Virtual Console Roundup

Ninja Combat

• Platform: NeoGeo
• Wii Points: 900
• In Real Money: GBP 6.30 / EUR 9 (approx)

Here's the flipside to Fatal Fury 2. From its half-arsed, generic title to the sight of identical blond twins in matching red and blue ninja costumes guffing on about a mysterious tower, this scrolling beat-'em-up does nothing to distinguish itself from countless other cynical button-mashers of the same vintage.

It's a bare-faced rip-off of Streets of Rage, Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi and pretty much any other game in the genre, with a lot less polish and balance. What it gains in sprite size and colour thanks to the NeoGeo's arcade heart, it loses in dismal collision detection, stiff animations, poor controls and a desperate lack of ideas. There are some features that flirt with innovation, such as the varied playable characters you collect along the way, but for the most part you're clobbering one button to defeat waves of identical dim-witted enemies.

Each character has a projectile attack that kills pretty much everything before they can reach you, and you get infinite continues, so the whole thing can be ploughed through in less than half an hour with little reason to repeat the experience. And all for 900 Points. Consider what else you can get on the VC, and on WiiWare, for about the same amount. Yep. Let this one rot.

3/10

Last Ninja 2

• Platform: C64
• Wii Points: 500
• In Real Money: GBP 3.50 / EUR 5 (approx)

So, it seems I incensed many C64 fans with my savage dismissal of The Last Ninja when it popped up on the VC recently. Here's the sequel, and with it a chance to clarify my divisive stance. Or at least annoy everyone all over again. As a craven attention whore, I'll obviously take either.

You see, I come not to mock The Last Ninja or the fond place it holds in many people's hearts. It is, however, an old game designed for a very specific hardware, now revived under different circumstances where that design is now a hindrance. I'm mostly talking about the control scheme, curious even in the 1980s, which opts for rotational directional movement while mapping vital functions to counter-intuitive tugs on the stick, all of which vary depending on the way you're facing. Throw in an isometric viewpoint and simply gauging distance, and position, results in frustrating trial and error.

This was just about workable on a big chunky eight-way joystick of the Kempston variety, but on the Wii remote's tiny d-pad it's an absolute horror. Even when played with a joypad, the small and sensitive analogue sticks are an awkward fit with this unique method of control, especially when trying to activate items with a diagonal movement or line yourself up with an enemy. The game's infamously fussy precision jumps have been compounded over the years by this fundamental hardware change.

While Last Ninja 2 was a welcome sequel in 1988, it's still blighted by these same problems when played on the Wii twenty years on. Remember then, that this score is not just for The Last Ninja 2 in general, but for The Last Ninja 2 as a digital download on the Wii. Dig out your old fudgebox and load the tape and I bet it's still a blast. Playing it through the prism of this technology? Not so much.

3/10