Thursday, April 12, 2012

3DS Virtual Console: The Legend of Zelda

The Legend of Zelda is one of three Zelda games that were part of last year's Ambassador Program, where early 3DS adopters received free games as a repayment for the early price cut. However, these games will also become available for everyone else one after another and today The Legend of Zelda hit the European eShop. You can download it for the price of 5€, which is the same price as on the Wii Virtual Console.


I've already downloaded the game and tested it. It looks a lot sharper than the muddy Link's Awakening DX, which is satisfying.

Well, the purchase did hurt a little bit. It's not that 5€ are a big deal, the price for the game is okay, but I've already bought the game for the Wii Virtual Console. And I'm mad that this doesn't count. I've got a Club Nintendo account, where all my purchased games from the last ten years are registered including all Virtual Console and eShop games. And this account is linked to the eShop. So, Nintendo has a database, where they can clearly see, that I've already bought the NES Classics version of Zelda for the GameBoy Advance and that I've also downloaded the game for Wii. Why shouldn't this count? Why should I have to pay for the game a second or a third time? Just because it is on the 3DS? If the game had 3D effects like Kid Icarus then I would understand, but it doesn't. It's the same old game. Or is it because VC games now got a save state? That's not really a good reason and common emulators offer 10 quick save slots, which lets this new feature look rather pathetic. So, why do I have to pay?

Of course no one forced me to buy the game for the fifth time (except for my inner Zelda collector), but generally it would be nice to have a cross-system Nintendo account where all your downloaded games are stored and can be redownloaded on all of your internet-ready Nintendo systems. The thing is that this account already exists in Europe, but it isn't used...

On the bright side this game also marks the return of the Zelda channel in the eShop. Four Swords is still gone though.

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