March 2, 2009

In like a lamb and out like a lion, or vice-versa? Whether March finds you digging out from a late-winter blizzard or reeling in the spring thaw, the fun is both mild and wild at the Wii™ Shop Channel. Even the littlest lambs in your household can take part in a cool new family-friendly WiiWare™ game, while strategy-loving gamers will be roaring like lions as they battle evil foes in a cIassic Virtual Console™ title.

Nintendo adds new and cIassic games to the Wii Shop Channel at 9 a.m. Pacific time every Monday. Wii owners with a high-speed Internet connection can redeem Wii Points™ to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets. This week's new games are:

WiiWare™

Family & Friends Party (Gammick Entertainment, 1-8 players, Rated E for Everyone, 1,000 Wii Points): Have fun with all your friends and family as you take on some very exciting challenges. This is an interactive board game for as many as eight players of all ages. The goal is to be the first to complete a series of challenges. During each turn, a challenge will be played by one or two players per team depending on the type of challenge you've been given. (Other players on your team can still help and support you). There are six different "Single" challenges that must be played cooperatively by members of the same team. Family & Friends Party can also suggest "Versus" challenges, which must be played competitively by all teams at the same time.

Virtual Console™

Ogre Battle™: The March of the Black Queen™ (Super NES™, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points): It's up to you to defeat the Empire. It's been nearly a quarter of a century since the Zetegenian Empire first conquered the Kingdoms of Zenobia with a wrath of fear and bloodshed. You are the leader of a band of rebels who've fought to preserve the last shred of honor in this desperate time of treachery. Manage the ranks of a full-blown rebel army, complete with hundreds of characters, magic items, weapons and mystical Tarot cards. You must succeed in ousting the evil usurpers-your fate, and that of the entire population, depends on it.

For more information about Wii, please visit wii.com.

gamingeek said:

Leo is it worth getting MERCs?

I had it on Megadrive but I saw screens recently and the graphics look bad compared to what I remember, I'm not sure if I'm remembering the arcade version or not.

 Here's a video review of Mercs. It looks like a fun game to me. I may have to get this one soon myself.

gamingeek said:

Thanks, I used to love it on Genesis.

I didn't actually know that MERCS was a successor to the Commando games. I used to play that with my bro I had to pump the fire key while he navigated with the directional keys on a keyboard

That video, the ratio seems different. Wasn't it proportioned like a vertical schmup at the time?

 That reviewer is playing on a widecreen HDTV, so the video is stretched a bit. Here's the correct aspect ratio:

REVIEW

The Ogre Battle series has long been a favorite among hardcore strategy fans and it won't take you long to see why that is once you begin playing any of them. This Super Nintendo release of Ogre Battle has become quite a coveted game cartridge over the years and its rarity has made it even more collectible. Now Square-Enix has finally decided to make their strategic masterpiece available to all Wii owners with the release of Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen on the Virtual Console service. So how exactly has this decade old 16-bit strategy title held up over the years?

While you'll notice some similarities between Ogre Battle and many of the other strategy titles of the 16-bit era, Ogre Battle has its own very unique style and game play design that really makes it stand out from the crowd. The real-time pacing of the game puts a greater emphasis on your choice of movements and actions and forces you to make quick decisions when enemy attacks begin to become more frequent.

Ogre Battle also gives you a large amount of freedom when it comes to creating and managing your units. Putting your various units into formation can be a very integral part of the quest as you always want your strongest units up front and your more vulnerable units in the back in order to help protect them.

Your main goal in the game is to liberate the various towns and temples across each map. As you do this, you'll be given your pick of tarot cards that can aid you on your quest. These tarot cards can also be used in battle and come in particularly handy when you begin facing enemy troops of a stronger variety. As you move your units around the map, you'll come into contact with enemy troops that you'll be forced to do battle with. It's at this time that all your hard work managing your units will pay off.

Unlike more traditional turn-based rpgs, Ogre Battle carries out the combat sequences on its own with very little interaction from the player. You can choose to use tarot cards or change your tactics during battle, but for the most part the entire fight is executed out for you. The stronger and better equipped your units are, the better chance you have of being victorious. Each scene has specific goals for you to achieve and as you liberate towns and temples, you'll be given information regarding your current quest. In truth the game offers up an almost endless amount of game play options for even the most ardent strategy game fans.

The play control itself is extremely intuitive and set up for ease of use. The menus are quite easy to navigate and no matter how detailed and involved you choose to get in setting up and controlling your units, Ogre Battle's efficient control scheme makes it easy to execute, which will leave you more time to focus on your strategies instead of fumbling for game commands.

The visuals in Ogre Battle are about what you'd expect from the Super Nintendo console. There's not quite as many flashy Mode-7 effects as found in many other Super Nintendo RPGs, but the level of detail is still quite sufficient. The battle scenes themselves are generally the high point of the visual experience and while the animations of the battles are a bit on the basic side, they do enough to simulate the elements of battle and carry out the actions of each character. The maps themselves could have used a bit more color variation and detail, but it's difficult to complain given how good all other aspects of the game are.

The music is typical of Square's Super Nintendo offerings and shows a solid amount of charm and personality. The various music tracks seem to fit the action taking place around each scene perfectly and although many of the tracks repeat themselves over and over during the scene, they're of such high quality that you really won't mind. The game tosses in a few short segments of digitized speech to mix things up a bit and while they're a bit muffled at times, they're still a nice touch and do add to the already solid audio experience.

Since the actual Super NES Ogre Battle cartridge is quite rare and expensive, it's nice to see Square-Enix releasing this amazing strategy title for everyone to enjoy, even those on a strict budget. You're getting a lot of game for 800 Wii Points and Ogre Battle still stands as one of the best strategic video game offerings of the 16-bit era and an absolute must-have for strategy game fans.

NOTE: Despite the Wii Shop stating that only the Classic Controller could be used to play Ogre Battle, it can also be played using a Gamecube controller.