With the Hanabi Festival month on Virtual Console drawing to a close, Nintendo has treated Australian (and European) Wii owners to another couple of previously Japanese-only games. As promised, they released Gradius III (SNES), Legend of Hero Tonma (Turbografx-16), and the highly anticipated cult-classic, Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth (N64).

Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth (N64) is a rail-based shooter, in the third person.
There is an informative review of Sin and Punishment over at cubed3 .. the consensus is that Sin and Punishment is dark and moody, fast-paced, and while a little too short, probably still has some replay value even if you finish it in a few hours. Two player mode allows one player to control the movement of the character (dodging bullets) while the other player aims and shoots. I was hoping they would rework the game controls to use the Wii Remote as a ‘light gun’ … no such luck.

Gradius III (SNES) a side scrolling shooter.

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Regarding Gradius III, the key selling point for me apart from just being a decent shooter, is that you can ‘continue’ after loosing all your lives. Shooters that make you go back to the beginning every time can get pretty dull after getting stuck on that same boss for the 100th time. This is particularly an issue when you have limited time to play. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy Super Star Soldier, if only out of sheer masochism, but I just don’t have the time to invest these days with a real job and all.

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Legend of Hero Tonma (Turbografx-16) is a shooting platformer. Very similar jist to Ghosts’n'Goblins or Ghouls’n'Ghosts. I’m still too busy refining my skillz on Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels for another platformer at the moment.