I’m bored of doing these Virtual Console updates, so we’re doing something different this week. Let me introduce a whole team of very special guests who will be going through the latest retro releases with me in a round table discussion. Without further ado, please welcome Marcel Marceaux, Sooty, Jason Vorhees, and Link. Gentlemen, hello.

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Anyway, two offerings this week, and not a one from either Nintendo or Sega. The Turbografx gives us The Dynastic Hero for 600 Points, which isn’t, as you may think, a tedious Romance of the Three Kingdoms spin-off, but a reskinning of Wonder Boy In Monster World, the cartoon fantasy platformer. And for those of you thinking, “hold on, didn’t they release Wonder Boy In Monster World for the Mega Drive already?”, well, yes, you’d be right. While the Turbo CD version is pretty rare, it’s not worth getting it again if you’ve already got it on VC. But if you don’t have it, this one may slightly edge it for the more discerning gamer.

Second up is Baseball Stars 2 for the Neo Geo for 900 Points. It’s a baseball arcade game, naturally. It looks like every other baseball game I’ve played, and that isn’t many. Admittedly, I know nothing about baseball games, and this doesn’t interest me, so I’m going to leave the last word to our guests. Take it away.

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It’s a long way to fall from the glorious highs of last week’s Super Metroid release. This week we’re down to earth with a bump with three more ancient games, forced out of their rocking chairs and made to dance, Dance! for our entertainment.

Most well known of these three is Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (500 points). Most well known for being a bit rubbish, that is. Nintendo tried something different with an RPG-style adventure, day and night cycles, NPC dialogue, and open levels. Yet some pretty bad platforming and obscure methods to access new areas make it an experience to be endured rather than enjoyed. Only for those who want to say they’ve played through every Castlevania adventure.

The second of the Neo Geo VC releases, World Heroes (900 points), follows in the footsteps of Fatal Fury. It’s another one-on-one beat ‘em up, this time with the premise of famous historical figures from different eras coming together for a chronologically incorrect megabrawl. Hence Rasputin battles Muscle Power, wrestler from the XXI century, and Joan of Arc faces Japanese samurai Hanzo Hattori. (Rumours that holding down A+B+Up to unlock Marie Curie and John Logie Baird are unfounded as of late.) Pretty average it seems, and, we know this is the Neo Geo’s forte, but do we really need another beat ‘em up so soon?

Speaking of more of the same, Turbografx’s offering is another scrolling shooter, Gate of Thunder (800 points). Not one that regularly gets a mention in the same breath as R-Type or the like, but it’s regarded as a good, solid shmup. Definitely worth a look if you’re done with Gradius III.

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There are many nostaligic treasures to be found on the Virtual Console, but my favourite by far is the TurboGrafx library. Japan and America were lucky enough to have played these games when they were first released in the Eighties and Nineties, but over here it was a different story. NEC declined to release the console in Europe, and instead we had to make do with third-hand accounts of its brilliance, or else shell out for grey imports that were ridiculously expensive.

Now we’re able to experience the games for ourselves, I haven’t been disappointed. As an added bonus, all of the TurboGrafx games on the VC are free from the PAL conversion issues which have dogged all the Sega and Nintendo releases, so the games can be played without any slowdown or unsightly black borders on the screen.

Here are my five favourites, let us know what you think in the comments below.

5) SPLATTERHOUSE (600 points)

So you want some bloody violence and religious blasphemy in your interactive entertainment, but Manhunt 2 and Resistance are copping too much flack. You can always make do with SPLATTERHOUSE, the game which took inspiration from the “Friday the 13th” films and invented the survival horror genre. Even the hero of the game looks like Jason, complete with hockey mask and blood-splattered denim.

Let’s be honest, this game is rubbish. It’s a side-scrolling beat-up with clunky controls, and it really hasn’t aged very well. But it is remarkable in terms of its subject matter, with each stage spewing forth one grotesque horror after another. Alas, this version has been censored to remove the most offensive imagery (inverted crosses, malevolent embryo demons), but the evil atmosphere remains intact.

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It’s here! It’s finally here! Treasure’s Sin and Punishment has arrived in Europe on Virtual Console. It’s been a long time coming, so finally we get a chance to sample the on-rails N64 shooter that savvy importers have been proponents of for years. Now if only they weren’t trying to rip us off points-wise.

It seems that this special occasion has warranted a special price: 1200 points, in place of the usual 1000 reserved for Nintendo 64 titles. Cheers for that, Nintendo.

Of course, we should have expected this. It’s been the underlying theme these last couple of weeks during the time of Nintendo’s increasingly tenuous Hanabi Festival, an excuse to put some titles previously unreleased in Europe onto VC and charge more money for them. Following along those lines is horizontally-scrolling shoot ‘em up Gradius III, itself costing 600 points (100 points more than normal SNES titles). Of course, it already came out in some form on PS2 and PSP, but, from what we can gather, gives the player an easier time than the arcade original.

Last, and separate from all this jacked-up price nonsense is Legend of Hero Tonma. What of the what what? It’s a Turbografx platform game that looks a little Wonder Boy-ish to us. Yes, we are judging it on a couple of screenshots. What of it? We’d never even heard of it before now. At least it’s the standard 600 points.

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