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Retrospectively, how was the Wii?

Didn't quite live up to the motion control promises outside of shooters. The gaps between notable releases due to the lack of third-party support probably would've been painful if I'd hadn't owned the other consoles. Could've used a bit of a bump in graphics, or at least HD so it looked better on HDTVs. Also could've used a few more buttons on the controller.

At the end of the day, though? There were a lot of genuinely good to great games released for the system. Anybody who can look at the Wii's library and say that it has very little or even nothing of value, as many on GAF like to, either hasn't given it a chance or has extremely narrow taste in games.
 
My biggest disappointment with the Wii was the virtual store. The idea of having all your favorite game from every Nintendo generation on one machine and all running nearly flawlessly was a huge selling point. However, the games were too expensive to buy on impulse, they staggered the releases over months and years, there were the storage issues, and worst of all* there was no guarantee that you would be able to transfer them to next generation or even to a new Wii. At some point I gave up on the virtual console and refused to buy anything else.


* The real worst of all is Earthbound's captivity.
 
Bought it late in its cycle to play DKCR, totally worth it. Later on I also picked up Galaxy 1 and 2, loved those too.

Still thinking about maaaaaybe buying skyward sword. The last Zelda I have properly played was OoT back in the N64 days, so I'm kinda itching to see what its like to dive back into a the Zelda world again.
 
I liked the Wii alright. The Mario games (SMG1, SMG2, NSMBWii) were my favorites, but there were several other gems, too. I was SO hyped about the motion controls when they were first announced, but I eventually grew to hate nearly every implementation of them.

My gaming tastes have narrowed over the years, and this is definitely true for Nintendo's games, too. All I really care about now are Mario, 2D Zelda, and 2D Metroid. That's why the Wii was only alright to me. Virtual Console definitely made it better, though.
 
I'm a massive Nintendo fan, and the Wii is the only main Nintendo system I skipped. I got to play the small handful of games that I was interested on my friend's Wii. Just didn't feel like there was enough to compel me to purchase the system. I am looking forward to seeing what the Wii U has to offer, though.
 
The worst $250 I ever spent

I grew to hate motion controls, the system barely had any noteworthy titles and even the classic Nintendo IPs didn't appeal to me. I never loved Mario Galaxy and felt like both the Zelda's were hindered by motion control gimmicks.
I wont be buying another Nintendo console again, although I still enjoy their IPs on handhelds
 
Quite an enjoyable ride with this little machine. Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2. No more Heroes 1 + 2, Zelda Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword (I love this game), Last Story, and coincidentally, one of my most played game of this gen (clocking around 200 hours, give or take) is on Wii--the Xenoblade.
 
Laughing Banana said:
Quite an enjoyable ride with this little machine. Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2. No more Heroes 1 + 2, Zelda Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword (I love this game), Last Story, and coincidentally, one of most played game of this gen (clocking around 200 hours, give or take) is on Wii--the Xenoblade.
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this is a very positive look at the system, for sure!
 
I won't deny it's impact on the industry but myself not being a big Nintendo first party fan (even less so with added motion controls), the Wii was ultimately a waste of money for me. There were a handful of games I played through that were alright but nothing that I couldn't have done without. Nintendo's trend of strong first party titles and (mostly) weak third party titles as lead to their console being the least played of my home consoles for 3 generations in a row so I think I'm done with them (I also can't see that tablet controller for the WiiU introducing any kind of gameplay experiences that I would be interested in).
 
I enjoyed it, but I am insane and the gamecube is currently my favorite nintendo console. I'm sure that in a generation or two, my love of its couple AAA titles will fade enough for the NES to take back its rightful place.

What it came down to me was a lack of (for me) genre defining, must have, keep your wii hooked up for eternity awesome games. In this way, I see it much like the DS.

Mario Galaxies were really great, but 3D platformers will never outdo 2D in my opinion. There were a lot of great 2D platformers. Kirby's Epic Yarn, Warioland Shake It!, NSMB, were all fun, but they are pretty much AA titles in my opinion. I still need to pick up DKCR, which looks like a AAA title, but I can't comment on it at this point.

New entries in old franchises just typically weren't that great. MP Corruption had really high highs, but overall was nowhere near the original. Other M was kinda bad. Brawl wasn't as finely tuned as melee. Mario Kart Wii was pretty fun but continued and intensified the movement towards brain dead rubber band racing. Skyward Sword just isn't a very good game. Rhythm Heaven Fever is nowhere near as good as the past entries. Animal Crossing was just lazy. Super Paper Mario was maybe 60% as good as previous entries.

The Wii series were fun distractions when they came out, but are nothing that I'm going to return to 5 years from now, or even 6 months.

I certainly got my money's worth out of it. I just don't think I'll have a lot of nostalgia for it in the future, or that many, if any wii games will stay in my rotation next gen.
 
I think I liked it about as much as the GameCube, give or take some stuff. The most obvious negative compared to the GC was how the games looked relative to its contemporaries, but it feels like first party Nintendo titles rose a bit while third party titles dipped a bit. We didn't have much there compared to the Xbox or especially PS2, but some of that was amongst the best that generation like RE4, and arguably Tales of Symphonia and Killer7 could count too (didn't care THAT much for ToS like some did, but Killer7 was an amazing experience, though I never understood why IGN likened it to Snatcher), and it seems it got solid ports of a lot of western stuff. Still, we didn't have new Kirby platformers, the one Mario was a let down relative to SM64, and Wind Waker... was actually my favorite 3D Zelda, so I guess that's an inversion from the Wii. Though we had two great Metroid games, versus one that was the weakest part of a trilogy (though I still loved it!) and one that was a solid game marred with a terrible story at best. And third party, well, there's definitely nothing on the level of RE4, though I liked No More Heroes a lot. Wish Suda made more mindfuck games though rather than just outrageous ones.
 
I remember how good a game like Excitebots was. I thought it was just an inside joke type thing on here, people going OMG TRUCK WINS EVERYTHING etc - then I played it, wow.

I usually hate games that control that way, like ffs I said TURN YOU SHIT ASS THING and it doesn't respond and you just go back to wishing you had a control stick.... but man, Excitebots's controls were TIGHT, they actually worked and the whole thing was just FUN TO PLAY! :D

Completely caught me off guard, I didn't spend much time with Truck despite getting it at launch so wasn't really anticipating Bots, but geez it really clicked with me surprisingly.

Or something like FFCC: My Life As A King, after discovering and falling in love with Actraiser thanks to VC I gave it a go, hours and hours and hours later THIS IS GREAT!

Wii to me will be remembered as the home to 3 of the top 5 best games this whole generation but also pound-for-pound the little known gems people don't talk or care about cause 'lolwii' but I really enjoyed.
 
i don't own a wii yet, but i did buy xenoblade on launch thinking there would be a very small print run. i'll probably pick up SMG1 and 2 at some point as well, but frankly i'm not superexcited about many wii games. like others have already said, the impression i get is that of a of system full of mostly unrealized potential.

i expect wii u to follow a similar path.
 
It definitely had a lot of missed opportunities and had a lot more potential that could have been fulfilled, but it was my favorite platform of the generation. I don't have a lot of interest in FPS or "mature" games, and I like platformers and more whimsical stuff, so the Wii had a huge amount of games for me. I have 19 PS3 games and 68 Wii games, for comparison's sake.

It's really amazing to me how many people overlook a console with so many great games because of 480p and motion controls.
 
BocoDragon said:
Yeah but I'd say things turned around greatly since E3 2008. Since then, we got Sin and Punishment 2 (hardcore game from Treasure), Mario Galaxy 2, a Metroid game developed by Team Ninja (so the game sucked, but its reason for development was anything but a casual focus), 2D platformers like New Super Mario Bros and DKC Returns (sell like boatloads to casuals, but are a very hardcore genre and the epitome of classic Nintendo).

Now we have the fact that iOS, smartphones, tablets, Kinect and Move have all saturated the "casual" market.... all evidence is that Nintendo has greatly abandoned that focus. 3DS doesn't even seem to have a focus on casual games if you haven't noticed. It's all Mario and Kid Icarus etc. That's about as hardcore focused as Nintendo has ever been.

So I'd say that Nintendo did abandon traditional market once... but those days are over. I'd say they're back to catering to the hardcore base.
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Yeah, it has really gotten better. Ever since last fall I have been making great use of my 3DS. (good on Nintendo to do the Ambassador program as well) Nintendo always has done a good job supplying software during the early years of their hardware launches, I'm just cautious with the Wii U (and 3DS to a lesser extent) that once the ball gets rolling and Nintendo gets comfortable, the supply of good software will start to dwindle.
 
It's got a pretty interesting library with a lot of little known titles. Some of it may have been ported elsewhere but for me it's easily the best Nintendo system since the SNES in terms of releases and support.
 
TheMan said:
i'll probably pick up SMG1 and 2 at some point as well, but frankly i'm not superexcited about many wii games.
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Not to pick on you in particular, but this is the most frustrating problem with the way people view the Wii. People apparently can't see past the expected Nintendo franchises, and assume that nothing exists beyond them. Play a little bit of Mario, maybe some Zelda, maybe some Metroid, and then declare, "WELP, I guess I've played everything the Wii has to offer! I'm so tired of Nintendo rehashing Mario and Zelda and Metroid over and over again! I just don't like Nintendo games anymore!"

I would bet money that the vast majority of negative opinions in this thread never even touched games like Sin & Punishment, ExciteBots, or Rhythm Heaven.

i expect wii u to follow a similar path.
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And here's the other frustrating problem. People who made up their mind about the system before they even touched it. "The Wii sucks and had no games" seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy for some people. Yes, if you never attempt to find games for it that interest you, then you will not have many games for it.
 
The first-and-second-output was quite possibly the best I've seen on any console ever, from both quality and quantity standpoint. The third party scene was pretty abysmal, however. In fairness, there are dozens of hidden gems from third-parties on the system; but there is no denying that system missed out on the vast majority of AAA blockbuster titles. All-in-all, I would say the console's library is probably underrated. I certainly got my money's worth out of it.
 
I think it was fantastic. Nintendos output was excellent and there were a lot of unique games like Kororinpa, Trauma Team, Little Kings Story, Xenoblade, Endless Ocean, etc. Virtual Console is great too.

For me the library is better than the N64 and Cube .
 
To be honest I regret selling my Wii in 2009. I did it because I was young and didn't have money. In exchange I got many of the incredible titles that came out in the period including Batman: Arkham Asylum and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

I will be getting a Wii U (probably at launch), because the promise of first-party Nintendo titles throughout it's lifecycle and the already great Wii back-catalogue makes me excited. I can't wait to finally play through many of this generation's greatest platformers--especially after loving Rayman Origins so much.
 
Easily my favourite current-gen system, I own more Wii games than PS3+360 combined, not to mention Nintendo's first/second party teams stellar output.

Wiimote+nunchuck (pointer control scheme + split controller) was pure gold for me, considering I'm not very good at dual analog FPS/TPSs, and much more.

By the way it's far from being a perfect system: it has its flaws, and Nintendo mostly dropped the ball a bit too early... yet, it's home of the most wonderful games I've played during this generation, and quite a lot of overlooked little gems.
 
The Wii probably had the most diverse and best library ever for a Nintendo console even though it didn't have the single standout all time great titles like other systems...
 
I'm not going to write another in-depth page about the Wii, but I will mention some things that really killed it for me. It's one of my least liked consoles of all time, and it's the only Nintendo console I don't care for.

Online

They were hyping the online aspect for the Wii as if it were going to be cutting edge, or at least decent. It wasn't, neither was the terrible shop it had or the multiplayer experience.

Controls

The motion controls were falsely advertised as well. Instead immersing yourself in the game like they were advertising, all it did was cause you to shake your hands in repetitive motions that weren't very accurate unless the game just wanted you to do waggle only.

Not only that, but forcing you to use these controls for so many games was pretty bad as well.

Game Content

The games themselves and especially third party had much less content in them than Gamecube games. I never once felt left out on the Gamecube, the Wii felt like every game was going to be a handheld port of the real deal. It was only until many years later they finally started releasing full games.

Battery life on Wiimotes

The battery life on these things aren't very impressive, and they tend to zap batteries empty pretty quickly. Rechargeable batteries would have made this a lot better.

Navigating the Wii menu

The fact that you had to use a Wiimote or something connected to the Wiimote made this an inconvenience if you just wanted to play Gamecube games, or games that used the Gamecube controller. Should have had the option to let you use the Gamecube controller to navigate the menus.

I understand it didn't have the home button, but there are many ways around this.

Overall

Overall the system was a downgrade compared to what Nintendo always brought to the table. Comparing it to any other gaming device felt like a downgrade as well. Nintendo did great with the DS, which actually utilized online for so many games and had so many great titles(especially third party).

I was lured in by the motion controls, PR talk for online, and the fact that I was really only purchasing Nintendo consoles for so long. The Wii got me to purchase an Xbox 360 to experience what I couldn't on it, or wanted it to be. It also has me skeptical of how Nintendo will continue their home console market.

Only time will tell.
 
As far as hardware goes, yeah, it was a bit disappointing. It was underpowered, the online was pretty barebones and the motion controls mostly didn't deliver on early promises/expectations. The hardware wasn't ALL bad though, because the controller was extremely comfortable, and I loved the pointer.

For software though? It was a great console. I played my wii MUCH more than my 360. The quality and quantity of first party content was awesome. Virtual console was great too. Oh, and it has the Mario Galaxy games, both among my favorite games of all time.

Overall, I think it was a better console than the GameCube. Not quite N64/SNES level though.
 
I have had alot of fun with the Wii, and there are still probably a dozen or so Wii titles that I want to play but haven't bought yet. (I've not played Galaxy 2 or Xenoblade yet for example..)

Galaxy 1 is incredible, and Wii Sports Resort is the best local-multiplayer game I've tried. I have had countless hours of fun playing table tennis, sword fighting, and bowling with friends.

Wii is probably alongside the Dreamcast as my favourite console.
 
I got it for Smash and that is pretty much the only thing I use it for. It was also the system I had the least fun with that I can remember. The game library compared to the others wasn't compelling for me, the online experience wasn't there, and would've liked if the games looked better(wasn't a huge deal but it bugged me).
 
i love jnruns, so with the exception of super meat boy i wouldve been lost without the wii.

to me super mario galaxy is the best game ever made and who ever missed it should have a very good excuse
 
KevinCow said:
Not to pick on you in particular, but this is the most frustrating problem with the way people view the Wii. People apparently can't see past the expected Nintendo franchises, and assume that nothing exists beyond them. Play a little bit of Mario, maybe some Zelda, maybe some Metroid, and then declare, "WELP, I guess I've played everything the Wii has to offer! I'm so tired of Nintendo rehashing Mario and Zelda and Metroid over and over again! I just don't like Nintendo games anymore!"

I would bet money that the vast majority of negative opinions in this thread never even touched games like Sin & Punishment, ExciteBots, or Rhythm Heaven.
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Agreed. I wonder how much this affects other systems with the AAA-ification of the industry.
 
With Wii Nintendo decided to make their own path. It has been an introspective device designed for the games Nintendo wanted to do. Nintendo doesn't believed in HD and online games, they thought it was too soon. Well, obviously they were wrong.

In the other hand, Wii has an amazing bunch of exclusive games: Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Xenoblade: Chronicles, Oboro Muramasa, Donkey Kong Country Returns, No More Heroes (SUDA 51 is God), Skyward Sword, Monster Hunter Tri, Little King Story, World of Goo, Kirby Epic Yarn, House of the Dead Overkill, Bloom Box, Red Steel 2, Epic Mickey, Mario Kart, Brawl...

The lack of Wii has been the long periods without games and the fact that it lost all the great third party games as Assassin's Creed, Batman or Elder Scrolls.

And unbalanced console, with great things but great mistakes too.
 
The Wii was my favourite console since the PS1. It didn't have as many good games as the Xbox 360/PS3 but it had far more great games, in my mind. Because I don't play as many games as I can, preferring to play the ones that suit my ever-narrowing taste, this was perfect for me. I did own all of the consoles, and it was by far the most played. (PC is and was excellent, but that's a given, really)

More than the other consoles, it has games that I will replay for years to come. NSMB Wii, the Super Mario Galaxies, Resident Evil 4 (the best version), DKCR, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Xenoblade, Skyward Sword, the best versions of the Pikmin games etc. It also had plenty of weird, unconventional treats.

I think the Wii Mote and Nunchuck are an excellent control input, though motion controls rarely lived up to the hype, Wii Sports Resort excluded.

The biggest disappointment were the many droughts the system experienced. Even if you aren't finished playing with the games you have, to see nothing of interest being released for months on end is disheartening.
 
Nearly didn't get any console this gen after I got bored by the PS2 (only Tiger Woods kept me going back to that)

But then saw the Wii.
A proper breath of fresh air.
Was a pain in the arse trying to get one though, although kind of exciting to be involved in something like that (can't imagine it ever happening again on such a big scale)

Wii sports was revolutionary, really bought gamers and non-gamers together, people who I'd never even consider asking "fancy a game on the PS2" were "queuing up" to play on the Wii.

After that we had a string of amazing games (mostly 1st party)
Galaxy was proper amazing, galaxy 2 didn't quite hit those levels IMHO but still a very good game. Mario Kart was so much fun. Animal Crossing got my wife waking up early before going to work, just so she could play it for "a quick hour or 2"
Wii Fit changed everything again and kept the console fresh for a while longer.

But then the games dried up, you noticed the lack of decent online more, you had a look over your shoulder a bit more of the multiplats to HD twins were getting...


But, end of the day, was my favourite ever console, by far the best control scheme and I've used it (as a games console) more than I've ever used one in the past.


EDIT: I forgot to mention NSMBW. How the f**k could I forget to mention the amazingness of that game. Me and the wife played that game for hours and hours and hours. And hours.
 
About 10 games are pretty much as good as you will get in gaming
Then you had maybe around 30-50 games that are enjoyable
Then you had the rest which was pretty much not even worth more than an hour of playtime or pure crap.

It was about on par with most consoles I'd say, enjoyable for me but techwise I expected the remote to do a lot more and some things a lot better (remember the original e3 unveiling video?). For purely pointer controls it was great.
 
KevinCow said:
Didn't quite live up to the motion control promises outside of shooters. The gaps between notable releases due to the lack of third-party support probably would've been painful if I'd hadn't owned the other consoles. Could've used a bit of a bump in graphics, or at least HD so it looked better on HDTVs. Also could've used a few more buttons on the controller.

At the end of the day, though? There were a lot of genuinely good to great games released for the system. Anybody who can look at the Wii's library and say that it has very little or even nothing of value, as many on GAF like to, either hasn't given it a chance or has extremely narrow taste in games.
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This post says it best.

Some people on here make it sound like the Wii had this awful lineup that rivals the Sega CD...smh.

Too many droughts after the first few years and while now they released Xenoblade and The Last Story coming soon, it's too little too late(not for me ;) but for most people it was.

When you look back at the Wii they did some great things and some terrible things. They were the only console to be 100% BC with the previous systems games. It has a fantastic library of VC games(obviously there are a lot of great games missing), they tried something new with the motion controls and once again MS and Sony copied them.

They also are responsible for friend codes(same shit as the DS had), Wiiware was so lackluster. Smash Bros has shit netcode(at least MK had great online). Third parties could have done more.

So much more to say, too tired. Wii was a solid system in my book and I enjoyed it!
 
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