In Hindsight, the Wii was the best Nintendo console.

Samtemdo8

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 25, 2020
1,501
608
118
Country
Private
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.
 
Last edited:

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
26,689
11,191
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
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.
Never gave a fuck what the "hardcore" thought, and there were way worse E3's than Big N 2008.

I will say the Wii did have slightly more variety compared to the GC, but GC is actually my favorite generation of Nintendo consoles. The Wii is just a powered up GameCube at the end of the day. Not a bad thing, as it allowed backwards compatibility for almost any GC game. I actually never used WiiWare, as XBLA was more than enough for me at the time.

Another problem with the Wii was all of the shovelware Nintendo allowed at the time. Most of the shovelware games were re-skinned or ported shovelware from EU/UK/AU PS2 games that never made it stateside, up until that point.

I actually disliked most of the 1st party Wii games, as the motion controls are forced upon the users. A majority of 3rd party Wii games rarely ever had this problem, or offered multiple control options. The best ones are those that let you use the GC controllers. Besides, I did not care for most of the 1st party games any way, aside from Mario, Kirby, and Smash Bros. Star Fox was not back yet, F-Zero not in sight (and continues to do so), and I disliked DK: Returns on the Wii.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dalisclock

Dreiko

Elite Member
Legacy
May 1, 2020
2,693
895
118
CT
Country
usa
Gender
male, pronouns: your majesty/my lord/daddy
The Wii just didn't have any games some years down the line. The Switch has done a lot better keeping interesting things released on it. Hell it just got Bayonetta 3 too, thing looks incredible and it's quite a few years after its release. By that time the Wii just had crickets sounding.
 

Drathnoxis

Became a mass murderer for your sake
Legacy
Sep 23, 2010
5,433
1,892
118
Just off-screen
Country
Canada
Gender
Male
No way. The Wii's library was awful, one of the worst in Nintendo's history. It had the worst Paper Mario, until the release of Sticker Star, the worst Legend of Zelda to date in Skyward Sword, The Twilight Princess GC version is by far the superior one, Donkey Kong Country Returns was a decent game hamstrung by its controls, which is kind of a trend on the Wii. From my, admittedly small, library it basically just had Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and House of the Dead Returns that are worth playing.
 

Elvis Starburst

Unprofessional Rant Artist
Legacy
Aug 9, 2011
2,732
719
118
Eh, it was ok. The backwards compatibility (both for games and controllers) did it a lot of favours
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan
Nov 9, 2015
323
80
33
The lack of third party games and not being part of the multiplayer shooter trend made it gather a lot of dust.

Yeah the casual market is bigger, but if all these people want is Wii Sports then it's not a good demographic to sell games.
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
26,689
11,191
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
From my, admittedly small, library it basically just had Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and House of the Dead Returns that are worth playing.
Like I said before, I did not like most of the the 1st party games, but the Wii has plenty of good to great 3rd party games, when one bothers to look or keep up. I never bought SMG2, because it was more of the same, and I was already tired of Mario by that point.

The lack of third party games and not being part of the multiplayer shooter trend made it gather a lot of dust.
I only agree with the first part. The console jumping on the shooter trend would have barely made a difference, and would do nothing, but makes those games age just as bad or worse than some of their HD counterparts. Not to mention, most of these games would be glorified paper weight, if MP was the only main focus, or barely had a campaign put together. Most shooters that were on the Wii were either water downed, or half ass ports. Whatever original shooters made exclusive for the console, were not all that great either.

Yeah the casual market is bigger, but if all these people want is Wii Sports then it's not a good demographic to sell games.
Yep. That and the shovelware. I will say the casual market is still important to Nintendo, and a lot of the video game market as a whole, but they learned not to go overboard with it.
 

Samtemdo8

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 25, 2020
1,501
608
118
Country
Private
Never gave a fuck what the "hardcore" thought, and there were way worse E3's than Big N 2008.

I will say the Wii did have slightly more variety compared to the GC, but GC is actually my favorite generation of Nintendo consoles. The Wii is just a powered up GameCube at the end of the day. Not a bad thing, as it allowed backwards compatibility for almost any GC game. I actually never used WiiWare, as XBLA was more than enough for me at the time.

Another problem with the Wii was all of the shovelware Nintendo allowed at the time. Most of the shovelware games were re-skinned or ported shovelware from EU/UK/AU PS2 games that never made it stateside, up until that point.

I actually disliked most of the 1st party Wii games, as the motion controls are forced upon the users. A majority of 3rd party Wii games rarely ever had this problem, or offered multiple control options. The best ones are those that let you use the GC controllers. Besides, I did not care for most of the 1st party games any way, aside from Mario, Kirby, and Smash Bros. Star Fox was not back yet, F-Zero not in sight (and continues to do so), and I disliked DK: Returns on the Wii.
As I said, you can treat your Wii games as a "Gamecube 2.0" if they had Gamecube controller support.
 

Samtemdo8

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 25, 2020
1,501
608
118
Country
Private
No way. The Wii's library was awful, one of the worst in Nintendo's history. It had the worst Paper Mario, until the release of Sticker Star, the worst Legend of Zelda to date in Skyward Sword, The Twilight Princess GC version is by far the superior one, Donkey Kong Country Returns was a decent game hamstrung by its controls, which is kind of a trend on the Wii. From my, admittedly small, library it basically just had Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and House of the Dead Returns that are worth playing.
What about Metroid Prime 3: Corruption?
 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
26,689
11,191
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
As I said, you can treat your Wii games as a "Gamecube 2.0" if they had Gamecube controller support.
I wasn't disagreeing with you on that part. That still doesn't change the GameCube is my favorite Nintendo console and the one I played the most.
 

Samtemdo8

Elite Member
Legacy
Apr 25, 2020
1,501
608
118
Country
Private
I wasn't disagreeing with you on that part. That still doesn't change the GameCube is my favorite Nintendo console and the one I played the most.
Just saying, because some Wii games were direct sequels to their prior Gamecube iterations. Like Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn

Here's a list of gamecube controller supported Wii games

 

BrawlMan

Lover of beat'em ups.
Legacy
Mar 10, 2016
26,689
11,191
118
Detroit, Michigan
Country
United States of America
Gender
Male
Just saying, because some Wii games were direct sequels to their prior Gamecube iterations. Like Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn

Here's a list of gamecube controller supported Wii games

I already know about the list, but thank you.
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,025
5,794
118
Country
United Kingdom
The Wii was the most commercially successful, and probably the most influential (or at least the second).

My favourite for reasons of personal nostalgia and the fact it holds some of my favourite games of all time is the N64.

If I had to say a "best", though, I'd probably say the SNES. Also massively influential, and also hosting a fantastic library. And the influences it had are ones I think are greater steps forward than the influences of the Wii, even of the latter were more pronounced.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

bluegate

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2010
2,322
932
118
Donkey Kong Country Returns was a decent game hamstrung by its controls, which is kind of a trend on the Wii.
I remember having to use hacks to be able to play with the Pro/Classic Controller and mapping the roll to an actual button rather than a Wii mote jiggle.

Fuck them for not supporting the Classic/Pro controller out of the box on that one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

Drathnoxis

Became a mass murderer for your sake
Legacy
Sep 23, 2010
5,433
1,892
118
Just off-screen
Country
Canada
Gender
Male
What about Metroid Prime 3: Corruption?
I haven't played it. I've never been much into Metroid, really. I've played Super and Prime, and the latter made so little impression on me I can barely remember anything about it.
 

PsychedelicDiamond

Wild at Heart and weird on top
Legacy
Jan 30, 2011
1,923
745
118
For me, it's the GameCube.

The Wii was good, but it marked the beginning of what would become Nintendo's modus operandi going forward. All but completely rejecting third party developers, releasing a console with an innovative feature and a bunch of very good games and then getting lazy and basically resting on it until they've declined hard enough that they have to actually try again.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan