So Long, My Wii — Now Playing: ?

Pages

I love my Wii. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on the internet who completely, unabashedly loves the Wii as a gaming platform, but I do. It's my favorite console of this generation, and it's now the only console I own from this generation.

But somewhere along the way, I got involved with GWJ's hype train, with TrueAchievements, and with the 360 in general and neglected my poor little white waggle box. And now that I've sold my 360 and sworn off a PS3, I find myself looking at the Wii's catalog and finding literally dozens of games I wanted to play or wanted to finish and just didn't get to. Now the Wii U is on its way, and the Wii is largely dead. Even Nintendo has largely dropped support for it, announcing no new games for it and shifting their attention almost entirely to the Wii U.

So I've decided to take a year to play through as many of those Wii games as I can. It'll be my farewell tour for the Wii. I doubt I'll get through them all in twelve months, but I want to get through what I can. I'll use this thread to write about it, gather some suggestions for what else to play (especially from the WiiWare catalog), and hopefully inspire one or two of you to give the Wii a little bit more love.

Everything in the Still to Play list that's greyed out I don't currently have. I plan to buy, borrow, and steal those. Everything in the Done! list I've played already. If you're looking for recommendations of what to try, Highly Recommended games are marked with a and games to avoid are marked with a :|. Games that my non-gamer wife loved playing in co-op (or taking turns) are marked with a :nicekiss:.

Let the farewell tour begin!

Still to Play:

  • [color=gray]Anima: Ark of Sinners (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Arc Rise Fantasia[/color]
  • [color=gray]Art Style: Cubello (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Art Style: Light Trax (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Art Style: Orbient (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Art Style: Rotohex (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Back to the Future - The Game[/color]
  • [color=gray]Baroque[/color]
  • [color=gray]Castlevania the Adventure Rebirth (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Contra Rebirth (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Cursed Mountain[/color]
  • [color=gray]Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Dark Lord (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Kirby's Return to Dream Land[/color]
  • [color=gray]Klonoa[/color]
  • [color=gray]La Mulana (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Lilt Line (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Little King's Story[/color]
  • [color=gray]LostWinds (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Mega Man 9 (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Military Madness: Nectaris (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Muscle March (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident[/color]
  • [color=gray]No More Hereos[/color]
  • [color=gray]NyxQuest (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Opoona[/color]
  • [color=gray]Pikmin 2[/color]
  • [color=gray]Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands[/color]
  • [color=gray]Red Steel 2[/color]
  • [color=gray]Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil[/color]
  • Rune Factory Frontier
  • [color=gray]Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny[/color]
  • [color=gray]Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love (previously attempted)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (previously attempted)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Sonic Colors[/color]
  • [color=gray]Swords & Soldiers (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Tales of Monkey Island (WiiWare)[/color]
  • [color=gray]Toki Tori (WiiWare)[/color]

Done!

  • A Boy and His Blob
  • Art Style: Rotozoa (WiiWare)
  • Big Brain Academy Wii Degree
  • Bonsai Barber (WiiWare)
  • BoomBlox
  • BoomBlox Bash Party
  • Crystal Defenders R1 (WiiWare)
  • Crystal Defenders R2 (WiiWare)
  • Dead Space: Extraction
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns (Thanks, Minarchist!)
  • EA Sports Active 2
  • Epic Mickey (Thanks, Minarchist!)
  • Fluidity (WiiWare)
  • Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon
  • Fortune Street
  • Guilty Party
  • House of the Dead 2 & 3
  • House of the Dead Overkill
  • Kirby's Epic Yarn
  • The Last Story (Thanks, Blind_Evil!)
  • The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
  • Lit (WiiWare)
  • Lost in Shadow
  • Metroid Prime Trilogy
  • Metroid: Other M
  • New Super Mario Bros. Wii
  • Pandora's Tower (Thanks, Minarchist!)
  • Rayman Origins
  • Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition
  • Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles
  • Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles
  • Rhythm Heaven Fever
  • Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
  • Strongbad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Parts 1-5
  • Super Mario Galaxy
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2
  • Super Paper Mario (Thanks, Minarchist!)
  • Trauma Team
  • Wii Fit Plus
  • Wii Sports
  • Wii Sports Resort
  • World of Goo (WiiWare)

This weekend I'll be kicking off the farewell tour with Fluidity and Metroid Prime 2.

Fluidity I got for free through Club Nintendo, and I'm really glad I did. It's a WiiWare game where you navigate a small blob of water through different platforming hazards. Surprisingly, it's a Metroidvania, with four large, contiguous maps that you progressively access as you gain new powers like the ability to turn into a block of ice or a raincloud.

You control the blob of water using the Wiimote turned sideways. You tilt the Wiimote to tilt the world and make the water flow from place to place. The 1 and 2 buttons activate your different powers, and a shake of the Wiimote makes the water jump. The harder sections take a bit of finesse, but it's a fantastic use of motion controls. Really enjoying this one so far. As an added bonus, my non-gamer wife has been able to play it with me and has really enjoyed it.

Metroid Prime 2 I have as part of the Metroid Prime Collection. I bought it used as a birthday gift to myself back in 2010 but haven't put any real time into it. I played Metroid Prime on GameCube and Metroid Prime 3 when it was released, but I've heard so many negative things about Metroid Prime 2 that I've avoided playing it. I have some concerns based on what I've heard about repetition and difficulty, but I loved the other two Prime games so much that it doesn't make sense to not give this one a shot.

Interesting thread! I am surprised Mario Kart is not on either of your lists, intentional?

Best Buy is having a sale this week of a lot of $10 games. I picked up Rayman for the Wii, you might check if your local one has it since I don't see it being cheaper in the future

Posting to show my support for the Wii! As I've said elsewhere, it's not seen the amount of play that my 360 has enjoyed. However, I could not imagine feeling my experience with games over the last 6 years would be even close to complete without it. It has been home to my GOTY two years running.

Wait, this means you're not buying a Wii U this year?

Clock: soon to be Wii-less?

Blind_Evil wrote:

Wait, this means you're not buying a Wii U this year?

Most likely just can't afford it. This is my alternative. Because a huge stack of Nintendo games is way cheaper than a new Nintendo console. :eyeroll:

LeapingGnome wrote:

Interesting thread! I am surprised Mario Kart is not on either of your lists, intentional?

The only one I've played is Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS and loved it except for those blue shells. Since I'm not sure if my wife would be into it or not, I haven't looked much at the Wii version. If people here think it's super awesome, I can add it to the list.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

The only one I've played is Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS and loved it except for those blue shells. Since I'm not sure if my wife would be into it or not, I haven't looked much at the Wii version. If people here think it's super awesome, I can add it to the list.

It's a really good Mario Kart game. That's not to say that you should get it, but I suspect that if you loved the 3DS version, you'll love this one approximately the same amount.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Posting to show my support for the Wii!

As am I!

Clock are these all games you already own?

shoptroll wrote:

Clock are these all games you already own?

I own most everything in the bottom list (games I've played). I cycled out my 360 games like mad but tend to hold on to Wii games.

Top list (games I want to play) the greyed-out ones I don't own yet, so the majority of the list I still need to acquire somehow. Sadly, some of them I've owned at some point but traded away in moments of temporary madness.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

Interesting thread! I am surprised Mario Kart is not on either of your lists, intentional?

The only one I've played is Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS and loved it except for those blue shells. Since I'm not sure if my wife would be into it or not, I haven't looked much at the Wii version. If people here think it's super awesome, I can add it to the list.

It is pretty decent and my wife likes playing it, especially with the steering wheel shell for the wiimotes.

I got rid of my Wii before the price fell on it. I've kept my games because they'll work on the WiiU but man, I really want to be play Xenoblade and Last Story.

I like this idea for a thread. Interested to see your progress. Have you played any Pikmin, or would 2 be your first?

The Wii was the only console I even wanted this generation. Yes. I said it and meant it. It came to the point that when the kids took over the Wii, my wife bought a second one for me as a father's day present. All mine.

Having said that much, I wish you the best of luck. I never got through most of my pile on that machine, mostly due to interference from the young ones. It will be fun to see you do what I couldn't accomplish.

This vasectomy thread disappoints. 3.2/10

Dyni wrote:

I like this idea for a thread. Interested to see your progress. Have you played any Pikmin, or would 2 be your first?

2 would be my first. I went back and forth on 1 versus 2 and settled on 2 because it's reputation is ever so slightly better.

Tanglebones wrote:

This vasectomy thread disappoints. 3.2/10

Should I opt for GRS, I'll be sure to recycle the thread title.

Fluidity sounds similar to. Mercury Meltdown Revolution, though that's an older game and might now control as well sans Motion+.

Are you going to play a Guilty Gear game?

Tanglebones wrote:

This vasectomy thread disappoints. 3.2/10

I saw the title and immediately thought of:

Sounds like a great idea, Clockwork!

First weekend progress report!

I managed to get maybe an hour into Metroid Prime 2. Like I said, I've heard a lot of negative things about the game, so I'm maybe a little primed (har har) to be disappointed by it. I'm trying to be cognizant of that and avoid viewing things through a negative filter.

After one hour of play, I don't love it as much as I did Prime and Prime 3. I love the cold opening with very little in the way of exposition, and the Wii controls for a Prime game are as good as ever. But the world feels a little bland and a little drab. The gameplay itself is a little slow to get going.

But I also know that I'm comparing it to Metroid Prime, which has one of my favorite openings in gaming. You have this epic, intense battle in space, land on the planet, and then are greeted by this lush, beautiful world and a light patter of rain on Samus' helmet. Those opening moments on Tallon IV really set the tone for the rest of the game. Prime 2, meanwhile, has me crawling through dark tunnels filled with bugs and crates.

That's just one hour in, though. What I did manage to put some quality time into was Fluidity. I cannot emphasize this enough: this game is awesome. At this point, I'd consider it one of my favorite Wii games period. It's just the right mix of platforming, Metroidvania, and physics puzzles to really tickle my brain. The only caveat I'd make here is that if you don't like motion controls, you will not like this game.

Also, LeapingGnome did some good enabling: I bought Rayman Origins from Best Buy over the weekend and will start it up sometime soon.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Also, LeapingGnome did some good enabling: I bought Rayman Origins from Best Buy over the weekend and will start it up sometime soon.

Excellent.

This thread inspired me to go back and continue Super Mario Galaxy.

One thing to keep in mind about Prime 2 is that if you don't have much love for Zelda: Link to the Past you're probably not going to have much love for Prime 2. Both games have a fair bit of transporting between worlds and interplay between the two, and I think I read that the same world or puzzle designer worked on both titles. Definitely agree with your assessment about the stark contrast in atmosphere with Prime 1. Really need to head back and finish Prime 2 myself (it didn't grab me the same way Prime 1 did).

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Top list (games I want to play) the greyed-out ones I don't own yet, so the majority of the list I still need to acquire somehow. Sadly, some of them I've owned at some point but traded away in moments of temporary madness.

Gotcha. Seems a little weird that you'd rather play Back to the Future on the Wii than the PC, but it looks like you have played their stuff on the Wii before so I guess the experience is positive?

shoptroll wrote:

One thing to keep in mind about Prime 2 is that if you don't have much love for Zelda: Link to the Past you're probably not going to have much love for Prime 2. Both games have a fair bit of transporting between worlds and interplay between the two, and I think I read that the same world or puzzle designer worked on both titles.

I haven't played A Link to the Past. It's my greatest gaming crime.

SixteenBlue wrote:

This thread inspired me to go back and continue Super Mario Galaxy.

Woo! That's the kind of thing I was hoping for here.

For more 2D platforming excellence, you should really make sure you get to DKCR, though it's probably important to note that it is not an easy game.

And by not easy, I mean really frikin' hard.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I haven't played A Link to the Past. It's my greatest gaming crime.

And to think you gave me a hard time about Majora's Mask :p

SixteenBlue wrote:

Woo! That's the kind of thing I was hoping for here.

I'm looking forward to reading about your Muramasa and DKR experiences. Hopefully that'll inspire me to go back to DKCR and give Muramasa a shot.

Dyni wrote:

And by not easy, I mean really frikin' hard.

To illustrate (ranked by the difficulty Demyx and I found in co-op):

Kirby's Epic Yarn << Kirby's Return to Dreamland <<<< New Super Mario Bros Wii <<<<<<<<<<<<< Donkey Kong Country Returns

shoptroll wrote:
Dyni wrote:

And by not easy, I mean really frikin' hard.

To illustrate (ranked by the difficulty Demyx and I found in co-op):

Kirby's Epic Yarn << Kirby's Return to Dreamland <<<< New Super Mario Bros Wii <<<<<<<<<<<<< Donkey Kong Country Returns

Quite accurate. However, DKCR is a rare game in that it gets more difficult in co-op because of how the jumping is handled. It's still very difficult solo, but not like the madness of co-op.

Dyni wrote:

Quite accurate. However, DKCR is a rare game in that it gets more difficult in co-op because of how the jumping is handled. It's still very difficult solo, but not like the madness of co-op.

Agreed. We gave up on it part way into World 2 because we realized the co-op was hindering us significantly

If I remember right the original Donkey Kong Country was on the harder side too, at least versus the typical Mario game.

I'm sorry to hear about the co-op, I have had it for a while but haven't played it and that was going to be the next co-op game my wife and I tried.

Sounds like a good time to get in on the Wii gaming. I just recently bought back into this console with the intent of playing Skyward Sword, and I decided I've been without a JRPG long enough to want to try Xenoblade Chronicles. We'll see how this goes.

NSMike wrote:

Sounds like a good time to get in on the Wii gaming. I just recently bought back into this console with the intent of playing Skyward Sword, and I decided I've been without a JRPG long enough to want to try Xenoblade Chronicles. We'll see how this goes.

Did you buy Xenoblade yet? If not, get the Last Story instead. >.>

This shall be my go-to link for "No games on the Wii" discussions.

I'll be following this for when I get the chance to catch up on Wii games myself. There's a lot out there I missed and want to play.

I noticed Punch-Out!! is mysteriously absent from your list...

Also, I can't exactly recommend it, but Deadly Creatures is half a pretty fun game. The other half is a really pathetic attempt at cloning God of War.

garion333 wrote:

Are you going to play a Guilty Gear game?

I had planned to get BlazBlue on the 3DS. I think you or Ahrezmendi said that was the less bonkers one.

Speaking of fighting games: Any good ones on the Wii for people who don't normally like fighting games? Anything that's fun single-player? (I know, that's asking a lot from a fighting game.)

ccesarano wrote:

I noticed Punch-Out!! is mysteriously absent from your list...

SixteenBlue was telling me about that one, too. I'm looking into it, but I'm not familiar with the original.

Also, I can't exactly recommend it, but Deadly Creatures is half a pretty fun game. The other half is a really pathetic attempt at cloning God of War.

I had that one but couldn't really stomach starting it up. Something about brutally murdering realistic animals squicked me out. Brutally murdering realistic people is apparently A-OK, though.

I barely remember the original myself. The new one is pretty much a game of its own, and one I've been needing to pick up. I played it through GameFly and had a good old time. It also seems to be a nice addition for getting some physical activity going. Fantastic and fun.

Pages