Nintendo loyalists shouldn’t feel envious about the slew of big-name titles that have hit PS4 and Xbox One recently – this week’s eShop line-up is chock full of decent downloads. Making for a pleasant change, the upcoming discounts aren’t too shabby either.
The Wii U is in line for six new arrivals this Thursday – three indie games and three Virtual Console releases – while the 3DS sees the release of Little Battlers eXperience (£34.99), which is also due out as retail release later this week. Developed by Level-5, this anime tie-in has gone down well with RPG fans. The Metacritic currently stands at 73% from 11 critics with no reviews below 7/10.
Those Wii U indie games, then. There’s the predictably colourful Runbow (£10.99), a nine-player party game featuring both online and couch-based play. Nintendo has given this one a fair bit of attention and it’s easy to see why – it’s very Nintendo-like in design. Review scores so far include a 9/10 from Nintendo Life who called it “easily one of the best games that has graced the Wii Uâ€. High praise indeed.
Gunman Clive HD Collection (£3.59) is well worth a look too, bringing together two 3DS eShop greats. Heck, we’re even intrigued by the top-down Zombie Defense (£7.19) and that’s despite it being from the studio behind the terrible Rambo on-rails shooter from last year. Here’s the trailer:
As for the Virtual Console releases, Treasure’s superlative N64 fast-paced shooter Sin & Punishment (£8.99) is making an appearance after last being seen on the Wii’s VC service way back in 2007. This brings the grand total of N64 games available on Wii U up to seven – the same number available on Xbox One via Rare Replay, incidentally. Why Nintendo are so lax on this front we’ll never know.
That’s being joined by the Zelda alike duo StarTropics and Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II (£4.49 each).
Although developed in Japan, the StarTropics games were released only in North America and Europe. Another fun fact – 1994’s StarTropics II was the second to last official NES release, with Wario’s Woods being the last. The first StarTropics is often referred to being the better out of the two. We’re going to go out on a limb though and say both are worth the asking price.
This leaves us with the week’s discounts. Wii U owners can get the magnificent Rayman Legends for £9.49 while the not-quite-as-magnificent Rayman Origins falls to £5.39 on 3DS. First-person curio Master Reboot meanwhile is being cut to £4.99 while the magical snow covered adventure Never Alone drops to £8.59. It may only take an evening to finish, but what an evening.