Three NES games for this week's Virtual Console
- February 12, 2007 13:22 PM PST
- Email this!
Nintendo turns back the clock with three beloved games from its old NES library.
By Eugene Huang
What do mallets, angel wings, and a blushing bag of hot air have in common? That's right! They're all available on Wii's Virtual Console, starting this week.
The first game up on today's release list is Kirby's Adventure, which marked a number of milestones for the inflatable puffball. In his first and only appearance on the NES, Kirby was given the ability to absorb his enemies' powers for the very first time. And to satisfy the trivially-minded, Kirby's Adventure was also the first Kirby game to have been created under the supervision of current Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who was then president of HAL Laboratory.
Second up is Ice Climber, which is one of the first games to be released in America for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It's also one of the only games in which clubbing a baby seal with a comically oversized mallet is an act of self-defense as opposed to an act of hideous cruelty. The little ice climber dudes would have remained in the pantheon of practically forgotten Nintendo characters if it weren't for their inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Melee for the GameCube. As for a reason explaining their long absence from the public eye, one can probably deduce that the couple did some hard jail time for clubbing all those baby seals.
The last game up for download is the long-awaited Kid Icarus, which tells of the exploits of the young hero Pit, whose mission is to rescue the goddess Palutena by defeating the evil goddess Medusa. Despite fan demand for a new Kid Icarus game throughout the last four generations of Nintendo consoles, no other game has been created to feature Pit since Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters for the original Game Boy. Pit's inclusion in the Super Smash Bros. Brawl roster should satisfy a certain part of that demand, but those who want instant gratification need look no further than the Virtual Console.
All three games cost 500 Wii Points each, and go up on sale starting today, February 12th, at 9 AM PST.
