New Virtual Boy reviews on Switch: Jack Bros., Vertical Force, V-Tetris and more

GameCentral takes a look at the third wave of Virtual Boy games for Nintendo Switch Online and comes across a forgotten gem and an overrated oddity.

Playing through the Virtual Boy’s back catalogue, via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service, has been a peculiar pleasure. Discovering old and obscure video games is always fun, especially those that were difficult to obtain even at the time of their release, but the Virtual Boy is made even more interesting by the bizarre nature of the console itself and the fact that it was a Nintendo product.

The Virtual Boy’s big gimmick is that it displays games in stereoscopic 3D but only using the colours red and black. We’ve already reviewed the initial batch of games and the second wave of additions, including Mario Clash and Mario’s Tennis. And now, this week, a third wave has added another five games (six if you’re in Japan but we assume Virtual Fishing had too much Japanese text to be brought over here).

That brings the total up to 12 in the West, out of a promised 16 – including two previously unreleased titles, in Zero Racer (a F-Zero spin-off) and Dragon Hopper. We’re definitely interested in seeing those but for all these games we’re continuing to use a five point review scale, to make it clear they’re not compatible with our normal review scores.

Virtual Bowling

Developer: Athena

A lot of Virtual Boy games were made by Nintendo themselves, but they also roped in other Japanese developers, both big and small. Athena, which went bust in 2013, is one of the small ones, being known for nothing more famous than 2D shooter Strike Gunner S.T.G.

Virtual Bowling is exactly what you’d expect and, in truth, almost completely uninteresting, except for the fact that its 3D effect is genuinely impressive, especially when the ball clatters towards the pins. The gameplay and presentation is very bare bones though, with a golf game style control system that has you trying to stop a cursor at just the right point to alter the direction and speed of the ball.

It’s perfectly functional but, as with Mario’s Tennis, the fact that there are no multiplayer options for any Virtual Boy games make it seem utterly pointless, and a bad idea both conceptually and in terms of execution. And yet, incredibly there were two bowling games released for the Virtual Boy, this one in Japan and Nester’s Funky Bowling, which isn’t available on Switch, in the West. It’s baffling.

Score: 1/5

Space Invaders Virtual Collection

Developer Taito

By the time the Virtual Boy was released in 1995 (by which point the PS1 had already been out for a year) Space Invaders was 17 years old and seen as a prehistoric relic by most people. So, like so many Virtual Boy games – and the console itself – it’s hard to understand the reasoning behind the Virtual Collection.

Its name alone is a deception, as all it contains is the original game and sequel Space Invaders Part 2 (which is basically the same game but with a few different alien types). Both are available in their original 2D form and as new 3D versions, and there’s also a time attack and score challenge mode… but that’s it.

Space Invader’s gameplay is timeless but while the 3D effect does give a good impression of depth it looks like the aliens are laying on the ground rather than looming over you. And because the Virtual Boy only does red and black it somehow manages to be less colourful than the original – which relied on a cellophane overlay on the arcade cabinet to add colour to the game.

Score: 2/5

V-Tetris

Developer: Locomotive

We’ll get to the interesting stuff in a minute, we promise, but first there’s this. Despite only having 22 games in total, the Virtual Boy somehow managed to end up with two bowling games and two Tetris games. In both cases, one was for the West and one for Japan, with this one being the Japanese Tetris game. We already reviewed 3D-Tetris and found it to be one of the better games on the console, since it treats the 3D effect as more than just a gimmick, by trying to display the familiar Tetris field as a wireframe 3D display.

V-Tetris doesn’t do anything like that, it’s just 2D Tetris as it’s always been, but with a couple of 3D backgrounds, one of which features a faintly disturbing looking clown. It’s actually a perfectly good version of Tetris, with very smooth controls, but unfortunately all the music tracks are ear-bleedingly awful. Other than that, the options are almost identical to the Game Boy version – although there is an extra mode that lets you shift a block left or right by using the shoulder buttons.

Considering the console itself automatically warns you not to play it for too long, it’s really not a good host for a game like Tetris, where you’re trying to keep your run going for as long as possible. So, again, why were there two of them? Nothing about the Virtual Boy makes any sense.

Score: 2/10

Vertical Force

Developer: Hudson Soft

Here, at last, we come across something genuinely good. It’s by Hudson Soft, who are sadly no longer with us but were responsible for the PC Engine console and the classic Bomberman, as well the Star Soldier franchise – one of our favourite 2D shooters of the era. This isn’t technically part of the series, but it may as well be as the vertical scrolling action is very similar.

However, it does have a unique gimmick and one that, unlike most Virtual Boy games, tries to take full advantage of the console’s features. As such, you control a spaceship in the normal shmup manner, but with the press of a button you can descend to fight at a lower altitude. Enemies and structures appear at both heights and its up to you to determine which is the optimum one for you to be at, at any given time.

That alone is great, because the 3D effect is really good, but there’s an unexpectedly wide range of ‘AI drones’ you can collect that all have different uses, from running off to attack enemies on their own to going back to repair you if you’re not actively attacking enemies at the time. If they get hit, you can store them away to repair them or you can sacrifice them to use them as a smart bomb.

The set-up is great but unfortunately there are some definite flaws, most notably the fact that many of the enemy bullets are hard to make out, given the monochrome visuals of the Virtual Boy. Hudson Soft try to compensate for this by giving you an energy bar, instead of you being killed in one shot, but that just ends up making it even less clear what actually killed you.

That doesn’t matter as much as it might, because the game is surprisingly easy, but it’s also very short. Vertical Force certainly has its problems but it’s a shame it was never iterated upon, because there are some fun ideas here, including a recurring mini-boss that gets more powerful and learns from your previous attacks.

Score: 4/5

Jack Bros.

Developer: Atlus

For many years, the character Jack Frost was the de facto mascot for developer Atlus. He may not be used in that capacity much anymore, but you can find him in virtually every Shin Megami Tensei game, up to and including Persona 5. Although, as a point of trivia, this was actually the first MegaTen game to ever be released outside Japan.

It’s immediately obvious that more effort, and budget, has gone into this than many other Virtual Boy games, with a proper intro and something approaching a plot, as Jack Frost, and his brothers Jack Lantern and Jack Skelton, find themselves trapped in the human world after Halloween.

That interesting set-up doesn’t really translate to the gameplay though, which is essentially a maze game mixed with a dual-stick shooter. The Virtual Boy’s controller was relatively normal looking but had two D-pads, on the left and right. The translates easily to a modern controller, where you move the Jack of your choice with the left stick and aim his shots with the right.

Again, it’s an interesting concept but the game itself doesn’t make very good use of it. Although you’re constantly looking for keys, they’re clearly marked on the radar and there’s no actual puzzles, as you just blast everything in your way and avoid traps. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but you spend a lot of time shooting enemies that are just on the edge of the screen, which is especially frustrating when you’re peering into the Virtual Boy’s headset.

There’s some impressive enemy variety (the brothers also all have different special attacks) and the boss battles are a highlight, but it all comes across as being something of a rough draft and very under-designed.

Score: 3/5

Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.