Here's the thing about the Wii, despite its promotion as a gaming platform for casuals because of its push of Motion Control gaming and far more simplistic games, if you look at the whole life time of the console when all is said and done, the Wii looking back might be the best console Nintendo made, because it's library is LARGE to appeal to all kinds of demographics, even gamer demographics.
And you have to factor its backwards compatibility. With the first Wii console model coming with Gamecube compatibility so you still had access to the Gamecube library that had many, many classic, high tier games.
Then we get the Wii games themselves, and while the Wii Mote was dominate, there were games that used traditional controls, especially a Gamecube controller. You have games like Smash Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn, etc. allowing use of a Gamecube controller. Like in someways you can just treat those games as just Gamecube games spiritually.
Even if it doesn't support Gamecube Controllers, there are games that still makes use of a traditional controller, so games like Xenoblade Chronicles and Monster Hunter Tri are playable.
And even when you had games that made you use the Wii mote (some with the nunchuck) some games uses the control method pretty well. Especially the Nintendo made games. Super Mario Galaxy wasn't held by at all by its use of a Wii-Mote. Warioware Smooth Moves was the best game in the Warioware series by far for me because of its fun use of the Wii-mote. Resident Evil 4 for the Wii to me is the definitive way to play Resident Evil 4, I can't imagine playing Resident Evil 4 classic anymore with a controller and its primitive over the shoulder aiming. The Wii mote makes aiming the gun far more precise. Metroid Prime 3 also benefited from this with people preferring the Wii ports of Metroid Prime 1 and 2.
And the Wii also for a time revived the dead Arcade Rail Shooter genre, giving us games like House of the Dead Overkill, and Resident Evil Chronicles games. Especially if you play them with a good Gun accessory you attach to the Wii-mote.
And of course, there was Wiiware, and the Virtual Console. The Virtual Console was at its best in the Wii era because it not only at the time offered Nintendo 64, SNES, NES games, it also offered games from Nintendo's competitors of the time, Sega Genesis, Turbografix-16, and even Neo-Geo. So you had access to a large retro library.
Wiiware offered a variety of unique new games, but the best ones were games that were trying to be retro throwbacks, like Konami's Rebirth games, Megaman 9 and 10 came out on Wiiware, and the direct sequel to Final Fantasy 4.
So yeah, looking back the Wii was definately one of the best consoles and library Nintendo made. Its reputation was only tarnished because of resentment from "Hardcore gamers" for trying to appeal solely to Casual players with shitty baby games like Wii Music, and I get it especially the infamous event that was Nintendo's E3 2008 press conference.
But now that all is said and done with the Wii, it has those games that can appeal to the core gamer and plenty of it.
And you have to factor its backwards compatibility. With the first Wii console model coming with Gamecube compatibility so you still had access to the Gamecube library that had many, many classic, high tier games.
Then we get the Wii games themselves, and while the Wii Mote was dominate, there were games that used traditional controls, especially a Gamecube controller. You have games like Smash Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn, etc. allowing use of a Gamecube controller. Like in someways you can just treat those games as just Gamecube games spiritually.
Even if it doesn't support Gamecube Controllers, there are games that still makes use of a traditional controller, so games like Xenoblade Chronicles and Monster Hunter Tri are playable.
And even when you had games that made you use the Wii mote (some with the nunchuck) some games uses the control method pretty well. Especially the Nintendo made games. Super Mario Galaxy wasn't held by at all by its use of a Wii-Mote. Warioware Smooth Moves was the best game in the Warioware series by far for me because of its fun use of the Wii-mote. Resident Evil 4 for the Wii to me is the definitive way to play Resident Evil 4, I can't imagine playing Resident Evil 4 classic anymore with a controller and its primitive over the shoulder aiming. The Wii mote makes aiming the gun far more precise. Metroid Prime 3 also benefited from this with people preferring the Wii ports of Metroid Prime 1 and 2.
And the Wii also for a time revived the dead Arcade Rail Shooter genre, giving us games like House of the Dead Overkill, and Resident Evil Chronicles games. Especially if you play them with a good Gun accessory you attach to the Wii-mote.
And of course, there was Wiiware, and the Virtual Console. The Virtual Console was at its best in the Wii era because it not only at the time offered Nintendo 64, SNES, NES games, it also offered games from Nintendo's competitors of the time, Sega Genesis, Turbografix-16, and even Neo-Geo. So you had access to a large retro library.
Wiiware offered a variety of unique new games, but the best ones were games that were trying to be retro throwbacks, like Konami's Rebirth games, Megaman 9 and 10 came out on Wiiware, and the direct sequel to Final Fantasy 4.
So yeah, looking back the Wii was definately one of the best consoles and library Nintendo made. Its reputation was only tarnished because of resentment from "Hardcore gamers" for trying to appeal solely to Casual players with shitty baby games like Wii Music, and I get it especially the infamous event that was Nintendo's E3 2008 press conference.
But now that all is said and done with the Wii, it has those games that can appeal to the core gamer and plenty of it.
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