Hot Air: Where’d

Okay, so we all love our downloadable games.  I’m going to be honest with you, here– I can’t wait for the 3DS eShop to go live, just because that way I won’t have to change out my cartridge every time.  I don’t care what Nester64x says, I love convenience!

That being said, there are a lot of games already available for DSiWare and WiiWare that are simply great.  Let’s look at a couple of games available on the service which I personally think are GREAT:

Shantae: Risky’s Revenge: This is a sequel to a game nobody heard of back in the day, but it’s fantastic that we get to play it at all.  This is the way digital distribution should be working, to let us get games we would never otherwise see.

Cave Story: Now, this is a game we would definitely have gotten to see without WiiWare.  Cave Story was available for free on PCs and Macs everywhere for years before it was released on Wii or DS.  That being said, the game is so fantastic that it is worth the privilege of paying for it.

Castlevania the Adventure: Remix: Everyone knows that this is a remake, but the remake is like eight times better than the original, so it’s even better.  I know we’re going to see some other forms of advanced remakes on the 3DS eShop at some point, so maybe this is a taste of what were getting.

Now, even though these games are awesomely fantastic, you might have noticed I tend to favor a certain genre of downloadable game, and I’ve omitted things like World of Goo, Cubello, and Zombie Panic in Wonderland, all of which are worthy of recognition as well.  But I want to see more of these retro-styled games.

For one thing, why hasn’t anyone else made a game that plays like River City Ransom?  Can you think of literally any beat-em-up game that has that kind of depth and character customization?  And it’s been twenty years, people!  I want to see more of this kind of thing.  We have Final Fantasy IV:  The After Years, but we don’t have a whole lot of RPGs on the DL (download, yo), do we?  Why isn’t that?

I guess what I’m saying here is that I want more retro-styled games to show up on the download services.  I’m always surprised that first-party companies aren’t doing more stuff like this instead of more fireplace sims and mini-game fests, none of which can top WarioWare anyway.