VC Friday: The Hanabi Festival returns! [Update]

by Chris Greenhough { May 2nd 2008 at 10:30AM }

An immensely pleasing sight greeted our bleary eyes when we inspected the PAL Virtual Console this morning -- the revival of last September's Hanabi Festival! What does that mean? Simple: for the next few weeks, the VC will feature games that were previously unreleased in Europe or Australia, which we suppose justifies the slightly higher price tags.

Best of all, we're promised that this will continue for the next few weeks. Wonder what else we'll get? Here are this week's trio:

Columns III: Revenge of Columns -- Mega Drive -- 900 Wii Points
Final Soldier -- TurboGrafx-16 -- 700 Wii Points
Gradius II Gofer no Yabou -- TurboGrafx-16 -- 900 Wii Points

As usual, make the jump for footage of all three.

[Update: There's much excitement here, as further inspection of Nintendo's press release reveals that Speedos-clad TurboGrafx-16 shooter Cho Aniki will be one of the future Hanabi Festival releases!]

Columns III: Revenge of Columns (Mega Drive)

Final Soldier (TurboGrafx-16)

Gradius II Gofer no Yabou (TurboGrafx-16)

Want to know what else has been available to us PAL gamers these past few weeks? Just check out past editions of VC Friday here, as read exclusively by Wii Fanboy's most intelligent, good-looking readers.

Tags: australia, columns, europe, final-soldier, friday, genesis, gradius, hanabi-festival, hudson, konami, mega-drive, pal, puzzle, sega, shmup, tg-16, turbografx-16

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Nigeria @ May 2nd 2008 10:58AM

Yay, it's Columns...3...

...I hope we get something along the lines of Sin and Punishment. You know, a real special game. Speaking of which, I really need to get on with completing that game. I got onto the tube section and, sort of, gave up, and the like.

ritchCORRUPTION @ May 2nd 2008 11:09AM

We already got that? at least we did in europe.

I want old fire emblem games!

Nigeria @ May 2nd 2008 11:25AM

Oh yeah, I already know.

I already alluded to that.

???

Maybe I wasn't clear?

hvnlysoldr @ May 2nd 2008 11:38AM

Even my brother who was not weened on rail shooters like me could beat the game. He actually beat Sin & Punishment and not Star Fox.

Nigeria @ May 2nd 2008 12:13PM

Sin and Punishment is a difficult game. Well, at least I think so.

I like rail shooters, love them, I was raised on Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Cop, but those games were much more leisurely when compared to S&P. I was never a fan of Space Harrier, and this game has that familiar frenetic feel to it.

But I do like S&P. It's one of my favourite VC games. But yeah, it's a little hard.