Now that 3DS consoles are finally flying off the shelves, there’s a large number of people with access to the eShop for the first time.
Although the eShop itself hasn’t been off to a great start, there are quite a few Virtual Console games now available on it. The quality of those games are massively varied, though – our scores for these games have ranged from 0.5/5 all the way up to 5/5.
So, as a summary and to give the 3DS owners a starting point, here’s the best five virtual console games currently available for download:
This is an obvious choice, but with eight dungeons, plenty of puzzles and traps to solve, and that amazing Zelda theme song, the Virtual Consoles’ first (and so far only) Game Boy Color game is a truly brilliant title well worth the asking price.
Qix is the simplest game on this list, but because it’s so hard and yet so addictive, it’s well worth the asking price. The aim of the game is to fill in a rectangle by drawing lines that dissect it through the middle. The challenge comes from some very aggressive, formless hazards that roam the playing field. Touch one of those and lose a life. There’s been hundreds of clones of this game in the past, but rarely carried off with as much style as the original.
Nonograms are great, and even given the Game Boy’s limited visual capabilities, Picross is hours of fun. Bit by bit chipping away at grids to make pictures based on limited clues is such a simple idea, but like the best crosswords, deceptively challenging. Picross has a huge number of puzzles too, which will keep you thinking away for many, many hours.
This puzzle platformer has a massive number of levels to it, and all the usual style and refinement of a Nintendo classic. New challenges are added to the game bit by bit, on a difficulty curve that provides a solid balance between challenge and reward.
The original Game and Watch Gallery had both “original” and “remade” Game and Watch games; four to be precise. While the “original” games are not a patch on the quality of the emulation offered by the individual Game and Watch DSiWare games also available for download via the eShop, the remade games are great fun, add additional layers of challenge to the games, and getting the required 1000 points in both ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ will chew up plenty of time.
What is your favourite eShop Virtual Console game to date? Let us know on our forums!
