Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa may have never legitimately come to the United States while the NES was the pinnacle of American gaming, but it's finally arrived now, for real, for the Virtual Console. It's not a sensational title by any means, but it is decent, wholesome fun with a colorful kiddie theme and should appeal to fans of old-school 8-bit platformers.
Presentation - 7.0
Graphics - 7.5
Sound - 7.5
Gameplay - 7.0
Lasting Appeal - 7.5
Overall -
Retro Weekend is a weekly feature where unique, original content is created and inspired by a classic retro game. This week, Austin played Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa and felt compelled to talk about his hopes and worries about being a dad for the first time.
Considering that Nintendo has pretty much reduced Virtual Console's release rate to zero, pickings are somewhat slim for great VC games on Wii. However, even if you've already bought every Zelda game, and every good Hudson shooter, there are still quite a few that you may have missed.
These games were either obscure titles from small publishers, or import games that never left Japan. HCW has counted at least 6 games that you really should play for all three Nintendo consoles, and a few honorable mentions.
Eurogamer writes: "It's always nice to be surprised (unless the surprise involves a clown shining a torch in your face in the middle of the night) and MaBoShi is a very surprising game. It's a quiet, unassuming little thing, sitting there on the Wii Shop shelf and doing very little to alert you to the evil genius lurking behind its obscure title.
It's a compound word, you see, made up of the abbreviated Japanese words for Ball (maru), Stick (bou) and Square (shikaku), and these are the geometric shapes around which the three mini-games within revolve. Often literally. As the suffix suggests, this is a game made up of three parts - one game for each shape, all using minimal controls. The Ball game involves a constantly rotating sphere trapped in a wooden circle. Pressing the A button reverses the direction of the rotation, and you must use this basic Newtonian concept to manoeuvre the ball around the play area, hitting tiny enemies before they can escape."
