Retro Gaming Australia

Capcom have announed that the Super Nintendo ports of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Street Fighter II), Street Fighter II’ Turbo: Hyper Fighting (Street Fighter II Turbo) and Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (Super Street Fighter II) are headed to the Wii U Virtual Console this coming Thursday.

Players in North America buying one of the games (US$7.99 each) can purchase either or both of the others at half price, while players in Europe (and hopefully Australia) can buy two of the games (£5.49 each) and get the third Street Fighter II game for free. All three titles come with Miiverse support.

That’s a whole lot of Street Fighter II to keep you busy this weekend.

Over the weekend, Capcom announced their plans to bring Breath of Fire II to the Wii U Virtual Console.

Capcom excitedly shared the news that fans can expect to see the classic Super Nintendo turn-based RPG on the Wii U in the coming months via the Nintendo eShop. This is obviously not the first re-release of the Breath of Fire II, with the game being ported to the Game Boy Advance in 2002 and appearing on the Wii’s Virtual Console in 2007 – still, it is good news!

Japan recently received news that Breath of Fire VI is in development for PC and mobile devices, but there is no word as of yet regarding such a release in the West. Hopefully the aforementioned re-release with satiate Breath of Fire fans’ appetites until we hear more about the new entry in the series – the game headed to 3DS or Wii U would make many a person happy, I suspect.

Check out the Breath of Fire II Virtual Console trailer above.

Sources: Capcom Unity, Retrospekt.

Finally. A few days ago, the Super Nintendo RPG classic Earthbound was released for the Wii U Virtual Console.

Until now, Earthbound had never been released in PAL regions. Many of us have been eagerly awaiting this digital release, with it representing our first opportunity to play this much loved and much raved about game. When Earthbound originally released in North America in 1995 it was accompanied by a Player’s Guide, so Nintendo have made a digital version of this guide available on the game’s official web site – it has also been optimized for use on the Wii U GamePad, so it makes for a rather nice little bonus.

Earthbound is currently available on the Wii U Virtual Console for AU$13.00/US$9.99, which is a tad (read: a lot) cheaper than purchasing a physical version of the original SNES release on eBay.

After a surprisingly long delay and a couple of months of teasing with a trickle of cheap releases, Nintendo has finally launched the Virtual Console service on the Wii U.

Arguably the best thing about the Virtual Console service on the Wii U is the off-screen play ability through the Wii U gamepad. Also, European and Australian versions will be the 60Hz versions except where a game was previously optimised for PAL release.

There are a few downsides, however. One, only eight games are currently available: Balloon Fight (NES), Donkey Kong Jr. (NES), Excitebike (NES), Ice Climber (NES), Kirby’s Adventure (NES), Punch-Out!! (NES), F-Zero (SNES) and Super Mario World (SNES) in the US, while Europe and Australia switch out Kirby for the Japanese version of Super Picross and lose Balloon Fight – far fewer titles than were available on the Wii Virtual Console launch. Two, you’ll have to pay for games you bought on the Wii – you will get a discounted price on the conversion to make up for it. Finally, it looks like Nintendo is still planning to drip feed releases – no plans have been revealed for the previously announced Game Boy Advance support, or the rumoured GameCube support.

After many years and many requests from western audiences, Nintendo has finally announced a re-release of the classic RPG Earthbound.

Earthbound, or Mother 2 in Japan, saw a release in North America in 1995 on the Super Nintendo and has since become one of the most sought after video game releases – with a cart only copy of the title currently fetching US$150+ on eBay. When Nintendo announced Mother 2‘s presence in Japan’s Wii U Virtual Console Trial Campaign line-up, fans cried out even louder for a re-release in the West. Lucky for us, Nintendo heard our pleas and have responded – with Mr Satoru Iwata happily announcing the games release during the latest Nintendo Direct.

Expect to see Earthbound available to download on your Wii U thorough the Virtual Console service sometime this year – in both North America and Europe. Hooray.

In January’s Nintendo Direct video conference earlier in the week, Nintendo detailed their plans for the Wii U version of the Virtual Console service.

The Virtual Console service will launch on Wii U after the Spring (our Autumn) update. Initially only games for the NES and SNES will be released, but plans were announced for the Game Boy Advance to join the line up in the future. Titles are being re-coded for the Wii U VC, with new features like save states being added.

However, the downside of that is that you’re going to have to buy the games again. Nintendo did announce a program whereby you’ll be able to get a discount on the Wii U version of a VC title if you’d bought it on the Wii – which is a better outcome than most expected. For the US, it ends up that you’ll be able to convert to the Wii U versions for $1 for NES games and $1.50 for SNES games. No word on local pricing.

In addition to being able to play on the Wii U GamePad, Wii U VC titles will support the Classic Controller and Pro Controller. Apparently VC titles will be among the first two support two Wii U GamePads.

To whet your appetite, Nintendo are releasing a game a month at a heavily discounted price. Balloon Fight is the first game up, and it’s just 30 cents. That’s cheaper than a McDonald’s cone! F-Zero will follow in February, Punch-Out!! in March, Kirby’s Adventure in April, Super Metroid in May, Mario & Yoshi in June and Donkey Kong in August.

Zelda fans have been clamouring for a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for 3DS since the release of the popular The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D last year. The remake has been hinted at by Nintendo representatives, however the series creator Shigeru Miyamoto has also expressed a desire to remake or recreate The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (my personal favourite Zelda game <3). Speaking with IGN recently, Miyamoto has indicated that Nintendo are currently in deliberation. “We haven’t quite decided yet, whether we’re going to do A Link to the Past, because there’s also the possibility of doing a remake of Majora’s Mask,” Miyamoto explained. “This is something we’ve certainly been talking about and doing a little bit of experimenting with, to figure out which way we’re going to go.”

Unable to make any announcements at present, Miyamoto said that fans will have to wait “just a little while longer” for information regarding Nintendo’s decision. He went on to say “[Nintendo are] always looking at expanding our audience and giving people the opportunity to get their hands on 3DS and see what kind of fun gaming experiences they can have. And now, we’re also tasked with pushing the Wii U. So we have lots of good opportunities in terms of thinking about which Zelda game is going to be best for which purpose.” It would appear that the question is not only which Zelda game to remake, but also on which system it should appear.

So, which game should be remade, Majora’s Mask or A Link to the Past? Both!

Last week, news broke that Nintendo had acquired the “supermario4.com” domain name and speculation as to meaning ensued. Shigeru Miyamoto, in an interview with Korean website Betanews overnight, has confirmed that Super Mario 4 is currently in development.

No details about the upcoming title were released, save for the announcement of its existence. It is unknown whether Super Mario 4 is the 2D Mario game for the Nintendo 3DS that was promised last year or the Wii U Super Mario title (to be shown at E3 this year). Perhaps it is something new entirely?

With Super Mario Bros. 4 deemed already in existence by many (referring to Super Mario World – subtitled Super Mario Bros. 4 in Japan), we are curious as to how this new Super Mario 4 will eventuate and keen to hear the choice of name/codename explained. Super Mario 3D Land has Super Mario Bros. 3 at its core, maybe this Super Mario 4 will have a similar relationship with Super Mario World. Only time, and Nintendo, will tell.

Miyamoto stated that more details would be revealed soon.

If Nintendo Director of Entertainment and Trend Marketing Amber McCollom is to be believed, GameCube software will be available on Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U console through the WiiWare service. In an interview with Nintendo Gal, McCollom said, “GameCube discs will not be compatible with Wii U, but a number of the games that were playable on GameCube can be downloaded from WiiWare.”

One has to wonder if we’ll just get straight up ports of these games, or whether Nintendo will go the HD remaster route, which has proved lucrative for Sony. Whatever the answer is, we’ll be waiting for some kind of official confirmation before we get our hopes up.

Source: Nintendo Gal via Joystiq