Why Buy a Wii U in 2021?

[Music] hey everyone john from nintendo life here and i'm still talking about the wii u we've done a few videos on this topic now but i feel like the system still has a lot going for it there's a bunch of games that are still exclusive a bunch of games that are best on wii u and the backwards compatibility is absolutely awesome so the question is in 2021 should you buy a wii u now first let's address the elephant in the room a huge chunk of the wii u's best games are on switch and they're frankly better on that platform not every single one though so i want to rattle through a list of some of the biggest wii u to switch ports and tell you exactly which ones are best on switch and which ones are still worth playing on wii u we'll do this fast donkey kong country tropical freeze one of my favorite games of all time is high resolution on switch not only that but there's a brand new funky mode also the gamepad does nothing point to switch super mario 3d world higher resolution on switch has bowser's fury on switch and it's even 30 faster on switch as in the slowest character in the switch version is around the same speed as the fastest character in the wii u version while the wii u gamepad was utilized it's not really missed the gyro functionality replaces it remarkably well even allowing all players to use it rather than just the gamepad user there's even four player captain toad another point to switch captain toad treasure tracker is very much the same high resolution on switch but while there's a gyro pointer this game relies a bit more on touch but if you're playing the game undocked you can still touch the screen so nothing is really lost plus captain toad on switch has brand new dlc brand new levels and even labo vr support definitely a point to switch but let's throw wii u a bone new super mario brothers u now the switch version is deluxe meaning it includes luigi u but this bundle also existed on wii u so what exactly is different between the two well it is higher resolution on the switch but i frankly believe the wii u version is a much better multiplayer game and for a few reasons on switch today replaces one of the toads and she has some unique properties that no other player has this kind of throws off the multiplayer balance cause according to the game itself she's the easiest character on wii u everyone's even and there's even a fifth player on wii u a player can touch the screen and make blocks for everyone to jump on they can even stop goombas temporarily by touching them or hit blocks this even makes the boost mode a lot more fun in this mode the scrolling gets faster when you collect coins but when you jump on these gamepad blocks you also get coins making this a much more rapid and intense mode so multiplayer wise i think this game's just frankly better on wii u but it kind of goes downhill from there mario kart 8 deluxe has more characters on switch and a proper battle mode the wii u version does still have value as there is a battle mode in that game but it just takes place on the regular tracks and you go round and round until you find someone it's not very good but people are still playing online bayonetta 2 runs better on switch higher warriors definitive edition is high resolution on switch and comes with all the 3ds content including swapping characters on the fly and giving characters orders and then there's all the new levels like linkel's adventure and a wind waker level way more to do and way more fun on switch tokyo mirage sessions has more content on switch and it loads a bit faster too the gamepad was cool in that game where you can receive text messages and read them on the gamepad but that's just kind of a menu on switch and it's fine like that cool novelty but it's still better on switch pokken tournament was never updated on wii u so all the arcade characters just didn't come to the wii u version the switch version has all the characters plus some brand new dlc ones as well definitely better on switch breath of the wild is fine on wii u but it's also lower resolution apart from that the gamepad doesn't even do anything in this game you just press a giant button to go from tv mode to gamepad mode and finally pikmin 3. now this is a bit of a funny one because the switch version has more content and you can play the entire game co-op that's awesome but i believe the wii u version controls better pointing with gyro is fine but eventually it does desync and that can be annoying on wii u though when you're playing with a nunchuck and wii remote you're always synced to the sensor bar this is my favorite control scheme for pikmin and it's simply better with the wii remote it controls fine on switch but i still think it controls better on wii u so this one's a bit mixed the concept of the wii u was like a stepping stone to the switch over local wireless the console sends a signal to the gamepad essentially streaming content to the controller it is just 480p and is definitely a lot more bulky than a switch but the concept still had a lot of merit there are a lot of times where i play games like mario kart 8 without switching on the tv the idea was a really great predecessor to what switch would be but it was limited and that was confusing to a lot of people you couldn't take the wii u gamepad on a bus or travel with it because this isn't a portable system let's see how far the signal gets yeah not very far but i'd argue that off tv mode wasn't the main point of the wii u gamepad this basically gave console games the ds experience developers could clear the hud on the main screen or give players essentially infinite inputs the wii u gamepad very rarely reached its true potential but even in multi-platform games it could still really benefit them batman arkham city for instance was a launch title and in other versions where you're exploring the city you'd have to pause the game to see exactly where you're going or where you want to travel to but on the wii u you can just look down and see where you're going in real time you can glide around gotham and look down without disrupting the pacing of the game this version does have frame rate problems but in my opinion exploring the city is just most fun on wii u this was the kind of stuff the gamepad was great for extending the experience without disrupting the flow likewise wind waker hd and twilight princess hd were fantastic on this system when you're sailing in wind waker there's no need to pause the game just look down see where the ship is pointing and keep going while miiverse was still active rest in peace you could even read messages while you're sailing it just gave you more to do during downtime without creating even more downtime by pausing the game changing items is great too you just touch the screen and drag it on it's so simple i wish the wii u version of breath of the wild work like this but unfortunately just a big button these games weren't made for the game bad there were games developed elsewhere and the gamepad was put in to enhance them but what about games made specifically for the wii u it's been shown with a lot of the core games that the gamepad didn't really matter and in fact a lot of switch games are better without the gamepad but then you have games like zombie u zombie u was ported to playstation 4 xbox one and pc without the gamepad and in my opinion it loses so much this controller had its limitations and zombie u relished in those limitations for horror it's not as natural as the ds where the two screens are just centimeters apart so looking down at the gamepad means you're taking your attention away from the tv and in zombie u this created so much tension when you're sourcing things on the gamepad the tv goes into this display showing what's around you and it's so tense waiting for a zombie to appear while you're also multitasking on the gamepad it's really effective stuff and in my opinion zombie u is a very underrated game definitely play this one on wii u the wii u version is also the only one with a multiplayer mode and this is something a lot of wii u games did with isometric multiplayer what this basically means is two people play the game in two different ways despite the wii u being announced to support two gamepads this was never patched into the system and no games used it so multiplayer revolves around one person with the gamepad and one person with either a wii remote and a nunchuck or a pro controller and in zombie u the person with the gamepad is essentially god placing down zombies and threats that take down by the person with the pro controller fights off those hordes it's a really cool and unique mode sonic and all-stars racing transformed one of the best car racers ever also had exclusive multiplayer modes on wii u much like mario u the wii u version was a five player game four player split screen on the tv and another screen on the gamepad that's awesome but then there's also the exclusive modes where people on the tv play normally but the person on the gamepad for instance plays as a giant ai trying to crush them this stuff isn't on other consoles and is awesome here some games like call of duty use the gamepad to get rid of screen peeking so one person plays on the tv and the other screen is on the gamepad that's ingenious in fact the call of duty games on wii u are really special people still play these online today what makes these really cool is they support the wii remote and nunchuck for aiming and once you go wii it's hard to unsee because it feels good but you can't talk about isometric multiplayer without bringing up nintendo land one of the very best party games ever made not every game in nintendo land is equal but all the chase games are so clever in luigi's mansion for instance four players on the tv try and track down a ghost they can't see but they can feel with vibrations whereas on the gamepad you see everything and try and grab the other players mario chases the reverse the person on the gamepad is running away while the four people on the tv team up and try and grab them for years nintendo lam was the go-to game for my partner and i and all our friends it's just really fun a lot of the single player games are great too metroid blast is unironically one of the best metroid spin-offs rivaling even metro prime pinball if you can believe that donkey kong crash course a brilliant demonstration of the gyro in a really fun and addictive game and what was really great about the wii u is most people own a wii remote because most people own a wii so by default there's no need to go out and buy a bunch of brand new controllers because you likely already have them lying around and so while crash course is a gamepad game you can play co-op with a wii remote and have someone slow down time making it easier for you games like nintendo land may get a sequel over time but this core game is never leaving the wii u because it's so integral to the gamepad same with gaming wario the gamer mode did live on in warioware gold but a lot of this stuff is not going to go anywhere remember that big wii u zapper shown off in the debut trailer that game is in game and wario again this is another really fun party game and it's never leaving the wii u a really underrated one in my opinion is wii sports club i don't think they really communicated what this game was because most people think it's just a rental game but you can buy the sports outright or buy a physical version even if that physical version goes for quite a bit today but what this basically did was add motion plus to the existing five sports from wii sports added new content and most importantly added online play online wii sports tennis with motion plus was so much fun i played this to death it was a lot more fun than mario 10 as ultra smash some sports even use the gamepad remember this from the debut trailer that's here you can look down and see where your club is in relation to the ball and judge your curve with much more ease than you could usually plus it looks cool really cool version of wii sports and i hope it comes to switch someday but as of right now wii u exclusive in fact the wii u has quite a lot of exclusives not on the switch the big one of course is poor blocks world one of the best 3ds games in hd with brand new puzzles uh it's so much fun there was even an online level sharer but that was tight to me verse and unfortunately it doesn't work anymore i miss you miiverse oh and there was this game too we're 11 minutes in and only now talking about the most important game on the system this is xenoblade chronicles x the other xenoblade games are certainly about scale but the stories are rather linear you follow a straight narrative path watching cutscenes and doing battles but x isn't really like that there is a story but the game emphasizes exploration and right off the bat you can explore the entire world very little is off limits and is absolutely huge late in the game you unlock scales which are basically mechs and you can fly across the entire world at lightning speed and there's never any load times it loads when you go from inside to outside but when you're in the overworld it never loads once it's really impressive planet mirror is one of the most beautiful and ambitious open worlds ever made it's simply a stunning place to just fly around i recorded half an hour of gameplay i did nothing i'm just flying around and admiring everything it's it's just beautiful this is an easy 100 hour adventure the main story is around 50 hours but there is so much more you can do in the game the wii u wasn't exactly known for large-scale games but this made up for it there's a very real chance this video is going to become dated but as of this recording this is the biggest wii u exclusive it's very far from the only one though a horror game i absolutely adore is project zero maiden of blackwater probably better known as fatal frame in america this is the fifth entry in the franchise and the fourth one was never localized but was we exclusive in japan nintendo strangely have the rights to this franchise and you may recognize the main character as an assist trophy in smash brothers ultimate this is a really cool horror game though and the gamepad makes perfect sense this probably could be adapted for switch but as it stands the gamepad mirroring the camera obscura is ingenious moving around like an actual camera is so responsive and the controls in this game in my opinion are much better than any other entry visually it's stunning too and can be legit scary really underrated game and unfortunately the only physical version is this which is very expensive now we touched on them briefly already but there's windwaker hd and twilight princess hd which i do believe will likely come to the switch very soon but they are great on wii u they're already 1080p and while there are moments of frame drops in both games specifically wind waker for the most part they run fine again the gamepad mechanics are brilliant in these games and there's a bunch of quality of life improvements like the triforce quest being less of a hindrance and wind waker and climbing faster in twilight princess big things and small things as of this video these stand is the best place to play these 3d zelda classics then there's dr luigi oh yeah just the big games here dr luigi was released for the year of luigi and it's basically dr mario but some blocks are l-shaped ooh a variant of this also came to 3ds but the wii u version is best for multiplayer whether it's online or local this is probably the best dr mario game star fox zero a game everyone hates but no one's played it is certainly derivative of star fox 64 but in my opinion it's also the best star fox since 64 which isn't saying too much but it is legitimately really fun it's also one i don't think is gonna leave the wii u aiming with the gamepad would give you a different view and sometimes what you're aiming at is invisible on the tv screen like there's enemies with their weak points under them and if you were to try and aim at that on the tv you just couldn't see what you're doing it's a very unique and not exactly intuitive control scheme but once you get a hand on this star fox zero is a pretty fun game yoshi's whirly world for me this is the second best yoshi game following the original yoshi's island it's not as derivative as many of the sequels and is so charming with an amazing soundtrack left a much greater impression on me than crafted world this was ported to 3ds as yoshi and pooch's woolly world but the wii u version is the only one you can play local co-op and it looks a lot nicer too it could come to switch one day but as of now wii u exclusive splatoon now you might say but john splatoon 2 is on the switch and it's basically splatoon 1 but bigger and to that i say no there's actually around seven maps in splatoon 1 which aren't in splatoon 2. they're really good and pretty iconic ones too and then there's the entire story mode which again is exclusive to splatoon 1. in fact people still play splatoon 1 on wii u in droves it's so easy to find a game so whilst platoon 2 is very iterative and brings back most of the first game there's still a lot of value in splatoon 1 and the same kind of goes for smash brothers for wii u in my eyes ultimate is certainly the more impactful game look how slow smash 4 looks now when you launch someone it's just it feels like they're going through butter and the roster somehow this looks tiny now but there is a bunch of stuff unique to smash 4 that isn't an ultimate like all the 3d trophies the smash tour which is like a board game there's angry birds there's event matches but i think the biggest thing missing from smash 4 is the custom move sets so you might know about these from the moves but in smash 4 these custom move sets apply to every single character in the game you had to unlock them but you could wildly change a character's moveset it could be small like making luigi's fireballs bounce rather than floating through the air or it could be as drastic as changing palutena's entire move zen there's a crazy amount of customization here which just isn't in ultimate kirby and the rainbow paintbrush sequel to kirby power paintbrush and if those names sound weird well blame europe this definitely wasn't as innovative as the first game but a widescreen hd sequel to one of the diaz's most experimental and fun games is a great thing and yeah it's utterly beautiful on the tv the problem is you don't play on the tv you play on the gamepad where it's 480p all the time so you can look up and see the game and all its beauty but you can't control it that way this is something that could work on switch and handheld mode but as of right now is exclusive to wii u then there's two party games mario party 10 and we party u mario party 10 on paper still kind of carries over the limitations of the prior games you're all in a car together and it just kind of feels like a step back from the previous mario parties but what makes it fun is bowser the people in the car are essentially playing against the person on the gamepad who plays as bowser and so the party games are asymmetric on the gamepad you try and crush everyone else on the screen you try and avoid bowser it's actually pretty good and then we party u essentially gives you traditional mario party you move individually from everyone else and just play traditional four player party games it doesn't use the gamepad much outside of an exclusive gamepad mode but it's still a decent party game in addition to wii party u and wii sports club there was also wii fit u made by the developers of pandora's tower i actually played this quite a lot back in the day it basically is just we fit in hd but if you bought the pedometer you got this game for free there's some cool gamepad stuff too giving you new views and brand new games paper mario color splash i'm not going to tell you this is the best game in the series because frankly it's alright the combat's not great but this was a much much better game than sticker star there's a lot of personality and flavor and some legit great writing so even though it's flawed it's still a pretty good game and exclusive to the wii u nes remix one and two i adore these games 3ds got nes remix ultimate which is basically a compilation but still this game isn't on the switch it takes the most iconic and memorable nes games and just changes things up like making you play donkey kong as link where you can't jump or zelda 2 is toad definitely gives you a warioware kind of feel at times affordable space adventures one of the best uses of the gamepad on the entire system so the gamepad is basically a control panel that you use to control your ship so you look at the tv to see what you're doing and the gamepad to move things around that kind of explanation sounds very simple but in action it feels really clever i don't think this game could be ported anywhere so right now wii u exclusive monster hunter 3 ultimate yeah this is on 3ds and the original monster to try is on wii but the wii u is the only place you can play hd monster hunter 3. you can even transfer your save file between the 3ds and wii u versions that was always really cool this console is home to a bunch of great exclusive games and while a ton of those are on the switch now there's still a reasonable selection which aren't then there's games like deus ex human revolution giving you more functionality on the gamepad or rayman legends which arguably is still best on wii u tekken tag tournament 2 gave nintendo costumes to every single character and people are still playing this game online today on wii u there was even a mega mushroom mode this stuff is awesome sonic lost world may be on pc now but the yoshi and zelda dlc is exclusive to wii u and yeah you heard that right yoshi and zelda dlc what you're seeing right now is real and then virtual console oh boy virtual console this gave you nes super nintendo n64 game boy advance ds i don't know why those were on wii u and not 3ds but i i'll accept it even turbo graphics 16 was part of this selection there were so many great games both first party and third party stuff from konami and capcom and square stuff that's still not nintendo switch online like mario rpg or earthbound we even got some games for the very first time through virtual console earthbound beginnings was the localization of mother one that was never released anywhere else the pal version of drilldozer was never released on game boy advance in europe and unlike the american version this came with multi-language support so if you're not a native english speaker you can play dozer in french or german that's so cool dark cam was re-released with wii remote support no need to play this game on a crt anymore mario advance 4 oh this was such an awesome one this came with every single e-reader level unlocked by default a lot of these didn't release globally and some didn't release at all so this is the first official way to play some brand new mario 3 levels they even mixed in elements from previous games like plucking tournaments from mario 2 or the mario world cape tons of great things were done on virtual console on wii u although the dark filter on a bunch of games doesn't look very good this isn't so bad on game boy advance but nes and super nintendo and n64 they look a bit rough but this was our first time getting 60hz versions in pow i prefer how games look on wii virtual console but all those games were 50 hertz that's a major bump for playability and speaking of wii virtual console the wii u includes wii mode this basically restarts the entire system and boosted up using the wii os back when the wii shop channel was active you could download wii virtual console games or wiiware games so the legacy lineup wasn't just limited to wii u virtual console but the entire lineup of the wii including that system's virtual console and of course all of its games now this is the feature i use the most my wii u is basically a wii with hdmi and that is fantastic the wii is one of my favorite nintendo systems and playing it with more clarity is something i wanted for years and the wii u brought that vision to life on wii u you could play metroid prime trilogy mario galaxy 2 clinoa fragile dreams the wii version of rodeo which was included with the average wii u version of rodeo but the wii version that's pretty good cinnamon punishment 2 xenoblade chronicles resident evil 4 wii edition the best version of one of the very best games of all time suddenly the wii u is more than just itself it's a portal to playing so many other games in their definitive way you can even buy some retail wii games from the wii ue shop getting them much cheaper than you can on the second hand market the only thing wii u really lacked was gamecube support because otherwise every system was represented on this one platform wii u was a system that got a lot of hate in its time and a lot of that criticism was valid we would go months without worthwhile games third-party support wasn't big so it's just nintendo and the indies holding up the fort output was nothing like it is on switch but looking back on the system with this completed library the wii u did okay it gave us some of the best games of all time like tropical freeze and the splatoon franchise and while the gamepad never really found its overall success some games used it so well that any future ports will just be worse than the wii u version even some third-party games are best on wii u it was an experimental system of some experimental games not everything worked and there were definitely some bad games but when the wii u was good it was damn good plus you can play donkey kong jet race on it yeah so what do you guys think about the wii u did you have one when it was new and if so what did you think then and what do you think now and if you didn't have one do you want one let us know in the comments below and be sure to go to the subscribe button and view us on your wii u tablet and press it again and again and again and we'll see you next time bye everyone you

Channel: Nintendo Life

Views: 245,691

Keywords: Nintendo Life, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Switch, NX, New 3DS, Nintendo UK, Jon, Wii U, gamepad, exclusive, not on switch, donkey kong, the legend of zelda, super mario, project zero, fatal frame, maiden of blackwater, xenoblade chronicles x, eshop, virtual console, backwards compatibility, wii mode, pullblox, pushmo, star fox zero, underrated games, retro, collection

Id: ikTyk45hKJQ

Length: 23min 57sec (1437 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 20 2021