Remembering WiiWare #2
Posted 26 Mar 2018 at 11:00 by Adam Hirst
"It will no longer be possible to add Nintendo Points with either a credit card, a Nintendo Points Card or a Nintendo eShop Card after 20:59 UK time on 26th March 2018. If you’d like to purchase Nintendo Points or redeem a Nintendo Points Card or Nintendo eShop Card, please do so before this time." (official UK Nintendo site)
Today it’s time to take a look at some classic games that Konami brought to the WiiWare service.
Price: 600 points
Publisher: Konami
Developer: M2
Released: 2009
I love the shoot’em up genre. It takes me back to my childhood when I used to sit crossed legged in front of my Commodore 64 and play Nemesis, a game which I adored as a kid. Despite finishing Nemesis I’m not really good at playing these games. I often end up in a panic as I frantically try to dodge the barrage of bullets and usually end up crashing into some scenery. This doesn’t stop me from playing the games though and I’m quite happy to bang my head against the wall and keep hitting the continue button until I get my victory. This was certainly the case as I played through this.
When you start the game you get to pick from a selection of 3 ships, each of which has a different weapon setup. Not knowing any better I just selected the one with weapon type A. You are then greeted by a very serious cutscene. Something something…aliens attacking…something something…save the planet. Yeah, I wasn’t really bothered by this and just wanted to get into the game and start blasting stuff.
The game lets you use a variety of control options but I just stuck with the good old sideways Wiimote configuration. The d-pad is used to move your ship around, with button 1 being used as the trigger for your ships guns and button 2 used to select the weapon power-ups that you will be collecting, which I’ll now explain.
There are a number of power-ups that you can obtain for your ship. These range from speeding up your movement, firing missiles below you or even gaining a shield at the front of your ship that will stop enemy bullets for a short time. You get these powers by collecting drops from the enemies that will be swarming you throughout your adventure. When you shoot certain enemies, or defeat a cluster of them, they will drop these power-ups for your ship. Now, here comes the key part.
At the bottom of the screen is a bar that shows you what power-ups are available. The first section of the bar is the speed power-up, next is missiles, after that a diagonal shot, then a laser…you get the idea. Each power up you collect will bump up the power-up bar. So, let’s say that you want to be able to fire lasers. You will have to collect 4 enemy drops and then hit the 2 button on the Wiimote. This means you will have to bypass any power-ups before that in order to reach what you are after. This adds a bit of strategy to the game. I often found myself using the drops on a couple of speed boosters straight away so that I could manoeuvre around the enemy fire. I would then go for the double power up, which is near the end of the bar, as this creates a small orange ball around your ship that also shoots when you do. I then kept saving up for more of the double power ups, eventually having a small army of orange spheres covering my ship and allowing me to have a greater range of fire power.
Like any good shoot’em up there is the anguish of having a full loaded arsenal, only for you to eventually get hit and lose it all. Oh the humanity! With this game though it isn’t as harsh as I thought it would be. There are plenty of checkpoints scattered around the game and then when you do respawn the game gives you a bunch of power-ups straight off the bat in order for you to get going again. As before, I would plow them straight into a couple of speed boosters.
The game is short ( only 5 stages long ) but it will take you a while to get through due to the difficulty of the game. That being said, I imagine seasoned veterans of the genre will make short work of the game, especially given how there are checkpoints. I think it took me around 2 hours to finish and a lot of that time was being stuck on a section just before the second boss. Strangely, I don’t think I really struggled after that. I still hit difficulty spikes but nothing as harsh as that section. If you’re not used to the genre then you may find it frustrating at places but if I can manage to finish the game I think anyone can.
There is a little bonus of sorts for finishing the game. Firstly, you will unlock a couple of extra ships. I may go back to the game at a later date and have a play around with the other ones that are on offer and see how they handle compared to the original one that I used. Secondly, if you were to finish the game on normal difficulty then you will start another loop of the game but it will be slightly harder. Apparently there is another loop to do after that one which is even harder still! Yeah, there’s no danger of me being able to tackle those.
Even though I died MANY times throughout my playthrough, I still enjoyed my time with the game. I imagine many hardcore shooter fans won’t really care for the length or the checkpoint system but it was certainly a welcome addition for someone like myself. Seeing as the game isn’t available elsewhere I would recommend Wii owners give this a download, especially as it’s at the low cost of 600 points. 
Price: 1000 points
Publisher: Konami
Developer: M2
Released: 2009
When you start the game you get an absolutely hilarious cutscene. I’m assuming that they knew exactly what they were going for when they made this ( and every other one that’s in the game ) because it comes off as a cheesy action film made in the 80s. They do look quite nice though and are certainly better looking than the ones seen in Gradius Rebirth.
You have a selection of two characters to choose from who are called Bill and Yagyu. Apparently Bill is a series veteran so I went with him. Having only played through the game a single time i'm unsure if the characters play any differently to each other. After choosing a character you are then thrown straight into the action.
The gameplay is very fast and frantic, with bullets flying all over the place and enemies charging you down at every opportunity. I used the control scheme with the Wiimote being horizontal, just like in Gradius Rebirth. The d-pad was used to move my character and the 1 and 2 buttons were used to fire my gun and jump. There was also something else that I discovered but not until I was well into the second stage. I’ll explain about that in a moment.
Your character starts off by using a standard machine gun. While it is fast firing it doesn’t really do a lot of damage or have a wide spread of bullets. Thankfully you can upgrade you weapons via pick-ups that can be found by destroying certain enemies/floating robots. These upgrades that you can pick up are a wide spread shotgun, a powerful laser or homing missiles. You can actually carry two of these different weapons, which is what I hinted at earlier. At the top of the screen you can see what gun you are using but there is also another slot for another gun. A quick movement of the Wiimote will switch your current weapon to the one in the second slot. Being able to carry two different weapons can give the game a bit of strategy. You can clear the hordes with a few blasts from the shotgun and then switch to the single firing, but more powerful laser for a more direct shot to a boss. To be honest, I often just found myself reaching for the homing missiles. Being able to jump around the screen, randomly firing my weapon and not really having to aim was so much fun.
The difficulty of the game can be a bit taxing at times. You can help yourself out by upping the number of lives you start with. I gave myself a stock of 7 lives and even then I found I would still see the continue screen. I will say this though, the game may be tough but it is fair. If you get hit a single time then you will lose a life. You will then respawn straight away in the exact place you died. If you lose all of your lives then you get to continue in the stage you were on but you will only start at the checkpoint, of which there are a few scattered about the place.
The game is pretty short as it only has 5 stages to go through but they are pretty varied and have some great boss battles to tackle. The starting stage is clearly based off of the Alien franchise, with what look like Alien eggs and Facehuggers attacking you. There were even a couple of Power Walkers to fight near the end of the stage. Yes, I said that famous Aliens line when I saw them there. Other stages have you jumping from some strange kind of mechanical purple ostrich on to a truck, while fighting a samurai looking guy who is holding on to a rocket. Yup, it’s that crazy.
Having played through the game I can see why the series is loved by many. Playing Contra Rebirth reminded me of playing these types of games as a kid back in the arcades in Blackpool, while I was on holiday with my parents. Like Gradius Rebirth there was a sense of nostalgia that this game brought, even though I’m not too familiar with the series. The pick up and play, run and gun mechanic is one that seems to have gotten lost in an industry that constantly pushes for bigger and more open worlds to play in. Having played through this once I can honestly say I will happily play through it again. I have heard great things about the WayForward developed Contra game, so I may have to look into picking that up.
Price: 500 points
Publisher: Konami
Developer: One Button Wai Wai Action
Released: 2010
Time to finish off the trilogy of amazing Konami games. Be honest, how many of you thought I was going to end with Castlevania Adventure Rebirth? I figured I would throw this curve ball into the mix as it’s a game I image not many people have played or even know about. A word of warning here…be prepared for one of the craziest and funniest games that is one the WiiWare service. This is as Japanese as games come.
The game has you play as a Japanese business man named Mr. Susumu. You have to guide the little man from the start of the stage all the way to the end by simply press the A button. Mr. Susumu will be constantly running towards the goal so you have to do your best to time your button presses so that you don’t hit any obstacles. Yup, it’s a runner game but it’s one that is filled with so much charm and wackiness that you can’t help but fall in love with it.
You start a stage with a timer above you. You have this amount of time to get to the goal at the end of the level. If you mistime your button press then you will fall over ( usually in a hilarious fashion ) and this will cost you time. However, if you manage to time your button press perfectly you will get a “GREAT” rating which will score some extra time. It your timing isn’t perfect but you still nail the button press then you will only get a “GOOD” rating. You still get a little bit of extra time but not as much as if you were to perfectly nail it. In this sense it’s kind of like a rhythm game.
The gameplay is incredibly basic but it is so much fun to play, especially when you see what’s going on in front of you. Nailing the button press on things like cars will have you flipping them over, pressing the button perfectly near a school girl and you end up doing a little dance with a bunch of them that appear out of nowhere, do well while running on the moon next to an astronaut and you will moonwalk right on by him. There are loads of hilarious moments like this that honestly had me laughing away as I was playing it, so much so that it was hard to keep my timing going.
The craziness doesn’t stop there either. If you manage to reach the goal you will be greeted by all the characters you encountered in the level and you will start doing a dance on the podium with all of them. This turns into a rhythm game where a bar appears underneath Mr. Susumu and you have to time your button presses so that the lines match up as they move along the screen. It’s really hard to do this, not because it is difficult, but more because you want to keep an eye on the dance moves that are being pulled off by everyone.
The game has 9 stages to get through which may seem short but with these types of games it’s about trying to get a high score. Once you complete a stage then you will unlock the next one to have a crack at. If you manage to complete all 9 stages then you will unlock the Endless Mode. This allows you to play through all 9 stages from start to finish in one go.
The game certainly isn’t for everyone. It does require you to have a silly sense of humour about things and also requires you to appreciate the crazy side of Japanese gaming. It’s a short experience but for only 500 points I do recommend people give it a go if they want to have a laugh, even more so if you have multiple people to play it with because I can imagine the 4 player mode being an absolute riot with friends and family.
That's it for this edition of Remembering WiiWare which will hopefully return again very soon. So until then, don't forget to add some Wii Points to your account by 26/03/2018, enjoy whatever WiiWare titles you might be playing and Game On!
