An e-mail has popped into the inbox of subscribers to Nintendo of Europe’s newsletter, announcing something called the ‘Hanabi Festival’ – a celebration of previously unreleased Japan titles arriving on European Virtual Console.

It kicks off this week with two Mario games – Mario Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (NES version) and the SNES grid-based puzzler Mario’s Super Picross. You have to hurry if you want The Lost Levels though – it’ll only be available until the end of the month. Then next week is ‘ninja week’ with the US version of Ninja Gaiden and Ninja JaJaMaru-kun (both on NES) available to download, followed by ’sci-fi week’ on 28th September, which includes legendary N64 shooter Sin and Punishment and Gradius III on SNES.

We would have rather have Super Mario RPG instead of The Lost Levels (which did eventually made it’s way outside of Japan via Super Mario Allstars anyway), but still – Sin and Punishment at last!