Console Debate #21 Wii U

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

7/10. Great top end of the library but it was slow going for the first while and 3rd party stuff is non-existent. Gamepad felt cheap but I actually really like the feel and control of it and used it for the entire life cycle of the system without issue (left joy stick did get a little mushy). The tethered gamepad didn't make much of a difference for me but I could see the portability of the switch being a game changer for some. I think the Nintendo exclusives are overall better for Wii U than they were for 64, GC, and Wii.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,533]

8 minutes ago, ifightdragons said:

Lol yeah that would be annoying.

I'm very optimistic that all the Zelda games will be remade and remastered ad nauseaum, but the Yoshi game - which is quite good - is but a thin hope.

 

It's on 3DS.

[Kguillemette | 1,544]

7/10. Very underrated system. There are some very good games that utilize the dual screen feature that may never be duplicated, like Nintendoland or Star Fox Guard, or Bowser Party mode in Mario Party 10 in addition to the usual first party bangers that came out. I won't penalize the console simply because games were ported to the switch, either. Most every good game gets ported sooner or later to reach a bigger audience.

The tablet works very well as a quasi-portable device. The kids can play it without tying up the TV, which is nice too. 

My biggest gripe is the disks are very easily destroyed. If the label gets scratched, that's a wrap!

[Estil | 1,265]

1 hour ago, ifightdragons said:

Lol yeah that would be annoying.

I'm very optimistic that all the Zelda games will be remade and remastered ad nauseaum, but the Yoshi game - which is quite good - is but a thin hope.

So far neither of the NES Zeldas, Link to the Past (they got GBA ports but even LttP only got small changes; sadly the Four Swords part is impossible to get into and play solo) nor the Oracle Zeldas ever got remade/remastered.  In light of the Links Awakening port coming out I'm all but certain that doing the same thing with the Oracle Zeldas is only a matter of time.

Shoot right from the start of when Metroid Prime came out I thought it'd be super cool dudish (as my wife likes to say) to do Super Metroid in that kind of way.  I mean Metroid Prime already used a new version of Super Metroid's Lower Norfair theme didn't they?  I'm glad they finally did a reboot of Metroid 2 on the 3DS but right from when Zero Mission came out I would've rather they had done "Metroid Second Mission" on the GBA and included the Metroid 2 DX version that was meant for GBC but was never finished.

[ifightdragons | 234]

1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said:

It's on 3DS.

Yeah I know, I have it on 3DS as well. I just want a console version with good framerate.

 

[ifightdragons | 234]

1 minute ago, Estil said:

So far neither of the NES Zeldas, Link to the Past (they got GBA ports but even LttP only got small changes; sadly the Four Swords part is impossible to get into and play solo) nor the Oracle Zeldas ever got remade/remastered.  In light of the Links Awakening port coming out I'm all but certain that doing the same thing with the Oracle Zeldas is only a matter of time.

Shoot right from the start of when Metroid Prime came out I thought it'd be super cool dudish (as my wife likes to say) to do Super Metroid in that kind of way.  I mean Metroid Prime already used a new version of Super Metroid's Lower Norfair theme didn't they?  I'm glad they finally did a reboot of Metroid 2 on the 3DS but right from when Zero Mission came out I would've rather they had done "Metroid Second Mission" on the GBA and included the Metroid 2 DX version that was meant for GBC but was never finished.

Many interesting points.

The classic 8/16-bit Zelda games have at least been re-released ad nauseaum and are easily playable on most platforms. I was talking more about the 3D Zelda games. The 3DS remakes and Wii U remakes should all be remastered on Switch.

I totally agree on the Oracle games. They'll likely reuse the engine and get those out soon enough. And I'll buy them! The LA remake was spot-on in my book, with only a few minor niggles.

I sadly found the Metroid 2 remake by Nintendo to be quite dull and uninspired. It was mostly a decent game, but I got bored by the repetitive enemy encounters and super bland art style halfway through. It looked and felt like a mobile game to me.

[cj_robot | 542]

I guess I'm the weirdo who actually liked the tablet. I found myself playing on the tablet exclusively more often than not, and I would actually get upset when I started a game that required me to turn on the TV. It was just so convenient to play an actual console-quality game on a tablet while my family watched TV. Obviously, the Switch is a more perfect realization of this concept, but at the time I thought the Wii U was pretty cool.

Lots of great first-party games, but overall, the library is pretty small compared to it's competitors. The Virtual Console was a big plus, though.

6/10

Edited March 27, 2021 by cj_robot

[Grondorr | 49]

11 minutes ago, cj_robot said:

I guess I'm the weirdo who actually liked the tablet. I found myself playing on the tablet exclusively more often than not, and I would actually get upset when I started a game that required me to turn on the TV. It was just so convenient to play an actual console-quality game on a tablet while my family watched TV. Obviously, the Switch is a more perfect realization of this concept, but at the time I thought the Wii U was pretty cool.

Lots of great first-party games, but overall, the library is pretty small compared to it's competitors. The Virtual Console was a big plus, though.

6/10

You aren't the only one. I liked being able to switch screens in the later games.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

24 minutes ago, cj_robot said:

guess I'm the weirdo who actually liked the tablet.

I liked the idea of the gamepad but overall felt like it was a miss. The screen was meh even by 2012 standards and the feel of it was cheap. It was light enough that I feel like it was too thick and the placement of the thumbs sticks was possibly the worse rendition of a controller since the N64. 

[Jono1874 | 144]

I voted a 4.

The Wii U is unquestionably my least favorite Nintendo console. I remember the drip feed of games. I remember Mario Kart 8 being basically unfinished when it came out.  I remember clinging to  and buying basically every first party game that came out for it. Thing is, I don't like Mario Kart 8, Bayonetta 2, or Hyrule Warriors.  They're fine games, just not my cup of tea. That was basically 2014's entire Wii U line up too, sans Smash Bros.  So like, every game that came out for this thing that year was either a horrible port of some Xbox game, or something that I don't really want to play.

When Smash came out, I was super excited. I bought amiibos, and had a good time. I later got Splatoon, and had some more good times. Mario Maker came later, and it was yet again, a good time.  The problem was that these games had no lasting appeal to me. Smash was more of the same. Splatoon was repetitive, and Mario Maker forced me to wade through bad levels all day.  At $60 a pop, I could only ask myself "what am I doing with my life?"

Then Nintendo gave up on it.  At which point I bought Wonderful 101 and Pikmin 3 and enjoyed them both.  Are they worth the $300 I spent on the console? I don't know. They're definitely not worth it now considering every single game I've mentioned in this post has either had a port or a update/sequel released on the Switch.

My very last experience with my Wii U was playing through Breath of the Wild on it. Breath of the Wild was the game that I had initially bought the console for 3 years prior to it's release. We didn't know it's name back then, but we knew a new Zelda game was inevitable.  I bought Breath of the Wild day one, forgoing buying a Switch on principle. I wasn't planning on buying another Nintendo console ever again. I was that annoyed with the entire situation.

My wife bought a Switch on impulse a month after Breath of the Wild came out.  If not for that,  I would have never bought one.

I think that Nintendo is the greatest video game company in the world. They have reached some amazing heights, and will continue to do so. But when they get too hot for their britches, you get nonsense like the Wii U. 2014-2016 Nintendo is unquestionably the worst they've ever been. Even as fanatical of a Nintendo guy as I am, lost my faith in them almost completely. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that I gave it a 4.  The Switch proved to me that they're capable of rebounding, and they clearly learned from the mistakes they made. They'll inevitably make mistakes again. Whether they're this severe, is hard to say. Anything is possible now. They need to keep their heads out of their asses and keep their eyes on the ball. Their leadership in this industry is not absolute. The Wii U is solid proof of that.  I will never buy another console simply because they made it again though. They gotta show me that it's worth it first. In the end, I bought it because it was Nintendo. I thought that they'd just had a unappealing 2013 (I'm not a huge Mario fan).  I was very, very wrong.

 

The only solace I take with this entire situation is that some day, the Wii U is going to be very collectable.  I own basically every 1st party game released for it. When the time comes, I'm getting my wasted money back and then some. 

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by Jono1874

[Tanooki | 4,934]

The PiiU barely worth turning on seems quite fitting, so yeah, I gave it a 2.  The only reason it doesn't get a 1, it had some really good games, and if you hack it, it actually has some real value.

Why the 2?  I guess because I made the mistake of owning one from launch.  The only current market console I bought and sold off in utter disgust in 30 years, and so disgusted with it it broke my ability to trust Nintendo to make consoles.  Had the Switch not been a handheld, I'd have waited 1-2 years before committing to make sure it wouldn't be another nail in the coffin.

Bare with me, it's a good story, if you read below this point that qualifies my grade fairly.

Part of what compounded my disgust came actually from the inside, brother still after all these years is a producer for a video game company that is a Nintendo licensee, and having worked between various other big companies before his current for a long stint now, you make friends with other heads of companies, producers, etc.  After a few months or so of ownership when stuff already started to look sketchy I asked what was up and he let me in on some stuff, discussions made.  I know this is my word vs the internet, so it sounds like manufactured bullshit for attention, but it is what I was told, so believe it, or grain of salt it.  -- Nintendo as with the other two bigguns were approached by a primary grouping of big third parties wanting specific spec boosts for the then upcoming hardware from all of them, Nintendo included, to get full on proper support because they could easily port between the three, and have reduced porting/dev costs as such.  MS and Sony had their me-too mostly consoles this last generation, Nintendo had already committed to HD but their tablet.  Nintendo as we know is cheap, they also are stubborn, and set a budget to MSRP the thing which the tablet consumed a good bit towards, so they said NO.  The grouping gave them a friendly or-else ultimatum, Nintendo gave a friendly like it or lump it in return.

What was the result?  WiiU launched with: Badly running ports, those badly running ports were also of games upwards of YEARS old that also ran badly.  In some cases an added middle finger, say like from EA they gave one game for $60, then gave the other two the entire trilogy (Mass Effect 1-3) for the same price, and it ran far nicer too.  Stuff would get skipped, delayed, bailed and terminated.  Within 18mo most third parties made their 'public' attempts at trying, giving another chance, asking consumers to beg for their support, and packed it in as well.  Nintendo kept that zombie system shambling along almost on their lonesome for over 2 1/2 years.  The hardware also was designed poorly internally which contributed to the third party hatred.  3rd generation Gamecube hardware long in the tooth having some issues keeping up, and compounded with supposedly a coding language so fucking horrid it made the Saturn not seem so #1 evil in that department.  How so?  Basically the way it took code, pulled in graphics and displayed them, it was basically all back ass backwards compared to Sony/MS so porting wasn't porting, it was creating essentially a new copy of the game which was guaranteed to sell crappily, so they'd just shovel it with issues or not bother.

That's the legacy of the WiiU in hardware.  Bad design internally, bad relations with third parties who set out to teach them a lesson for being arrogant, and crap coding language making any attempts to release ports a hideous chore.

The only GOOD legacy?  The first and second party games which thankfully now released (a couple) on 3DS and majority to the Switch where games that made a loss, broke even, or a narrow profit due to a dismal hardware userbase can properly be enjoy by millions more and the developers can finally realize proper profit and userbase to enjoy their works.  Pathetic isn't it?

[fox | 1,667]

Every option selected

Achievement unlocked!

[ZeldaFan042 | 1,181]

The Wii U is my third favorite console, behind the N64 and GameCube. I'd give it a solid 9.

[asmikace | 68]

I gave it a 4 even though I am not in the position to judge the system. It had some great first party games and its a bonus that its Wii backwards compatible. However, I felt it was a continuation of the Wii and the screen controller failed to gather interest from thirdparty publishers and buyers. It doesn't help the legacy that it was discounted early to focus on the Switch and that good amount of the hits are now on the Switch. It has some fun games that I considered getting for it before the Wii U got discounted but I am glad that they are now ported to the Switch. Hard to believe that Nintendo was able to rebound so well from it.

[Tanooki | 4,934]

42 minutes ago, asmikace said:

I gave it a 4 even though I am not in the position to judge the system. It had some great first party games and its a bonus that its Wii backwards compatible. However, I felt it was a continuation of the Wii and the screen controller failed to gather interest from thirdparty publishers and buyers. It doesn't help the legacy that it was discounted early to focus on the Switch and that good amount of the hits are now on the Switch. It has some fun games that I considered getting for it before the Wii U got discounted but I am glad that they are now ported to the Switch. Hard to believe that Nintendo was able to rebound so well from it.

You seem fair and on the nose with it too.  I think the entire fact the rebound worked, they gave up on being a specific console manufacturer.  They've always been strongest since the mid-90s as a handheld company, and that's what the Switch is, made even clearer with the Lite.  They created (hybrid Switch) a market where there was none while expanding on what they were were best at.  Again using aged(though not badly) technology with the shield tech, coupled with the fact they didn't piss off developers this time did leaps and bounds for it.  They got together with those they infuriated, got the hardware capable of running all the modern tech engines, very well too, since they scale, and got a platform that could run a lot of things very very well.  Yet at the same time, sucked up to a lot of indie/small developers to really blow out the eshop format at the same time.  It was calculated and well executed and helped for a fast recovery.  Them destroyed the legacy of the WiiU releasing all its few really great games on the Switch was just some icing on a well deserved (and needed) cake.

[elprincipe | 142]

9.

I love the Wii U and have had lots of great times with it. My favorite game was Splatoon but sadly, as with many modern games, once the audience moves on (to Splatoon 2 in this case) it's not worth really playing at this time. But there are tons of other games I had a blast with, especially Pikimin 3, Nintendoland, Game & Wario, Super Mario 3D World, and of course Smash, along with many others. Not a lot of shovelware on the system and I like it that way. It's too bad Nintendo couldn't produce more games of the caliber of their best and that they couldn't convince enough third parties to bring out quality stuff.

I know many hated it, but I always loved the gamepad. It's comfortable for me and when used correctly (Nintendoland, Pikmin 3, Game & Wario, etc.) it can really add to gameplay by allowing one player to take a different role. The battery could certainly have been better of course. I like also that the system allows for multiplayer without buying new controllers, since most people already had Wiimotes at that point like I did.

Bottom line, awesome system with some awesome games, but it didn't last too long unfortunately and there were some flaws that held it back (along with Nintendo's apparent inability to market it).

[Estil | 1,265]

Honestly though I felt the Gamepad was bit too heavy to be fully comfortable in the way a standard controller is, even though I have fairly large hands.  And NO, I do not fit the "men with big hands" stereotype in case anyone asks.  

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

Slightly below average and not really memorable. 4/10. 

[asmikace | 68]

14 hours ago, Tanooki said:

You seem fair and on the nose with it too.  I think the entire fact the rebound worked, they gave up on being a specific console manufacturer.  They've always been strongest since the mid-90s as a handheld company, and that's what the Switch is, made even clearer with the Lite.  They created (hybrid Switch) a market where there was none while expanding on what they were were best at.  Again using aged(though not badly) technology with the shield tech, coupled with the fact they didn't piss off developers this time did leaps and bounds for it.  They got together with those they infuriated, got the hardware capable of running all the modern tech engines, very well too, since they scale, and got a platform that could run a lot of things very very well.  Yet at the same time, sucked up to a lot of indie/small developers to really blow out the eshop format at the same time.  It was calculated and well executed and helped for a fast recovery.  Them destroyed the legacy of the WiiU releasing all its few really great games on the Switch was just some icing on a well deserved (and needed) cake.

I get 3DO vibes from the Wii U for the same reasons you mention. Both had great software but since the consoles failed to garner a viable base, most of the games got ported to more successful consoles, making the consoles less appealing to seek out for exclusives.  At least they make interesting pieces on an entertainment  console though

[Tanooki | 4,934]

34 minutes ago, asmikace said:

I get 3DO vibes from the Wii U for the same reasons you mention. Both had great software but since the consoles failed to garner a viable base, most of the games got ported to more successful consoles, making the consoles less appealing to seek out for exclusives.  At least they make interesting pieces on an entertainment  console though

3DO does fit, it had some nice gem quality ports, some got converted (Ur Quan Masters) and others stuck (Wing Commander) where it was a best of situation.  Ultimately the hardware wasn't good, sales were worse, but they do have a niche level of interest and some good excuse about them.  WiiU, the limited range detached controller you can play off of so the TV isn't tied up being its one good thing.

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

Are people still calling the Wii U the next Sega Saturn? It may seem on the surface that everything has been ported off Wii U and there's almost no reason to own one... but people are definitely going to need a Wii U in the future for all those hot rare remaining exclusives. What if they lost the source code to Game & Wario and it can't be ported just like Panzer Dragoon Saga!

[Link | 2,712]

On 3/27/2021 at 9:32 PM, Jono1874 said:

I will never buy another console simply because they made it again though. They gotta show me that it's worth it first.

Same, although I avoided that mistake. I kept on waiting for Legend of Zelda, and boy am I glad I did. If I had a Wii U waiting on that game, I would have been majorly pissed off when they took out the “tablet as Sheikah slate” functionality to push Switch sales.

[TDIRunner | 2,740]

21 minutes ago, Link said:

 they took out the “tablet as Sheikah slate” functionality to push Switch sales.

That was a HUGE disappointment, but you know Nintendo wasn't going to allow the Wii U version of BOTW to be better than the Switch version.  

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

54 minutes ago, Link said:

Same, although I avoided that mistake. I kept on waiting for Legend of Zelda, and boy am I glad I did. If I had a Wii U waiting on that game, I would have been majorly pissed off when they took out the “tablet as Sheikah slate” functionality to push Switch sales.

Yeah, I literally couldn't believe that when I booted the game up... I thought my gamepad was broken. Unbelievable at the time.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

19 hours ago, Tanooki said:

You seem fair and on the nose with it too.  I think the entire fact the rebound worked, they gave up on being a specific console manufacturer.  They've always been strongest since the mid-90s as a handheld company, and that's what the Switch is, made even clearer with the Lite.  They created (hybrid Switch) a market where there was none while expanding on what they were were best at.  Again using aged(though not badly) technology with the shield tech, coupled with the fact they didn't piss off developers this time did leaps and bounds for it.  They got together with those they infuriated, got the hardware capable of running all the modern tech engines, very well too, since they scale, and got a platform that could run a lot of things very very well.  Yet at the same time, sucked up to a lot of indie/small developers to really blow out the eshop format at the same time.  It was calculated and well executed and helped for a fast recovery.  Them destroyed the legacy of the WiiU releasing all its few really great games on the Switch was just some icing on a well deserved (and needed) cake.

I feel like the Switch is the continuation of the experience Nintendo tried to bring on the 3DS and the opposite of what they tried to do with the Wii U. On 3DS, games were made to be as close to console games as they could with the adaptation of Wii and Wii U games to the handheld. The Wii U by contrast was  a console that let you play console games in a handheld setting. 

The Switch embraced the handheld aspect of the spectrum and that is really it's saving grace. Even now, by holding off on a Switch pro and focusing on making games look and run just ok shows their focus is more on making handheld gaming the center of the experience instead of trying to push frames and hd gaming.