Console Debate #30 Wii

[Brickman | 4,000]

3 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

. I fuck with the Wii.

 

[Jono1874 | 144]

The Wii, along with the Nintendo 64, are the two consoles that I vividly remember the first time I ever played them because of how revolutionary they were.

That being said, I don't find either console to be particularly great. I didn't really jive with anything on the Wii. My best memories of it are in summer of 2011. I would get high as fuck every night and playing Bit.Trip.Runner and Mega Man 10. I thought that Mario Galaxy was alright, and I kind of enjoyed Skyward Sword until I realized it thought I was stupid.  Oh, I also beat Earthbound on it for the first time through homebrew.

I really like the look of the hardware, and I really like the concept of the motion control stuff. In practice, itl was probably best used in Metroid Prime 3.  I really loved the online features that the console had. I think it was the first console I ever hooked up to the internet, so it was new and exciting in that sense. I only had dial up internet at the time, so I had to jump through hoops to get it to work.

Spoiler

I had an iMac G3, which had both a Dial Up and ethernet modem built in. You could share your internet connection between computers with very little effort. Since the Nintendo WiFi connection dongle didn't work with OSX, I decided to buy a WiFi Router to see if I could share my AOL connection to the router and then connect to the WiFi with the Wii.

It worked pretty well actually.  I downloaded several virtual console games this way until my town finally got some form of broadband a few years later.

 

Games were pretty hit and miss though. I found a lot of them to be very....bland....

For instance, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is the only 2D Mario game I've played that to this day I know for certain I will never, ever play again. Animal Crossing City Folk just plain sucked ass and was nowhere close to the quality of it's Gamecube predecessor. Even Smash was pretty lame compared to the Gamecube one. I don't know what it is, exactly. I just don't like it. I mean yeah, they put Sonic in there, but his moveset was bad and they barely had any content from his series to show off. Speaking of Sonic, Sonic and the Secret Rings was the second Wii game I ever played and I remember thinking that the bad controls in the game were just me not understanding motion control yet.

I don't know how history will view the Wii. It looks like the people that grew up with it remember it fondly. I personally think it's one of Nintendo's weakest consoles. I still like it but I don't love it.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,014]

5 hours ago, Shmup said:

 

Turn the Wii and a little Luther Vandross and the mood is set

[spacepup | 2,405]

16 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

5 for me

Wii motion controls suck and not in a "motion controls suck" kind of way, in a Wii motion controls suck kind of way. They're just laggy, imprecise, and the worst. Playstation Move was amazing, it just had no games.

It basically got left out of an entire era of RPGs and action games because it was underpowered. There is no Elder Scrolls, Far Cry, GTA, Uncharted, or Mass Effect equivalents on a Wii. Lots of developers decided shitty 3D was a better option than 2D. Ctrl+F Muramasa in this thread for proof enough of that. If there were more 2D games or games with timeless art styles, a wider variety of non-Nintendo games would get represented looking back on it.

It should've been "Nintendo's PS2" in terms of third party variety and quality, after all PS2 was underpowered and extremely popular. But it wasn't. It was a dumping ground with a number of diamonds in the rough.

I agree mostly with your assessment here, especially the part in bold.

Even there was lots of junk on the system, I can't say the system is completely terrible, because there were plenty of good and interesting games, some of which were quite unique.

One BIG winner for me on the Wii is Xenoblade Chronicles.  I absolutely loved the game, and thought it was a fantastic RPG experience.  More solid RPGs would have been nice on the system.

Aside from the first party Nintendo stuff, which I very much liked, some other interesting games I liked on the Wii, are:

Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure - a casual, fun, quirky game - loved it!
Trauma Center / Trauma Team - like digital Operation, but more! I really enjoyed these games
Muramasa - already mentioned earlier in the thread, neat/pretty game
A Boy and His Blob - I enjoyed this more than I expected, and I loved the art style
Geometry Wars - this was a high-action super fun game - I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Mercury Meltdown - fun puzzle game I liked
Marble Saga: Kororinpa - another cute puzzly game
Elebits - Another cute/fun game that I don't see talked about much
Epic Mickey - I really enjoyed this 3d adventure game.  It was fun and I liked the gameplay and art

There are some other interesting games I enjoyed also.  

I definitely wouldn't rate the Wii super high above other consoles, but I think it gets a lot of hate due to the insane amount of shovelware/junk, but there are definitely some fun diamonds in the rough, as DefaultGen pointed out.

 

 

 

[GPX | 1,370]

I’m giving this one a 9. Simply because I had the best time with it with a bunch of mates on several drunken parties. I missed those times.

Plus, it might also be the first console to show concern with your physical health with games such as Wii Fit and other fitness-related gaming. How can you not love a console that’s trying to keep you alive for longer?

[Link | 2,715]

On 5/31/2021 at 1:03 PM, WhyNotZoidberg said:

The library could have held more point and click adventures

I got one of the Sam & Max games which is point & click, and it was choppy as hell. I don’t know what kind of shit programming is in there, but they clearly didn’t test it at all. I was mad, I love Sam & Max.

 

19 hours ago, Robot_Ninjutsu said:

I wanted to like "New Super Mario Brothers" but something was just....missing.  I've never had a 2D Mario game that I just lose interest and stop playing.

I like it fine, but I know what you mean.  It’s very same-y throughout. Really missing the variety that made SMB 2 and 3 so great. There are different evironments, but they just feel like palette swaps, and the world structure with the different stage types is the same thing over and over. 

 

19 hours ago, Robot_Ninjutsu said:

I have never been able to shake the feeling that the Wii was Nintendo's "admitting defeat" console.  They knew they couldn't compete with MS, Sony, and their 3rd party support, so they made this system for "everyone else".

Again, you’re not wrong. They followed a business strategy called “blue ocean”. The ocean is huge. Rather than stay in the red ocean, where sharks bloody the waters, they found another place to be. Not a bad pivot after the Gamecube was trounced. For that generation, they expanded the market, not unlike making the NES “for everybody” with the Zapper and R.O.B.

[WhyNotZoidberg | 585]

On 6/2/2021 at 9:24 AM, GPX said:

Plus, it might also be the first console to show concern with your physical health with games such as Wii Fit and other fitness-related gaming. How can you not love a console that’s trying to keep you alive for longer?

The NES had the Power Pad tho. Admittedly it did not have the proper tech to track your progress and build you a work out routine and schedule, but still.

[DefaultGen | 5,415]

Not many exercise games actually resemble a workout pre Ring Fit Adventure, although maybe someone can give me one. I mostly think of games that emphasize jogging in place or using a bad stationary bike. Wii Fit is yoga and balance crap. I've never broken a sweat with Wii Fit. It certainly failed at its goal IMO. Other Wii fitness games like EA Active are just crappy minigame compilations that use excessive motion controls. DDR is more exercise than any Wii game!

[mbd39 | 2,026]

I came for the pegboy comments and was not disappointed. 10/10 comments, would read again.

 

[fox | 1,668]

@DefaultGen

the problem with Wii Fitting is all the exercises are only a min or two tops.  After that booted back to a menu, instruction screen, recalibration, and loading.  Way too much start and stop down time.

only maybe the boxing is long enough to raise your heart rate

Edited June 3, 2021 by fox

[Robot_Ninjutsu | 122]

On 6/2/2021 at 3:36 AM, Jono1874 said:

For instance, New Super Mario Bros. Wii is the only 2D Mario game I've played that to this day I know for certain I will never, ever play again..

Do you have any idea why you feel this way about the game?  I'm inclined to believe what @Link said about it being "samey", but there was something else about it.

My gut says their heart really wasn't fully into it. Like "We don't really need to make a great SMB game, we just need to make *A* SMB game."

[WhyNotZoidberg | 585]

35 minutes ago, Robot_Ninjutsu said:

Do you have any idea why you feel this way about the game?  I'm inclined to believe what @Link said about it being "samey", but there was something else about it.

My gut says their heart really wasn't fully into it. Like "We don't really need to make a great SMB game, we just need to make *A* SMB game."

New Super Mario Bros on DS and New Super Mario Bros 2 on 3DS are much better than New Super Mario Bros Wii, it's true. And I think they are better for the same reason that 3D Land is better than 3D World.

NSMBWii and 3D World are built around this multiplayer party novelty factor at some detriment to the solo experience. Without the simultaneous multiplayer crazyness, there's just "less" there. 

Still I really like NSMBWii, even as one of the weakest entries in the 2D Mario series, it's still an above average 2D platformer. And maybe it's just me, but it feels like the difficulty level ramps up faster than in other Mario games and I like a challenge. 

[Tanooki | 4,942]

I can say this much since we're taking shots at New Super Mario Bros Wii (if not perhaps overall most that franchise spinoff) is that they're just not that well made mostly, like mindless cash-in stuff with a dumb mechanic.

The Wii one though was the worst of the lot to me by miles, the one I did NOT finish and felt no remorse over it either.  To make it short and simple if someone wanted a tldr for this it's this: Imagine a cookie cutter generic 2D platformer game anyone could slap together with a NES maker app like tool, then apply Super Mario Bros IP stickers on everything to try and make it appealing and hide the truth.  That's New Super Mario Bros Wii.

That's how I felt much beyond and through world 1 and it went down from there.  I got more and more bored into World 2, then 3, then 4... I'd stop playing for more hours, days, weeks at a time. Eventually wherever Wendy was the boss, that's when I gave up caring and stopped cold.  I just got bored, it looked like Mario, but the physics handling of it, the music, the stage design...it felt like some two bit hack put it together with no clue what makes a Mario game fun and sucks you into it.  Phoned in would be a great description of it.

 

New SMB2 wasn't largely better, they just covered the boring of it all more with the mass GOLD coin run mechanic of see how many you could get in each stage with the big payout of the cumulative coin grab, but it sucked enough less to be worth seeing through at least.  The only one I found great, and I think even Nintendo realized a change was needed, the WiiU/Switch one, they went all out in PR junk saying they mirrored not just the style, but the physics/movement of it all based off of Super Mario World -- you could feel that.  I enjoyed finishing that one.

[GPX | 1,370]

8 hours ago, WhyNotZoidberg said:

The NES had the Power Pad tho. Admittedly it did not have the proper tech to track your progress and build you a work out routine and schedule, but still.

I was being a bit cheeky with the previous response. I know there were prior attempts at making people sweat eg. PS2 eyetoy games, dance games with the dance mat etc.

However, as far as I can tell, the Wii was the first console that advertised heavily on the “healthy lifestyle” aspects of gaming. This was the first console that sold by the masses not just for the wiggly wand-waving gimmick, but also to the mums and grandmums who wanted to maintain a healthy lifestyle mixed with digital entertainment.

I mean right from the start, it had Wii Sports. A game where anyone uncoordinated to play in real life sports, can have a go, break some sweat and have fun without any fear of humiliation.

Edited June 3, 2021 by GPX

[Robot_Ninjutsu | 122]

8 hours ago, Tanooki said:

That's how I felt much beyond and through world 1 and it went down from there.  I got more and more bored into World 2, then 3, then 4... I'd stop playing for more hours, days, weeks at a time. Eventually wherever Wendy was the boss, that's when I gave up caring and stopped cold.  I just got bored, it looked like Mario, but the physics handling of it, the music, the stage design...it felt like some two bit hack put it together with no clue what makes a Mario game fun and sucks you into it.  Phoned in would be a great description of it.

Thank you! I couldn't figure out what was bugging me most about the game. The physics.

[Jono1874 | 144]

21 hours ago, Robot_Ninjutsu said:

Do you have any idea why you feel this way about the game?  I'm inclined to believe what @Link said about it being "samey", but there was something else about it.

My gut says their heart really wasn't fully into it. Like "We don't really need to make a great SMB game, we just need to make *A* SMB game."

I think it's because it simply has nothing that appeals to me. It's just a very lifeless game from a presentation standpoint and the physics were bad. The level design wasn't interesting either.   I know what you mean though.  I could probably get over all of that, as I have with the other games in the series. There's just something extra repellent about the Wii version that I can't put my finger on either.

[Tanooki | 4,942]

I think it's not one bad thing about it, it's a nice combination of things that glob together into this mash up of just awfulness.

[T-Pac | 7,572]

The Wii was my first home-console, and I loved it.
But a few years later, I got a Genesis and never looked back (or rather, forward ...)

-CasualCart

[Kguillemette | 1,546]

7/10. Really it's the system that I play the most lately by a long shot. While it loses points because I dislike most of the "waggle" games, it gained them back at how efficient of an emulator it is as well as being a fully functioning GameCube.

[asmikace | 68]

I gave it a 7. Its a unique console and it has some really fun games and Wii sports and resort is still fun to play with family and friends. However, I guess I am more of a traditional video games and find most of the library too gimmicky or just shovelware. I am glad its backwards compatible with the Gamecube and also showed that a video game system can be interesting without better graphics and performance.

[SpoonMan Abrams X | 697]

8/10 because while it was gimmmicky, it did the gimmick pretty well and Wii Sports is a lot of fun.

Also for the Virtual Console

[Sumez | 2,969]

On 6/3/2021 at 9:46 PM, WhyNotZoidberg said:

New Super Mario Bros on DS and New Super Mario Bros 2 on 3DS are much better than New Super Mario Bros Wii, it's true.

I dare you, go back and play NSMB on DS, and then NSMBW back to back and then come back here and try to say that same comment with a completely straight face.

[WhyNotZoidberg | 585]

6 hours ago, Sumez said:

I dare you, go back and play NSMB on DS, and then NSMBW back to back and then come back here and try to say that same comment with a completely straight face.

I was just looking for an excuse to replay NSMB DS! 

[Foochie776 | 1,056]

I’m very thankful they’re porting some of the more prominent titles to the switch because I can finally play some of them. I like the Wii and it’s fun for a little while but I’m not a huge fan. The motion controls and I just don’t jive. 

[koifish | 556]

Definitely worth having one, but only if it's hacked. A stock os wii is about as useless as a stock PSP, especially now that the Wii shop is down for good.

I'm keeping mine as a play box for the future; If my future kids ever want to play video games, I'll give them that box and show them how the emulators and such work, then say "go nuts". That and a 2DS should be more than enough for a while.