The review of this product is based on a re-released version of the game. Because of this change of medium and the passage of time, it is possible that there are slight factual differences between the original retail product and the version reviewed. The following review should be used as a reference for how well the game stood up over time rather than an evaluation of how it would have scored based on its original release date. Never underestimate Nintendo's ability to surprise its fans, as the company famous for keeping game announcements and hardware news held tightly under lock and key offered us a shocker just one week ago - the Virtual Console Arcade. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata announced the expansion of the Wii's Virtual Console download service to include new emulations of classic coin-op cabinets during his keynote address at this year's Game Developers Conference, which was unexpected and very cool. But even cooler and more unexpected was his follow-up - that the games weren't just on their way, they were actually already available.Namco's was one of the four surprise launch titles for the Virtual Console Arcade last Wednesday, and as probably the most well-known of the quartet it's the one we've selected to evaluate first as we kick off our review coverage of the VCA.
A pretty straightforward little platformer from 1983, starring a police officer mouse who's just been dispatched to a huge mansion overflowing with cat burglars. His mission is to recover all of the stolen goods they've got hidden throughout the multi-leveled house - the problem is that this house doesn't have any stairs.
The only way to move from one floor to another is by jumping on trampolines.The+original+Bouncy+House. You control Mappy as he runs around the house, bouncing off trampolines to go from lower levels to higher ones, picking up the stolen items for points and trying to avoid running into any of the enemy Mewkies out to get you - because one hit from them means one life lost. The trampoline mechanic is a little odd, but interesting because Mappy's invincible while he's in the air overtop of one. The enemies just don't have the heart to hit you, I suppose, when you're sharing some happy bouncing time with them. You can't stay on the invulnerability-granting springboards forever, though, because a trampoline will break after too many consecutive bounces - so you're forced to keep moving and putting yourself into danger.
Mappy's only other line of defense is his ability to open and shut the various doors in the house. If you slam a door shut in a cat's face, it'll get knocked out for a while and you'll be able to safely run past. Some doors are more powerful than others, and even send out shock waves that clear away foes trying to creep up on you from behind, too. It's a pretty fun little platformer overall, and a fine representation of the kinds of games was making its name off of in the early '80s.
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It's certainly not as timeless as some of the company's other designs from that era, though, like. And though a bonus stage with some mixed-up, balloon-popping gameplay helps to break up the action after every few levels, monotony does ultimately set in for Mappy - don't expect to want to return to this one again and again unless you're a confirmed fan of the original coin-op. Before wrapping up our review, though, we should turn our attention briefly to some of the differences between Virtual Console Arcade titles and normal old VC games - this is the first VCA review we've done, after all, so it's perhaps the first chance you've had to hear that anything's any different. Virtual Console Arcade titles launch from the Wii Menu differently than other VC games, in that you aren't taken directly into the game like normal.
Instead you're taken to a setup menu, where you can configure various options. Some of these are very nice, like the option to switch your screen's aspect ratio from 16:9 to 4:3 and back again - previously if you wanted to do that you'd have to go into the Wii's system settings itself, a long and laborious process that could certainly get annoying when you just wanted the ratio altered for the duration of a single session with a single game.
Some of the other included options are limited, though, or just confusing. For Mappy, for example, you can adjust the number of lives our police mouse hero has starting out, and also the rate at which bonus lives are awarded to him. But that's it. Not a lot of game content customization there. You can also re-arrange the button configuration used to play the game, re-assigning Mappy's movement and door-opening ability to different buttons if you like. But, again, that feels limited. there's not a lot of point to it with such a simple 'one button and a joystick' game like this one.
It's especially odd that you can't configure all of the game's controls, too. The buttons assigned to inserting coins and beginning the game are both odd combination actions - you have to hold the Plus Button and hit 1 to drop a virtual quarter, and Plus + 2 launches your game. Finally, the visuals take a bit of a hit in being displayed through the Wii, as the ability to choose between 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios is ultimately lacking for a game originally designed for neither - Mappy's 1983 machine had one of those taller-than-wide customized monitors that so many arcade games of that age employed, so you're going to get a lot of black space on either side of the image no matter which ratio you pick. And the height seems a bit squished and blurry. VerdictSo, all in all, the surprise-announced Virtual Console Arcade might not make a great first impression on those who choose Mappy as their entry point. It's a quaint and fairly fun little platformer with good personality, and you probably won't feel ripped off if you do choose to spend the five bucks it takes to give it a download. But the VCA's launching setup menu seems like it's going to be better suited to arcade titles from a later era - games that could really be served well by things like screen aspect ratio adjustment, content customization and button re-arrangement.
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Those features are a bit lost on poor, simple Mappy here.But at least he still has his trampolines.