Tales from the Wii Virtual Console
A look back at the service about looking back.
Remember then? You know, the good old days! The glorious sunrises and sunsets of our youth. Oh, how we romanticise the yesteryear. And for good reason. Nostalgia exists because so many of us find joy and comfort in the warm embrace of a past that, at best, only paints half the picture. Doesn’t matter if we were just as stressed in our adolescence as we are now. When we close our eyes after a long day of work, the light we see is the glow of a 2010 television displaying the clean white branding of the Wii’s UI in all its ethereal beauty.
I have always been a nostalgic person—occasionally for eras I have no business being nostalgic about at all. Call it golden age thinking, but I find great pleasure immersing myself within the history of things I love. Sure, Matt Smith is great in Doctor Who, but I want to see how his characterisation was influenced by Patrick Troughton’s some fifty years earlier. And I don’t just want to listen to Pet Sounds, I’m also curious to trace the steps Brian Wilson took to composing that masterpiece in his preceding albums.
When I first really fell in love with video games some fifteen years ago, the Wii’s Virtual Console was my gateway to the world of retro gaming. A digital, interactive history book of the medium’s bygone greats, hidden gems, and whatever the hell Yoshi’s Cookie was. And I was smitten.
The Virtual Console captured my imagination and then some. Here was a collection of games—most of which released before I was born—that had either stood the test of time or been forgotten by it. Both were equally fascinating to me. Sonic the Hedgehog and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time could coexist on this platform alongside games like Gain Ground and Neutopia. It felt like I was being told a story about gaming’s past that, while incomplete, had clear care put into the areas it did touch on.
Ironically, I’m now nostalgic about a service that was tailor-made to feed into and monetise the nostalgia of gamers. I look back fondly on my days browsing the Wii’s Virtual Console and playing its games. And while I will talk about some of those titles in a moment, I want to touch on some other random VC memories, just for fun:
· I always found the download loading screen for the Wii’s Virtual Console very charming. Instead of having a standard progress bar, there was an animation of 8-bit Mario running across the screen under three blocks. As the download progressed, Mario would hit each of the blocks, with the third jump signalling the game was ready. Love, love, love!
· I bought Monster Hunter Tri purely to get the Wii Classic Controller Pro as a means to play Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 games on the Virtual Console. Luckily, the actual game was also pretty good.
· My entire understanding of maths is based around the Wii’s VC point system. As a general rule, 8-bit games were 500 points, 16-bit games were 800 points, and Nintendo 64 titles were 1000 points. Here’s where it gets messy. In Australia, there were two types of Nintendo eShop gift cards you could buy. A $15 card would get you 1000 points, while a $30 card came loaded with 2000 points. Are you still with me? Okay, so there were times where I would buy the $15 card to purchase an 800-point Super Nintendo game. This would leave me with 200 essentially-useless points on my account, but I would factor that surplus into my future budgeting. If I saved up a bit more and got the $30 gift card, I would have 2200 points to spend, which could be broken up in several ways. I often ended up with leftover points, so I’d plan future gift card purchases to land on a number that could be neatly split between games from different eras. If any of you would like to make use of my VC accounting services, please reach out!
· I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the Wii Shop Channel music is peak.
Okay, enough waffling. Onto the actual video games that I will always associate with the Wii’s Virtual Console!
Super Metroid
At first, I did not like Super Metroid. This was deeply frustrating as there was so much about the game that meant I should have loved it. The brooding atmosphere, the impeccable environmental storytelling, the allusions to sci-fi-horror. These were all well and truly in my wheelhouse.
It was the controls. I couldn’t wrap my head around them. Samus had different jumps depending on whether she was standing still or in motion, and neither of them felt natural to me. Add in a weird aiming system and some questionable button layouts, and I found navigating Zebes to be more finicky than anything else.
But I persevered and through some bizarre Stockholm syndrome phenomenon, I eventually came to grips with the aged controls and could fully embrace the areas that the game excelled at. Even if I think a handful of subsequent Metroid games have bettered it, Super Metroid laid such a strong foundation that it deserves to be considered a classic.
Phantasy Star
I was determined to play Phantasy Star the way it was intended. No guides or online maps. If I was going to navigate the game’s first-person dungeons, that meant opening up my Grade 10 grid notebook and drawing the maps myself.
It was honestly a lot of fun. There’s something wholesome and tangible about using real-world objects to help you progress through a game, and I felt connected to those who played Phantasy Star on their Sega Master Systems back in the late-80s.
With that said, I would only recommend this method to anyone who has the time and patience to meticulously map out Phantasy Star’s increasingly complex labyrinths. To simply enjoy this seminal JRPG for all its other qualities, pick up the terrific Sega Ages version for Switch.
The Revenge of Shinobi
My introduction to the Sega Mega Drive was through the system’s collection for PSP. One of its games that really enamoured me was the shuriken-throwing, ceiling-climbing, surfboard-riding action of Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master.
That game’s predecessor, The Revenge of Shinobi, was bizarrely not included on the collection, so I turned to the Virtual Console. I found this earlier instalment in the Shinobi series to be grittier, moodier, and featured an even-more kickass soundtrack from legendary composer Yuzo Koshiro.
I have also never made it past the third level. The Revenge of Shinobi is a capital-H Hard game! The smoothed edges of Shinobi III were now as sharp as a katana’s blade, and I was not (and have never been) up to the challenge. The first two and a half levels are excellent, though!
Super Mario 64
I remember finding it funny that Super Mario 64 felt it had to give an in-universe reason for its camera. As if the inclusion of the Lakitu cameraman was purely to put the minds of 1996 children at ease who were confused about the lore implications of a 3D camera.
I also remember finding the game a pure joy to play. I had already played Super Mario Galaxy at this point, which I still believe to be the more polished and overall better game.
But there’s a trailblazing euphoria that still permeates Super Mario 64. Nintendo were on the frontier of literally a new dimension in gaming. Instead of treating 3D game design with caution, they triple-jumped in and delivered a creatively charged journey that never fails to put a smile on my face.
Chrono Trigger
I knew Chrono Trigger was going to be something special when I found myself caring deeply for a cast of characters that included a robot, a cavewoman, and a frog. This game was a late entry to the Wii’s Virtual Console and remains the only (legal) re-release of the original Super Nintendo version. And I’m so glad SquareEnix put it on here.
Back in the early-90s, a miraculous coming together occurred between a handful of Japan’s greatest gaming talent to create a JRPG worthy of their pedigree. Chrono Trigger somehow exceeded even these sky-high expectations.
It’s the best game I played on Virtual Console and, arguably, the best game I have ever played. But who knows? Maybe that’s just my nostalgia talking.
Do you have any fond memories of the Virtual Console or its games? Share them in the comments below! I’d also love to revisit this topic one day with some tales of the 3DS and Wii U Virtual Console.
The Video Game Storyteller is a free Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).
All images were either captured directly by the author or sourced from publicly available promotional screenshots.
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Really liked your section on Super Metroid. I also found it unenjoyable at first but now replay it once a year; it's like riding a bike: hard to learn but it stays with you.
Ahh this takes me back. Mario 64 was the first game I ever played on the N64, but I was never able to beat it on my own (since I was a wee child). The re-release on the Wii VC gave me a second chance, so I bought it day 1, did all 120 stars and beat Bowser for the first time. Good times :)