The game that really hit home to begin with was Startropics.  It used to be my absolute favorite game back in the NES days.  (For the trivia buffs, the game’s sequel, Zoda’s Revenge, was the second to last game licensed in the United States for the NES.)  Most of the game still plays the same for me, and I actually still enjoy it.  The game is obviously dated – it is a NES game, after all.  However, the story is still fun (as long as you aren’t looking for anything too deep) and the game still provides losers like me with a challenge.

Most of the controls are timing based, with weapons such as the yo-yo and upgraded versions of it.  The monsters usually moved in a recognizable pattern, and a lot of the strategy in the game revolves around figuring out that pattern.  Especially the stupid bats.  Man, I hated those bats.  Bosses usually didn’t move, or if they did, moved to specific places.  As with many games of its era, the bosses were usually defeated with either something learned in that dungeon, or a weapon picked up there.

The puzzles really don’t hold up all that well in difficulty (as well as one that, if I remember correctly, you needed a piece of paper that came with the game – reminds me of the old LucasArts ‘copyright protection’).  However, the puzzles really are interesting, I think.  There’s one that requires you to find a famous pirate’s pet parrot (alliteration rocks) in order to learn the pirate’s favorite song.  Once you play the song on a giant organ you can continue on through the level.

The game’s locations are scattered around islands that are usually pretty unique, giving the game a little flexibility.  But where I run into the brick wall is when the game abandons the island setting and heads into space.  Seriously, it makes sense if you know the whole story.  It also sets up well for the story in the next game.  However, the game requires a lot quicker twitch reflexes in the last level, and I just fail miserably.  I really want to blame it on the translation to the Wii hardware, but I think I’m just deluding myself.

The end result of all this?  Here’s to many, many more classic games showing up on the Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade and Sony’s Home (though I’m not even sure if that includes downloadable games).

Super Mario RPG was the granddaddy roleplaying game that launched the franchise and brought us such gems as the Paper Mario games (which I’ve played the hell out of).  It’s a little different from the later games, as it’s an isometric top-down view with 3D characters, but the technical details aren’t really important in this.  The fact that this game introduced Mario and his friends to a different genre as well as some of the greatest moments in my videogame history makes this game rocket up my list.  I will fully admit that my feelings for this game are colored deeply by nostalgia and the age in which I first played it.  However, I believe that it is definitely worth purchasing and playing once again on the VC.

The story goes like this: Mario is once again forced to rescue his princess from the clutches of Bowser, who is apparently typecast as a villain.  During the expected thrashing that Bowser is receiving, catastrophe strikes in the form of a giant sword crashing down from the heavens.  Mario, Princess Toadstool (she wasn’t called Peach outside of Japan until the release of Super Mario 64), and Bowser are cast to the four corners of the small world that they call home, and Mario sets out to figure out what the heck is going on.

The world is colorful, and the characters that are added from outside Mario Bros. lore are well done.  Mallow is an annoying little ball of fluff, but he has an excellent back story and a good character arc.  I tended to not use him all that much in my party, however – I’m more of a crash-and-bash kind of guy in games like this.  Geno is an enigma, and he is cool as the other side of the pillow.  I think that they could have done a better job fleshing out his background, though.  Both of these characters could very easily be updated for something like a Paper Mario game, I believe – though they may be owned by Square.

All in all, the story is stellar, the gameplay is basic but solid, and the quirks and oddities in the weapons, items and enemies laid the foundation for the terrific Paper Mario series to come.  If you have a Wii, Super Mario RPG is a very good pick up for the Virtual Console.  If you don’t, I’m sure you can dig up a SNES emulator and ROM somewhere out there on the Internet.