What's a VC review? It's a review of a game that is now available on the Wii via the virtual console or shopping channel.
The first VC review I am doing is for the classic NES game the Legend of Zelda. Let me tell you right off that this is the game that made me buy my original NES over twenty years ago. I still remember how cool it was that it came with a gold cartridge with batteries inside to allow you to save your game. Previously you had to write down codes to resume a game.
Game play is near identical to the original game. Most of the original tricks still work but some do not. For instance, you can start your game with the name "Zelda" to begin the second quest without completing the first quest. You can not, however, use the old trick of saving your game while filling your hearts at a fairy pool to begin the game with full hearts. Now, the reason you can no longer do that is because this game, when played on the VC, allows you to save anywhere. Even if you are in the middle of a dungeon you can pause/save the game and come back to it days later with no loss of location. In the older version of the game you would either start at the original outside location or the first room of a dungeon.
Some of you may remember how when an area had a certain number of monsters the game would slow down to a crawl for a few seconds, this still happens! Yes, the VC is so good at emulating the NES that it even includes these small bugs.
One thing that I do miss from the original release of the game was the incomplete map. Neither the GBA version or the VC version includes the partial map. The manual for the game is available (in a form) on the VC but the map is no where to be found. A complete map can be found on-line.
The game uses the Wii-mote controller and it is held in a fashion reminiscent of the old NES controller. The + and - buttons work as start and select while buttons 1 and 2 are your A and B buttons.
The game "sells" for 500 Wii Points and it is worth it. You can expect to get about 20+ hours of game play out of this which works out to about twenty-five cents per hour. You can run up to three games at once so other people in your home can also enjoy this old classic at the same time as you do.
This game began the long line of Zelda games and deserves a spot in your collection. For 500 Wii points it's a great deal.
I give this game a 9 out of 10. I would have given it a 10 but I'm not sure how much I like the changes made to the save feature. I often used the save feature to quickly jump from a corner of the board or to get out of a death trap room in a dungeon. Taking this away causes me to spend the time walking back from a far corner of the game world rather than just use the save and restart teleport system.
