Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins

Fans of Yoshi or lesser-celebrated Nintendo franchises might enjoy these two releases. Anyway enough from me and on with the games! 

Available for download this week we have...   

Sickeningly cute is the only way to describe this game from the outset, but if you were to judge this game merely from the childish introduction sequence and title screen featuring a quite frankly tedious main theme then you would be missing the point of this underrated platform title.

Dealing with the obvious fact first, this is Yoshi's first proper game and yes thats taking into account the beautifully crafted Yoshi's Island on the SNES. This is quite different though, this time around the evil Baby Bowser has cast a spell turning Yoshi's Island into a picture book. Worse yet, the Super Happy Tree has been stolen, making the island dark and gloomy.

You take control of six Yoshi's, each a different colour, and travel through six pages of platforming adventure to recover the tree and return the island to normal. The main thing you will notice about this game is it's unique graphical style; rather than sticking with the pastel hand drawn tones of Yoshi's Island this time a unique 2D/3D look is incorporated which really brings the vibrant worlds to life and is most certainly the highlight of the game.

The visuals are lovely, though the gameplay can be a bit hit-and-miss...

Flow of gameplay is different as it features a border of thirty dots which must be filled with pieces of fruit before you can properly complete the level. To further complicate matters each Yoshi is partial to a different piece of fruit and while you can copiously consume a variety of fruits you will need to go for that one special fruit  thats unique to your Yoshi if you want those high scores; remember, “Eat more fruit so the Yoshi's can grow happier!”.

Unfortunately though the game is fun enough and features fruit foraging and flutter-jumping aplenty, there are also certain elements which let the game down; namely quotes like the one aforementioned which are just plain childish. Audio appeal or lack of it is another issue for similar reasons, Yoshi's outbursts of “Yaaaay” and “Whoooa” are tolerable but many may find the main theme featuring singing Yoshi's! (I kid you not) just a tad too much to the point of it being rather off putting.

Overall it's a good game with one or two secrets to be found but underneath it's wonderful graphical style is a dumbed down difficulty and a short lifespan. It's sweet and innocent nature will either be a plus or a negative for some but whichever way you look at it, beyond it's vivid visuals this is vastly inferior to the truly sublime Yoshi's Island which graced us with it's most welcome presence many years before this. 

Throughout the golden age of gaming Nintendo would always find new ways to push their 16-bit hardware to the limits and thanks to Mode-7 technology which rotated and scaled textures to give a reasonably accurate and impressive representation of 3D, the company were able to break boundaries once again. Of course this technique had been used before in F-zero and Mario Kart but never before in a flight simulation; so in swoops Pilotwings descending majestically upon unsuspecting SNES owners the world over. Firstly you'll notice that this is one nicely presented game indeed, from the rotating text title screen to the detailed mission overview screens right through of course to the main island itself where your attempts at aerial acrobatics take place. Everything looks surprisingly realistic for what is basically still a mere 16-bit title and it's a wonder to look at even today despite the fact that things have moved on tenfold technically since its release.

When you get to the actual main game you are instructed on what you need to do by an on-screen avatar in the mission briefing; essentially this boils down to scoring a certain cumulative amount of points in order to progress. You then pick from either Parachuting or Flying and can opt to view how your chosen aerial activity is scored plus the controls, you may from glancing at these pieces of info and thinking that it's going to be a piece of cake but that is not so. Beginning with the plane you start off in the air and need to pass through two rings which isn't too bad but then you are asked to land and this is where most will either crash into the runway or even into the ocean due to either accelerating too fast or clipping the wings of the plane as you get closer to ground / sea level. 

Parachuting is entirely different however and starts off with your skydiver holding onto a rope ladder attached to a helicopter which then ascends a few thousand feet before you let go and free-fall downward as you navigate through the rings on the way before opening  your parachute and attempting to land in the target area. Alternatively you can opt to not deploy your parachute resulting in your on-screen character plummeting to their cartoon-like demise leaving a person-shaped hole in the ground and - amusingly - an angry instructor who merely responds with... “You did that on purpose didn't you?” damn right I did. Using both the Rocketbelt and Hang-glider is a satisfying experience as their control schemes feel extremely well tuned and very believable indeed even if on the later more difficult missions piloting them well may take more than a few tries, of course though if you really can't be bothered with a particular mission you can always cheat and obtain the relevant password to input on the title screen.

That's it, you can do it... *splash!* Oh and that's a bad miss!

Indeed all of these missions are really just a warm up for the 'beast' that you get to fly near the end of the game which is an Attack Helicopter loaded with missiles as you set off on a daring rescue mission to save your captured instructors; of course one hit and it's game over though so both caution and a quick trigger-finger are necessary here to succeed. The only area in which the game is let down slightly is in the music department, while the sound effects are spot-on the actual background music serves its purpose but isn't exactly amazing; but for the amount of things that this title gets right, this small niggle really doesn't matter as much as you might think and won't ruin your enjoyment of what is otherwise a genuinely captivating title.

Of course this title has since been bettered by its N64 sequel - which we will hopefully get released soon on the VC - but the original Pilotwings is more worthy of praise for what it achieved on the 16-bit hardware that it was created on. A technical achievement plus an original title that is a huge amount of fun to play and it's to its credit that such a game can still provide an experience that's more engaging than many modern day titles, if you haven't played this yet then please do as it's a truly unique title. 

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!