It’s finally happened. The weekly virtual console update for Europe, Australia, and New Zealand came with quite a surprise. Nintendo released Super Mario bros.: The Lost Levels, and Mario’s Super Picross. “What’s so exciting about this update”, you ask? Well, these two titles were only released in Japan. Aussie-Nintendo spilled the beans earlier this morning…
To celebrate the Japanese Hanabi Festival (literally meaning fire flower festival), Nintendo has announced that games previously unreleased in Australia will be available for the first time in the country via the Virtual Console, starting from today.
This week’s lineup makes up what Nintendo’s calling Mario Week, and games available include the Japan-only Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (600 points) and Mario’s Super Picross (900 points), from the NES and SNES respectively, and the TurboGrafx16 title Neutopia II (600 points). The Lost Levels is available only until September 30.
This celebratory event will run for three weeks and this is what Nintendo has planned:
Ninja Week (from 21st Sept.
Ninja Gaiden (NES)
Ninja JaJaMaru-kun (NES)Sci-Fi Week (from 28th Sept.)
Sin And Punishment (N64)
Gradius III (SNES)And in true teasing style, the company hasn’t ruled out more of these in the future.
Fans all over the globe have pleaded for Japan-only games to be released for download. Our requests have been answered. Infendo readers of Europe and Australia should download SMB:The Lost Levels now! It’s a great Mario platformer that was never release (not counting Super Mario Allstars)in the USA or Europe due to increased level difficulty. It is unknown at this time if US gamers will have a chance at downloading these Japan VC games.