I've been awfully controlled with my Virtual Console purchases, mainly because I think the pricing is just a little bit off. $8 for Genesis games is the one that really gets me, although most of the NES games wouldn't be worth $5 even if the Wii gave you a free blueberry mega-muffin with each purchase.
I'm pretty much only buying games that I don't already own in one form or the other. Which actually isn't a major limiting factor since I never had an NES, SNES or TG-16. Toe Jam & Earl is my only VC purchase that directly insults the Sega Genesis I have sitting in a box somewhere. Oh, and I guess me buying Super Mario Bros duplicates the SMB DX I have on Game Boy, but that's not quite the same thing. And anyway, it's Super Mario Bros.
Last week I cashed in the last of my Shop Channel credit for Kirby's Adventure, which I was astonished to learn was released in 1993. Again, I missed out on this period of consoles, so it never even occurred to me that somebody was still making NES games two years after the SNES came out. Especially good ones.
Kirby's Adventure is definitely worth the five bananas, especially when compared to the launch-day-NES dreck that's all over the Virtual Console. KA is suitably challenging, packed with sidebar games, and just seems way too big to be "just" an NES game. It's biggest failing is the crappy use of color (as in, there's barely any), which makes it look like an overgrown Game Boy game. (Which, incidentally, is where he debuted... Kirby's Dream Land on Game Boy, which, incidentally, I own. Back in those days, you bought anything with decent box art, without fretting about sequels or "New IP" or replay value. Hell, I have Mr. Chin's Gourmet Paradise, for crying out loud.) Kirby makes up for looking decidedly awful with a ton of great little sprite animations.
What really makes the game is the fun sense of exploration as you inhale bad guys to see which of the ugly goobers will give you their powers. You can suck up the bosses as well, which didn't even occur to me until I did it accidentally. And having the ability to float-fly at all times is a really interesting design choice... the game does a good job of making you regularly changeup your play style between the floating and the usual run-jumping.
A pleasant surprise, and the first VC game to which I've invested any serious time.
