The DSi Virtual Console Wishlist

It's been a few months now since the American launch of the Nintendo DSi and its accompanying digital download destination, the DSi Shop. But, in those few months, said shop has yet to really prove its potential -- its selection's been really hit-or-miss, with a handful of excellent titles like the Art Style games getting countered and overshadowed by an awful lot of useless productivity "apps" and bite-sized demos masquerading as full-on games, when they're really just bits and pieces of older DS software getting repackaged and renamed as Something "Express."

But there's one feature of the DSi Shop that hasn't happened yet, but would make us regain hope for its potential -- a DSi Virtual Console. The official word from the Big N is that it's not in development, and maybe that's the case. But, if so, we feel Nintendo's missing a critical opportunity.

The Wii's Virtual Console has been going strong for years, offering consistent updates of retro classics from home consoles -- but, at the same time, it's really been slowing down recently. It could be a great time to redirect attention to a new VC on the portable platform.

DSiWare's clearly got the ability to impress, but it's not doing so consistently -- introducing a DSi Virtual Console to help shoulder the load of weekly Shop updates could give developers the extra time they need to start producing more high quality original content.

If it's a matter of keeping the Virtual Console to the consoles, then might we suggest offering the handheld experiences on the handheld? It's already been proven, unofficially, that the Nintendo DSi has the power to emulate lesser hardware, so the system is indeed capable of delving into the past handheld market to recreate the experience on the current generation.

There's just a wealth of great, classic portable games we'd love to see get a second lease on life. Nintendo's Game Boy systems have been home to some of the company's most ingenious, addictive and overlooked gems over the past 20 years -- and competing platforms from Atari, SEGA and others have also come and gone in the interim, each of them also offering great designs to take on the go that many people have missed through the past two decades.

So, in the hopes of stirring things up a bit and maybe getting Nintendo to rethink the idea of doing a DSi Virtual Console, and in celebration of 20 years worth of portable gaming platforms that preceded Nintendo's latest two-screened handheld, we've put together a little wishlist. Going one portable system at a time, we've selected five games that we'd love to see make a return on the DSi -- if a Virtual Console were to ever happen. After you read through our picks, we invite you to use the Comments box at the end of the article to agree, or disagree, or offer alternative suggestions. And who knows? Maybe, if we're lucky, these wishful thoughts will become DSi reality sometime in the not-too-distant future.

We put together this feature over the course of four days. On Day 1 we kicked things off by featuring games from the original Game Boy and Atari's Lynx. On Day 2 we doubled the feature in size, looking back on SEGA's Game Gear and SNK's NeoGeo Pocket Color as well. Day 3, it was tripled -- Nintendo's Game Boy Color and Bandai's WonderSwan Color became represented. And now the feature has been finished, with Nintendo's Game Boy Advance added to the end, along with a final wrap-up page taking a glance at some other possibilities as well. Read straight through by starting with the Game Boy below, or click the names of the system you want to jump straight to for a shortcut forward.

You've probably seen the celebration going on around the Internet already -- the original Game Boy, old chunky grey brick itself, has just turned 20. Two decades ago, back in 1989, Nintendo's premiere portable platform was just arriving on retail store shelves for the very first time. By all accounts, it was unimpressive. A monochrome, green-tinted screen with a low contrast ratio. A bulky form factor that certainly wasn't nearly as portable as we think portable platforms should be today. And an insatiable hunger for AA batteries that, I believe, made the stock prices for Energizer and Duracell soar for a span of several years.

But despite all its apparent shortcomings, Nintendo's original Game Boy became, perhaps, the most important individual piece of gaming hardware in the history of the industry. On the strength of some incredibly addictive games that shattered sales records countless times over, as well as some portable spin-offs and sequels to series the Big N had already established on its home machines, the black-and-white ole GB became a phenomenon -- and kept its position on the peak of the portable market for nearly a solid decade, defeating countless competitors to the throne along the way.

If the DSi were to get its own Virtual Console, the impressive library of the original Game Boy would no doubt be its backbone. And though there are far more than five titles worth highlighting, we'll restrict ourselves to just these top picks and let you readers chime in with more favorites in the Comments box afterward.

Pokemon is a must. This revolutionary monster-catching franchise has been going strong for so long that many members of its target audience today weren't even born yet when it first arrived, 11 years ago -- so the original Red and Blue adventures could be all-new experiences for the generation that's just now getting its start with Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. Take into account the fact that new, fully-fledged Pokemon RPGs are coming out only once every two years or so (including remakes), and you've got long gaps in the Poke release schedule that could be capably filled with a double-dip back to these first two quests.

Bringing Pokemon to DSi as a Virtual Console release, too, would also give Nintendo a chance to make a potential DSi VC unique -- by highlighting connectivity. One of Pokemon's primary appeals is its trading and battling aspects, of course, which were handled by way of the physical Game Boy Link Cable in these first releases. If Nintendo could find a way to functionally emulate those Link Cable features wirelessly, using the DSi's more modern tech, it could be just the right touch of freshness and novelty to make even hardened, older fans seriously consider jumping back in the catch 'em all again.

Another masterpiece of game design that could potentially show off some unique emulation options with a DSi VC, the 1994 Game Boy update to Donkey Kong would be a critical addition to the service. This game is incredible on its own merits, with gameplay that takes the original 1981 arcade classic Donkey Kong and expands upon its ideas immensely -- you start off in that same old construction site, trying to rescue the kidnapped Pauline from the menacing Kong assaulting you with a barrage of barrels. But just when you think your four-level quest is concluded, DK revives himself and runs away again -- and you end up chasing him through nearly 100 more levels of puzzling, platforming, barrel-tossing perfection.

The thing that could make this masterful edition of Donkey Kong truly unique on DSi, though, is Super Game Boy emulation. Donkey Kong was essentially the launch title for the Super Game Boy, an adaptor cartridge that allowed you to play black-and-white Game Boy games on your home television, through your Super Nintendo -- in full color. Super Game Boy cartridges would play just fine on the portable, but bringing them to the TV screen would make them really come alive -- and that special splash of color was never accessible on the go, even when the Game Boy Color later came along. VC emulation on the DSi could finally correct that, allowing for the best possible version of this classic -- with portability preserved, but also displayed in its full, vibrant SGB palette on the go.

Not every game would have to do something new and sensational in its emulation to excite us, though -- most of the potential releases from the Game Boy's back catalog would appeal on good old nostalgia alone. Representing that camp is none other than Kirby's Dream Land. This classic platformer is simple, uncomplicated fun -- a short, sweet, too-the-point slice of adventure with a hook that'll make it an enduring classic for years to come. That hook? It was Kirby's first ever game.

The Game Boy played host to lots of titles featuring characters who first debuted on Nintendo's consoles, like Mario, Link, Samus and Pit -- but the old grey brick really shined when it was offering the origins of all-new mascots, like the little pink puffball with the insatiable appetite. This first Kirby game showcases the character in an early, almost incomplete form -- his body was white, for one, showing that his coloration wasn't quite finalized yet. And his signature ability was limited to just sucking up enemies with his vacuum breath -- he couldn't yet copy their powers. Still, though, the first Kirby's Dream Land is a replayable classic adventure that would get selected from my DSi Menu again and again, if it were to ever arrive as a VC release.

While Kirby's Dream Land could be completed start-to-finish in a simple 20 minute session, many of Nintendo's other Game Boy platformer designs held quite a bit more bulk -- like Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. The Game Boy was the place were anti-hero Wario first appeared, as the final boss of Super Mario Land 2. But rather than sticking with the plucky plumber for subsequent releases, the baddie became the hero -- and Wario Land became its own long-running series. (It even had a new sequel just last year on Wii.)

The first Wario Land is still a great design -- focused on Wario's considerable greed, you play as the brutish bully as he stomps and charges around a pirate-populated island paradise trying to gather up as much loot as possible. Coins, jewels, rare antiquities -- it's all good for Wario, who's trying to get rich as quick as he can. And, at the end of the game, the amount of cash you've collected affects your ending -- you can buy the mansion of your dreams, or end up only able to afford a run-down little shack. Wario Land would be a great addition to a potential DSi Virtual Console lineup, giving a new generation of fans a glance back at this now well-established mascot's money-grubbing origins.

Last of all, the original killer app. Tetris, the first ever Game Boy game, is still the best-selling Game Boy game of all-time -- packed in the box alongside the hardware and later sold separately, this puzzler classic addicted an entire generation and still hasn't let many of us go. The decision to make Tetris the pack-in title with the Game Boy's launch 20 years ago single-handedly made the system a winner. And, in doing so, changed the landscape of the entire gaming industry.

Having Tetris back in its original Game Boy form would be sensational -- it's one of the best versions of the game ever made, certainly the most nostalgic of all, and Tetris's creator Alexey Pajitnov has said that this edition is his personal favorite. Additionally, we still don't have any Tetris game on DSiWare -- Nintendo's been quick to clock in an edition of Dr. Mario, and Puzzle League's on its way soon. But, so far, no "Tetris Express." Somebody needs to get on that. Immediately.

If the original Game Boy Tetris were to come to a potential DSi Virtual Console though, you can bet that it would again single-handedly sell the entire DSi Shop concept. Pair it with Pokemon, suggested up above, and you'd have a perfect storm for finally inspiring awareness of DSi downloads among literally tens of millions of players. Free money, Nintendo. Seriously.

The Game Boy's first real competitor, the Lynx was Atari's solution for making console video games playable on the go -- and it attempted a more accurate representation of the home experience, too. With a color LCD display, more detailed and vibrant graphics than the Game Boy and the ability to link together up to 18 players simultaneously (part of the inspiration for the name), the Lynx was an intimidating challenger indeed -- and it made it out to market only a couple of months after the Game Boy first arrived, too.

Nintendo's marketing muscle proved to be too much for Atari to handle, though, as the biggest hits on the Lynx just couldn't hope to eclipse the incredible success of titles like Tetris -- so, ultimately, the technical superiority of Atari's hardware didn't really matter. Add that to the fact that it took an awful lot of battery power to keep that color screen juiced up and it's ultimately understandable why this was the first competing piece of hardware to be "killed" by Nintendo's original GB.

Despite being dead by all accounts in the marketplace, though, the Lynx enjoyed a cult following and continued development all the way into the 2000s. It also received some revised hardware along the way, too, and a solid library of its own considerable classics -- even though their names wouldn't be as immediately recognizable to Nintendo loyalists. Many of the hit games on the Lynx were licensed arcade titles, like Xenophobe, Rampage, RoadBlasters, and Klax, but in the system's early years the designers came up with some excellent original titles that really showed off what the system could do.

Here are our picks for five games we'd love to see represent the Lynx library on a potential DSi Virtual Console. And, if you'd like an even more in-depth look back at the Lynx line-up, click here to check out IGN Retro's recent Atari Lynx Buyer's Guide.

The first game we'd want to see representing the Lynx on the DSi would be one of the first games to show off the potential of the Lynx hardware -- Blue Lightning. This Afterburner-like flight action design blazed onto the scene with spectacular visuals, bold color and tight gameplay that had you ripping through the sky with G-pulling climbs, nosedives and spinning barrel rolls. Peppy Hare would be proud.

Blue Lightning continues to carry on as a cult favorite among Atari fans to this day, thanks in large part to the impact of its graphics -- and the time when they were delivered. In the earliest days of the Lynx being on the market, no one had ever seen anything like this on a portable platform. Even the Game Boy would have been unknown by many at the time, as it had only arrived a few months earlier -- so the nearest point of comparison would have been, what, static image LCD games like the Game & Watch series? Having a handheld Afterburner was just insane and felt way ahead of its time -- and while it didn't end up becoming the millions-on-millions system seller that Tetris was with the Game Boy, Blue Lightning certainly served its purpose of proving its platform well.

Here's a name that should be known by at least a fair few of you out there, if not everyone -- Rygar. This classic Tecmo franchise has recently been given a modern reboot on the PlayStation 2, and an enhanced port of that reboot on Wii. Its NES edition also had considerable notoriety back in 1987. But those editions are all removed from the original vision -- it was here on the Lynx where Rygar was most well-represented.

Acting as an almost direct port of the Rygar coin-operated arcade cabinet, Lynx Rygar put you in the boots of the titular hero and tasked you to wield the chain/shield Diskarmor to save the land of Argool from the villainous Ligar. We're picking this one to feature because it's just a fun game, but also because of that arcade accuracy -- at the time, Nintendo's Game Boy couldn't get anywhere near providing a comparable experience in its titles that attempted coin-op conversions. For Atari to have such a spot-on portable take on the exact same game players could find and pump quarters into in their local arcades was beyond impressive, at the time. It'd be great to relive those days on DSi.

Nintendo's Game Boy earned much of its early audience thanks to the wise decision to make Tetris the pack-in game -- and Atari attempted the same strategy with this design, California Games. Already a hit on home computer platforms like the Commodore 64, this Epyx-developed sports compilation became the pack-in extra for early adopters who invested in the Deluxe box for the Lynx hardware. And it was a good decision, too, because this version of California Games was a strong one.

If the name sounds fresh in your mind, that's probably because the C64 edition of this same game just recently hit the Wii's Virtual Console -- but the Lynx version is its own beast, separate from that earlier edition. This game had its own take on four different sporting events, including Surfing, BMX Bike Riding, Half-Pipe Skateboarding and Footbag (a.k.a. kicking around a hacky sack). Each sport was simple, accessible and easy to control, and the diversity of having four different ones to choice from on the same game card made it feel like an even more robust bonus to early Lynx buyers.

California Games on the Lynx also supported the system's ComLynx ability -- the feature that allowed you to link up more than one system for multiplayer play. Up to four competitors could go for the high score against one another here, and it would be interesting to see how a potential DSi Virtual Console might handle that feature in emulation -- surely, if the Lynx hit the DSi VC, the more modern hardware's wireless abilities would have to be tapped into to replicate the experience of connecting with your friends. It was the name of the system, after all.

So, Lynx had no Tetris. We've established that. But that didn't stop Atari from seeking an alternative option to fill the puzzler void on its portable, and so we got games like Chip's Challenge. Even if you've never played an actual Lynx system before, you may still be familiar with this classic design -- it was so popular in this original appearance that it was ported over to the Windows platform in the early '90s, and gained a fairly large following among audiences getting their start there with casual games like Solitaire and Minesweeper.

Chip's Challenge is a tale of two kinds of chips -- the first is the hero, a bookish boy named Chip, and the second is the kind of object he's out to collect. The game has you controlling the young, bespectacled nerd as he progresses, tile-by-tile, through a set of puzzle stages grabbing up the little computer chips -- getting them all opened up the way to the next level, each one more advanced and mind-bending than the one before.

This design was one that gave the Lynx library diversity -- while the system was known and notable for its converted arcade experiences, flashy graphics and high-energy action there was also a place for more subtle, low-key brainteasers like this to find an audience too. If Lynx games ever hit DSi, it would be great to have Chip join the party.

Rounding out our picks from the Lynx library is, perhaps, the best-named game the system ever saw -- Todd's Adventures in Slime World. On the surface, this probably just looked like any of the myriad different platformers trying to make a name for itself in the early '90s era, when that genre was at the top of the peak of popularity for video games overall. Digging down under the ooze, though, we found that Slime World was a much more interesting place to explore than first glance would suggest.

This game pioneered advancements in its design that wouldn't become commonplace for years in other, more-remembered games -- features like the automap (without which Super Metroid would have been chore), and eight-person multiplayer combat (absolutely unheard of back in 1990). This is one of those games that kills Lynx fans whenever it's brought up, because they know it's incredible -- and that it's never gotten the notice it deserves. Well, if DSi ever gets a Virtual Console and Lynx support, that reality could finally change.

Atari's Lynx may have been the Game Boy's first legitimate competitor in the handheld arena, but gamers in the early '90s knew where Nintendo's real war was being waged -- not with Atari, but with SEGA. The clash of home consoles and major mascots Mario and Sonic was the stuff of legend, and the battle only seemed to grow bigger and more aggressive as time went on. 1991 was a critical year, when Nintendo introduced its 16-bit SNES to counter SEGA's Genesis. SEGA responded, in part, by trying to flank the enemy on the portable front.

The Game Gear arrived on store shelves that same year, and proved to be an even more worthy adversary to the Game Boy than the Lynx before it. Like Atari's system, SEGA's Game Gear attempted to outshine the Big N's big grey brick with a color screen and more powerful internal hardware. It was essentially a portable conversion of SEGA's 8-bit Master System home console, and so was able to draw on the library of titles there to build up its ranks quickly with notable franchises that were already beginning to hold weight in gamers' minds. And after Sonic the Hedgehog made his debut at home on the Genesis, Game Gear became the only place for players of the day to take the Blue Blur on the road.

As with every other non-Nintendo system to be featured on this wishlist, though, the advantages didn't manage to make a difference in the end. Though Game Gear probably put up the best fight out of all the "other" pieces of hardware we'll highlight, Nintendo's marketing muscle ultimately shoved it out of the arena.

Today, though, Game Gear lives on, in part, through the Virtual Console. We're wishlisting here in hopes that games from its library might someday appear on the DSi, but it's actually already happened on the Wii -- because several Game Gear games also came out on SEGA's Master System, and because the Wii's VC has Master System support, you can already get a taste of emulated Game Gear gaming in modern Nintendo form. Titles that fall into that category include Sonic Chaos and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (the 8-bit version). That fact makes us especially hopeful for the titles we're about to turn the spotlight on -- because if DSi's Virtual Console ever does happen, Game Gear support is nearly guaranteed.

Since we're already talking about Sonic, we'll kick this list off with him. There were tons of Sonic games on the Game Gear -- seriously, at least 10 different titles on the system were headlined by the Hedgehog. But some of those were designs shared with the Master System, so we're singling out one that stayed exclusive to the portable space back in the '90s -- Sonic Drift 2.

One of the earliest Sonic-branded racing games, Sonic Drift 2 took the speedy mascot off his feet and plopped him behind the wheel of a car for some Mario Kart-esque action. Competing against his friends and foes like Tails, Knuckles and Dr. Eggman (all in their own unique vehicles), Sonic sped through three different Grand Prix modes with tons of different tracks designs -- the environments were just as diverse as those seen in the hero's platformers, from jungles to caves to futuristic cities. If Game Gear titles were to come to a Virtual Console service on the DSi, we'd certainly be happy to have access to classic Sonic platformers on the go. But we'd be even more interested in lesser-known designs from yesteryear starring the high-velocity hero, like Sonic Drift 2.

Two of the most compelling SEGA-published Genesis titles to be re-released through the Wii's Virtual Console having been Shining Force and Shining Force II. The games are strategy RPGs, full of personality and great character design, and were the work of Sonic Software Planning -- later known as Camelot, the developers of the Golden Sun series for Nintendo. That's a pretty strong resume to bring to the table in support of this pick, Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya.

A Game Gear-exclusive installment in the same Shining series, Sword of Hajya was a fully-fledged tactical RPG experience available on a portable, years before Nintendo's Game Boy line was seeing similar stuff from the Big N. It was until 2001 that we got Advance Wars in America, after all, and even later after that that Fire Emblem finally came to these shores -- so Game Gear gamers really got a headstart with 1994's Shining Force on the go. Though comparably few have played this particular installment in the series, it's just as intriguing as its home console cousins -- so it would be a great pick for Virtual Console play on the DSi.

The setting of Arabian Nights is woefully underused in the gaming industry. Magic carpets, genies granting wishes, scorching suns and sands and scimitars -- it's an engrossing scene, and the Prince of Persia series is usually the closest you'll get to it outside a licensed Disney Aladdin game. The Game Gear, though, played host to one particularly interesting role-playing game that tapped the potential there -- Defenders of Oasis.

Playing as the young prince of the desert kingdom of Shanadar, you find yourself quickly swept into a tale of sorcery, magic lamps and powerful rings -- and you embark on a quest to, of course, save the world. Defenders is a vibrantly rendered 8-bit RPG that took full advantage of the color capability of the Game Gear screen way back in 1992. RPGs on Nintendo systems didn't come close to looking this good until the release of the Game Boy Color, over half a decade later than that. Defenders of Oasis also had something of a spiritual successor with the impressive Beyond Oasis, which is already available on the Wii's Virtual Console by way of the Genesis -- so it would be like a granted wish to get this early masterpiece on DSi.

Most of you out there should be familiar with the Golden Axe series, SEGA's hack-and-slash brawler brand that got its start in the arcades before heading home to the Genesis. The first Golden Axe, its follow-up Golden Axe II and the previously Japan-only Golden Axe III have all arrived on the Wii's Virtual Console -- so, to most people's minds, the series has been covered. But SEGA took to experimenting with the series on its other systems, resulting in the Zelda-like Golden Axe Warrior on the Master System and this game, Ax Battler: A Legend of Golden Axe on Game Gear.

Essentially SEGA's own version of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Ax Battler was a hybrid design that mashed up overhead-view town exploration sequences with side-scrolling battles. Ax would wander the world, interacting with NPCs and advancing the plot. But when it was time to throw down the gauntlet, the scene would switch to the perspective below -- with Ax wielding his sword with skill against all comers. It remains confusing why the hero named Ax never actually uses an axe in a series called Golden Axe, but whaddya gonna do? It's still a solid design and one that would be perfectly suited to be pulled out of its relative obscurity by a DSi VC re-release.

We featured Tetris for the original Game Boy and California Games for the Lynx, so it would only be natural to include Columns on this Game Gear list -- it was the falling-block puzzler packed in with the system when it first went on sale. The first Columns already has a good version available on the Wii's VC, though, so lets round things out here with its superior Game Gear sequel instead.

Super Columns took the gameplay established in the first several installments of its series and kicked it up a notch. You're still cycling through the colors of falling groups of gemstones, trying to line up the same shades and shapes to make matches and clear out the pit full of jewels -- but, in Super Columns, someone's out to get you while you're doing all that. A sinister merchant appears as the primary antagonist in the all-new Story Mode, and give you more incentive to fight back and go for the high score than before. I think he might have even had some evil monkeys.

Anyhow, Super Columns is also notable in that it was the last new Columns game developed for a SEGA platform in the '90s. After that the series made the leap to Nintendo's Game Boy Advance for Columns Crown, but that wasn't really the same. Columns is a SEGA staple, and deserves to stay aligned with that company's hardware -- just as it would be, if it represented the Game Gear on a DSi Virtual Console service.

From one side of the '90s to the other, we're jumping from SEGA's Game Gear all the way to 1999 and SNK's NeoGeo Pocket Color. The leap is made for several reasons -- first, because SNK's system probably came closest to providing a real challenge for Nintendo's Game Boy with an incredibly strong lineup of great games and a compellingly low pricepoint of less than 70 dollars. Second, because it's one of our favorite non-Nintendo handhelds ever -- an underappreciated gem that deserved much more notice than it got when it was on the market. And, third, because if you'll notice its Release Date right there and do the math, you'll discern that the system just passed its 10th anniversary of initial release less than a week ago. Happy Birthday NeoGeo!

It seems that every manufacturer of a piece of home console hardware has to eventually dip their toes in the waters of portable gaming, and the NeoGeo Pocket Color was SNK's attempt to bring its high-end NeoGeo brand down into the handheld arena. Well, the NeoGeo Pocket was actually the first attempt -- but it was quickly and unceremoniously replaced by the more powerful Color hardware less than a year after its debut, so the NGPC is the one we remember -- and it could play all the normal NGP games anyway.

Unfortunately, though, exceptionally poor timing plagued this system's chances at longevity -- SNK ended up getting bought out after the hardware'd been on the market for only around a year and a half. The system debuted in 1999, but then got recalled late into 2000 -- pulled off the shelves not for any defect, but as a business decision by the new parent company. The system's excess units ended up getting re-routed to Asia, though, where the NeoGeo Pocket brand continued to find some success for a few more years. It's just a shame that it only had such a short window of opportunity to make a splash in the State.

Nintendo's DSi could fix all that with Pocket Color support on Virtual Console, though, so we're highlighting the five top picks we'd love to see represent the system when and if that possibility would ever come to pass -- and these are strong names, sports fans. Had the NeoGeo Pocket Color persisted in America beyond 2000, it might have been able to build on the momentum of the games seen here and make a much bigger dent in the Game Boy brand's market share. Alas, 'twas not to be.

OK, we lied. You caught us. Just one page ago we were talking about how we'd prefer to see more of the under-the-rader Sonic spin-off designs instead of more Hedgehog platformers -- but Sonic Pocket Adventure is absolutely an exception. This traditional 2D Sonic side-scroller was so well done and so timely at filling the platformer genre void in the NeoGeo Pocket Color lineup that it became a system-seller for the hardware -- and an indicator of just how successful SNK's exclusive partnerships with major third-party developers would benefit the brand.

Sonic the Hedgehog: Pocket Adventure was developed in part by the talented minds at Dimps, who more modern Nintendo handheld fans will know from their incredible work on the Sonic Advance trilogy on Game Boy Advance and the Sonic Rush games on DS -- arguably the only consistently good Sonic series throughout the past decade. This game, then, was the proving ground for that development team with the heroic Hedgehog, and they got it right right out of the gate. Sonic Pocket Adventure would be a must-have on DSi if NeoGeo Pocket Color support came to its Virtual Console -- it was the perfect Pocket platformer.

SNK's a company most known for its stable of fighting franchises, but its Metal Slug brand has always been a close second on the priority list for the company -- it's a series that's seen seven numbered sequels over the years, from the very first Metal Slug coin-op cabinet to the most recent Metal Slug 7 designed specifically for the DS. Over those same years, though, the franchise has also had a handful of spin-offs -- like this portable adventure on the Pocket Color.

Metal Slug: First Mission is run-and-gun action at its handheld best, and made all the more charming by the restrictions on the hardware it finds itself running on. The NeoGeo Pocket Color was plenty powerful, but its nearest console analog was probably still 8-bit platforms like the NES -- and the first Metal Slug in arcades debuted with a style well beyond that era. Seeing the series "go retro" like this with simpler sprites and animation was a lot of fun, and First Mission still holds up as an excellent adaptation of the blast-everything-in-sight concept to the unique requirements of the handheld market in 1999. We'd love a chance to jump back into the driver's seat and man the turret again through the DSi.

Our puzzler pick for the pocket-sized NeoGeo is Puzzle Link 2, a game that breaks handheld tradition by actually not being a take on Tetris' "falling block" design. Instead, it knocks off Bust-a-Move.

Well, not exactly. There's certainly some initial similarity, as you're placed in control of a launcher down at the bottom of a field of puzzle pieces and you're tasked to eliminate groups of like colors. You're not shooting marbles to do it though -- rather, you fire into the field to establish connections between groups of the same colors in separate areas of the playing area. Once you make a successful "Link" (as in the title), the pieces are blasted and you keep on moving on.

Puzzle Link 2 would be a great representative of the puzzler genre from the NeoGeo Pocket Color library -- perhaps it will make a connection with the DSi in the future.

Years before anyone had ever heard of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the card battling genre was already getting going on handhelds thanks to games like this. You're almost certainly already aware of Card Fighters Clash --Internet forum-goers have been using its exceptional character sprite graphics as message board avatars for almost a decade now. This is where those cards come from, a Magic: The Gathering-esque trading card design starring heroes from both SNK and Capcom's stables of mighty mascots.

The game actually took a page from the Pokemon playbook, too, and shipped in two editions -- the SNK version and the Capcom version. Which edition you purchased determined which companies' characters would appear more commonly, so you knew which to pick up off the shelf if you were a Mega Man fan instead of a Terry Bogard supporter. Once in the game, though, it was all about the strategy -- using those characters and their unique abilities to attack, defend and shuffle your way to victory. Designs like this were the pinnacle of the NeoGeo Pocket Color experience, and while a Nintendo DS sequel shipped a few years back we'd still love to see the original make a return through DSi download. (Especially since that DS sequel was really, really bad.)

For many of you, though, the real SNK vs. Capcom conflict can only be settled in its original intended genre -- the one-on-one versus fighter. The NeoGeo Pocket Color was happy to ablige there as well, turning in Match of the Millennium just in time for Christmas back in 1999. And it was, without exaggeration, the best fighting game ever made for a portable platform.

We'd have to go back and re-analyze that statement a bit now that 10 more years have passed us by, but I wouldn't be surprised if it still held up as true -- this 8-bit handheld take on the SNK vs. Capcom fighting concept was pitch-perfect in every respect. A robust roster. Tight, responsive control. Great graphics with excellent animation that captured the spirit of two different companies' characters cohesively. Really, if you owned a NeoGeo Pocket Color, you didn't care that your system ended up getting cancelled after such a short time on the market. Because, in that time, you got Match of the Millennium -- and it alone was worth it.

Well, it took them long enough. After nearly a full decade of sticking with the original monochrome hardware, Nintendo finally took the plunge into color handheld graphics with the upgraded Game Boy Color hardware in 1998. With the GBC, Nintendo fans finally had the portable NES experience they'd always dreamed of -- with ports of classic NES designs like Super Mario Bros. and Crystalis supporting great, original designs like the ones you'll see just below.

The Game Boy Color ultimately proved to be just a temporary, transitional piece of hardware for the Big N though -- its life span was just about two and a half years, just holding gamers over before the Game Boy Advance came along a really revolutionized the technology that the Game Boy brand name was being applied to. Still, in just that short span of time, some incredible hits came rolling along from both Nintendo and some major third-party supporters. Capcom played a big role in several of the GBC's biggest hits, which you'll also see below.

So read on for our top five faves that we'd love to see make a return on Nintendo's DSi. Did your personal favorite make the cut?

Many of you faithful Nintendo fans were no doubt a bit distressed by the fact that Page 1 of this feature didn't include Link's Awakening, the first Zelda series installment on a Game Boy platform. It's not that we wouldn't want to revisit it -- it's just that, if we're headed back to Koholint Island, we'd like to do it right. The Game Boy Color is the place where that classic really shined, as The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX -- remade in full color, and with an added dungeon.

But Link's GBC adventures didn't stop at just a colorized remake -- that was just the beginning. From there, the hero of Hyrule then appeared in two more GBC-exclusive quests, are those are the games that are tied for our first pick on this page. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages both took the foundational gameplay of Link's Awakening and expanded it, creating two fully realized and wholly unique experiences, each with its own twist. In Oracle of Seasons, Link gained the power to control the time of year -- solving puzzles by shifting the world from Spring to Summer, from Winter to Fall and every combination in-between. In Oracle of Ages, he obtained mastery of time itself, traveling back and forth to the past and future to set right the events happening in two different times.

It would be extraordinary to get a chance to play these games again through the DSi, as they're among the best but least played Zelda adventures overall. (And yes, we'll take Link's Awakening DX too, while you're at it Nintendo.)

Pokemon's second generation sequels, Gold and Silver, were two of the finest games to grace the Game Boy Color platform -- absolutely excellent follow-ups to the phenomenal first generation Red and Blue. And we're not picking them here.

That's because Gold and Silver are getting expansive DS remakes already, as Pokemon HeartGold and Pokemon SoulSilver -- so it's probably not that likely that either they (or Crystal for that matter) would arrive on any DSi Virtual Console. But that's OK. Because by the time the GBC was on the scene, the Pokemon series had a lot of other great games going for it in other, non-RPG genres.

Pokemon Pinball was one of the best of the spin-offs, a traditional portable pinball experience made completely untraditional by the addition of the original 151 Pocket Monsters. You were tasked to earn a high score and keep the ball in play as long as possible, as in standard pinball -- but, at the same time, you were also asked to catch 'em all. Pokemon creatures would appear on the playing field and you'd bash them with the bouncing Pokeball until they relented, became captured, and added their distinctiveness to your collective. Anyone who played this one 10 years ago knows how addictive it was, and we'd love to get hooked all over again through the DSi. (We'd miss out on the Rumble feature, of course. But sacrifices must sometimes be made.)

Nintendo's known for its massively popular franchises like The Legend of Zelda and Pokemon -- series that have had tons of sequels and spin-offs over the years. Every once in a while, though, the company will release a one-shot. And, oftentimes, those one-off designs have proven to be home to some of the most compelling gameplay concepts in the Big N's history.

Case in point, Warlocked. This game was a superb, single-shot creation that came to the Game Boy Color and managed to successfully make the case that the real-time strategy genre could work on a handheld. And not only work, but work well -- Warlocked was frenetically addictive, as it combined the military conquest aspects of popular PC games like Blizzard's original Warcraft with elements of the best Nintendo handheld hits. This is a game where you could recruit a wizard to turn your enemies into chickens. That's just cool.

Sadly, Warlocked has only remained a one-shot release because its intended sequel, Wizards, got cancelled partway through development in the Game Boy Advance era. A Virtual Console on DSi could do a lot to redeem that loss, though, by giving us another chance to experience the original -- and a whole new audience could be introduced to this singular classic.

Mario Golf on Game Boy Color was, essentially, Golden Sun Zero. It was an RPG -- you'd expect just a standard golf sim, and it was that too, but from your first steps into the clubhouse here you knew you were in for an incredibly deep experience. Mario Golf ended up being a fully-fledged role-playing golf game, wherein your young kid character gained experience over time, "leveling up" his or her skills on the links, and all the while interacting with non-player characters who added tons of personality to the mix.

It's understandable, then, that this was the work of the same team who then went on to create the Golden Sun series in the age of the GBA, a few years later. If GBC downloads ever start popping up in the DSi Shop, picket lines will form if the must-have Game Boy Color take on Mario Golf isn't among the first wave of selections. It's just that good.

Well, it's come to this. It's been so long now, with so many years having passed since its release, with no further sequel or spin-off or anything else from the series making it out to the public in any form, that the original Shantae is now being featured in a speculative retro-download wishlist. We fans of the belly-dancing genie girl are now truly desperate.

You should know the story by now -- created by WayForward Technologies (who've since gone on to craft such greats as Contra 4 and the upcoming Wii revival of A Boy and His Blob), Shantae was the perfect platformer on the Game Boy Color. Its crisp character designs, fluid animation and inventive gameplay (which involved hair-whipping to attack enemies and dancing to trigger magic effects) made it the pinnacle of many players' GBC experiences. It also served as a swan song for the system, as that 2002 release date was already well into the age of the new Game Boy Advance (and few people were looking back to the Color after getting their hands on it).

At this point, we may never see another Shantae product. Shameful, but true. But, hopefully, if the stars align and Nintendo decides to take the obvious step of offering a DSi Virtual Console service, Capcom, WayForward and Nintendo could all somehow come to an accord that allowed this gem to be re-released in digital form. Hey, we've got Mighty Flip Champs already. That's getting closer, right?

Our big Wishlist here is all pure speculation, as there's been no official announcement that a Virtual Console is in the works for the DSi yet. But, if and when it does happen, it wouldn't just be made for DSi owners in America -- other regions would get in on the action too, and their selections of downloadable titles and represented systems would certainly be different than ours here in the States. Just look at the Wii -- in Japan, Europe and America the lineups of games and emulated hardware are all different.

That being the case, we're going to spend a page here focused on a handheld that never actually made it out in America -- Bandai's WonderSwan Color. This system was a Japan exclusive, and home to several solid game designs over its life cycle of the few years surrounding the turn of the millennium. It was a contemporary of both the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance, competing with them both and finding some success in that battle. Because the WonderSwan never left Japan, though, many of the game designs made exclusively for it in its home country ultimately ended up being ported to Nintendo hardware in other nations anyway.

Below are our five picks for great games that would be interesting to see make a return through the DSi -- either just for the benefit of Japanese players, or else as potential Import category releases for us here in America. Who knows, maybe a digital download service would be just the right solution to make Bandai want to revisit the idea of bringing some of these games across the pond after all.

Dedicated Mega Man fans might remember a little game called Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge on the Game Boy Advance -- it was the American adaptation of a WonderSwan design that tried to turn the Mega Man Battle Network series into some kind of card battler knock-off. It was bad. What makes it even more insulting, though, is that there was a much better WonderSwan Mega Man game that could have been picked up for porting to GBA instead -- Rockman EXE WS.

This side-scrolling action/platformer design took the characters and settings of the Battle Network universe and married it with traditional Mega Man action -- running, jumping, sliding and blasting Robot Masters to bits. It was a welcome alternative to the long-running and laborious Battle Network RPGs, which, while good designs in their own right, got to be frightfully repetitive after so many sequential sequels. With the popularity of Mega Man 9 on WiiWare, PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, it's been proven that American gamers will lavishly support retro Mega Man action in downloadable form -- so if DSi brought us the ability to access previously-unreleased titles like this one, its VC could skyrocket to popularity.

If you trace things back far enough in the handheld half of the gaming industry, you always come back to Gunpei. Gunpei Yokoi was the man behind the design of the original Game Boy. Without his work and influence, this article wouldn't be happening -- he kickstarted Nintendo's portable division and, by its impact, all the competition from other companies since. One of Gunpei's last projects was the WonderSwan hardware -- he'd left Nintendo after the Virtual Boy flopped and was making a new start for himself with a new company.

Tragically, Gunpei passed away in 1997 after a car accident. To honor his memory, though, his friends and fellow game developers pushed forward with his final projects. And, ultimately, they created this puzzle game that they named after him. Though not a revolutionary puzzler, Gunpey is an interesting and unique design that has you matching up line segments on a screen intended to be held vertically. Versions of the game later came out in America, and you might have seen or played the DS edition or the PSP version. But it would still be cool to get the game named after Gunpei in the edition from the final system he worked on -- a great potential selection for the VC, for sure.

The white flag of surrender. By the time 2003 rolled around, Bandai was ready to admit defeat -- its WonderSwan Color had been completely eclipsed by the steamrolling success of Nintendo's Game Boy Advance, and the appearance of Digimon: Battle Spirits on the GBA was the company's concession speech. The Digimon brand had never been seen on a Nintendo platform previously -- it was one of the closely-held exclusives that the WonderSwan had all to itself. After Battle Spirits' release, though, it was clear there was no going back for Bandai.

This pick on our list goes to the original WonderSwan edition of that same design, though. Digimon Tamers: Battle Spirit, Version 1.5. Essentially a portable interpretation of Super Smash Bros. with the Digimon license offering up its stable of cartoon monster characters, the game was a successful fighter that did something different in the handheld space -- this was years before Jump Superstars, mind you, so similar designs weren't yet in place to compete with it. Though Digimon has never been quite as popular in America as in Japan, it would still be interesting to get this game on our DSi systems through digital download -- to play for fun, but also because of its place in industry history.

The homebrew community scored a major victory with the release of this shooter, a fan-created homage to classic "bullet hell" designs like Treasure's Radiant Silvergun. This game was developed as an entry for the WWGP 2001 WonderWitch programming contest, and won. But, more than that, it went on to become an actual commerical product a few years later -- legitimate retail validation for the blood, sweat and tears that homebrewers and hobbyist programmers put into their labors of love every day.

The Wii's Virtual Console is overflowing with great shooter designs, but the DSi's potential Virtual Console probably wouldn't be able to match that same depth of selection -- shooters just aren't as popular a genre on handhelds. Games like Judgement Silversword, though, could go a long way toward establishing quality in the category, even if quantity was lacking.

Finally, perhaps the most important release the WonderSwan Color ever received. Square's notoriously protective of its Final Fantasy property -- so when Bandai managed to get the company to agree to remake its original classic in the series in 16-bit style exclusively for release on the WGC, the industry took notice. The game arrived and blew most everyone away with its crisp, clean update and accessible new features. And, to top it all off, they remade Final Fantasy II as well.

Now the concept of a remake of the first Final Fantasy isn't all that interesting any more, as, since December 2000, that same game has received several more remakes on the Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable. But this WonderSwan release was the original -- before Square went all remake crazy and diluted the impact of the game by re-re-remaking it over and over. So it would be cool to have this particular edition make an encore appearance, especially for those Japanese players who invested in the WonderSwan specifically because of it and then didn't get a full return on their investment in the end.

Here's where things begin to get divisive. Support seems to be mostly unanimous for the idea of a Virtual Console offering emulated editions of older Game Boy games, and Lynx, and Game Gear and whatever else -- but when you stray into the Game Boy Advance era, opinions quickly split into two different camps. One group of gamers would love to have access to GBA classics in downloadable form, continuing their support for the overall VC concept for the DSi. The other gang, though, dismisses the notion -- since the previous version of the DS hardware, the DS Lite, is still perfectly accessible and has the ability to play GBA cartridges built in.

We've got to side with the former group, though, when we wish for GBA games in downloadable form -- because that's just the direction Nintendo seems to be headed. The company removed the GBA cartridge slot from the DSi hardware, and that wasn't an arbitrary decision -- they must have finally felt that the DS brand was strong enough to stand on its own, and no longer needed the crutch of Game Boy backwards-compatibility to help it along. So, even though some DS Lite owners will still be playing their physical Game Boy Advance cartridges for years to come, it's completely reasonable to assume that many of the same titles could also be offered again as digital downloads.

And, if that were to happen, it would be cause for celebration -- because the Game Boy Advance had an incredibly strong library of titles. From enhanced ports of 16-bit SNES titles to wholly unique and original adventures, from highly-anticipated franchise sequels to innovative designs featuring everything from tilt sensors to built-in solar panels, the GBA library covered it all. We've got a great feature on The Top 25 Game Boy Advance Games of All Time for you to go back and peruse at your leisure, since we won't cover all the many possibilities for a DSi VC here. But here are five picks we think would be especially fun and/or timely to see return on Nintendo's latest portable platform.

Nintendo's Metroid franchise had its first portable installment in Metroid II: Return of Samus for the original Game Boy hardware -- the Game Boy Advance, though, is where the series really shined in handheld form. Metroid Fusion arrived in late 2002, serving as a fully-fledged sequel to the SNES masterpiece Super Metroid. It was a hard act to follow, but Fusion shined with a great update to the gameplay of the series that subtlely added in new abilities like ladder-climbing for our favorite female bounty hunter, and a unique twist on the story -- Samus has had her DNA fused with that of an actual Metroid.

Fusion set the standard for the series on the GBA and was such a success that the Big N decided to follow it up with another installment a few years later -- Metroid: Zero Mission. Rather than being another new sequel, though, Zero Mission was a robust remake of the original NES Metroid game that expanded and enhanced the storyline of what actually took place on Samus' first mission to planet Zebes. It, too, was an impressive release. We'd love to see both Game Boy Advance Metroid games make a comeback through Virtual Console.

Like the Metroid series, Konami's Castlevania franchise first got its start on Game Boy systems with appearances on the original monochrome hardware -- but, also like Metroid, the outings it had on the Game Boy Advance were the real classics. Circle of the Moon launched alongside the hardware in 2001, Harmony of Dissonance followed it up a year later, and when 2003 rolled around we got the pinnacle of the trilogy -- the game we named the #2 Game Boy Advance game of all time, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

Aria soared on the strength of a finely-tuned gameplay engine that had been building momentum over the course of all three GBA Castlevania adventures, and stood out from the rest with a unique soul-catching mechanic that fueled hero Soma Cruz's many abilities. Soma himself was also a novel protagonist, as the series rarely strays away from heroes of Belmont descent -- but it did here. In fact, the game pushed the envelope even further by setting its storyline in the future, taking place in the year 2035. All of these elements came together, combined with many more subtle details and hidden extras, and created the Castlevania game we'd most love to revisit through DSi download.

After over a decade of watching the series stay firmly rooted in Japan, Nintendo's Wars franchise finally arrived for American fans to enjoy in 2001. Advance Wars was the first installment to hit the United States, and it was the perfect entry point -- its colorful characters and vibrant environments perfectly complimented its deep, difficult strategy design and offered new Game Boy Advance owners a truly new, first-party experience like they'd never seen on any previous iteration of Game Boy.

We sank so many hours into waging war through this game that it's hard to recall just how the spell was eventually broken -- probably by its sequel, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, which kept the tanks rolling a couple of years later. Though the DS has had a couple of sequels of its own through Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, we'd still love the chance to take a step back in time to our first experience with the franchise in English.

(Translation: We miss Andy and his enormous wrenches.)

The Game Boy Advance was home to a lot of great role-playing games, including several notable ones from Nintendo itself. Golden Sun is the one we're picking to profile, though, on the basis of timing -- Nintendo just surprise-announced Golden Sun DS at this year's E3 event, with a scheduled release date of sometime next year. So, by the time it comes out, it will have been almost nine years since the release of this first Golden Sun adventure. That's a long stretch -- new initiates to the world of the series need to have the chance to re-experience the original before diving into the new one, so Golden Sun should be offered as a VC download in advance of the release of the sequel.

And who would argue? The first Golden Sun was one of the strongest RPG designs on the GBA, with a unique take on magic that had your party of four heroes learning powerful Psynergy techniques from creatures called Djinni which they could then wield in battle, or out in the overworld to solve puzzles. Its battle sequences were also visually dynamic, setting a new standard for flash and flare -- just look at the size of that explosion below. Isaac might have made a quick cameo in last year's Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but we want more. We want to be able to go back and re-live his quest again, then Golden Sun: The Lost Age, then Golden Sun DS. Yes, that is our demand. Make it happen, Nintendo.

Finally, one of our top picks for Game Boy Advance games has always been this installment in the Legend of Zelda series. Not just because it offered an incredibly capable conversion of the SNES classic A Link to the Past, though -- that was great, but there were lots of great SNES ports on GBA. No, the thing that set this one apart was the brand-new, multiplayer-focused Four Swords mode.

It's actually a little bit ridiculous that Nintendo hasn't already revived the concept for the DS in some form -- it's a perfect fit for the current handheld. You and three friends all worked together in Four Swords, each of you in control of a different color of Link. You had to all cooperate to solve puzzles and defeat enemies, but, at the same time, you would compete to collect the most Rupees -- one of those classically balanced multiplayer games where you're always bouncing back and forth between helping your buddies and stabbing them in the back. We'd love to see the concept make a comeback as a standalone DS or DSiWare game, but if Nintendo isn't going to do that then the company could at least offer us this original version -- through Virtual Console.

Beyond those seven potential portable platforms, the forecast for a possible DSi Virtual Console begins to get a bit cloudy. There are a few other notable handhelds from the past 20 years, but many that we haven't named didn't have their own unique titles -- Hudson's TurboExpress just played the same game cards as the TurboGrafx-16 home console, and SEGA's Nomad did the same thing with Genesis cartridges.

One other handheld that might have a slim chance at making a return would be Tiger's Game.com, which actually had a lot in common with Nintendo's DS -- but came out several years before the DS did. It was the first domestic handheld with a touch screen and stylus, and had the ability to go online (though the Internet in 1997 wasn't nearly as dynamic or accessible as it is today).

We're not going to feature five picks from the Game.com's library, though, because there just aren't enough good games to merit that much attention -- and, actually, there aren't very many games total. Just 20 titles came out for the Game.com before the hardware went the way of the dodo. If it did make a reappearance, perhaps its portable interpretations of Frogger, Sonic Jam or Resident Evil 2 would be part of the encore.

Another off-the-wall pick that could be cool? The Dreamcast's VMU. SEGA's last home console was a disc-based system, and so far those haven't been supported by Nintendo's Virtual Console. The Dreamcast was also home to a sub-category of portable games, though, through the little titles that could be played on its memory card/game system hybrid peripheral device, the Visual Memory Unit.

The VMU didn't have a ton of standalone titles to call its own -- most of the time the games played on it were simple mini-games that played supporting roles to the full-on experiences spinning on disc. VMU features were found in tons of major games though, like the Sonic Adventure series, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Power Stone and Jet Grind Radio. It would be a major stretch for VMU games to come to DSi, but hey, we're speculating here! Have a bit of fun with it.

If you want something that's back closer to the realm of possibility, how about this unsung and little-rememberd Nintendo handheld from 2001? The Pokemon mini describes itself almost entirely by its name -- it was an incredibly small take on the Game Boy that played nothing but Pokemon mini-games. Because it was an official Nintendo system, though, its possibilities for revisitation probably rank higher than lots of the other machines we've just finished profiling.

The Pokemon mini had its own version of Pokemon Pinball, as well as an official Tetris game that used the Pokemon license. It had a collected of Pokemon puzzles, a racer starring Pikachu and even a dungeon-crawler called Togepi's Great Adventure. They might be odd, incredibly undetailed in graphics and limited in gameplay, but if Nintendo brought them back through a DSi VC you can bet that their use of the Pokemon license would rack up sales all over again.

(The upcoming DS titles Pokemon HeartGold and Pokemon SoulSilver are revisiting the mini concept with their pack-in Pokemon pedometers, too. So you never know.)

Last of all we'll end on a positive note, and perhaps the best indication we have that a Virtual Console on DSi really might be possible -- the Game & Watch. This was a series of LCD handhelds released by Nintendo throughout the '80s, each one a standalone game and all of them serving as precursors to the business strategy that would one day give rise to the Game Boy to begin with. The Game & Watch format was home to several unique gameplay concepts, and even some odd and off-the-wall spin-off projects for established heroes. Have you ever heard of Mario's Cement Factory, or Donkey Kong Hockey? You could find them both on Game & Watch.

What's encouraging about envisioning the Game & Watch series making a comeback on DSi, though, is that it's actually already happened. We're still waiting for them to arrive in America, but Japan has already seen the release of nine classic Game & Watch games through DSiWare. The simply-titled Manhole, Flagman, Ball, Judge and more are all already on sale there, for the low pricepoint of just 200 Nintendo points apiece.

We fully expect that Nintendo of America will choose to bring these DSiWare designs over to us in the United States as well, and that will be a strong step in the right direction for an eventual DSi Virtual Console. The Game & Watch games aren't emulated in VC style, instead being individually reprogrammed for the DSiWare format -- but, still, it demonstrates that Nintendo already has it in mind to be diving back into its own handheld history to find more content for its current portable. And that means that the idea of bringing back Game Boy titles has at least been seriously discussed in Nintendo's boardrooms.

So will it ever happen? We still don't know right now, but we're hopeful for the future. With several decades' worth of great past portable classics to draw upon, both from Nintendo systems and from competing companies' hardwares, it's just too good of an idea to pass up. So we hope you've enjoyed our little trip through handheld history as we're been wishing and speculating for the future of a potential Virtual Console on the DSi -- and if you're in support of the idea, continue to make your voice heard by checking in Comments below. And when those Game & Watch games drop for DSiWare here in America, buy them! Nintendo needs to know there's an audience for retro releases on the DSi, and that'll be one way to show them that, yes, there absolutely is.