Yes, the sequel to Ninja Gaiden, Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos is awesome. The most obvious improvement is the fact you can scale walls easier (think Spiderman) and you can increase you maximum ninja power by collecting scrolls hidden in each stage. Outside that the story and characters rock and the cinematic style of the first game is continued. Basically, if you liked the first game I don't what would stop you from enjoying The Dark Sword of Chaos – if not more.

However, I was pretty disappointed with Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom. It just seemed pretty lackluster even with its improvements (more animation and new weaponry.) Unfortunately, there was a bug in the original NES game that made you take double damage from everything (it was fixed in the SNES compilation NG Trilogy) so you died 2 times quicker than you should have, it makes it pain to beat it.

I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase the first or second Ninja Gaiden games on any of the console’s online stores.

Thanks for the impressions. I'll pick up part 2 when/if it comes out for the virtual console then. The wall scaling thing would be an improvement. I found it kind of frustrating to jump my way up a single wall in the first game.

I was of the understanding that the double-damage thing, as well as only having five freaking continues, were intentional changes made to the US version after complaints that NG2 was much easier than NG1. The Trilogy version does fix these issues, but there's no staff roll, the soundtrack is mixed up with some pieces missing, and there's also the boss music glitch (basically, in Trilogy, every boss after NG1's Bloody Malth straight through to the end of NG3 has NG1's 5-1 stage theme instead of the traditional NG boss theme). But either way, NG3 is actually pretty lame any way you play it. Skip it.

I wasn't really impressed with the remixed music NG Trilogy offered... I liked the NES originals more; there are some nice pieces in NG1&2 (the opening theme for NG2 is just phenomenal for its time).

The original Ninja Gaiden is definitely harder but I wouldn't say Ninja Gaiden II slouches on difficulty, in a certain sense it seems a little "more forgiving" than the original did but I'd hardly consider it too easy. Good stuff regardless.

Donkey Kong Country 2 hits the Wii VC today. Awww.... yeeeah!

Add that one to my list.

DKC2 was my favorite out of the SNES DKC titles; I still have the cart for DKC3 in my closet though (really wish it was a DKC2 cart).

Interesting.  I have to say that DKC2 was actually my least favorite of the SNES ones since the difficulty was much more frustrating than the other two.  My fav is the first one.  I really liked how the stages were designed for fast play where you could just run and bop from beginning to end without stopping if you knew what you were doing.

Interesting. In all the year I can't remember someone stating such.

Since I added a new one just now I decided to list them all, in alphabetical order unless I consider them a series:

Actraiser SNES
Altered Beast GEN
Bonk's Adventure TG16
Castlevania NES
Super Castlevania IV SNES
Donkey Kong NES
Donkey Kong Jr NES
Donkey Kong Country NES
Excitebike NES
Gunstar Heroes GEN
Ice Climber NES
Kid Icarus NES
Legend of Zelda NES
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past SNES
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time N64
Military Madness TG16
Ninja Gaiden NES
Punch-Out NES
Sim City SNES
Star Fox 64 N64
Mario Bros NES
Super Mario Bros NES
Super Mario World SNES
Super Mario 64 N64
Mario Kart 64 N64
Super Star Soldier TG16
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES
Wario's Woods NES

Dang man, that's $187 right there! I haven't even put in half that.

True, but that's small change compared to how much you would have spent to purchase the games when they first came out!

cheers,

-avatar!

And since I no longer have those games and systems (only 6 of them I haven't played before), I've had the Wii since launch, and not much has came out new worth getting (Gamefly saves me a bundle there), it averages less than $30 a month.

Didn't know whether to post in this topic thread or this one.  But I've finally, finally got my Wii online, and I straight away hit the Wii Shop.  I instantly blew 6,800 points on the following:

Super Mario 64
Starfox 64
Mario Kart 64
Paper Mario
Sin & Punishment
Air Zonk
Super Air Zonk
Gate of Thunder

Speaking of Gate of Thunder, is Lords of Thunder hitting Wii channels outside of Europe anytime soon?  I want it.  Bad. :)

YES! This month apparently. I can't wait. I will actually hook up my Wii to wireless for a change, for this alone.

Wait, wait, wait. What? LoT in the US?! Pleeeease. Please.

Better still, this coming Monday, the 11th!! -- http://gonintendo.com/?p=35302

VC, you so fraggin' cool.

Instead of typing the words that just came out of my mouth, I am just going to say "Holy F". AWESOME.

Then you should pay a visit to this thread:
http://altpop.com/stc/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1759

That's one of the few US Duo games that I never picked up, so I'm DEFINITELY plunking down for this on Monday!  Oh 16 bit era Hudson, how I love you.

LORDS OF THUNDER (it deserves to always be in caps) is one of the best shooters ever made, and not so coincidentally, has one of the best soundtracks ever. Shame with VC you can't rip the redbook audio...

Lords was/is one of the reasons I picked up a Turbo Duo. It really does have everything I'd look for in the perfect shooter. Glad to see it reaching a much larger audience (hopefully). I do have and enjoy Gate, but Lords is just...whoa!

Maybe Duo Cotton and Sapphire are next on the horizon... \m/

Bleh, I'm really not sure I trust Hudson to try emulating the arcade card for Sapphire since they haven't even gotten the resolution correct for regular games.  :\

Bleh, I wish they'd release something I'd want for a change.  And all these systems supported so they release just ONE or TWO a week?

Okay! I've only done so for the Wii, so here goes!

Super Metroid (SNES): Must've played through this game a dozen times or more trying to unlock the damn best ending, with Samus decked out all skimpy like. The atmosphere, music, and gameplay remain in my mind the best that the SNES had to offer, which makes it a runner for a top 10 list in the future, should I ever compile one.

TMNT (NES): Honestly thought it wasn't as bad as Angry Video Game Nerd would have you believe, although there is a great deal of the game that was really poorly thought out, such as level design, or enemy placement.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis): Only downloaded it because I remember the music being really awesome. Gameplay has held up to standards in my opinion, but I rarely go back to it for whatever reason.

Streets of Rage (Genesis): Yuzo Koshiro's excellent score aside, this game has aged really badly. Gameplay is not as fast as I remember it being, also being more shallow too. My memories of this game are far more awesome than the game itself.

Starfox 64 (N64): Probably one of my most loved titles for the N64. Downloaded it to try and get the medals on each planet, but have thus far only succeeded in acquiring the one for Corneria. Loved the music, too.

Paper Mario (N64): Downloaded this for the missus. She plays it more than I do, and as much as I adored the Gamecube and Wii iterations of the series, I doubt I'll ever actually see this one through to the end.

As for what I want? Ocarina of Time, mostly. If they ever get around to doing the NES Megamans, sure, why not? I just really want the SNES RPG's I remember fondly, like (Insert any Squaresoft game here), or Earthbound, or Breath of Fire (with redone translations, if possible, for God's sake), you know. What have you.

^ Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy the Mega Man Collection and Mega Man X Collection for Gamecube (since they'll play on the Wii) instead of getting them on the Virtual Console?