The Wii's Wonderful Controllers

the Wii is one of Nintendo's weirdest consoles so it makes sense that its controllers are really strange too the Wii remote is nothing like any of the default controllers that Nintendo made before the Wii or after it and that's saying something since this exists the most immediately noticeable thing about the Wii mode is the way you hold it as the name suggests you hold it like a TV remote which was likely intentionally done by Nintendo the Wii was Nintendo's attempt at making a Home console that was for everyone not just kids and Gamers Nintendo had already succeeded at this in the handheld Market prior to the Wii's release in 2006 with the Nintendo DS which is why that console is currently as of the time I'm writing this Nintendo's bestselling game system of all time and even before the DS was released in 2004 at the tail end of the 80s and in the90s the game boy had attracted a ton of non-gamers thanks to its library that included a number of games that had a broad appeal like Pokémon with its abundance of quirky lovable and cool monster designs and Tetris with its puzzle gameplay that was simple enough for anyone to understand but handhelds are always going to have more of a broader more casual appeal because well they're handheld they're literally easy to pick up and play making a Home console that was as cozy and inviting as the DS was a difficult task but Nintendo pulled it off thanks in large part to the Wiimote the fact that the weote is sh like a TV remote makes it feel more natural as TVs are ubiquitous in modern homes not only that but the wiot button layout is also designed in a similar way to TV remotes a power button at the top an okay button which for the Wii is the a button and directional controls in the upper half of the remote and lesser used buttons for settings closer to the bottom Nintendo added a trigger button on the bottom side of the Wiimote which is a really nice touch it gives the controller another means of input while also keeping the front of the remote very simple your index finger also naturally rests on the B button which makes it really nice and comfortable as well on the front of the Wii mode is a sensor that detects infrared light coming from the sensor bar that you place somewhere close to your TV this allows you to point at the screen and have a cursor come up this is a really underappreciated feature of the Wii mode you don't have to go through menus with the d-pad or an analog stick you can just point at what ever you want to do which is another thing that makes the Wii such an intuitive console one of my favorite lesser used features of the Wii is the speaker sometimes I forget this thing even exists but yeah there's just a speaker in here in some games by performing certain actions in game you'll get a quick sound effect or a voice clip B you can use the face recognition app on your smartphone to locate Sergeant Garcia it's not much but it's quirky little things like this that make me love the Wii mode okay I've talked a lot about the wi remote but I've yet to talk about probably its most well-known feature the motion controls the Wii mode has an accelerometer inside of it which allows it to detect the controller's accelerations in three-dimensional Space by swinging your arm IRL your character would swing a tennis racket or a sword or a baseball bat in the game the Wii mode isn't all that accurate but it is versatile enough to give you a lot of different options for different types of games to play with it you can aim at the screen for Shooters you can move it side to side for pingpong and you can it sideways for games that involve steering this is a video where I'll be going over different controllers for the Wii but I would live in Eternal shame if I did not mention an alternate control style of the we remote the sideways handlebar style there actually were a number of games that allowed you to play with this method like Donkey Kong Country Returns Kirby's Return to Dreamland and new Super Mario Bros Wii the Wii mode is really cool but some games like 2D Platformers it just wouldn't work well for so Nintendo gave you the option to hold the Wiimote sideways and use it that way almost resembling an NES controller speaking of NES games you could use the handlebar style to play those games on the Virtual Console it actually feels pretty good to use however even Nintendo knew that the Wii mode on its own could only do so much so they included an expansion port on the bottom of the Wii mode this expansion Port allows the wi remote to connect to other devices the most famous of which being the nun Chuck which was bundled alongside the Wii remote with the Wii console the nunchuk is this oddly shaped controller with an analog stick a c button and a z trigger it too has an accelerometer inside of it so it has the capability for motion controls as well the nunchuk is really weird because it can't be used on its own it needs to be connected to the we remote like some sort of parasite like I said the Wii mode on its own is noticeably limited since it has so few buttons the home and power buttons are strictly used for opening up the home menu and turning off the system respectively which means besides the d-pad the Wii mode only has six buttons that it can use for gameplay that's less than the Super Nintendo controller and what makes it worse is that while holding the Weir mode upright you can't access the one and two buttons comfortably you need to move your thumb all the way down there to reach those buttons which isn't ideal for any sort of fast-paced game even the d-pad is troublesome because you can't use the d-pad and the a button at the same time without doing some thumb gymnastics luckily with the nunchuk you have two extra buttons and an analog stick allowing for much more complex games a lot of people talk about how great the GameCube controller feels and it is great but I think it's about time we gave the nunchuk some love because man does this thing just melt into your hand it's also super light which just makes it so easy to hold typically I do like a bit of weight to my controllers but if you're playing a game that involves motion controls having something that's lightweight is going to be way more comfortable for me in the long run the nunchuk is a nice controller that is impossible not to mention when talking about Wii controllers the nunchuk is only one of a few first party controllers that connects to the Wiimote via the expansion Port another one is the Classic Controller the Classic Controller launched alongside the Wii but it wasn't bundled with the system like the nunchuk was even though the nunchuk is cool it's still isn't suitable for more traditional games so Nintendo made the Classic Controller a controller that is a whole lot more traditional a d-pad two analog sticks four face buttons and four shoulder buttons two of which are analog buttons while the Classic Controller is a whole lot more standard it also does some really strange things too like how instead of having triggers which had basically become the standard for video game controllers at that point it opted for these little tiny shoulder buttons ZL and ZR I have no idea what they were thinking these buttons are way too small and way too unnatural to press you have to move your fingers quite a bit to reach them overall this controller feels a bit too compact my only other gripe with the controller is how Nintendo did the pH buttons functionally they work just fine but my issue is how they made the symbols on the face button lowercase why why are they lowercase this is a mystery that's kept me up at night for years otherwise it's a fine controller the good thing is that being fine isn't good enough for Nintendo because in 2009 about 3 years after the Classic Controller came out Nintendo released an upgraded version of the Classic Controller called The Classic Controller Pro the pro is just like the Classic Controller lowercase letters and all except it's a lot less cramped there are these grips that make it so much more comfortable to hold the old class controller was just this rounded oval and your fingers are just kind of hanging off at the bottom of it they changed the analog lnr buttons to regular digital buttons but in return it has full size Z Ln ZR shoulder buttons such as the Law of Equivalent Exchange The Original Classic Controller does have a bit of charm and by charm I mean for some reason Nintendo put the wire on the bottom of the controller instead of at the top like normal people but if I had to pick one I'd easily choose the Classic Controller Pro the Classic Controller wasn't the only weak controller to get an upgrade though because the same year that the Classic Controller Pro came out the classic Wiimote got the Wii Motion Plus the Wii Motion Plus has gyroscope Tech inside that allows for far more complex and ideally more accurate readings of the wiimotes movements I say ideally because while I do think that the Wii Motion Plus is generally pretty accurate there are times when it just does whatever it wants the Wii Motion Plus is just like this little brick that attaches onto your weote via the expansion Port the Wii Motion Plus also has an expansion Port of its own on the bottom of it so you can still connect the nunchuk and the Classic Controller to it which is a nice touch this makes the Wii Motion Plus seem less like an accessory a separate controller or an alternative and more like a legitimate upgrade for the weote later wiimotes would come with the wi Motion Plus built in which supports this idea however unfortunately the Wii Motion Plus would kind of end up being a cute little novelty as there weren't a ton of games that used it although I did get a lot of enjoyment out of this thing in Wii Sports Resort Wii Sports Resort is basically a sequel to Wii sports with more sports for you to play and like Wii Sports came bunded with the Wii this game came bunded with the Wii motion plus I probably spent more time with the original Wii Sports but Resort is definitely the better game with so many cool sports like basketball archery and sword fighting now you're probably asking hey are you going to talk about the wi zapper or the Wii wheel or the Wii Balance Board no but I will talk about the GameCube controller this video is more about the first party main controllers for the Wii I could definitely do another video later about the weirder more gimmicky Wii accessories but yeah the GameCube controller I'm embarrassed to say that it took several years before I realized that the Wii had GameCube controller ports on it because they're hidden behind this little tab compartment thing the console is backwards compatible with GameCube games which is already amazing but you can also use the GameCube controller for some Wii games which is just icing on the cake the GameCube controller is not as widely supported as the Classic Controller but there are over aund Wii games with Gamecube controller compatibility so you're bound to have at least one game in your collection that supports the controller the number of different controller options for the Wii is something that I'm always impressed with when I look back on it it may seem rather mundane but your controller is how you inter interact with the game it's how you connect with the game's world so in a way your controller is a reflection of yourself and the fact that the Wii gives you so many options means you have so many different ways to express yourself in any case I hope you guys enjoyed this little self-indulgent video about Wii controllers and hopefully you'll be back when I talk about more Wii controllers next time

Channel: kiro talks

Views: 34,179

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Id: MufFOMGINLY

Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 09 2023