The Wii U sucked. We don't have to be nice about it. It's the truth. It had some great exclusive games and the MiiVerse was pretty awesome, but that pretty much sums up the good stuff about it. And now the MiiVerse is dead and all but about a half dozen of those exclusive games are now available on the Switch. It could almost be phased out of existence without any real loss. Almost...
The Wii U still has one wonderful feature that makes it worth owning. It's just about the most perfect emulation device ever created. At least for Nintendo purposes. Along with the classic systems, it can act as a Wii and a DS, which is something you can't really do on PC or anything else for that matter.
The Wii titles in particular are what I'm looking forward to revisiting this summer. Another one of Wii U's massive shortcomings was the virtual console. So many great titles could have been given one last chance to be played. Then again maybe not considering only like 12 people had a Wii u. Still, I was definitely bitter that a lot of great games never got that one final showcase.
So this past weekend, I tinkered with my Wii U for several hours and unlocked it's potential!!! It was actually quite a pain in the butt, and would have been a lot easier had I just tried to do it on the Wii, but unfortunately the Wi-Fi on it is no longer working and that makes certain things significantly more difficult to do.
And while it is rationalization to some extent, it's also a reality that many Wii games cannot be imported to other systems because of the controller. Barring an actual successor to the Wii, these games are potentially locked and lost.
So at any rate that's going to be my summer project. I've pulled a list of games that I'd like to revisit or even play for the first time. And I'm going to see if my love for the Wii is still legit or if it's completely tinted by rose colored glass. That said, I've already gone a long way into this and I have to tell you, the Wii U menu looks fantastic when it's filled with a bunch of these Wii titles.
The Wii U still has one wonderful feature that makes it worth owning. It's just about the most perfect emulation device ever created. At least for Nintendo purposes. Along with the classic systems, it can act as a Wii and a DS, which is something you can't really do on PC or anything else for that matter.
The Wii titles in particular are what I'm looking forward to revisiting this summer. Another one of Wii U's massive shortcomings was the virtual console. So many great titles could have been given one last chance to be played. Then again maybe not considering only like 12 people had a Wii u. Still, I was definitely bitter that a lot of great games never got that one final showcase.
So this past weekend, I tinkered with my Wii U for several hours and unlocked it's potential!!! It was actually quite a pain in the butt, and would have been a lot easier had I just tried to do it on the Wii, but unfortunately the Wi-Fi on it is no longer working and that makes certain things significantly more difficult to do.
And while it is rationalization to some extent, it's also a reality that many Wii games cannot be imported to other systems because of the controller. Barring an actual successor to the Wii, these games are potentially locked and lost.
So at any rate that's going to be my summer project. I've pulled a list of games that I'd like to revisit or even play for the first time. And I'm going to see if my love for the Wii is still legit or if it's completely tinted by rose colored glass. That said, I've already gone a long way into this and I have to tell you, the Wii U menu looks fantastic when it's filled with a bunch of these Wii titles.
Recently Spotted:
*crickets*
Dewey is a drop of dew that doesn't really move on his own (though somehow he can still jump by pressing A). So while he can't walk, he can roll and that's where the main focus of the games controls come in. You tilt the Wiimote back and forth to manipulate the angle of the 3D plane he is on. Need him to roll to the right, tilt the controller to the right, need him to roll towards the front of the screen tilt the controller towards yourself. Simple enough. Using the A button to jump is a little bit awkward, but it still works.
Unfortunately they didn't leave well enough alone, because that would have limited the action and forced the designers to focus more on level design. Can't have that can we? We need to have monsters to fight.
So Dewey, aside from being a dew drop can manipulate himself into steam or a block of ice. When he is ice he can bash into enemies, and when he is steam he can float a little bit and shoot lightning (I guess because he looks like a cloud that's supposed to make sense). And to change between his three forms you use up and down on the control pad. It's not terrible, but it adds a little more complexity to the controls.
The real issue is with the combat itself. You have to simultaneously tilt the controller to get Dewey to move around the board while switching between your three forms while you attack your enemies. That can become a complete disaster when you have to reposition your hands for comfort and you accidentally tilted more than you intend to. On top of that, like a lot of issues with a wiimote, the controls aren't always 100% responsive. So sometimes slightly tilting the controller works better than a dramatic tilt.
Anyway, I went into this game knowing that Konami made it, alongside Elebits/Elebees, which was fantastic, but also that it got some pretty middling review scores. But sometimes reviewers latch onto the wrong things and don't get a game, and I had hoped that was the case here. Unfortunately, nope everyone got it right. This game was a neat idea but poorly executed.
Anyway, the game is still great and it's been so long since I played the DS version that I remember virtually nothing about it for the Wii version.
I enjoyed the Trauma Team games, both on DS and Wii. They were the only games where I've ever gotten stuck because my grasp of the English language proved insufficient. I just didn't have the vocabulary on hand to understand all the medical terms they would throw your way in the heath of an operation gone bad. Nothing Google couldn't solve of course, but still a unique experience.
I was under the impression that this was supposed to have been some kind of on rail shooter like Sin & Punishment, but it's actually like some of those second-tier Sonic the hedgehog games like Sonic and the Black Knight. And unfortunately it's about as good as those too.
To its credit, the game actually looks fantastic. It actually looks like it borrowed a Sonic art style, not just the play style. Anyway, it's not inherently bad, but there's just nothing good or interesting enough to make you want to play more.