Hanabi Festival returns to Virtual Console

Retro-gaming fans rejoice, as Nintendo have announced they are bring back the Hanabi Festival to Virtual Console. The Hanabi Festival sees games that were previously unreleased in Europe appear on the Virtual Console to download. Last year the original Japanese Super Mario Bros 2, Mario’s Super Picross, the NES’s Ninja Gaiden, Ninja JaJaMaru-Kun Sin & Punishment and Gradius III all appeared.

This time courtesy of Sega and Hudson Soft the Festival kicks off with three games on May 2nd. Those games are Gradius II Gofer No Yabou for Turbografx (Japanese version), Columns III: Revenge of Columns for Mega Drive (U.S. version), Final Soldier –for Turbografx (Japanese version)

Over the coming weeks even more games will be made available, such as Gley Lancer (Mega Drive), Cho Aniki Muscle Brothers (Turbografx), Puyo Puyo 2 (Mega Drive) and Star Parodier (Turbografx). Even more games are expected in the future, but Nintendo has not announced those as of yet.

Oh, and if you were still wondering what the hell the Hanabi Festival is, it is apparently named after the Japanese holiday season that is famous for its firework displays.