Get these Nintendo 3DS games before you can't: Virtual Console, Pt. 2
Get these Nintendo 3DS games before you can't: Virtual Console, Pt. 2
Even more Virtual Console titles for you to grab before the 3DS eShop shuts down in early 2023.
Nintendo announced that, as of the end of March 2023, they will be shutting down the digital storefronts of their last generation handheld and home console, the 3DS and Wii U. And without plans to make the games on those shops available elsewhere. This means a massive chunk of video game history will be closed off to the rest of us; before that can happen, let’s figure out what you should seek out and add to your system memory on those platforms, via a series of posts on the subject.
No prologue here, you know the drill by now. Here’s the first round of Virtual Console games, if you want or need to check that out.
Pokémon (various, Game Boy, Game Boy Color)
You probably don’t need me to go on at length about why the various Game Boy and Game Boy Color Pokémon titles are enjoyable, so just know that the 3DS eShop has an abundance of them: the original Game Boy trio of Red, Blue, and Yellow (though, Yellow is in its enhanced Game Boy Color form) are all there, as are the Game Boy Color’s Gold, Silver, and Crystal. That’s the entirety of the first two generations of Pokémon! The one downside is that they’re far more expensive than their respective handheld cousins: they’re all listed at $9.99 each, which is a lot more expensive than, say, grabbing the various available Wario Land titles. Still, if you really want to have all the Pokémon titles, and don’t feel like paying for a physical version of the old cartridges, you’ll probably find that price reasonable enough.
Milon’s Secret Castle (NES)
I’m personally more of a fan of the Game Boy edition over the NES one available on the 3DS, but, despite its detractors, the original is a good time, too. Assuming you appreciate games that are not only going to avoid holding your hand, but will slap it away and punch you in the face, too. Which, not everyone does:
GameSpot’s review said it was, “easily one of the worst games ever made” and awarded it a 2 out of 10. IGN scored it a 4 out of 10, writing that, “Like any old-school game from the '80s, Milon has its own small, cult following -- but new players not already familiar with the title will simply feel frustrated, lost, and cheated out of their money.” Even Nintendo Life, which I enjoy quite a bit for their ability to see the reasons why someone might be into a game others would deride, rated it a 3 out of 10 and concluded that, “There are probably many Milon fanboys out there reading this review and cursing under their breath, but to be brutally honest it's hard to see why this game has built up such a following over the years - it stinks.” I’m not even going to get into the famous video review of the game that claims Milon’s Secret Castle is for “little girls” because the protagonist shoots bubbles instead of carrying around a flaming sword or whatever. Bub and Bob shoot bubbles, too, and they’re dragons, man, you got a problem with dragons?
It’s there if you want it, like I did.
Gargoyle’s Quest (Game Boy)
I wasn’t familiar with Gargoyle’s Quest until I played it for a Reader Request entry, but I’m glad I did.
Gargoyle’s Quest still feels pretty fresh and relevant, more than you might expect from an early life Game Boy title. It owes that to how layered the platforming was back in 1990: you don’t just run and jump while shooting projectiles at enemies. The titular gargoyle, Firebrand, can grab on to walls, making climbing a possibility, as well as camping out to attack some tougher foes from afar. There is floating in place and flying, the time with which you have to do so can be extended by upgrades found throughout the game. Generally speaking, you spend a lot of time upgrading Firebrand’s powers, be it to fly for longer amounts of time, increase his health, or to find other projectiles that are more powerful or serve some kind of platforming purpose, like breaking through weakened walls or building temporary blocks to grip onto for climbing on walls you otherwise could not.
So the platforming isn’t standard, and feels like it belongs right in the middle of this renaissance of the genre we’ve been seeing of late, with the rise of independent, digital, and retro-focused releases. Throw in, too, that there was ambition elsewhere in the design, and it’s no wonder Gargoyle’s Quest can, in some ways, feels like it’s fibbing about its age.
$3.99 well spent. And if you like this one, the NES and SNES sequels are also available on the 3DS eShop.
Pokémon Puzzle Challenge (Game Boy Color)
The best of the Puzzle League games is the Game Boy Color entrant, as it combines the series’ traditional excellence with Pokémon-flavored play tweaks and progression:
This entry has the best balance of gameplay styles. There is an endless Marathon style that has you just play and play until you lose, for high score tracking purposes, and a modified version called Garbage that is Marathon, but with stray blocks falling from above to make your life more difficult. There is basically the opposite of Marathon mode in Time Zone, which has you attempting to reach a high score in a limited time frame. LineClear sees you attempting to clear a certain number of lines before advancing to the next stage: Puzzle is the same, but for blocks instead of lines.
The mode that stands out the most for me, though, is Challenge, and this is especially true in the Pokémon Puzzle Challenge edition of Puzzle League. This is a player vs. computer mode that doesn’t show you the other player’s board, but instead just a life bar that you need to deplete, more than half-a-decade before Puzzle Quest was a thing. It’s not as simple as just getting your opponents’ life bar down through the use of block clears and combos, though: you also need to take Pokémon types into account, because this is a Pokémon-branded game. So, specific kind of blocks are going to net you more damage than others, and planning around that is vital to your success.
Fun fact: my Puzzle League entry in the Nintendo top 101 was my least-read of the entire project!
Metroid II: Return of Samus (Game Boy)
Considered by some to be the weakest of the mainline Metroid games, I still have a soft spot for Samus’ adventures on SR-388. Sure, it’s a bit repetitive, and the 3DS remake, Samus Returns, is vastly superior, but still. Metroid II is short, fun, and is responsible for the iconic Varia Suite look, since the Game Boy was monochrome and the developers needed a way to differentiate between power suits outside the box of color change. It’s also just $3.99, so while you’d balk at paying modern prices for what the original is at this point, you don’t have to even come close.
Mario Tennis (Game Boy Color)
Remember when Camelot had real RPG elements in their Mario sports games? A non-ironic “good times,” that was for Game Boy Color owners:
Through a series of tutorials-as-challenges and competitive matches, you gain experience points which improve your spin, backhand, movement of the ball, movement of your player, and the like, which in turn make you into a more complete, dominant tennis player. And you’ll need to be one, in order to compete at the highest level of play at the academy, and not just as a singles tennis player, either. You also have to manage the experience points and growth of your doubles partner, or else you’re going to have a difficult time moving up that ladder as well. It doesn’t pay to just throw all of the experience points into your own bucket and become an unstoppable singles star if you can’t win a doubles match and progress through that part of the story as well.
This is superior to the Game Boy Advance Mario Tennis, Power Tour, which isn’t on the 3DS, anyway. It is on the Wii U, though, whose shop is also closing down alongside the 3DS’, so if you’ve got one and not the other, Power Tour isn’t a bad way to spend your time. Even if it’s just less appealing to look at than the original Game Boy Color title.
Mario Golf is also available on the 3DS, and it has the same kind of RPG single-player campaign setup as its tennis cousin, so if you prefer one sport to the other, or want both games because you don’t discriminate, it’ll be just $5.99 each.
Tails Adventure (Game Gear)
Aspect was a studio responsible for quite a bit of Game Gear and Master System development during the era of the Genesis, though, they also did some co-development work for Sega’s primary system of the day. They were handed the keys to Sonic’s Game Gear adventures for Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and hung onto them basically from then on, creating Sonic Blast, Triple Trouble, Sonic Chaos, and the spinoff, Tails Adventure.
Unlike Sonic’s gameplay, which emphasized speed, Tails’ solo outing was a bit slower-paced, with an emphasis on checking out every nook and cranny in the various levels. It’s tossed in with Metroidvanias sometimes, but it feels a little closer to Gargoyle’s Quest to me — what’s clear is that it’s definitely not like Sonic games, and is certainly not universally beloved for that and what is perceived as a lack of real originality. It’s not a bad way to spend a few bucks, though, especially to see something very different from the usual, and in a less head-scratching way than, say, Knuckles’ Chaotix was.
It’s worth pointing out that, if your experience with Tails Adventure is from its hidden inclusion in the Sonic Gems Collection of decades past, you should give this another go in a form that isn’t buggy and actually emulates well. And also that it’s maybe more enjoyable as a curiosity than as a lost classic or what have you.
Adventure Island II (NES)
Hudson shifted development over from their own studios to Now Production for the sequel to their de-Wonder Boy’d Wonder Boy port. I’m a fan!
Now Production cut down the length of the levels themselves, making them a little less nail-biting in that regard, but difficulty still existed within those stages. There were also new additions to the gameplay, like ridable dinosaurs and items you could store in between stages for later use after dying — say you picked up a stone axe when you already had one, now it would go into an inventory and you could switch to that prior to a later stage, or use it after dying to avoid beginning a level unarmed. The game’s level design also opened up: to go back to the Super Mario Bros. comparison, this feels similar to the jump from SMB to the North American version of Super Mario Bros. 2, in that Now and Hudson made sure to broaden the locales and gameplay in order to progress the series and make it feel fresh, instead of releasing the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2, which was basically just a hard mode of the original in a way that is often more frustrating than fun.
It’s not my favorite Adventure Island game, but it’s a damn good one, and the availability of these titles is wildly inconsistent, so you might as well grab this one while it’s there.
Here’s some confusion unraveled for you: Adventure Island on the Game Boy is also available on the 3DS eShop, but that’s actually the port of Adventure Island II — as it was the first Adventure Island entry on the portable, however, it dropped the numbering.
Previous entries in Get these Nintendo 3DS games before you can’t:
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