Sep 10th 2006 10:09PM
Diddy Kong Racing!!
Fandel @ Sep 10th 2006 10:11PM
Any cool game that never made it to the united States. Like Dracula X for the Super CD-Rom, Monster World 4 for the Sega Genesis, 3 X 3 eyes for the Mega CD, or even Sapphire for the Super CD-Rom.
Andrex @ Sep 11th 2006 12:45PM
I want Link to the Past! :(
bjet @ Sep 10th 2006 10:12PM
They should totaly have super smash brothers on that list!!!
But orcarina of time should be pretty hot too
B33b3s @ Sep 10th 2006 10:16PM
I definitely go with the Zeldas, but what I really want to see is Chrono Trigger. Especially since it's hard to really invest yourself in the SNES version any more since all those batteries have started to go sour...
Daniel @ Sep 10th 2006 10:23PM
I already have Ocarina for GameCube (Wii is backward compatible) so I wouldn't buy it on VC, but I would like to see Lolo on there.
Disguised @ Sep 10th 2006 10:25PM
The New Tetris. That's the only old game I still play from time to time.
rhork. @ Sep 10th 2006 10:21PM
nfl blitz or nfl blitz 2000... no question.
either way, i hope they revive a good portion of the n64's library. that might tilt me towards caving into getting a wii this fall.
but this download feature begs the question of how they plan to deal with piracy. of course there's internal flash, but there is an sd slot for memory card slots. Like any given ds rom- I'm sure games available for download with nintendo's service could fall victim to such effortless piracy.
Petrie @ Sep 10th 2006 10:21PM
Assuming all titles are made available for all systems, my top 10 list would go as follows:
1. Chrono Trigger
2. Final Fantasy 3 (American)
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
4. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the 7 Stars
5. Super Mario All-Stars (One can wish)
6. NBA Jam: TE
7. Contra
8. Goldeneye
9. Toe Jam and Earl
10. Darkwing Duck
Yes, I said it. Darkwing Duck. The one NEW game I remember not being able to conquer. Do I realize that there were much harder games? Yes. But this one for some reason has stuck with me all these years as the unconquerable. Could I download a ROM and beat it? Sure, but there's something stopping me. A need to take this title on in it's true form, and now some half-assed emulated debauchery. One day I will confront you Darkwing. One day it will be jsut you vs. me, winner-take-all. That day, you go down.
Blink @ Sep 10th 2006 10:22PM
I still don't get this nearly moronic Classic shell. The N64 shell was literally designed to accomodate both 3d and 2d games, based wholly on the SNES controller with an added option to play differently. Give me an N64 controller shell, keep the Gamecube slots there behind the hidden flap, and that'll warrant any price for a virtual console game.
Rabish12 @ Sep 10th 2006 10:22PM
Screw Duck Hunt. Screw Excitebike. Screw Metroid. There's only one game that the Virtual Console needs. Three words:
River City Ransom.
Petrie @ Sep 10th 2006 10:22PM
NES*
Damn lack of edit feature!
JDH @ Sep 10th 2006 10:28PM
Baseball Stars
Tecmo Bowl 2
Mega Man
RBI Baseball
Little League Baseball
... mostly sports games, Mega Man, and (not listed) RPG's.
I'd also like to see those games "Evolved" on the DS.
SkyCroc @ Sep 10th 2006 10:28PM
Mother 1 & 2.
daxter1985 @ Sep 10th 2006 10:24PM
super metroid the only metroid game I have not played
Catalyst @ Sep 10th 2006 10:26PM
Contra
Duck Tales
Super Dodgeball
RC Pro Am
dolemite @ Sep 11th 2006 6:19AM
Can we get some Super Spike vball or dodgeball?
vidGuy @ Sep 10th 2006 10:34PM
@rhork
"but this download feature begs the question of how they plan to deal with piracy."
It has been said that downloaded games will work only with the Wii they were purchased with. Most likely, there will be some public key/private key encryption combined with hash values. What this means is that it will be near impossible to take a downloaded game, remove it from the SD card, and play it on another system or an emulator.
What's nice about this is that, with a proper encryption, Nintendo has no reason to restrict free access to SD cards and external harddrives. So you could back up any downloaded games to your computer harddrive. You'd only be able to play them on the console, but it would still allow some redundancy so that a loss of a card doesn't me you have to redownload all the games.
jay @ Sep 10th 2006 10:34PM
I'll list a couple that would be fun ...
SNES:
Secret of Mana
Pocky & Rocky (1 & 2)
Earthbound
Zombies Ate My Neighbors
N64:
Wave Race
Diddy Kong Racing
skyrous @ Sep 10th 2006 10:35PM
gamecube games will NOT be downloadable. at around 1.5GB they're simply too big. You can of course just go to the store and buy the game since all gamecube disc's are Wii compatible and you can any gamecube game used without any trouble.
Buy gamecube games at the store... download NES, SNES, SMS, Genesis, TG-16. If they threw in 2600 and the intelivision you would have every significant home game ever made from 1977 through 1995.
El Hajjish @ Sep 10th 2006 10:35PM
Daxter 1985, you're seriously missing out. Super Metroid is an amazing game. Get it as soon as you can!
kelekod @ Sep 10th 2006 10:40PM
I'm surprised Mario 3 didn't make that list.
Mario 2 & 3
Super Bomberman 1 & 2
Wizards and Warriors (1 & 2 & 3)
way too many games.
How long is it gonna take to have all VC games? I'm kinda surprised that 30 outta like some 1000+ games are gonna be there at launch. Shouldn't there be a lot more? Well maybe we'll find out thursday...
Alfanomfg @ Sep 10th 2006 10:36PM
STAR FOX 64!!!!
icelandman @ Sep 10th 2006 10:38PM
Jet force Gemeni
Goldeneye
Rogue Squadron
Thats all I need. Jet force gemeni had to be the best game on the console for me, bar none.
nothing dude @ Sep 10th 2006 10:39PM
Bionic commando, starfox 64
nothing dude @ Sep 10th 2006 10:40PM
Bad Dudes!
jay @ Sep 10th 2006 10:41PM
Ugh, pushed entered it too soon ... and for the Turbo-Grafx:
Ys Books 1 & 2
Cotton
Military Madness/Nectaris
Alien Crush/Devils Crush
Jackie Chan
Ninja Warriors
Ninja Spirit
Exile/Exile 2
And from the Genesis:
Popful Mail
Herzog Zwei
Tyler @ Sep 11th 2006 12:09AM
R-Type!
??? @ Sep 10th 2006 11:13PM
How would 2 omnidirectional control sticks work with a side scroller??
Joshua Poncil @ Sep 10th 2006 10:43PM
I woulf really like to see streets of rage 2 on it.
Covarr @ Sep 10th 2006 10:48PM
Tetris Attack
Paper Mario
Super Mario RPG
Yoshi's Island
All the Kirby Games
Donkey Kong Country
Donkey Kong 64
I know that none of Rare's licenses will appear on Virtual Console, but will their Donkey Kong games be available?
eight @ Sep 10th 2006 10:53PM
Zombies Ate My Neighbors is the only game i crave on the Wii. Did that game ever actually end? Well, maybe that and Contra (got to love that code).
The "official" list has some jems, yes, enough to hold people over. I would not be surprised if this list is close to what we will see on launch day. Though the addition of Mario 3 should be a no brainer. Everybody loves that game.
oe @ Sep 10th 2006 10:55PM
Super Smash Bros. and Contra are the only ones I really care about a lot that aren't on that list. And I think Nintendo should put Ambrosia Software's Apeiron out on VC-- most badass version of Centipede I've ever seen/heard:
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/forums/index.php?act=module&module=gallery&cmd=si&img=245
matt @ Sep 10th 2006 11:20PM
dusty diamonds all star softball
nothing dude @ Sep 10th 2006 10:53PM
Actaully Donkey Kong was licensed to Rare for a while, Nintendo owns Donkey Kong so they have all rights reserved. I think.
El Hajjish @ Sep 10th 2006 10:55PM
Hey Covar,
I'm 100% that Nintendo has kept the rights to the Donkey Kong franchise. Those games can come out for VC whenever Nintendo wants.
vidGuy @ Sep 10th 2006 10:59PM
"I know that none of Rare's licenses will appear on Virtual Console, but will their Donkey Kong games be available?"
YES, at least as far as I've read. Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie won't make it because Rare still owns the licenses, but Nintendo owns all the rights to the Donkey Kong games.
"How long is it gonna take to have all VC games? I'm kinda surprised that 30 outta like some 1000+ games are gonna be there at launch."
Nintendo is working on perfecting the system. It'd be nice to have 50 - 100 games at launch, but 20 - 30 will work. I doubt Nintendo will have 1000 games on there, even though they may have 1000 candidates, but hopefully 200 will be on there within the next two years. A stream of constant updates would allow Nintendo to advertise the downloads like XBLA games get noticed.
KVN @ Sep 10th 2006 10:59PM
One game i really want to play is sin&punishment.I heard awhile back that it was going to be on vc at launch.I really hope nintendo brings this game over stateside to vc,that's one game i missed i really wanted to play.
epobirs @ Sep 10th 2006 11:02PM
#19
You would need to also include ColecoVision and Atari 5200. The big bonus with these is that the ColecoVison gets you the MSX library and the Atari 5200 opens the door for a lot of Atari 800 classics, too.
Then there is the Neo-Geo, which has a lot of very high value games that were just too expensive when they were new.
Down the road, Atari ST and Amiga would also be worthy of consideration. Very big libraries with a goodly number of items that remain unique.
#24
I'd expect Nintendo to exercise their usually caution about flooding the market with product. Back in the NES days a third party publisher was limited to five titles a year. This lead to many publishers start sub-brands, Konami's Ultra label, for instance. It was dedicated to mainly games based on media licenses (Turtles) or ported from computers. In the latter category, Defender of the Crown was one I did testing on.
Sturgeon's Law ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law ) reminds us that the majority of those old games weren't very good when new and have gotten far worse with age. Winnowing down the NES to just the deserving 10% still means a huge nuber of games. If the shoppers are presented with everything at once there is much likelihood that some titles will be lost in the crowd.
Just about everything good fromt he supported platforms will eventually appear but expect the selection to grow in batches as perhaps a dozen or so are featured additions each month. We don't know yet how much Nintendo is going to put into their shopping site to works with the Wii's browser. We could have detailed descriptions and history of most games or a minimal presentation. A lot could depend on how material the owner of the game has to offer.
My hope is that they'll put some real work into it and make the shopping aspect also function as a video game history museum. I believe that would help sell a lot more games by getting people into the site just for the history and tempting them with the opportunity to take an exhibit home.
Ryan @ Sep 10th 2006 11:03PM
There are three games I'm hoping get released. Super Mario RPG, Earthbound, and Secret of Evermore. Those are three of my favorite games of all time. Some less important but still excellent games to have would be Donkey Kong Country 1-3, Donkey Kong 64, and Shadowman 64.
nothing dude @ Sep 10th 2006 11:05PM
I heard that Nintendo may polish up some of the games?
What does that mean and is that true?
dkh @ Sep 10th 2006 11:05PM
Dude.
Guardian Legend.
Dr.Swiss @ Sep 10th 2006 11:11PM
No love for Panic Restaurant? No one here does drugs but me. :*(
vidGuy @ Sep 10th 2006 11:11PM
"I heard that Nintendo may polish up some of the games? What does that mean and is that true?"
That's what's been suggested. Most likely, the "polish" would be like SMB got a polish when it was rereleased in Super Mario All Stars on the SNES - new sprites, backgrounds, etc. In terms of gameplay, I doubt anything gets added, but I think most would agree that the games shouldn't be messed with.
I wonder if anyone could find the total number of games released for all of the consoles that will be on the VC? With a total number, we could guess how many will make it on to the VC throughout its life. I think 10% to 25% of the total number of games is much more likely than 75% or more. And, like epobirs suggests, that's probably for the best.
Turo @ Sep 10th 2006 11:17PM
Blazing Lazers - Turo Grafx 16 =)
Blanko4 @ Sep 10th 2006 11:19PM
Donkey Kong Country
Super Mario All-Stars (bundles are always nice)
Kirby Super Star
Super Mario RPG
Earthworm Jim
Super Star Wars
Super Empire Strikes Back
Super Return of the Jedi
Goldeneye is always welcome as well
Ryoji @ Sep 10th 2006 11:24PM
Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow. I am dead serious.
Nostalgia is what this is for, after all, isn't it?
Tehpyro @ Sep 11th 2006 6:58AM
Like seriously... No kickle cubacle? that was like the best game ever!! ahahaha... thats fine! I don't need it in your precious list... I still have an original and a working NES in my living room
vidGuy @ Sep 10th 2006 11:22PM
"How would 2 omnidirectional control sticks work with a side scroller??"
Well, using the left analog stick, pressing up, down, left, or right would correspond to up, down, left, and right, and pressing at an angle would correspond to that angle (up-and-left, right-and-down, etc).
Of course, you could always use the D-PAD! :)
The 2 sticks are meant for the N64 games. The left stick is the controller stick, the right stick is for camera control (replacing the 4 "C" buttons from the N64 controller).