VC Monday Madness: Gate of Thunder heralds a new system

by JC Fletcher { Oct 15th 2007 at 10:30AM }

Not only do we get our first originally-CD-based game on the Virtual Console, but Hudson skipped ahead and went straight to the more powerful version of their Turbografx-16 CD platform, the TurboDuo (for which Gate of Thunder was a pack-in). And by all accounts, Gate of Thunder is among the best of the Turbo's many shooters. In fact, reviewer Malc said "Gate of Thunder is living proof that there's such a thing as a perfect shmup." So it's got historical significance and, apparently, awesomeness going for it.

If you're not up for another shmup, there's also Ninja Gaiden II, which is a whole lot like the first one (which is not at all a bad thing) except you can get two shadow-clone Ryus to run around behind you like in Ninja Spirit. Or Metal Marines, which is a rarity-- a turn-based strategy game for the SNES. Overall, this is a very nice VC week-- at least all of the games should display correctly.

Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos (NES, 1player, 500 Wii Points)
Metal Marines (Super NES, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)
Gate of Thunder (TurboDuo, 1 player, 800 Wii Points)

Tags: gate-of-thunder, metal-marines, nes, ninja-gaiden-2, snes, turboduo

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Michael Sliczniak @ Oct 15th 2007 11:02AM

Gates of Thunders, why oh why do yo have to be 800 points? You were free before. My wife told me "no more games" so I had saved 1200 points for 2 more TG-16 games. If you had been 700 points I could get a NES title as well. Sad sad day, you may yet be worth not buying another game all year, you were that good of a game...

CanesFan @ Oct 15th 2007 11:22AM

Are we ever gonna get Super Mario 3? Did I miss it? Japan got it forever ago. Come on Nintendo!!!

bc @ Oct 15th 2007 11:57AM

Wow...Metal Marines! I figured the VC would be pushing Nintendo products and only the most prominent 3rd-party titles at least into next year. If a less-famous gem like MM is released, though, we might see all kinds of cool stuff.

I'm still holding out for RockN'Roll Racing.

Brian @ Oct 15th 2007 11:40AM

How large are TurboDuo games in general? or at least Gates of Thunder? The storage addon for Wii must be coming soon.

JC Fletcher @ Oct 15th 2007 12:35PM

CanesFan: no, they didn't. Super Mario 3 isn't out anywhere.

Zack W. @ Oct 15th 2007 12:39PM

According to Gamefaqs, Gate of Thunder also has Bomberman on it. It that true? Does anyone know...Will it apply to the Wii version if that is true? If so, that is a good deal for 800 points.

Aaron @ Oct 15th 2007 1:26PM

Gate of Thunder is smaller than a N64 game (surprisingly) and is a MUST buy for anyone who even remotely likes side-scrolling shooters. For more info and talk about the game, check out http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums.

Alex @ Oct 15th 2007 1:36PM

Zack W - I think Bomberman was included on the combo disc that included Gate of Thunder, Bonk's Adventure and Bonk's Revenge. So I'm guessing it's not part of the package.

opimus @ Oct 15th 2007 2:30PM

Music is what took up most of the space on a turboduo disc.

Badtz @ Oct 15th 2007 2:43PM

Bomberman was on the disc, but it was a secret. You had to enter a code at the game select screen to get it. But that was only on the TurboDuo pack in disc that had GoT, Bonk, and Bonk's Revenge.

James @ Oct 15th 2007 5:39PM

MM was one of my absolute favorites when it came out, but frankly strategy games have evolved a lot, and the interface is so clumsy when you go back to play it that I can't keep the console on for more than a few minutes before I just give up.

For those of you that never played the original and don't want to download it to find out, try this: play some Warcraft III or a recent Command and Conquer game, then go back and play Warcraft I. Or better yet, Dune 2 (before there was a CnC, there was Dune). Don't you just want to throw your keyboard/mouse through the monitor? It's kind of like that.