As many have said, it's all about the games. How well the WiiMote functions in a game is largely dependent on the actual game as well. Nintendo pretty much showed the peak of what they can do with the Wii Sports games, and there are a few other games that use the motion controls well, but they tend to be the minority. That said, as a traditional controller it's not the worst thing in the world, and you can still use a Pro controller, the classic controller attachment or a GameCube controller for more traditional controls. The Wii library can be underrated due to the prevalence of shovelware, but there are great games like the Mario Galaxy games, Mario Kart Wii, the last good Mario Party before Superstars, the original versions of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, the aforementioned Wii Sports games, the second Mario Strikers, the best of the New Super Mario Bros games, Metroid Prime 3, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn (if you can afford them), DKC Returns, Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Kirby's Epic Yarn (another game that used the motion controls well) and many more. (As an aside, I think the Wii U will also be known as a console with an under-rated library down the road.) Sadly, due to its perception and underpowered hardware for its generation, there's not much actually good third-party software for it, but Nintendo themselves supported the Wii more than adequately.
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I personally think it would also be pretty cool if the Wii had a actually maintained OS. Dolphin has already done the heavy lifting so theoretically it should be possible to implement a properly maintained OS.
Sounds like if I can get my hands on some classic games I should be set
It depends if you like motion controls to be honest as majority of games used it. Wii is not my cup of tea personally but I love playing The House of The Dead 2 & 3 Returns as I don't have an CRT to play lightguns games.
Has a lotta great titles people still remember fondly, and it's heaps easy to hack it to get emulators on it. Win win!
It has about 15 good games and some of them had to be trimmed down to be able to run on Wii.
The good games were great. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is probably the best Mario game full stop.
The controllers were crap for traditional games.
There was so much shovelware.
I love the Wii and I'm sad mine broke (it won't read the discs anymore and all attempts to fix that at home failed). It is one of the very few consoles my husband could use, him having cerebral palsy. We played that together constantly! It was great.
The wii is still a staple of party nights in my friend group. It's hardware is frankly kinda shit but the quality game design and innovative controllers are just not something any other console or computer can ever replace.
It's too bad Nintendo stopped doing cool shit and is just a lawyer-run IP milking house now.
Yeah, it's a great party console.
I have quite a few consoles from most of the generations and honestly Wii is my favourite. I love playing Wii games, I love the idea of playing on this console and I love collecting for it. I think I actually have 3 or 4 Wiis but I use my WiiU for the HD (I do have a dongle for the Wii as well). There is no video game updates every time you put the disc in, there are no trophies or gamer score, no communities, social media features, ads. You boot it up and enjoy. Because it was so much different from what was on the market, developers couldn't simply port games onto it. They had to develop with the console and its hardware in mind and that's what made it special. I know that on paper Switch is just a better Wii as it has the best of both worlds (it has motion controls and its beefy enough to play more demanding games) but as the focus is mostly to catch up with the other consoles, I think it lost a bit of that magic.
I'm really interested in emulation as you can do upscaling which should make the older titles look and run pretty well.
Wii games on WiiU look good enough on my 60 inches to me. Obviously you can do the upscaling and get all the bells and whistles but I don't know if these games would benefit from it at all. I like the slightly soft feeling as it is
The Wii has Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2.
There hasn't been a Super Mario Galaxy anywhere else besides the Wii.
The Wii is awesome.
There was a Switch version.
There’s a reason why the Wii sold as well as it did. It was very good for its time in that the motion controls were just accurate enough to not be a total frustration. It sat at a modest price point relative to its competitors, and Nintendo has always been extremely good at maximizing on the potential of their consoles with superb game design.
So yeah, I think it was actually as fun as you remember it… but that was still almost 20 years ago. No doubt you’d enjoy it if you picked one up, but I’ll bet its age will show. It’ll depend on your tolerance for dated game and UI design to know how much you’d enjoy it in the long run. Plus, I do believe that a lot of the services like the Virtual Console have been sunset.
almost 20 years ago
don’t do this to me D:
Its really sad to me that you can no longer buy Fluidity
I highly recommend modding your Wii, opens up a lot of options for game preservation and isn’t that hard to do.
It emulates excellent too. Is modding still requiring some soldering or can homevrew be enabled w/ software on the latest models too?
The Wii is great. Play games that make the most of the wiimote and nunchuck, those are the best.
My favorites were Metroid Prime Trilogy made/remade for the wii controls, and Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess / Skyward Sword. And the fun arcade/sports games like bowling, golf, Mario Galaxy, etc
Looks like I missed House of the Dead 2 and 3, so I may try to find a used wii and used copies to play em. It'd be awesome if Nintendo released a Wii Classic like the NES and SNES Classics.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/top10/1637-the-top-10-wii-games-that-make-the-best-use-of-the-wiimote
https://old.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/4nvthu/which_wii_games_make_the_best_use_of_the/
........so we just gonna skip over the N64 classic and gamecube classic then?
Much less robust hardware
Why does the idea of a Wii classic inherently debt the possibility of an n64 and GameCube classic?
Also in my opinion I don't think any other classics are happening, think Nintendo are all in on NSO for their old games now
Because NES classic came first. SNES came like a year later. If we WERE going to get another classics line, it would clearly be N64 classic. Then Gamecube classic, THEN Wii Classic.
Then they could do WiiU classic, but in keeping accurate with historical console sales, they'd only produce 50 total.
Except who actually is old enough to remember the N64? It is old enough that that demographic is small
The same people who are old enough to remember the NES/SNES, and anyone slightly younger
Older Millenials and Gen X, the same ones that grew up with the NES and SNES. Not small at all
Edit: Roughly 180 Million people in the US alive today, were 7 years old or older when the N64 released in 1996. Which is about 55% of the US population.
https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/united-states-population-by-age/
I wish I had kept mine because I would kill for some Wii Resort ping-pong or bowling.
I have 11 Table Tennis in VR and somehow the physics just don't feel nearly as good as Wii Resort/Wii Sports. Various bowling games in VR I've tried are the same... IDK how the motion controls can be worse when I literally use my hands. 🤷🏻♂️
Maybe you're just bad at bowling and the bad controls on the Wii compensated for it! 😂
Wii was the only console I ever bought. I prefer playing with keyboard and mouse, so consoles were never really my focus.
I had a lot of fun with it, it had some amazing games that made good use of the controllers. It was a great family console that even older people or people that don't usually play could use.
It was also great at running old school emulators for other consoles (SNES, Genesis) after some tinkering.
It also drove home my main hate regarding consoles: they are closed systems, owned not by you but by the manufacturer. The games were and still are expensive, unlike PCs where games get cheaper over time. They can also disable the servers providing services for your console (news channel, weather channel) when they feel like you should move on and buy their next console.
So I won't buy another console again, even if I still love my Wii, that I power on occasionally.
I have a Wii and a whole bunch of games just collecting dust. Even now that I’m reminded of it I don’t have any desire to play.
I do really want to grab a CRT TV and a NES and SNES. I miss those games far more than anything on the Wii!
I just got a Wii to play RE4, WarioWare: Smooth Moves, and a couple GameCube games. I still need to get the component cable (I'm on composite, which isn't ideal) but I'm finding it just as fun as I remember.
It's the game quality, really. Same with most Nintendo systems I would say. Come for the motion gimmicks, but stay for the quality games.
I transferred all my wii games to a hard drive and use Dolphin. The annoying thing about the wii games is mapping the controls to a useable gamepad.
My most played wii games are NewER Super Mario Bros (an excellent hack), the Last Story (very good unique RPG), Monster Hunter Tri, Mario Kart, Mario Galaxy 2, Cave Story...
But the my library is really filled with GameCube games and wiiware rereleases.
Wii bowling with the actual console and romote controllers hasn't been beaten yet.
The novelty of it was amazing, and as fun as you remember, but I also remember my Wii collecting dust not too long after we got it.
The Wii was a console system for people who were unaware of or didn't like console systems.
So if you're in that co-hort, or an active Nintendo fan... yeah, it's a great console.
It says a lot that the best selling titles on it largely came with extra plastic bits that are likely collecting dust now.
Full disclosure, I own a Wii, it's hooked up and running and everything. Other than occasionally showing off the absolute insanity that is Muscle March, I really can't think of any game on it I'd still play.
I just replayed Super Mario Galaxy for the first time in about 10 years and it felt every bit amazing as the first time. What an incredible game.
My kids and I also still occasionally play MarioKart Wii (even though we have it in the switch too) just to use the Wii wheels :)