Nintendo clearly have a guilty conscience for delaying the release of all those TurgoGrafx-16 games in Australia. This week, as part of the Japanese Hanabi Festival (fireworks festival), the Australian Virtual Console gets several little gems, previously only realeased in Japan. North America hasn’t got these yet … don’t we Aussies feel special now !

This week is “Mario Week”, giving us Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels Super Mario Bros 2 (NES) and Mario’s Super Picross (SNES). A non-Mario title was also released: Neutopia II for TurboGrafx-16.

(correction: It’s the original Japanese release of Super Mario Bros 2 for NES … not “The Lost Levels”, which is essentially the same game, same levels and souped-up graphics and sound but was released in Australia as part of the Super Mario: All-Stars compilation).

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels Super Mario Bros 2 (NES) costs 600 points instead of the usual 500 and is only available to till the end of September !). Essentially, this is much like the original Super Mario Bros., with all new levels, however The Lost Levels is generally considered the hardest of the NES Mario platformers. There is no two player in this one, but you can play single player as either Mario or his green-clad brother Luigi. Mario and Luigi have different jumping abilities, so for real platformer fanatics this should make for some interesting re-plays using each character (Luigi can jump longer and higher, but Mario is more agile and has better grip to stop him sliding of ledges).

Mario’s Super Picross (SNES) is a logic puzzle game (one of the few “casual games” released for Virtual Console so far). The easiest way to describe this game is that it is a lot like the puzzle game “Minesweeper” that comes with most versions of Microsoft Windows. It’s a race against the clock to chip away grid squares without parts of the “hidden picture” in them, and mark squares “X” that you want to keep. The edges of the grid indicate how many grid squares in that row or column are occupied. By a process of deduction, the picture can be revealed without accidentally chipping any of it away. This version hasn’t been heavily localized (ie switching Japanese characters for an English translation), but it shouldn’t effect your ability to figure out and play the game.

Neutopia II (TG-16) is the sequel to the Zelda-esque RPG, Neutopia. As is my general rule on this site, I typically will refrain from commenting on RPGs, since I generally don’t enjoy them (except some Rogue-like games and Zelda: Ocarina of Time). Certainly looks like a better game than the original The Legend of Zelda for NES, anyway.