Wii U: Downfall of a Downfall (Part II) - Scott The Woz

if you were an early adopter of the Wii U and you were bored why I can't imagine you must have been in a coma or something which would be the worst thing to deal with during Prime Wii U hours oh man I told him he shouldn't get stabbed yeah the thought of being bored by the Wii U is as Preposterous as anyone especially me being in a coma how could I be in a how could you be bored now alongside your Wii U you could pick up a few accessories like the Wii U bro controller for 50 bones yeah $50 to use this or more appropriately sit in the same room with because why can't I use this with a Batman Arkham City or new Super Mario Brothers U or Epic Mickey 2 it supports the Classic Controller Pro from the Wei of all things but no Pro Controller which baffles me this was just as expensive as any other standard controller at the time yet wasn't supported like one sure it was more common for games to use it than the classic controllers on the Wii but I still feel that Nintendo viewed this more so as a niche side thing to offer rather than a legitimate alternative to the Wii U gamad but over time it's obvious they started to embrace it a lot more with Mario U getting an update to enable support a few months later which is really great because many love this thing much like how many love Elder abuse the Wii U Pro controller is like beastiality I don't like it all right I wouldn't go that far this guy has all the makings of an excellent controller a great d-pad and buttons good sticks a comfortable shape that fits well in the hands an 80h hour battery life a surprise visit at work wait 80 hours on a single charge I'm not even sure you can physically use a Wii U for 80 hours and hey it uses a mini USB cable to charge which automatically puts this leagues above the Wii U game P's proprietary AC adapter everything about this seems to be a winner what's your definition of winning by the way it better be this they put the damn thumb sticks on the top and the buttons on the bottom so this follows the format of the GamePad with the sticks both on the top which in my opinion works for that due to the size and shape of the thing but here it just feels awkward to me I don't know it's a good controller but this one element just rubs me the wrong way plus there's no motion control baked in here no camera microphone really any of the fancy dads in the game pad which is nice to have some peace and quiet for once but makes it harder for certain games to support it still a nearly essential purchase for the Wii U owner alongside standard Weir otes yeah a lot of Wii U games sort of expect you to have these and you can simply use your old ones on the new system no problem though Nintendo did re-release them in new Wii U flavored packaging only major difference with these Wii remotes is the sync button has a cut out on the battery cover and you can press it with this tab on the wrist strap it's about damn time they didn't force me to take the cover off to syn my Wii remotes I've had so many problems arise after doing that of course Wii U games like Nintendo Land require Wii remotes for multiplayer though you also may want them to use Wii mode so buying a Wii U I can still play Wii games huh well how does that work it's just a Wii you have to click on we mode the Wii U basically resets boots up again as a Wii with limited options we don't have things like the photo news or forecast channels basically just the Necessities here the Wii Shop Channel still worked which meant you could play Old School Virtual Console games on Wii U at launch they were just in Wii mode you couldn't use your fancy new controllers to play anything here you can't really do anything you couldn't do on a normal Wii when they said the Wii U would be backwards compatible I wasn't imagining this it's like running Windows on a Mac Mac it's an elegant but it's functional it gets the job done plus it gives us a Wii with HDMI it doesn't really do anything to the games outside of a clear image but it's still really convenient and my preferred way to play these things you can transfer the contents of your Wii to Wii U via these migration applications showing Pikmin carrying all your data and see that's the Nintendo I love putting all the effort where it doesn't count it may be bleeding out but they put the Nintendo logo on the HDMI cable the Wii U as a package felt underbaked there was fun to be had but it lacked cohesion the console featured a bunch of ideas but none of them really working together and many of them lacking substance depth polish intuition Direction it had promise for sure but it was buried underneath the clunkiness of an obviously rushed and poorly thought out product the Wii U was obviously not lighting the world on fire like the original Wii did though that doesn't mean it wasn't selling by the end of 2 the system had sold a little over 3 million units which wasn't too bad a decent start all things considered meaning as we entered 2013 the Wii U was positioned to maintain its steady sales but before we take a look at how many units the Wii U sold in January of 2013 in the US I want to take a peek at sales of mucus and see how that's going wow only 57,000 units in the month of January that is rough for mucus oh I'm sorry mucus after the launch Buzz of the system died down Wii U sales fell off a cliff the lack of substantial content surrounding this thing definitely didn't help a Nintendo TV arrived in December of 2012 and just wasn't this Christ figure Nintendo was hyping it up to be it was fine but as cool as some of these features are you kind of had to go out of your way to use them due to how slow the Wii U was you had to make an active effort to turn on the Wii U boot up Nintendo TV wait for every everything to load up all to select watching the office in a slightly more novel way a lot of these features were neat but they weren't worth the hassle compared to just using a normal remote TV was ahead of its time but due to how clunky sluggish and Half Baked the Wii U was it just wasn't compelling to keep using and it's obvious the service did not pan out how Nintendo wanted it to early on that Netflix wasn't a part of it until March 2013 too and DVR support were promised but never came and Europe just flat out never got Nintendo TV it had some solid ideas and worked for the most part it just wasn't lifechanging like Nintendo thought it was because while it aimed to declutter and simplify watching TV it kind of did the opposite everybody watches TV like this nobody watches it like this so yeah contrary to what Nintendo thought this did nothing to spike interest in the console neither did the games that released after launch don't mind the second worst game of all time according to Metacritic releasing on December 4th 2012 as a a Wii U exclusive family party 30 great games obstacle arcade what that didn't help things that alongside a handful of license games launched in December but after that nothing all we really had were just a few Indie titles like the cave and Runner 2 on the ESOP and even then that was pretty much it for Indie titles it was slim Pickins Rayman Legends was scheduled for February Lego City undercover and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate in March we knew game in Wario Pikmin 3 B a two wonderful 10 of1 and we fit youu were coming eventually but like that was all we knew at this time there's some Stellar titles in there no doubt but not enough to feel optimistic for the future of this system it was obvious Nintendo had to do something to not only excite potential customers but they current ones as well so in came the Wii U direct a Nintendo Direct focused entirely on what Nintendo was cooking for their newly released system on January 23rd 2013 now that's why I bought this system to find out why I bought it so how did Nintendo and still hope in the Wii U's future mention how a Mario game is coming that was more likely than me waking up tomorrow this was a Monumental moment for Nintendo fans this direct featured announcements of a new 3D Mario in Mario Kart playable at E3 2013 alongside the first footage of Smash Brothers for Wii U and 3DS debuting there the next Zelda game a new Yoshi game by the makers of Kirby's Epic Yarn shim magami tensei Cross Fire Emblem a new Wii Party an HD remaster of Wind Waker a new project by Xenoblade developer monolith soft and all kinds of updates on games like bayetta 2 the wonderful 101 the announcement of Virtual Console games coming to wiu system updates to cut back on the loading times this is like everything a Wii U owner Ever Wanted words yeah a huge chunk of these announcements we're merely saying this is going to happen and no gamep playay screenshots working titles really anything to go off of other than Mario to be fair at the time this is all we really needed Assurance just knowing these big games were coming even if it was to be expected it was nice though it does make this direct really underwhelming to rewatch I mean you truly had to be there a new 3D Mario was exactly what the Wii U needed to Showcase this thing's capabilities I mean that's what Mario 64 did and what Mario 3D Land just did on the 3DS a few years PR Mario Kart was a Surefire good time the Wind Waker in HD looked gorgeous even if all we saw were a few screenshots that was all we needed to not only sell us on the game itself but the prospect of HD remakes on Wii U in general the concept of the next Mainline Zelda game was intriguing as they were interested in rethinking the conventions of the series Yoshi looked IR resistible the monolith soft game X was one of the first real examples of an exclusive that looked to rival hardcore experiences on competitors platforms with this huge open world and quality HD visuals the shimakami tensei crossfire emblem affirmed Nintendo's commitment to collaboration with thirdparty developers and the Wii U Virtual Console was launching this spring with NES and SNES games supporting Wii U controllers merse communities plus discounted pricing if you bought the Wii versions and they kicked it all off with one game every month for half a year costing 30 cents to celebrate the famicom 30th anniversary with balloon fight dropping right now it felt good to be a Nintendo fan this month which made the execution in February more tolerable Rayman Legends was scheduled to launch this month it was going to turn a Barren first quarter for the Wii U into that but with Rayman Legends this was looking to be one of the finest 2D Platformers of the generation putting new Super Mario Brothers you to shame visually and creatively especially when it came to use of the game pad believe me when I say most Wii U owners were looking forward to this one and with nothing else really happening the first two months of the year it was in a good place to get all the attention it deserved and then some you can tell something happened instead right close Ubisoft announced mere days before its scheduled release that Rayman Legends was not only delayed to September but was also not going to be a Wii U exclusive anymore they initially said it was because they didn't want to disappoint the Xbox 360 and PS3 players who wanted to play the game oh so bad they're so hungry I have not eaten in weeks it was later made evident that this was done due to the Wii U's slow launch and zombie U's underperformance Ubisoft didn't rip the exclusivity because of civil rights in addition Activision expressed disappointment in the system's launch EA straight up said it wasn't nextg in one of the Wii U games that was non-stop talked about since reveal the game that was said to have been best on Wii U Aliens colonial Marines was rumored to have been indefinitely postponed for the console Nintendo's response the Rayman Legends delay was the true start to all of these companies eventually abandoning Wii U the launch did not meet expectations and while I understand why that happened some things just never added up Ubisoft because an m-rated firstperson survival horror game didn't do well on the Mario clown box you delayed the e rated color explosion in the same genre as new Super Mario Brothers you yes A Clockwork Orange did not screen well at this movie theater we will cancel The LEGO Movie Activision's disappointed in how their launch lineup went I am too well it wasn't all doom and gloom as Nintendo held a Nintendo Direct this month detailing mostly just 3DS software though touching on some Wii U news most notably a huge DLC expansion for New Super Mario Brothers U replacing all the levels with brand new ones focusing on Luigi titled New Super Luigi U in celebration of the Year of Luigi Sony's response that next week well just you wait until Lego City Undercover comes out with new consoles on the horizon all the excitement in gaming was aimed at them especially when the Wii U didn't have much going on at the time though let's let's not get ahead of ourselves here we have a year to build up an impressive game library and make some jawdropping announcements to ensure when the PS4 launches the Wii U will be sitting pretty next to it featuring great games at an affordable price with a bright future and while things seem Bleak at times we can't ignore the fact that Ubisoft announced watchdogs for Wii U this month the game set to usher in the next generation of gaming focused on hacking with smartphones felt like a no-brainer with the GamePad and come March 2013 we were officially escaping the quarter 1 drought and finally had some big releases on March 18th Nintendo published Lego City Undercover finally another reason to not buy a Wii U I still don't understand why Nintendo went after this game to make it exclusive Lego games are big no doubt but two reasons for that is due to the movie licenses and the fact they're everywhere sure they're also fun and quality games that anybody can enjoy but ripping these two elements away always made this game existence as an exclusive strange to me however that doesn't mean I think it shouldn't exist a good open world game for kids when I was 10 I was itching for any kind of game that made me feel the way a Grand Theft Auto does I think it's important to have kid-friendly Alternatives in most genres and Lego City Undercover is an excellent one you play as Chase McCain in this giant parody of everything it's about as close to Lego shash shank as we'll get it's super Goofy and silly and stupid but but that's what makes it Charming it's like a big Saturday morning cartoon the gameplay is a mix between any other typical Lego romp and the mission structure of a Grand Theft Auto which makes for a solid campaign just not the most amazing sandbox open World experience you can't really screw around here like you can in GTA but what you can do is wait to not really do that Lego City Undercover has some of the worst load times of the 21st century now what do I consider a bad load time well how about one that's been going on since I started talking about this game they pop up all the time and can each last minutes I'm not kidding when I say these nearly ruin the whole thing for me but when I look past that I see an open world game for kids and nothing more it's good but it's really nothing special the cheesy plot and jokes definitely help elevate it and it's not boring at all it's just pretty basic doesn't help that the Wii U gamepad integration is sort of made out to be more than it really is here uh you get a least Communicator in game which is supposed to represent the thing it's front and center in the commercials the back of the box words it as if using the gam pad is the main hook of the title and it's like it's a map absolutely integral could you imagine being in Lego City without this thing I can but I won't you do use it in certain instances to scan the environment and when you get a phone call it comes in through there which is sort of cute but at the same time forcing these gimmicks takes away the ability to do off TV play use a Pro Controller or multiplayer with the two screens in fact Lego City Undercover has no multiplayer whatsoever which that's a staple of the Lego game so to not have that here especially when the commercial shows a father and son sitting together and playing it's just baffling but setting these issues aside I think I would be a miserable lump if I said Lego City Undercover wasn't a solid time it's a great kids game and a good game all around it just is not a system seller this is the kind of game that needs to be multiplatform now why am I constantly holding this against the game it was the first damn thing Nintendo announced for the Wii U like was this supposed to be an oh sh moment now if Lego City wasn't your jam this month there was thankfully a ton of other releases most occurring the very next day here we have Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate by Capcom a nice a big meaty hardcore action adventure game that look looks like ass this is an upgraded re-release of Monster Hunter Tryon Wii which that in addition to this launching day and date on 3DS meant this was never going to be the greatest looker and with the monster hunter series at this time being notorious for its lack of accessibility to Dear God anybody new to the franchise and the fact this launched on the least accessible game console at the time man it's all coming together this is a Monster Hunter for Monster Hunter Fans now it's not only for them but this game's main objective isn't to appeal to today's youth it's to supply the best way to play Monster Hunter 3 and it does that you can also link it to the 3DS version and transfer your save data back and forth which you'd expect more games to connect like this like wouldn't it have made sense for new Mario U and new Mario 2 to talk to each other in some way the way you and 3DS share so many features Design Elements parents why do my handheld and conso communicate less now than they did back during the N64 days I have my theories and they're all all right Need For Speed Most Wanted you was another March 19er while the game launched on 360 and PS3 back in October this release made sure to make it worth the wait as it features enhanced visuals utilizing textures found only in the PC version you know sometimes it pays to wait 5 months to play a racing game without analog triggers at full price with most of the DLC not available I never said it paid well much like most Wii U multiplats this one has a few downsides but that shouldn't stop you from accepting it as a our Lord and savior finally the pros list isn't empty they went out of their way to ensure Most Wanted took full advantage of the console utilizing every last feature within reason going as far as offering wewh support but they were smart with how they implemented everything and they didn't just force you to accelerate with the microphone we can use a screen here to select cars to switch to on the Fly plus use it in a new exclusive multiplayer mode to help out the player on the TV and now just for fun they added Mario Warp pipes to the map this was a version of the game crafted out of love and is easily the best game EA put out on Wii U yet can't wait to see what they do next me too this was EA's last Wii U game shortly after this they announced this year's Need for Speed Battlefield Madden and FIFA were skipping the platform but not the PS2 listen I get it the Wii U was not selling great at the time but if you were going to get one you weren't going to buy Mass Mass Effect 3 with it this console wasn't appealing to the hardcore audience or the casuals the only people buying it were Nintendo fans and the only games they were interested in were Nintendo games the audience e games appealed to either weren't on Wii U or if they were playing EA Games just wasn't something they were using their Wii U for they probably had an Xbox or Playstation as well so taking that into consideration it makes sense why EA stopped trying with this system but they ever to begin with every game they released was months old missing substantial features and priced at a full $60 plus most of these were series we already had on the Wii so there really wasn't any excitement with finally getting them on a Nintendo platform this was par for the course and that's the interesting debate with third party games on Wii U people just flat out weren't buying them that's a fact but when they were barely advertised missing content Andor overpriced yeah these games didn't do great on Wii U but but they weren't great versions of the games to begin with so what did you expect though to be fair I don't really see a world where EA would put battlefield for out on this system day and date with the other versions and it looks and runs perfectly has all the content is fully featured and it actually sells it's obvious in hindsight the Wii U was a lost cause but in the moment I don't think that's entirely why EA pulled out so early they put FIFA 14 out on the Wii PlayStation V 3DS you can't tell me FIFA would have done that much worse on Wii U it's so strange how this company went from singing their praises of Nintendo in this console nurturing an unprecedented partnership to having no games in development by May of 2013 making April Fool's Day jokes flat out calling the system crap something definitely happened with rumors pointing towards EA wanting Wii U to use its online infrastructure with Nintendo deciding against it that would definitely line L up with the concept of an unprecedented partnership so that falling through coupled with the low game sales Electronic Arts was out but hey who needs them the Wii U yes not only did EA pull all support around this time but one of the biggest champions of the console as well gearbox software's Aliens colonial Marines was said to be best on Wii U they weren't wrong Activision continue with their support as usual with games like The Amazing Spider-Man Ultimate Edition and The Walking Dead survival Instinct yeah we didn't get The Walking Dead game from 2012 the game of the year winner the one that runs on iPhones no we got this one this game actually has some cool ideas I always found it focus on survival and Gathering materials to be intriguing but to be fair I can convey those ideas through sock puppets and they're still cool ideas they don't make for a good game but hey while most third party games would come here missing deal DLC Amazing Spider-Man has it all included on the disc a movie tie in from June of last year the Wii U and has the best version it's also the plate to the best lasagna I've ever had that very next month we got Injustice Gods Among Us to absolutely no Fanfare it's like this game was a damn ghost we barely knew anything about the Wii U version until it launched no previews early reviews or gameplay really which is strange considering it's fine it's a competent version of the game it launched alongside the others it just missing a few elements like compatibility with the mobile companion game a lot of DLC isn't there some modes aren't available uh same price I appreciate them supporting the console and this version plays well but WB and Nintendo barely acknowledged its existence and you charge full price when you're lacking a handful of features well in Justice for Wii U did not meet our projections well what the were they the big deal this month was the hard launch of virtual console on the eShop which that definitely wasn't as exciting as I think Nintendo was anticipating it to be I mean for one we've already gotten a few Virtual Console games via the 30th Anniversary campaign and for 30 cents a pop you launch ice climber for five bucks and expect me to respond with compassion and empathy sure if we bought them on Wii we could download the Wii U versions at a discount but that's the thing these games were all already re-released on Wii ever since this thing launched I could play these games and hundreds more on my Wii U through Wii mode I just had to go through more menus and couldn't use the game pad having to wait this long to play Donkey Kong Jr when you could already play Donkey Kong junor on Wii U I mean what were we waiting for here the Wii U to load anded features were nice off TV play for the classics that was a big bonus but when they look like this is it really the NES games looked really lackluster with washed out in dark colors the image wasn't crisp at all and they also just didn't feel great to play there's a bit of input lag not enough to ruin games but enough to make playing virtual console and Wii U feel sluggish which wasn't something I ran into on Wii now in contrast Super Nintendo games looked beautiful though still felt a bit off to play overall nice to have classic games natively on Wii U but I think this launch helped hit home why this wasn't going to be as exciting as previous Virtual Console efforts that firstly Nintendo was going to drip feed us the same exact games we bought on wiii and on 3DS again on Wii U throughout the rest of the generation wasn't like we hadn't had access to these games for years and we're finally getting them again secondly they only launch with two consoles we had like five right when the Thing released thirdly it was just disappointing to me okay I was excited at the prospect of playing these classic games on the GamePad and when I finally got them I realized there was nothing to really be excited about here these are the same games I could play on Wii mode on my Wii U but they were just less responsive now it was nice to have these games on Virtual Console I did buy a fair amount of them but all things considered this was a pretty lackluster element of the Wii U but outside of my dozens of problems it was great Donkey Kong 3 o but hey while all these titles we've had more than enough access to for years Nintendo decided to announce during an April Nintendo Direct that they were finally going to re-release Earthbound on Wii U virtual console this was big I mean this was a game that was so hard to NAB a cartridge of it was a game that never got re-released outside of Japan and for it to finally get anything was pretty awesome in addition the Wii U received a software update upgrading it from slow as to slow as sh and overall I'd say it was a pretty relaxed spring for the Wii U not Barren but not too awful much going on this news hit me like a truck and a big one at that while Nintendo was going to E3 2013 they were not going to have a traditional live onstage press conference instead opting for the Nintendo Direct format they've been toying around with as of late listen nowadays that's no problem the norm for most companies actually but have you ever watched the Nintendo Direct from 2013 Wario hey I still loved them but to replace the press conference with it that felt too far we got so many electrifying moments at E3 by hearing the crowd's reaction seeing these people go up on stage and proudly proclaiming digital presentations a lot of people view Nintendo's approach here as cowardly with some misinterpreting it as them skipping E3 as a whole it was seen that if Nintendo refused to go on stage they weren't confident they were scared about being compared to Sony and Microsoft when in reality I mean we know how much better digital presentations can be now you have a much better flowing event with none of the technical problems are fluff like dance numbers and a car what you lose and excitement and flashiness you make up for with a better overall experience for the majority of the events viewers and I think Nintendo realized that before many other companies they just decided to assert their stance at a very odd time the E3 you're going to show Smash Brothers at and we're not going to be able to hear the crowd's reaction I think that was the biggest disappointment for me plus the direct format wasn't refined enough at this point and we didn't expect as much from them as we do today these felt like investors meetings for fans and the idea of this replacing R E3 frankly was a bit concerning for more reasons than one yeah right after this Nintendo started to copyright claim videos on YouTube featuring gameplay of their titles which made it less likely people were going to make and share videos about Wii U games online I swear with these two decisions back to back in addition to all the previous marketing snafus I felt like they were actively trying to do the wrong thing whaling we got a few more releases in May like Resident Evil Revelations the HD console Port of the 3DS game from 2012 Lego Batman 2 a year old game lacking the DLC from 360 and PS3 Sniper Elite V2 a year old game that's missing multiplayer in general my God and Fast and Furious showdown that's all me stuff to play but like I don't want just stuff I want uncompromised experiences that's something that doesn't feel like table scraps or a sympathy Port well for that Nintendo held yet another Nintendo Direct this month now 2013 they stuck to a roughly monthly schedule with these presentations which was really cool but they frankly didn't have enough content to Warrant a Nintendo Direct every month I mean they wouldn't shut the hell up about gameing Wario and half of these like does this really warrant this much coverage with that in mind this was sort of a calm before the storm direct to get some info out prior to E3 but some of that info was pretty massive turns out Nintendo struck a deal Sega will create three Sonic the Hedgehog games exclusively for Wii U the first one announced being a new Mario and Sonic at the Olympics thank God that like that one down that would have been exclusive regardless what kind of a contract is this obviously the more interesting one was the next Mainline Sonic game Sonic Lost World unveiled via just this one image with a full-blown reveal trailer occurring a few weeks later oh I was definitely Allin for a new 3D Sonic on Wii U with the last one being Sonic Generations I was really down to see another game in that style I mean it had some amazing stages both visually and layout wise it just borrowed a lot from the series history so I was excited at the prospect of a wholly original game like this what I got was no yeah so after Sonic Team stumbled upon a winning formula they said let's try something new and what we got was Sonic Lost World a weird looking Sonic game with abstract level design and simple colorful visuals that looked good but not impressive like Generations obviously they were just going for for a different style but at the time I felt this oddly made the Wii U look less powerful than the Xbox 360 well this wasn't the game I expected it still looked high quality and hey a third party Wii U exclusive that was enough to keep our chins up going into E3 ah hey mold here it was E3 2013 where the Next Generation firmly kicked into gear the recently unveiled Xbox one was going up against the PlayStation 4 both had great showings with a ton of games but Sony knew exactly what buttons to push when they announced a price tag of $3.99 compared to the Xbox One's $499 and even the wiii use 349 all after publicly embarrassing Microsoft over the controversial policies they were looking to implement with their console people scrammed to pre-order PS4s it was an electrifying few days some of the most important in gaming history and then there was Nintendo I logged on to Nintendo's E3 website on June 11th and was ready to see how the WiiU stacked up against the next generation of gaming yeah they had some streaming issues I remember this thing stuttering constantly it's such a low resolution with numerous others corroborating the problems but as long as the games were there it didn't matter right okay so on paper Nintendo Z3 2013 Direct was incredible I mean 3D Mario Mario Kart smash BRS Wind Waker HD Bay at a 2X the Casual games third party releases Donkey Kong coming from e3s of the Wii era where we'd get like two three games we'd care about this was nothing but quality games the core fans love the games you bought a Wii U for however while all these games look good how we knew they were going to be good they weren't exactly what the we you needed at the time Super Mario 3D World was revealed and of course it looked good but when Nintendo announced it as a new 3D Mario action game coming from the developers of Mario Galaxy they had to have known how underwhelming this looks this wasn't a big leap forward for Mario this wasn't using the Wii U effectively this was a sequel to Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS which was great yeah but that was more or less a new Super Mario Brothers game in 2D and with 3D World introducing four-player multiplayer it once again looks like a new Super Mario Brothers game in 3D but I think what hurt even harder was the reveal of Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze not because of anything to do with the game itself but rather the developer Retro Studios was behind this one and they were responsible for some of the greatest Nintendo games of all time the Metroid Prime Trilogy Donkey Kong Country Returns H they helped out with Mario Kart 7 so at this time people were pulling their hair out in anticipation for what Retro Studios would do next turns out they pulled their hair out out of anger instead Donkey Kong Country Returns was incredible however not many people were asking for a sequel at this time we just got Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D in May of 2013 with new levels included the yarn Yoshi 2D platformer was just announced in January new Super Mario Brothers U recently came out and New Super Luigi U was releasing soon this type of game just didn't feel necessary at the time it almost felt like retro studios's talents were being wasted on yet another 2D platformer on Wii U and they've shown with the Metroid Prime games how they can make something so expansive and impressive and mature uh whether it would be a new metroid or a reboot of another Nintendo IP or something completely original it didn't matter that would have brought something new and different and eye-catching to the Wii U's lineup but instead we just got another 2D Donkey Kong but hey Mario Kart 8 looked in incredible visually this was topnotch with some incredible lighting character models and track design that made even better by the new anti-gravity gimmick Super Smash Brothers for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS my Lord this was one of the best trailers Nintendo put together at the time the reveal of Mega Man was unlike anything else I had ever seen and the release date of 2014 well at least that meant even during the driest of months we still had Smash Brothers to speculate about bayonetta's gameplay reveal looked great X continued to impress win Waker HD absolutely gorgeous this was a good E3 and while I feel like the game lineup here was enough to validate the Wii U to those who had already bought it it didn't inv validate it to those who had it look oh man as a Wii U owner I'm going to have all the Nintendo games I buy a Nintendo system for soon 3D Mario Mario Kart Smash Brother Zelda uh but to everybody else this lineup is practically identical to the 3DS so why would I spend hundreds of dollars on this thing when all of the big games coming to it had Alternatives available on something that's significantly cheaper that had games that didn't have Alternatives available elsewhere in 2013 alone the 3DS had Fire Emblem Awakening Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon Animal Crossing new Leaf Mario and Luigi Dream Team Pokemon X and Y The Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds and everything Nintendo announced for Wii U at E3 kind of just felt like HD 3DS games but with that being said Nintendo at E3 2013 there was a good handful of great games on the horizon and if you wanted to take them on a test drive Nintendo partnered with Best Buy to offer demo events for 3D World Mario Kart Donkey Kong and Wind Waker they were definitely confident in this lineup and even though I thought it was incredibly safe it was just really great to have core Nintendo games to look forward to rather than making do with hearing about gameing Wario for over a year well the wait was finally over because on June 23rd Nintendo published their second Wii U game this year game and Wario moving on okay fine it is the only Wii U game that released this month so let's take a look at game and Wario I said game and Wario similar to Nintendo Land game and Wario is a miname collection hell been on making sense of this however this is based on the warwar series a keyword being based on cuz I'm hesitant to call this a warwar game it features the same character style and humor though instead of playing through hundreds of micro games one after another in Rapid succession game and Wario is just a collection of 16 mini games most of which stink too many of these experiences feel like web browser games or micro games from an actual War youare unnaturally ended these ideas are cute and 5-second burst but when I'm playing them for 10 minutes straight what was charming and warart becomes pathetic in game and Wario that's not to say there aren't highlights here gamer features actual warwar micro games on the gam Pad but on the TV you have to watch out for your mom hiding under the covers to avoid her it's a really fun twist that does a great job showing how Wii U can make things I wouldn't say better uh more so unique sketch is literally just Pictionary uh but that's the kind of game the Wii U was made for I would have loved to see a whole Stalin release for this thing it's so much fun and works perfectly with this console but for every gamer and sketch there's a game that's fun but just uses the touch screen so it'd be just as fun if not more so on 3DS DS iPhone and iPad and for every one of those there's an uninspired game that uses the GamePad but that's all it does it isn't fun or interesting it may have an idea at its course that you can say well that's a use for the two screens but that doesn't mean it's good and for every one of those there's a copy of a game we already played in Nintendo Land and for every one of those there's junk it's crazy to think how War were smooth moves on the wiat just had this endless list of ideas on how to use the Weir remote with 200 micro games well gaming Wario on Wii U feels like it's struggling to come up with just 10 plus uses for the game pad this isn't a bad game the good mini games are really good I still come back to sketch to this day island is a blast to play with multiple people gamer actually uses the GamePad in wildly effective ways a pirates is a fun rhythm game there's some great stuff here but it's surrounded by so much fluff that it's severely detracts from the experience as it ends up ruining what this game set out to do this doesn't validate the game pad it doesn't show off all these crazy ideas on how to use it if anything game and Wario shows that even Nintendo in the series known for making the most out of a wacky new controller could barely come up with any uses for this thing and that is so concerning this is degr Nintendo Land honestly a part of game that oddly focuses way more on single player than multiplayer which I would have preferred the other way around obviously there's some gems in here no doubt but that's only about 25% of the whole package I love some games in game and Wario but I wouldn't say I love game and Wario honestly in June you were better off just picking up New Super Luigi U instead the Mario U DLC launch this month and oh my God I vastly prefer this to Mario U for $20 you get pretty much a new game everything outside of the level designs is the same but you can make the argument that's the deal with every new Super Mario game and these levels are leagues above what we got in Mario U they're shorter but much harder which I find far more compelling than well this is just a goddamn novel Luigi's unique physics make the game way more enjoyable to me the higher jump in longer Air Time make pulling off platforming tricks really satisfying the inclusion of nabit as a playable character is pretty cool I love how every stage as a hidden Luigi in it I genuinely always preferred this to the base game I never 100% completed that while Luigi U I did on my first playthrough yeah that's right I think this is great DLC for 20 bones you pretty much get another New Super Mario Brothers in your new Super Mario Brothers and it can really be considered its own game because it is one yeah in August nintend to released a standalone retail copy of new Super Luigi U for 30 bones in this collectible green case and yes of course I bought this twice yeah that's wrong the summer of 2013 was mostly filled with those licensed kids games we know damn well at this point with one of them being Disney's PLS the video game did you know Nintendo listed this as one of their big Wii U exclusives in a July Nintendo Direct mini come on man this list looked fine enough without it as a part of that same direct Earthbound finally launched on the Wii U shop announced via a Lake launch trailer they treated this as if it was a new game release it was a big deal and justifiably so I mean this was how tons of Nintendo fans myself included were introduced to Earthbound and they made sure to make this a meaningful debut recreating the original strategy guide included with the game for the Wii U gam pad via the web browser however don't be fooled by that higher than normal price tag this is just a virtual console game they didn't change or add a damn thing but they didn't need to because Earthbound is one of those special games that once in A- lifetime experience and the fact it was finally brought back at this moment and the way it was really helped this game to leave an impression on a whole new generation I mean we all heard of Earthbound at this point and when it's the only thing that month to play hey why not sure you re-released it on a console with a microscopic install base but that installed base is a passionate one so you introduce them to a game with one of the most passionate microscopic fans bases out there and Bam Earthbound now has 12 fans nah this game was consistently at the top of the Wii U zshop charts which was a joy to see it proved that it doesn't matter how obscure your game is or how poorly it did initially because all that can change with just one more chance yeah a year after other consoles got it Wii U received Angry Birds trilogy because that's what the Wii U received games why why this took so long is beyond me I mean this is Angry Birds this is the only Home console with a touchcreen well we got to finish this before we release Angry Birds this was actually announced alongside a suite of other Activision titles for Wii U in July including Call of Duty ghosts which was relieving to see though really strange as to why they waited so long to confirm it was coming they were so mysterious about it which ended up making the Wii U version feel like an afterthought I mean I know it was but if wanted it to succeed why wait to just end up saying it's coming to Wii U there was nothing special about this thing you had to keep under wraps if anything this made it so then most people didn't even know a Wii U Port of ghost was happening well once August hit things started to pick up most notably with honestly what felt like the first Blockbuster exclusive of the Year Pikman 3 let's be honest this is kind of the first actual big game from Nintendo for Wii U I mean their own releases were basic 2D Platformers miname collections or games they simply published this was a deep singleplayer experience with multiplayer modes and abane detailed HD visuals developed internally by the company and I was stoked I had played Pikmin 1 before on the Wii and loved it I was praying that this game was going to get those fabled 10 out of 10 review scores and everybody would not only pick up a Wii U but finally give the Pikmin series The recognition it deserved by trying the latest and greatest game on the platform ah great it stinks okay so maybe this wasn't the game to change everything but to be fair I think that was unreasonable to expect out of Pikmin 3 this game wasn't designed to be a killer app it was designed to be the third Pikmin game but let me tell you it does that job wonderfully being one of the most original interpretations of the realtime strategy genre Pikmin seems hard to comprehend by just looking at it but once you start playing it all makes sense and I think Pikmin 3 is the most accessible yet while also being the best this game is magical much like previous titles in the series it invokes the feeling of being an ant the world feels so huge when in reality it's probably an as print and whip because of that there's this childlike Wonder to exploring in Pikman it captures your imagination offering a perspective that showcases the beauty in the smallest elements of nature which you just don't get in any other franchise and the HD visuals of Pikmin 3 Elevate this to a whole new level on top of being just a gorgeous treat to the eyes the higher resolution really benefits the Pikmin experience and making it easier to see all the individual Pikmin on screen or background elements far away the core gameplay is Pikmin perfected it combines the best ideas from one and two to create something that feels like a celebration of the series up until that point while feeling fresh and new exploring the World by using the Pikmin at your disposal and using their unique abilities to defeat enemies tear down walls build Bridges and collect fruit to progress through the campaign couldn't be designed or feel any better than it is in Pikmin 3 and it's all on a platform that honestly feels perfect for the franchise well as long as the franchise is happy this game supports a ton of control methods though my preferred one and Nintendo's recommend ation is the Wii Remote and nunchuk and Gamepad oh finally a use for my feet now you're meant to leave the game pad on a coffee table or on your lap and just use it for map stuff when required while controlling the majority of the game with the Weir mod of nunchuk which is pretty much perfect for Pikmin you can use just the gam pad with the Dual analog sticks which works perfectly fine it's just the weird mode is damn fine but this setup highlights that while the gam pad is useful here it's because they put in integral menu functions on it when using it the game basically pauses on the TV which sort of defeats the purpose of two screens if you can only use one at a time you might as well make this all controllable via the TV but I was never too annoyed by this in Pikmin 3 honestly the larger icons and touchscreen controls here do make this better than a normal mini map and overall I think it's just hard to be annoyed at Pikmin 3 in general the worst thing about it is that it's a little short but even then you have mission mode which is super replayable and bingo battle for multiplayer an insanely fun Twist on the Pikmin formula for two competitive players this is just a lovely experience one of Nintendo's finest games a product that encompasses everything I adore about this company now how can a game this good not possibly save the Wii U it's Pikmin It's a Wonderful franchise that has its audience and consistently sells over a million units but that's not enough to sell a system it's a great addition to a game lineup but at this point in 2013 this was pretty much the lineup you can tell Nintendo struggled internally with HD development as this alongside numerous other 2013 games were initially labeled as launch window releases and they ended up coming in nearly a year after launch this took way too long to come out however I'd say it was worth the wait now if Pikman isn't your thing Ubisoft had you covered man I hate Pikman but love Ubisoft okay well I have just one thing for you uh a formal warning Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist this is probably one of the biggest multiplatform GS we've gotten all year and it doesn't include Co-op is it just a tradition at this point for every Wii U port to be missing something I'd almost be more disappointed if it wasn't I mean cool this is one of those games where it's just not going to make a difference if it's there or not Tom Clancy games do well but tell me did you know this was on Wii U and even if you did did you care Nintendo held yet another direct this month which mostly shared info on games we already knew about coming in the second half of the year though we got a handful of releases detailed that were exclusive to the Nintendo eShop yeah this thing wasn't firing at all cylinders quite yet and Nintendo was keeping to a fairly consistent release schedule for Virtual Console but I already explained why that wasn't exciting oh yeah it's galago week what really got you to log back into the eShop where the original releases up to this point though Nintendo themselves mostly put out applications like Wii U Panorama view which was POV you're a bird we Street you which was POV your Google Maps these are cute little distractions that utilize the gyroscope of the gam Pad but nothing more we needed games not toys every now and then throughout the year we would get something like a toky Tory 2 a cloudberry kingdom a duct Tails remastered but for the most part we us struggle to get even the small downloadable titles Xbox 360 and PS3 got so Nintendo had to pick up the slack in August we got three eShop exclusives from them Art Academy sketchpad a basic drawing application released prior to a full-fledged Art Academy to give me first artist something to live for Pokemon Rumble U the first Pokemon game on the platform and the first bad one at that and Animal Crossing Plaza a free download giving Wii U owners a wara plaza themed entirely around Animal Crossing now that seems really cool it's like you can download themes for your Wii U menu but no this is its own app you have to voluntarily open to look around in and then leave it would have been great to choose a themed Plaza for your Wii U to boot up with you could have had Ones based on all the Nintendo series but no they just did this one to coincide with animal crossing new Leaf's release a few months back giving New Leaf players a hub where they can see what everybody else is saying on a platform that doesn't have new Leaf it was free I can't really complain this is probably just an excuse for the Animal Crossing team to mess around with HD development but still this app's entire existence always perplexed me it was only available for a certain time why what was happening on this date H it's offline but oh how I wish Pokemon Rumble you had that expiration date instead what a worthless game that was somehow worth $18 and hey if you wanted to spend more on it they finally made use of the NFC capabilities of the game pad for $4 a pop you can pick up these little figures you can then scan into the game it's pretty pointless it's feir just if you want to buy some toys and see them appear on screen but hey it's good to finally use plastic and the lower left hand side of the gam pad and my hand it's just good to be alive but you know who must really feel good to be alive people who didn't buy a Wii U yeah after months of saying a price drop wasn't happening Nintendo folded on August 28th 2013 they announced the Deluxe Set would start retailing for $2.99 9.99 a $50 price cut starting on September 20th uh why they announced this a month beforehand is beyond me considering I think they solidify not selling a single Wii U for 3 weeks this was a good move though I I don't think they took it far enough the deluxe set now cost the same as the basic set but that set didn't get a price drop in fact it was basically silently discontinued here if they kept the basic set around and dropped its price to $250 I feel like that would have been a bit more effective because technically the WiiU already started at $299 so dropping the deluxe sets price to that wasn't all too wi catching though Nintendo was already selling the Wii U at a loss before all this so I'm sure they would have dropped the basic sets price if they responsibly could have buty every little bit counts the price drop does help things though early adapters of the Wii U didn't get anything out of this now why would they well Nintendo did a similar thing with the 3DS they dropped the price by $80 four months in and as a thank you to those who bought the system at the original price they got a slew of free virtual console games Wii U owners didn't get anything for their initial loyalty to be fair they didn't know us anything you know the risk buying a console within the first year you're going to pay more to have less to play than somebody buying it years down the line and the 3DS got a way bigger price cut way sooner so I understand why they had to reward early adopters there and not necessarily on Wii U but at the same time I do question why they didn't at least give us something in addition to the prize cut they announced a Wind Waker HD special edition console to also be released on September 20th as well as finalizing some upcoming game release dates we were officially heading into a Make It or Break It holiday season for Wii U with nextg launching in November Nintendo knew they had to pull it together and did they do it well before I answer that let me respond to a phone call from somebody asking me if Nintendo didn't do it yes leading up to September Nintendo held one more Nintendo Direct this one dedicated to the Wonderful 101 releasing alongside a demo for the game and normally this is a good thing especially for a new IP in wonderful 101's case the demo was on there let me be clear this is not a bad game this was just a horrible demo a wonderful 101 was already kind of hard to tell what it was and this did not explain the controls well at all taking a game that already wasn't going to do well and probably scaring away a percentage of those who were going to pick it up regardless the wonderful 101 released on September 15th the same week as Grand Theft auto5 Not only was Nintendo confident in this title they were fing dumb yeah this game bombed I remember they slashed the price permanently to $30 just a few months in that's when I picked my copy up that's right here is my save file from 2013 uh yep 2 minutes in since then I have tried this game a few more times and I've always been kind of mixed on it it's a great game I have fun with it when everything is working out it's amazing but there's always this menacing level of clunk looming over you play as a large group of superheroes all at once and can build up your swarm over time recruiting more throughout the stage while fighting enemies by swapping to new abilities by drawing on the touchcreen it's a very hard game to describe basically it's a big bombastic hacking slash with elements from Pikman Beautiful Joe and Bayonetta you come in your group by making certain shapes like you sword that's just the line unite hand is a circle Etc that's all fine but this mechanic has always been so with me I've just never gotten it to work consistently you can use the right analog stick to draw which helps to not have to move your hand but isn't nearly as easy to form your shapes but this combined with how fast and intense the gameplay is feels like an odd pairing like this mechanic would work 10 times better in a slower paced game there's always so many enemies on screen with one being ginor and I end up wasting time fiddling around trying to get the ability I want and then boom I get hit and all my heroes scatter around the place and I have to pick them all back up every single time it can just get kind of aggravating honestly it's pretty damn difficult and sometimes a bit confusing as to what you need to do or where you need to go the tutorial could have been a lot better here but the issues I have with this game I always end up overcoming it takes a while to get used to but I I think Wonderful 101 is worth sticking with at the time this was easily one of the best action games mostly because it's 95% action all the time not a ton of filler here but when it is here it's actually kind of cute when you go inside a building the gameplay transitions down to the gam pad which sounds annoying but it's oddly Charming this game can be frustrating it can be confusing it isn't for everybody but that's what makes it special it's a platinum games title through and through incredible action throughout the entire Adventure this is the kind of stuff final boss fights are made of well wonderful 10 of1 that's just the game stylistic creative unique all help describe this game while I wouldn't say it's accessible I think it deserves a shot from any action game fan and it gave the Wii U another Ace up its sleeve a game nobody gave a about oh look at that lineup I think more people are interested in Rayman Legends launching a few weeks prior not just on Wii U but on 360 PS3 PC and Playstation VA thank God you delayed it so it wouldn't launch on a failed console well we finally got it and right when there was actual stuff to play so a lot of people skipped out on this one but rayman's the type of game that's always relevant with its Timeless gameplay and graphical style you can pick it up whenever and it'll be just as good as it was when it launched which is why Ubisoft reported that while sales were underwhelming at first and they picked up after a while though initially the Wii U version was the bestselling one yeah take that Ubisoft you thought you had anything to worry about truth to be told back in the day I first played and beat Rayman Legends on PlayStation 4 however I'd be a fool not to try the Wii U version the way this game was always meant to be played out of sympathy Rayman Legends is one of the great 2D Platformers of the 21st century this is the game dreams are made of one that doesn't look like a game the animation visual Style music level designs all come together to create something that's a spectacle something that oozes passion and expertise the people who made this game wanted it to be one of the best games of all time and they knew how to do it every single stage has so much oom to it whether it's one of the musical stages where every platform and enemy is placed to the beat of a song or one of the insane boss fights or even one of the many levels returning from Rayman Origins this game is packed with nothing but quality so as a game Rayman Legends is about as good as it gets but how does it Faire as a wiii U game to be honest the gam pad use here is a lot less involved than it initially seemed for the most part it's relegated to these stages where you control Murphy and can affect the environment by using the touchcreen which is best played in a Cooperative setting in multiplayer though you can still use him by yourself in single player it's a cool use of the controller way better than Mario U in this regard the gamad user has enough to do to the point where they're basically playing a puzzle game down here that helps the other players proceed it's really cool though I'd be lying if I said these stages were always a must to play Murphy just kind of slows things down both in single player and multiplayer in what's usually a game that feels its best when you're running at full speed going crazy these levels often times I'd rather Skip and the other console versions Murphy is controlled with simple button presses which does help this issue but at the same time not controlling him via a touchcreen it just makes us all feel pointless and weird like why am I even doing this so on 360 the levels are easier to jump in and blast through while on Wii U they actually feel like they have a point to them so pick your poison in the end though Rayman Legends is awesome yeah it really stunk to get that delay but I'd say it was worth the wait they included Mario and Luigi costumes because of it I'll buy anything with that another big hitter in September was scribbl nuts unmasked this one's pretty simple it's scribbl knots with the focus being on DC Superhero content and not much more to say other than this sentence can repeat endlessly it was all about that price cut and win Waker bundle though September 20th hit and this beauty did as well the third official version of Wii U see they did a few bundles but they always had either a black or white console and Gamepad in them but this one's different while the console is the same the gam pad has Zelda Insignia printed on it in Gold mirring a similar special edition 3DS they released a few years ago this bundle contains a digital copy of Hyrule Historia a Zelda art book famous for revealing the official series timeline now readable on your gam pad finally it's just a basic ebook application the real star of the show here is the inclusion of a download code for Wind Waker HD releasing a few weeks earlier than it was meant to see Nintendo Tred a new tactic with this one the digital version launched in September while the Box copy made its way to stores on October 4th definitely a smart way to ease your customer base into being more comfortable buying retail games digitally the only way you can play this 10-year-old game right now the Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker HD you know what an amazing idea this was fill out the Wii U's release schedule with an HD remaster of one of the most timeless games the or original Wind Waker on GameCube may have been lambasted in its time due to its cartoony art style but who's laughing now this game looks amazing even today it's so amazing I'm not even sure if an HD remaster was that necessary but I'm not complaining so I'll start Wind Waker HD is stunning they gave an already beautiful art style a Fresh coat of paint with new lighting widescreen 1080p resolution it looks truly remarkable though after seeing this version it's easy to forget how good The Originals visuals were and in some cases I think it's a little Superior Wind Waker hd's lighting is very exaggerated emphasizing Bloom and realistic Shadows which helps emphasize the bright tropical setting but is quite different from The Originals very deliberate style the shading and color Choice was reminiscent of a handdrawn cartoon compared to the more gradient focused look of HD this isn't a bad thing I think the Wii U game can often times look better than the GameCube version though the the original looks consistently amazing while in HD the lighting can make some scenes look off sometimes it's more striking other times it's far less I think in the end I love the way both of these games look in different ways while Wind Waker looks great all the time the highs of Wind Waker hd's Graphics are so damn High well the lows they're not bad they just look a little weird but that shouldn't take away from how visually striking HD is overall this is an already great title that's infinitely enhanced by the graphics it's just so fun to look at you want to take in every location at every angle possible Wind Waker may not have needed a remaster due to how well it held up but it's obvious why it got one they took something that already looked amazing and made it look amazing all over again in a whole new way but that's not it when it comes to changes they fixed a handful of glaring issues from the original the Triforce Quest near the end of the game has been a bridge the boat speed can be upgraded with the new Swift sale item plus you can now use motion control for aiming and the game pad's touchcreen for inventory management which is one of the best upgrades the interface is so userfriendly it's much easier to quickly assign items to buttons this way it's a seemingly basic use of the second screen but it's so effective this may sound boring but Wind Waker HD has some of the best gam pad use and it's not even required you can use a Pro Controller and play the game normally this is a superb upgrade and allows Wind Waker to shine like never before at this time in gaming most HD remasters and remakes you could tell they were old games while with Wind Waker HD that's not the case and this doesn't feel like something to help fill the Gap in the Wii U release schedule this just flat out feels like a Wii U game and when that Wii U game is Wind Waker one of the greatest adventure games of all time with some of its biggest initial floss ironed out you have not only one of the best U games but flat out one of the best games of all time the Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker HD is miraculous I fell in love with it after picking it up at retail later that holiday and you can tell Nintendo knew how special this was the gold shimmering boxar released alongside a limited edition exclusive to GameStop this was only $10 more and you get a whole ass Ganondorf figurine let alone the game by itself was only 50 bucks this was the era of Nintendo's not doing well and passing the savings on to you I got to stop buying their stuff and nowhere was that more evident than the we fit you direct in September yeah they were giving these things to anybody yeah after a full year out two years since it was teased we fit you still isn't out but this direct aim to give some concrete information most notably the price starting in November and ending in January weiu would be available for free you can download and play to your heart's extent for a full month and if you want to keep going you would have to buy a fit meter in stores for 20 bones well damn I think Nintendo knew the current user base on Wii U wasn't about to buy the we fitu balance board bundle for 90 bucks I think this was a smart tactic to just get people to try it but that wasn't really the big news in this direct Nintendo announced an HD remake of Wii Sports that'll solve everything I remember reading that headline on my phone on the bus to high school and getting so excited wi Sports in HD with online play it was everything I thought I ever wanted my pen ran out of ink however the more I think about this the more it feels like a desperation move wi sports club was the name and they only had two sports ready for launch in November with the rest of them coming at a later date each being sold separately under a payment method that was supposed to replicate a country club or I can just play Wii Sports and hey if we do that after a Wii U System Update in late September we can play it alongside all other Wii games on the game pad oh my God this changes everything this had so much value it practically turns this into a portable Wii this is amazing oh why would I possibly want to do that off TV play for Wii mode is a bit misleading uh you pretty much use the gam PAD as a small display to play your Wii games on you still have to use the original controllers though the camera on here doubles as a sensor bar which is pretty neat it's not a useless feature at all but it does show how duct taped together this operating system is in the background the game pad features all the same buns as a Wii Classic Controller why can't I use this in Mario Kart Wii or Smash Brothers Brawl or just scroll through the Wii menu is beyond me but this led into a Nintendo Direct the following day first day of October kicking things off with a new trailer for Super Mario 3D World and unlike the first one to E3 this one actually elicited an emotion out of me gone was the sterile Bland style and in came some actual damn personality they showcasing new powerups items cut scenes level themes boss fights all cut together to live big band music this genuinely changed everybody's perception of Mario 3D World going from this year's Mario game to a must buy I was getting pretty optimistic about Wii U at this time I mean the game lineup was really shaping up you had a 3D Mario tons of other games this holiday season and a price kit to the mix and it felt like things could actually turn around hey Scott it's you from the future I have bad news you have eczema well you know what they say we part of You released in October of 2013 oh man just what the Wii U needed a multiplayer party game focused on using the game pad next I hope we get a multiplatform game missing features oh and you say Nintendo doesn't listen to fans this is actually one of those fabled no-brainer games to pick up as it cost $49 9.99 and came bundled with a Wii remote essentially making Wei party you $10 I don't know whether that's really cool or incredibly concerning Nintendo's pulled this trick before with games like we play and fling Smash and often times these games aren't worth any more than $20 by themselves still a good deal but barely however we part of you doesn't feel like it was designed to round this bundle this is a full game through and through one I wouldn't think twice about being $50 without a wi remote this is an amazing deal no doubt I mean why wouldn't you buy Wei Party U oh yeah it's We Party U this is a cute game that you can have some fun with but it just does not have much lasting appeal which is strange considering how much stuff is here I mean it's bursting at the seems with modes and mini games it's like this is the only game you'll ever need in Hell there's just nothing to these modes after one or two playthroughs they often times last 10 minutes are fun but then you play them again and the magic is gone that second time you then move on to the next mode and it's the same exact story rinse and repeat the game pad use here can be cute and interesting but also a bit forced with games often times putting utilizing the controller over being fun but we part used big idea with this thing was the tabletop games do players use the GamePad on a coffee table to play these little guys but of course with how the game pad is designed if you set it down you cannot set a drink on it it's a little slanted which is why we part of you comes bundle with the gam pad horizontal stand we party you is okay it's nothing to write home about but I'm already here anyways you buy this for the Wii remote bundle that's a huge bonus in this game's favor but even on its own it's definitely serviceable just don't expect it to last you a while not a day now I think a game that was definitely more intriguing this month was one of our few third-party exclusives Sonic Lost World finally released during what I can considered to be a comeback error for the franchise Sonic Colors Generations the All Stars Racing spin-offs so Sonic 4 at the time I thought it was pretty good so to get a new Sonic game felt really exciting like they knew how to make modern Sonic work now we no longer had to question if this game stinks Lost World polarized critics the scores were genuinely all over the place ranging from one out of 10 to Nines I remember seeing numerous fans defend this game to hell back seeing websites like IGN and Gamespot giving it a five claiming that they don't know how to play Sonic Lost World they give Call of Duty and Mario perfect scores for trying new things to end up lambasting Sonic for doing the same yeah what the hell you give Super Mario Galaxy a 10 out of 10 but in comes sponge Jerry and you don't care why I think we were all a little on edge wanting the Wii U to succeed and take a game like Sonic Lost World we were praying would help things out and it just made things awkward well what do I think of Lost World I don't hate it this is a game with some weird design choices it feels like a bunch of Concepts just thrown together the variety is the spice of life but this just feels like a ransom Note One level's a cylinder with different Pathways all around it the next is this wide open field with not a ton going on the next is an auto Runner the next is fully 2D which that in addition to the basic level themes really make this sound like Super Mario Galaxy but that game has a core base everything is built off of whereas Sonic lost World feels a lot more like random and I don't think the controls help in this matter the Sonic's ability to run up walls and do poror cor has potential but is wasted with finicky controls that don't work when you want them to but do work during the worst possible moments plus the level design just doesn't take advantage of this it feels like a marketing gimmick something to show Sonic running up walls just because it looks cool many elements like using parkour effectively and this new kick mechanic aren't explained very well partially due to all tutoial IAL is being relegated to the game pad you have to run into these icons the game is paused you look down and dismiss the message with the touchcreen well thank God they're using the game pad Lost World feels like a bunch of random levels clumsily tied together with an insultingly stupid story and no World building which sounds dumb to complain about in a Sonic game but when you have cut scenes after every stage I just question the point of your response to what's going on here where's this taking place and who these new villains are is can you shrug my shoulders for me I'm too lazy lost world is directionless there's no getting around that though I can see glimpses of a coherent experience there are moments where the controls and Stage mesh together pretty well and you end up having fun with the game nothing mind-blowing but an interesting interpretation of Sonic well the formula present in Sonic Generations was an obvious winner it had a lot of drawbacks Sonic in 3D mostly felt like you were running down an Alleyway it was fun but there's only so much you can do with this both as a player and as a designer Sonic loss World stages are generally more open and allow for incredibly free 3D movement it's definitely a slower Sonic game I mean you flat out have a run button now but that allows for a game where you feel far more in control that is if the controls worked half the goddamn time Sonic Lost World isn't bad but it's weird it's frustrating it's annoying but it's so colorful it's smooth it has a Wonderful soundtrack some cool ideas it's a mixed bag I don't hate this game not by a long shot but man I also just don't give a about it it's just kind of there I don't see how this could be your favorite Sonic game or least favorite Sonic game it's just the Sonic on Wii U it could be worse yep Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures also released that October this being a multiplayer release which hey that's a win for the Wii U and then you realize this is based on a kid show and thus falls into the licensed kids crack the Wii U library is most of the time now that doesn't make a game bad just makes me question why I'm playing it especially if it's bad this game is bad it's just a whole Heap and pile of nothing which is a bummer considering Pac-Man's had some solid 3D Platformers before but in 2013 the only way we were going to get one is if it was tied to a cartoon series lined up perfectly with marketing and was the most generic interpretation of a Pac-Man 3D platformer of all time damn Scott if you don't like mediocre Pac-Man 3D Platformers then what do you like well how about what else released around this time on Wii U Just Dance 2014 no Just Dance Kids 2014 n Skylander Swap Force Wipeout creating crash Angry Bird Star Wars Lego Marvel Superheroes SpongeBob Plankton's Robotic Revenge oh my God yeah this a in gaming was pretty rough for anything other than the AAA core m-rated video game of which hey we got three in October first up Batman Arkham Origins launching day and day with the other consoles which was definitely nice to see after one of armored edition's biggest complaints was how it was a year old game at that point and apparently this version was to run the best until it didn't the worst frame rate of all the consoles the season pass for the game was cancelled in January of 2014 due to a lack of Interest the multiplayer in general was cut it was $10 cheaper at that point you may ask what is the point you know the Wii U version ain't going to sell well you don't include numerous features because of that which basically confirms it's going to sell worse than ain't going to sell well so why bother both as the developer and the consumer well at least with DSX Human Revolution director cut this month we got what may be considered the definitive version of the 2011 title this was originally announced as a Wii U exclusive but was quickly changed to a multiplatform release we couldn't even get an exclusive version of a multiplat then it turned out the Wii U version would be $2 more expensive why why because of the extra Gamepad features of course features that were also in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions Via mobile apps and the PlayStation VA so it's not like the wiu features weren't in the other versions if anything that to incorporate those features in ways that less people utilize them because who the hell used a Vita with this game well Human Revolution on Wii U does fully utilize the game pad and uses it well though it is one of those games that does not support the Pro Controller which is just kind of silly it's definitely one of the better Wii U ports but $20 butter your money would be better spent on Assassin's Creed for Black Flag this month son of a October 2013 was a strange month for Wii U game on one hand we got more support than ever before that year on the other these are all deeply flawed releases ones that showcase more problems with the console then reasons to buy it however that was all about the change that very next month because we finally got that one must have game uh no no no no Super Mario 3D World launched on November 22nd 2013 the same day is not only a link between worlds and Mario Party Island Tour on 3DS but the Xbox one as well not to mention the PlayStation 4 released the week prior so things were pretty hot and heavy in the gaming industry but Mario 3D World pulled through just look at these reviews perfect scores across the board H barely anything below a nine Nintendo did it they pulled it together gave it the all and supplied the Wii U with one of the best games that holiday season and with that the console started to people just had to have the latest and greatest Mario game especially when the new consoles had such lackluster launch lineups oh damn it I forgot to start that sentence with what if Super Mario 3D World is a phenomenal platformer it genuinely has some of the best level designs powerups music and fun to be had out of not only all Mario games but games in general this is a master class in gaming but who the hell cares PR world has always been an interesting game for me to discuss considering how much its perception shifts uh when it was announced when it released holy sh about a year later after that Holy sh the overall truth about this game lies in the middle for me I feel that upon its release we definitely had a good bit of hope this game would turn the Wii U around and couple with the game's great quality and mainstream appeal I think that explains all the amazing scores not that it didn't deserve them rather I feel they oversold how amazing this game really was 3D world is great though it's not really anything we haven't seen before yes it's four player multiplayer in a 3D Mario yes we have new powerups level themes it's definitely really fresh as far as this era of Mario was going but I don't think that set it apart all too much for most people this looked like any other Mario and its main selling points were hard to convey it has four player multiplayer yeah so does new Super Mario Brothers yeah what well this is in 3D so 3D World wasn't concerned with being revolutionary rather it was just trying to be really really good and it succeeded at that but it made the game feel pretty non essential to play I mean pretty much every Mario game is really really good and this one looks just like 3D land or new Super Mario Brothers but in 3D now so while yes this game was fantastic it wasn't really the killer app the Wii U needed it was a must have if you already owned a Wii U but to everybody else this looked like nothing new it Barely Used the Wii U gam pad outside of a few levels where we shoehorned in forcing touchscreen gimmicks for no reason while it looked good it was super polished and colorful the art style doesn't leave the Lasting Impression a game like Mario galaxy did the gameplay of mixing 2D Mario with 3D Mario well done incredibly well just wasn't what the Wii U needed at the time we needed a big game with huge detailed worlds not sanitized obstacle courses in the sky so hopefully that explains why this thing didn't really move units while still getting rave reviews and Nintendo consoles are often times defined by the big Mario game that releases on them and for 3D World to be the Wii U's I think withheld a special significant moment from the console while putting a lot of pressure on 3D World to be something it wasn't trying to be nobody won this really needed to be a game that came out after a Super Mario Odyssey type experience I mean look at out that game excited everybody it felt like Mario but with so many new and innovative ideas delivering an experience you had to have right now whereas 3D world is a lot more laid back it's a different style of 3D Mario and there's nothing wrong with that there's a place for this game and I love it but it makes more sense as another 3D Mario on a system rather than the only 3D Mario on a system with that being said I love Super Mario 3D World each and every stage is expertly crafted well they may use that that non-organic geometric video gamey design they're all still incredibly fun to blast through whether you're alone or with friends the amount of power-ups is absurd and keeps things consistently exciting the different playable characters each with their own attributes is an awesome Edition the soundtrack is incredible the visuals are so damn squeaky clean and can genuinely be impressive at times even if the art style is a bit Bland and the final world being a Bowser themed amusement park the final boss being this incredible Journey up to a tower ambushed by shs in a box Bowser the levels you unlock afterwards just keep you playing more and more unlocking Rosalina as a playable character powering through one of the hardest final levels in Mario history this game was in the wrong place at the wrong time I think it's genuinely fantastic it just can't replace a big open 3D Mario Adventure but that's because Super Mario 3D World is its own kind of Mario game one that deserves to be played by everybody one that deserves recognition and one that deserves better than being the Wii Ed 3D Mario this kept me busy for months it may not have been what the Wii U needed but it was definitely what Wii U owners needed though that wasn't the only Mario action on the platform we got in November yep you know how things work logistically if one thing happens in 2013 we're sure to get another Mario and Sonic at the SOI 2014 Olympic Winter Games the second title in Nintendo and Sega Sonic exclusivity deal it was worth it these games they're fine at best these are miname collections disguised as 20 plus Sports in one package but none of them have the depth and variety to waren playing them more than two times maybe don't get me wrong most of the events here are decently fun but after one play session with a Mario and Sonic game man I'm out but this entry was going to be different it's an HD now it has online play and it's the worst one yet oh okay so this game is just it's really lame it's pretty much a less fun overly complicated repeat of Olympic winter games on Wii a handful of the events require you to play them with the wi remote plus set the controller down swap to the gam pad and then go right back to Wi remote it's genuinely upsetting the promise of online play was exciting but then you realize it's only available in four events and then you realize none of the events in Mario and Sonic have enough depth to really want to play them online the presentation's pretty damn good here though like these models are so damn high quality now plus some of the dream events which are wackier Mario and sonicesque takes on Olympic sports are pretty cool but is that reason enough to buy this game okay well what if they offered a bundle containing a blue Wii remote Plus for $59.99 $10 more than the base game they were just giving these things away or were they giving these away worthless release that did nothing for the Wii U library you might be saying damn Scott that's harsh and I could have said it's a genuine pile of sh that never deserved anything past getting its head kicked in Nintendo and Sega should be ashamed of creating these characters in the first place if it led to this Unholy dick and and but I decided not to just another reason to hate this game it starts discussions well if that's exactly what I don't want then we fit you was for me I played we fit you such a busy time of year to cram damn we fit in and not only for Wii U but the games industry as a whole though to be fair the unique release strategy Nintendo employed made it fairly easy to Warrant trying this game out but once again it was a free download as long as you already owned a balance board you were set for a full month afterwards if you wanted to continue playing all you had to do was pick up a we fit U meter for 20 bones I'm not sure Nintendo made any money on this game I mean a work I routine is hard to stick with I'm certain most people played this for a week or two and got their fill which is unfortunate because we fit you is good this is genuinely one of the most fun and in-depth Fitness games I've ever played there's a ton of activities here many new and many from previous Styles and on top of everything else included the attention to detail the use of a pedometer I'd say this has some pretty creative uses of all the controllers the GamePad is used cutely here not essential to the experience but they found some fun and effective ways to utilize it now being able to work out off the TV with it in addition to the bomet functionality breaks the we fit experience free from the living room so everything feels like it comes together in the end a very natural evolution of the series swapping between we remote gam pad two we remotes we remote and nunchuk balance board no balance board seems like it would be a headache like with other games but this is a workout it's like swapping equipment I think it's fine here it seems like a mess but it's a fairly organized mess all things considered man it's just this is what I think we all wanted we fit and we fit plus to be those games nowadays feel pretty empty there's not a lot to do and what is there doesn't really make you break a sweat weit you has so many options and the games are a perfect balance of fun and exercise I was really impressed by we fit you still we fit you this game could have been the perfect experience absolutely mindblowing would have made a difference just because you're the best we fit game doesn't mean you're anything more than just more we fit and for most people people this was a complete fad by 2013 nobody really cared which is why it was so satisfying for this to finally come out oh thank Christ we're moving on I don't understand why this took so damn long to release I mean like they technically revealed this in the debut trailer for the Wii U at E3 2011 then it got reun veiled the next year and then a year and a half later it's finally out and I'm sorry when most of this looks practically identical to what came before I just have to ask how this took so long to launch you can't even point to the new main gimmick the fit meter they didn't have anything to develop with this it's like the third time they've used this pedometer design I'm just confused maybe it's the fact this was the only Wii U game to support the balance board I mean that's a lot of pressure regardless what we got was Nintendo's Fitness game magnum opus obviously wasn't ever going to change things for the Wii U but it's cool to see the wi fit series evolve into the best version of itself on this console oh my God it's that statement's evil twin Wii Sports Club also launched this month barely a free digital download where we could buy access to bowling and tennis with the others coming at later dates you know I was extremely excited about this but I only really ever played this once or twice the concept of Wii Sports with online multiplayer is awesome but that's pretty much all this game has going for it Wii Sports Club always had this pathetic Aura around it like creating an HD Remix make of Wii Sports of All Games is just kind of lame especially when you can already play the original on Wii U via backwards compatibility when you have to pay $10 for each sport individually when there's no substantial new content whatsoever and when it only launches with two sports that don't even use the gam pad and there was no word on when the other sports would release or what they even look like the savior of the Wii U everybody let's remake the game everybody already has two copies of this isn't a bad release it's just a strange and Confused one did Nintendo think this would woo casual consumers over getting them to finally buy a Wii U because they thought this was just a Wii with a new controller showing a game that looks just like Wii Sports wasn't going to help things and on top of that you think Grandpa would understand this pricing structure well first he needs to understand Wii U uh after basic economics something neat to mess around with but I think Nintendo should have planned further ahead with this it maybe a fully featured new Wii Sports title with sports designed to around the game pad which could have also included the original five from Wii Sports remade in HD I think it's just silly how we fit you is basically that for wi F you have almost all the activities from past games included there plus all new ones why couldn't Wii Sports get the same treatment the big third party release this month was Call of Duty ghosts which got completely swept under the rug which is unfortunate considering this is a fine version of the game very similar in quality to Black Ops 2 on Wii U but by this point nobody cares Call of Duty on Wii U while competent was more of a novelty of anything blank Ops 2 had the benefit of being a launch title many people were willing to see what it played like on the new console but by the time ghosts released I think most Wii U owners knew better than to invest in a game like this on the system what you're going to pay full price for this and have access to none of the DLC have worse performance have low player counts in the multiplayer all a week before the Next Generation consoles launch alongside the better versions of Call of Duty ghosts fine Act Division I won't buy your game okay the rest of November's lineup was chalk full of licensed shovelware which wraps up 2013's retail Wii U releases of course the Nintendo ehhop was updated throughout the rest of the year with smaller titles indie games and virtual coner releases but this was the Wei used physical lineup That year 49 games 12 more than last year and keep in mind last year was a month and a half long is that impressive or is 2013 even more pathetic than I thought well this month also saw the launch of Two Wii U bundles for the holiday the Mario and Luigi Deluxe Set featuring a combo disc of new Super Mario Brothers U and Luigi U and the very last basic set released here in North America the Skylanders Swap Force bundle the same day as the PlayStation 4 ah yes I suggest we use this white flag to attack the enemy this was actually a great deal it was $299 came with the full Swap Force set which retailed for 75 bones by itself which also had an exclusive gold figure included a physical copy of Nintendo Land plus extra goodies like a poster and stickers damn Nintendo was really trying to grab the attention of kids everywhere with the Wii U case in point so let's take a look at Nintendo's advertising efforts with this system for 2013 all right for the most part TV commercials would only debut alongside big new titles in the holiday season game specific ones normally follow the same format of the kids are in the game world they're not egregious they're just lazy there was no thought put into these they looked fine but could you really imagine standing by the water cooler going you won't believe the commercial I saw last night some kids were playing Mario and then their living room turned into Mario it's genuinely the bare minimum they could have done to advertise these games to a general audience well not the bare minimum this stinks I get Nintendo is trying to use the Wii U's issues to their advantage with these ads I mean in one of them a kid straight up mimics how their parents think the Wii U is just another Wii but so it's like you knew this was an issue so why was it an issue to begin with and like this add right here there are no jokes yet everything is presented like as one the closest things to jokes are the sounds the son and father make this is what the ad ends on that's the stinger and this campaign kept with the tradition of all Wii U ads feeling like they're just desperately listing bullet points as to how the console is different and worthwhile but some of their point Sugg just with Wii U and Super Mario 3D World we can find secrets with the Wii U gam pad this that's supposed to convince people to buy your console this one focused on Wii Sports Club they're wearing football jerseys football's not in Wii Sports Club and I have to reiterate guys advertising how your console can play an HD remake of Wii Sports does not help your case this isn't just another Wii it's a new cont console chis eats to show it playing Wii Sports and nothing else then this one has two kids explaining to their friends how to convince their parents to buy a Wii U H Buton popcorn that's a deal the is wrong with you this is a bad ad campaign it's so desperate but not desperate enough to try the comedy here is non-existent it's just replacing jokes with Being Cheesy as hell and I'm not saying oh it has cheesy jokes and they stink no like this was the only thing considered a joke here yeah it look like I've been upgraded and I don't think that's a joke it just feels so lazy like they didn't want to put any actual effort into this and just hope that parents would think the kids here were being cute heightened by the cheese of the dialogue this just rre of Nintendo giving up like you could have advertised the actual third party support you had this year even if most of it was lacking some features found elsewhere it's still something you can advertise hey oiu is less expensive than that new PS4 and you can still get the the latest Assassin's Creed Call of Duty Batman but in addition play all the Nintendo exclusives but no going full-blown kids family game console with this felt like a defense mechanism like Nintendo was beaten so badly they retreated and just did what they knew how to do what everybody tells them is the only thing they're good at and it's just sad this wasn't a confident Nintendo this was a desperate one want more proof of that well if you wanted to play Super Mario 3D World before launch where did Nintendo want you to go to hell every single piece of marketing Nintendo put out at this time was so damn pathetic toned deaf and condescending Wii U is in stores now for just $299.99 just look for the U on the box that's great to know but before I buy it I have a few more questions uh what stores can I get it at how do I get to those stores what's a store I only had a few few more news stories going into the end of 2013 like how Nintendo Land received a 50% price cut retailing for just $30 starting on November 1st which coincided with the Mario Luigi Deluxe Set from here on out the goto Wii U Deluxe set on store shelves would change every year sometimes Nintendo L would be included still but it was Seline for the headliner game of each bundle but more often than not this wasn't a packing anymore they still tried to push it in other ways with a Luigi wi remote plus bundle releasing for 6 bucks a month later but I think it's fair to say by this point Nintendo had accepted that this game just didn't do its job also that's why the Wii U isn't doing well New Super Luigi U isn't the pack in November's Nintendo Direct focused almost entirely on Nintendo 3DS games but not without a bit of Wii U news like one final trailer for Super Mario 3D World spoiling literally every secret about the game there was a definite energy in the room that 3D world would save the Wii U so I'm sure Nintendo did this to get as many people on board before launch as possible fing mly boss blob I've misjudged you but a big update they detailed here was the introduction of meerse on 3DS and the combination of both systems eShop wallets that's it that's what's combining nothing else are you happy dumb question I'm sorry let me try that again when's the wedding a big point of irritation for Nintendo fans in this era was how completely isolated the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS eshops were from one another all while many of the exact same Virtual Console games would release on both as separate purchases if you bought Super Mario Brothers on Wii U that doesn't mean a damn thing for your 3DS buy it again all you can look up 3DS software on the Wii U shop for some reason and couldn't do anything other than look them up Sony was practicing crossby at the time meaning if a game's on both PlayStation 4 and Playstation vaita if you buy it one place you got it on the other free of charge and just the fact they were both called Nintendo eShop why are they two totally separated experiences this made it harder to invest in the Nintendo ecosystem because there were two different ecosystems well Nintendo threw us a bone here by making it then if you had funds on one system you could use those on either or you could buy one game on Wii U and use the rest of it to score something on 3DS you got to admit that's damn convenient it's almost like you're using actual money this was a Band-Aid on a corpse it barely solved any of the issues here honestly Meers on 3DS meant more for the Wii U in the long run he could browse and posted in 3DS communities on Wii U and vice versa it was cool to have more to discuss with more people while the year was winding down Nintendo sure wasn't because for weeks they were teasing an appearance at the spike Video Game Awards to reveal in quotes something special oh my God it must be more mature I mean why I debuted on Spike they were the TV channel all about the boys beer maybe even a boob or two but as the show approached it was becoming more and more apparent Nintendo realized what they had it wasn't making any headlines and tried to temper expectations but you know how us Nintendo fans can be okay so it's probably not something big like the next Zelda game reveal but maybe the resurrection of Christ this will do the big reveal was Cranky Kong being the fourth playable character in Donkey Kong Country Tropical free at the award show where Grand Theft Auto 51 game of the year priorities God this game just couldn't catch a break I felt like every time Nintendo talked about it the aura of disappointment surrounded everything now especially here considering this already lame ass announcement was leaked a week prior but hey I mean it was on us for assuming Nintendo would have some big reveals ready in December of 2013 and yet you hyped up the damn monkey yeah a Nintendo Direct one week before christm this was a welcome surprise unlike the surprise some fans got at the beginning of this presentation not only do I love the Legend of Zelda I love the fact that it is never crossed over with the Dynasty Warriors franchise this Nintendo Direct opened with a brand new Wii U game reveal being described as a collaborative title combining the action of techm Moo's Warrior series with the world of Zelda most fans found this to be an unexpected yet pretty cool announcement the trailer showcased Lincoln Hyrule Field mowing down enemies which is all you could expect from a game titled surely will come up with a better title than hyro Warriors though I recall many critics finding this revealed to be concerning as Zelda had this untainted Legacy while Dynasty Warriors was just a taint while these games had their fans they never really captured the attention of the West the gameplay was often seen as repetitive and Mindless the presentation was played by awful voice acting and performance issues and you're telling me this gets the honor of the Zelda license how could that happen for for some reason many were treating this as if Nintendo announced it as flat out the next Legend of Zelda even though the very first thing aada said after the triler debuted was this is not the next Legend of Zelda it was always positioned as a spin-off a cool side thing and while I understood the concerns and they felt pretty shallow at the end of the day I remember listening to podcasts from the big video game sites at the time and the discussion I heard surrounding this game pretty much revolved around Dynasty Warriors being a bad franchise and yeah Warriors games aren't for everybody and a handful get pretty mediocre reviews but like IGN gave Dynasty Warriors 8 an 8.7 out of 10 that year where was this all coming from regardless I found the announcement of hybra Warriors to be pretty cool at the time I mean it was cool by default for being one of the first brand new Zelda experiences in HD but the concept itself definitely had potential and judging by all the Warriors crossovers we got after this it just goes to show how brilliant of an idea this was in hindsight Zelda fans got a cool hack and / celebration of the series the Wii U gets more variety in its lineup and Nintendo barely has to do a damn thing which gave them ample time to release golf for wi Sports Club this was shown off and released during the Nintendo Direct and actually acted upon that initial demonstration from the E3 2011 trailer the visual of this was far more enticing than how it was in practice it worked but who the hell cares this is just unnecessary it's a clever use of the GamePad I'll give it that but this doesn't make a single damn difference it's just now I can see the golf ball on the ground they threw in Grass as well Nintendo but that wasn't it for games releasing on Wii U that very day because we also got NES Remix it seems like Nintendo was making up for the lack of original ehhop games throughout the year all at once but I wasn't complaining because this was one of the coolest little things they did in 2013 repurposing asshle NES games to create bite-sized challenges out of them was insanely addictive plus gave just a single damn reason to play NES baseball again but the remix challenges were the star of the show you never knew what you were going to get next this was the perfect little downloadable game to play over the Christmas break though it wasn't alone as another title was announced coming just two weeks later on New Year's Eve that being Dr Luigi new year new me Dr Luigi is literally just Dr Mario online RX from we wear in HD 5 years later for $5 more it's good but there's really nothing to this one it's just Dr Mario again but now with Luigi in a new mode featuring L-shaped pills which aren't interesting they just make the game significantly easier but to be fair all this game needed to be was Dr Mario on Wii U it was nice to have this kind of game accessible via the gam pad since it was perfect for quick bursts and it reaffirmed Nintendo's commitment to their Digital Store door front I mean hell many of their bundles for the holiday season just contained a download code for a game so of course Nintendo is trying to get us to use the eShop more I am too yeah the Nintendo eShop was down for nearly a week starting on Christmas of all days perfect end to the year when you were desperately trying to get people to buy your games then when they finally tried to the direct then ended with new trailers for Super Smash Brothers and Mario Kart 8 which gave Wii U fans a reason to be optimistic we not only got big new game announcements but meaningful looks at games we already knew about Plus Great smaller digital titles to tied us over into the next year and this all made for a great end to a fairly mixed year for Wii U now for Nintendo themselves 2013 was one of their best I mean 3DS support was incredible and you had the best Wii U to that lineup and it was a real fun time to own both of these systems but if we just focus on Wii U what the hell were we doing the first half of the Year 2013 was pretty much carried entirely by Mario 3D World and to a lesser extent Wind Waker HD and Pikmin 3 the other titles were either too Niche or weren't all too great or were multiplatform games that had huge caveats on the platform it wasn't like there was nothing to play but God damn did it feel like it most of the time I didn't want to play the exact same Virtual Console games I played on Wii again I didn't want to play halfast multiplats I wanted Nintendo games and they barely met the quota to satisfy me this year but thankfully 2014 was shaping up to how the big boy games of any Nintendo platform it was the Mario Kart and Smash Brothers year on top of other titles promised like bayat 2 hyro Warriors and keep this thing away from me I've seen what it does to award shows what's your New Year's resolution I'll stick to DS games on Wii U 2014 kicked off with Nintendo's investor briefing detailing how the Wii U failed to do anything worthwhile and things were not looking good the next slide I'm going to show Brain Age this was an odd thing to flaunt especially considering nothing really came of this until April of 2015 but sure Nintendo DS games were coming to the Wii U shop as Virtual Console titles with the only example shown being brain age I always envisioned a physical card reader you could plug into the USB port giving you the ability to play DS and 3DS games on your TV just like what the super Game Boy and Game Boy Player did for Game Boy games but why do that when you can brag about this we are now sure that we can solve the technical problem of displaying Virtual Console software from Nintendo DS on the game pad why is this an achievement I think everybody could already kind of picture the concept of playing DS games on Wii U it's really not too difficult I think it's harder not to picture it I must admit though this was a fairly compelling announce announcement as one playing DS games on a TV wasn't something you could easily do and two this was actually taking advantage of the Wii U's capabilities so damn I can't complain the week they announced this they put out Mighty bombjack on Wii U virtual console doesn't seem too bad now does it but as I said before this meeting divulged on the Wii U's performance thus far and Nintendo wasn't sugarcoating any of it sales projections were cut across the board the holidays didn't make a substantial difference the Wii U in quo was not in good shapee so what was Nintendo's plan to fix that they just said it this was the moment in which sator W famously took a 50% pay cut an unprecedented move by a CEO I mean have you seen how most of them react to financial woses they shoot the janitor for life insurance A's plan moving forward seemed to be to double down on Wii U while also giving up on it entirely there was a lot of talk on making the gam pad more of a focus actually utilizing the NFC Reader and showcasing games designed around these ideas at E3 2014 while simultaneously introducing all these nonwe U plans and solutions for their troubles most notably a quality of life product focusing on health and wellness which really highlighted how much uncertainty was felt surrounding Nintendo's traditional game business at the time they talk licensing their IPs more to spread awareness and increase Revenue integration with smart devices all solid ideas to help the company grow but none of this involved Wii U this wasn't something they had much hope in this wasn't the future of Nintendo this was a leech this wasn't no ordinary struggling console this wasn't like the PlayStation 3 where Sony SL prices rebranded redesigned made deals with third parties to bring games over have exclusive content in them they did that to save the PS3 but Nintendo just chocked up the failure to the lack of games that used the gam pad and that's the only damn thing they did what was everything else perfect maybe doesn't help that in January 2014 the only major retail released since November was we fit you a game everybody already downloaded for free and then promply forgot about before the free trial even ended so thank God I can spend $90 on it now what a waste of retail shelf space this was like who the hell bought this who who yeah we had to wait until February for a game wor a fraction of a dam and well we got a fraction Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze that'll help things this fatal open wound is now a fatal wound listen I don't blame Nintendo for thinking this was the right move I mean Donkey Kong Country Returns on Wii sold nearly 7 million units you'd be stupid not to make a followup at literally any other time Tropical Freeze was yet another 2D platformer at a time in which that was practically all Nintendo was pumping out hell even their 3D Platformers felt like 2D ones and after just getting Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D after fans speculated like mad as to what Retro Studios was developing and it turned out to be that's not Metroid 2 after getting delayed twice and especially after the reveal of a geriatric chimp this game just didn't feel worth it I don't think many were in the mood for a new Donkey Kong and this didn't really do much for the Wii U's lineup outside of increase it by one no keep in mind I'm not at all talking about the game's quality rather how it was perceived at the time people just didn't care and that extended to game journalist as well these two gave the game a 6 out of 10 and I give life a four this thing was barely recognized as anything more than just another Donkey Kong game and at the time I sort of thought the same I didn't pick this up until a few months later and after playing through the game I said yeah that was really good then I played it again later and thought it was really great and by the fourth time I think I was ready to legally change my last name Donkey Kong Country tropical Freeze is one of the greatest Platformers ever made it just might take a second to grow on you though I think many go into this expecting it to play like new Super Mario Brothers and are taken back by how the characters feel in control how the levels work how difficult it can all be especially considering how in New Super Mario Brothers I have the Run button unlock and I'm blasting through these stages back in 2014 when I tried to do that in tropical Freeze and that is why I think many called this game unfair because it's not unfair it's not too hard you're just impatient you're not actually absorbing any of the info on screen here I refuse to believe that the level design at play here is perfection challenging but never unfair it makes me so incredibly engaged throughout the whole thing there's never a dull moment and that's just how the stages are functionally visually this is glorious unlike a Mario game there's no floating platforms or what have you everything is designed to make sense in this world if there's a platform it's an organic part of the environment like a tree branch or it's a rock being blasted up by lava the world feels alive it feels tangible which makes the already Sublime level design that much more compelling there are a few nitpicks I have though for one you have three other characters you can partner up with throughout the adventure Diddy Kong Dixie Kong and Cranky Kong each giving you a unique added ability with Dixie Kong's being the obvious choice yeah Glide and get some height at the end of it diddi is basically just a Glide so why would you choose him and Cranky's cane bounce is way too situational to be all too worthwhile I love the fact these characters are here but Dixie pretty much makes them all pointless the boss fights are great though they can go on for far too long and with no checkpoints having to go through them all over again can just become monotonous much like the bonus rooms which you can find in the levels and they're all basically just variations of the same damn thing oh over and over again the loading screens can be a bit long and oddly choppy and for being the first game Nintendo released after making a clear statement on nting to use the game pad more they weren't lying the damn screen just goes blank you can do off TV play but the TV is going dark too could at least put like a warning here that I don't know but all these issues are incredibly minor and fail to take any of the respect I have for this game away this is a marvelous video game may not not be all too shocking or exciting because it is sort of just another Donkey Kong game but like it is so much better than that statement implies Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze isn't revolutionary or groundbreaking but that doesn't make it any less of a masterpiece The Lego Movie video game also released this month a Nintendo Direct occurred on February 13th showing off Smash Brothers a new Mario Kart 8 trailer with a confirmed release date of May 30th moreon monolith soft X Project and Bayonetta 2 I'm so excited for Smash Brother marioart X and Bayonetta listen a new Smash Brothers character is always exciting Mario Kart 8 was looking better and better with each trailer but like God damn man being a Wii U and her meant you were going to hear about the same games nonstop which is in stark contrast to nowadays where Nintendo will announce a game and Rel it's already out so looking back at most directs from this era really highlights how much of the Wii U's life was just spent waiting even for the smallest things so they announced Game Boy Advance games were coming to Virtual Console before the DS games they just announced a year after they initially said Game Boy advaned games were coming to Virtual Console but we had to wait until April for them why then NES Remix 2 was announced here as well also releasing in April after the first one dropped day and date alongside its reveal and I guess they did this because they truly had nothing until Mario Kart 8 launch like for sake they had pre preview events for this game this was the big April release we could launch it in March but no we're good I honestly assumed more would happen in March considering Nintendo announced the Year of Luigi would end on March 18th oh my God what are they going to do nothing why did they give it an end date The Year of Luigi is over return the hostages while 2014 was looking somewhat promising for Nintendo releases the same couldn't be said for third parties which is saying something considering how back luster 2013's lineup was the only major title we knew about this year was Cabella's after speculation on a delay or even a cancellation Ubisoft officially announced in February that watchdogs on Wii U would not be releasing alongside the other Platforms in May instead launching at a later unspecified date most people already weren't going to buy Watch Dogs on Wii U and this ensured nobody was going to keep in mind this was a heavily hyped game labeled as the first true nextg experience a game releasing on Xbox 360 but when it finally released like it was fine nothing all too groundbreaking or special so you wait God knows how long and pay full price for a game nobody gave a about a week after release but now with worse performance it's a Wii U game all right hey at least we got an exclusive third party game revealed this month and remember that Sonic deal included three games well here's the third Sonic Boom a new addition for the franchise they gave him a scarf a TV show Comics toys and a video game exclusively for Wii U that didn't look all too bad honestly this looked fairly high quality I mean the environments were detailed the typical Sonic sections looked fast and fluid now with a beat them up puzzle and exploration gameplay surrounding it I got to say I was impressed oh man well let's see where this impressed variant of Scott ended up he didn't make it nothing happened in March volleyball for NES released on Virtual [Music] Console and Hello Kitty Cruisers is releasing next [Music] month April's big release was NES Remix 2 it's NES Remix with different NES games and I'm NES Remix with organs and skin it's more so a new volume of the first one rather than a straightup successor though it does include some bonus games like the Nintendo World Championships remix which was a lot of fun to work my way up the leaderboards on there was also Super Luigi Brothers which you think would be in celebration of the Year of Luigi but remember that ended in March seriously why did it have that end date oh the inds games included here are the ones you'd actually want to play but the use of legitimately good NES games in the challenge ended up making this one feel a bit less worthwhile like NES Remix made NES baseball fun it deserves a medal for that NS Remix 2 has Mario 3 I kind of just want to play Mario 3 it's still a fun and addictive eShop game but it is quite literally just more enus remix but he speaking of Super Mario Brothers 3 that finally launched on Wii U and 3DS Virtual Console this month after being announced in August of 2013 they said it would come out that year how the hell does this get delayed well they had a packed schedule they couldn't fit this in I was so damn excited to get Mario 3 again and then I remembered NES games looked and played like trash on Wii U oh God this just looks unpleasant thankfully this wasn't the case for all Virtual Console games like I said before SNES games were solid but joining that camp was Game Boy Advance this was always a peculiar situation game Game Boy advaned games on Wii U we never had Game Boy or Game Boy Color those were only on 3DS which also got NES and eventually SNES plus Game Boy advanced games exclusively for those who bought the handheld within the first few months I I don't know listen I'm not going to complain about getting good Legacy content on the WiiU we shop especially Legacy content we haven't seen be re-released time and time again like the NES and S NES games we've been getting I'm just confused why this for Nintendo 64 or Gamecube or L if you have no problem putting handheld games on Wii U Virtual Console why start with GBA well I feel that Nintendo did this because it was the easiest solution to ignite interest in the Wii U virtual console and Nintendo 64 and GameCube emulation is trickier and they were already re-releasing original Game Boy games on 3DS plus the original Game Boy games so those wouldn't be very exciting yeah Game Boy advaned games were put on 3DS but only through what basically amounted to a limited time promotional offer so sure that's one way to keep Wii U owner morale [Music] high but hey Game Boy Advance has quite the library so while a bit strange as the third Virtual Console platform on Wii U it was nothing but a good thing for the system multiple GBA games released in April and throughout 2014 all playing and looking spectacular feels very natural on the game pad and you can bring up the manuals on here as well a screen smoothing option in addition to all the other features you'd expect from Wii U Virtual Console software this is good stuff all around and was how I played Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga Metroid zero Mission Mar War Mega micro games and honestly I can't imagine much of a better way to experience them just nice to have the freedom to play on the gam pad like the original Game Boy Advance or on the big screen this was was great but so what other titles released this month included The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Lego The Hobbit making for the best month of 2014 for the Wii U yet yep but that was also because of all the news two Nintendo directs one themed around Super Smash BRS and the other Mario Kart 8 Mario Kart got loads of previews this month I remember waking up during spring break and seeing this new trailer in early April then consuming loads of content by people in the games industry who got to play it early all types of podcasts and preview videos and articles it was that beautiful time in my life when I could do nothing but consume content surrounding Nintendo games when there was barely any content surrounding Nintendo games Welcome to our 45 minute discussion on what this means for Wii U the Mario Kart 8 direct was uploaded a month prior to the game's launch on April 30th and was was basically just made to announce the last few crumbs of info like baby Rosalina honestly this felt more like a joke direct everything was tied together by a bunch of skits and the info revealed was pretty minuscule a lot of this could have just been safe for players to discover on launch day but I mean this was Nintendo's biggest game of the year so they pretty much had to try and hype it up as much as possible a new Wii U bundle a promotion where you could get a choice of free game download alongside Mario Kart around launch and they were making sure this game was going to sell yeah oh gosh I'm so worried about this one the Super Smash Brothers direct was far more compelling as they had actual info to share here such as the release timing Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo 3DS would launch in the summer while Wii U would release in Winter I was oddly not expecting that firstly smash for 3DS I always sort of forgot that was even happening like the Wii U version was the focal point of every piece of marketing when a new character was revealed they'd have a bunch of Wii U images and like two 3DS ones trailers barely showed footage of it and justifiably so considering these were practically the same games just with different stages and modes so to hear that version was releasing not only first but in the summer it was surprising but secondly Smash Brothers for Wii U felt like it was the console's last chance at success everybody was excited for Smash Brothers it was what kept Nintendo discussion alive throughout 2014 waking up every morning seeing the picture of the day on meerse speculating on the newcomers which veterans would make the cut it was such a special time for virginity and you were just going to let the 3DS version capitalize on that first there is that fear that smash for 3DS launching first would ruin the opportunity for Wii U to succeed for casual fans why am I a Wii U for this game that's cheaper and available earlier on the more affordable handheld with a far larger library of titles no do I always assumed these would launch at the same time but looking back this release method was the only one that made sense all right you put Wii U out first and it's fully featured as everything and anything you could have asked for then put 3DS out later and it's just going to feel like a gimped version of the Wii U game whereas the other way around smash 3DS releasing first it already feels pretty fully featured then the Wii U version will feel like a souped up take on the 3DS game and if you releas them both at the same time you'd have fans picking one over the other this way there is a better chance people would pick up both so this was the best way to go about things even if it created more doubts as to if smash BRS could save the Wii U this direct was far more technical than I was used to at the time featuring The Game's director masah hero Sakurai going into insane levels of detail regarding all the stages items Fighters and online multiplayer which was a big concern going in after how iffy brawl was Nintendo Solution by the wi landan adapter well welcome to the next generation of Nintendo lots of content to chew on here especially with a new fighter reveal at the end but this was just the beginning as later in April Nintendo's E3 2014 plans were revealed Super Smash Brothers Invitational you can then play Smash Brothers at Best Buy live streams of new gameplay throughout E3 Nintendo digital event not a direct all announced in one of the greatest videos Nintendo's ever put on their YouTube yoube Channel which makes sense because Nintendo asked somebody else to make it for them was for the best have you ever seen a Nintendo trailer from this era who chose this font guilty but would you believe that wasn't it for the month as in Japan a new exclusive Fatal Frame game was announced for Wii U God there was actual stuff happening now it was like this was a real life console which brings us to the Wii U at the height of its life of course you know what happens afterwards so let's cherish this May 30th 2014 Mario Kart a launched and words can't describe how incredible this felt as a Wii U owner well the word words can but these can never before did a Mario Kart look this good sound this good play this good prior entries didn't feel like they were developed with the knowledge that this was one of Nintendo's Premier franchises and the presentation was always satisfactory but with Mario Kart 8 I mean over a decade later and this is still one of the best looking and sounding Nintendo games of all time the music is so rich and full with live instruments throughout that the characters are animated so fluidly the tracks are so detailed this was a Marvel to experience in so many ways including playing it because my God this game was tight as hell the controls were so perfect the items felt well balanced the online was legitimately pretty damn good there was little to no debate this was the definitive Mario Kart game when it comes to Dear God anything but not racing yeah so there's not much going on here outside of the core Mario Kart gameplay which yeah I mean that's to be expected but it's not like this is packed with content you know it's just barely enough 32 tracks just like any other modern Mario Kart barely more characters than Mario Kart Wii nothing to really do other than play through the Grand PRI do some time trials and just grind online multiplayer which for the record I had no problem doing but this didn't really feel like it was doing much more than previous entries especially when looking at the battle mode which was obviously thrown together at the last minute instead of unique battle arenas like in previous games they just have you duke it out on pre-existing racetracks which are not designed for this type of gameplay and it makes for an experience of the putrid VAR iety also remember how Nintendo said they wanted to utilize the gam pad more it's a damn horn there's other options you can select here like off TV play and a map but why is the default a horn I remember the game was also criticized for its implementation of voice chat you can only chat with friends which okay fine I get it but only in the lobby once you enter the game voice chat is disabled why well for better online performance well I got to say if the online in your console takes that much of a dip transmitting the info you get from this micro penis of a microphone you might as well just not even do online at that point why was there Wii U headsets a big online feature here though was Mario Kart TV where you can save and edit highlight reels of your races and the camera work at play here always made these really worthwhile leading to the most publicity Nintendo's received in years the viral Luigi Death Stare yeah sure roll with it even with some of its faults Mario Cart 8 was an outstanding title while its headliner gimmick anti-gravity racing didn't seem all too utilized in alloud for some of the most creative and elaborate track design I've ever seen in erasing game this has the best overall core selection of any Mario Kart in my opinion it looks amazing sounds amazing plays amazing it is amazing the periods randing Mario Kart 8's release felt like the Wii U actually stood a chance both the game and console itself were doing quite well uh so how do you capitalize on that you confuse Scott well at least it was confirmed Mario C would get DLC and not in the form any of us were expecting but it was DLC free DLC at that if they charge for this I'd be concerned for those who purchased oh okay was this a product of Nintendo's desperation at the time I don't know I mean it does feel strange to have mercedesbenz vehicles in Mario Kart but I mean they were advertising damn cigarettes in Mario Kart 64 you know it was also strange at the time how limited the limited edition of Mario Kart 8 was yeah I know how dare a limited edition be limited you can only get it at the Nintendo World store it was basically the same thing as the version released in Europe which had a far higher quantity available n this one they barely made any you live in Ohio and want this version of Mario Kart 8 with a cheap blue shell statue you go to France another investor briefing was held in May of 2014 detailing plans for a new Wii U System Update in early June which introduced the quick boot menu honestly this just feels like the fifth Band-Aid on top of the operating system to try and make it faster it doesn't really it takes away a couple steps here which is nice but it still takes way too long to load up anything it just feels like Nintendo tried to find and Implement any solution possible to make the Wii U not slow as hell which was an impossibility we also got our first look at Nintendo's NFC figurines at this briefing co-named NFP Nintendo figurine platform the idea behind this was how the figures would work with multiple Wii U and eventually 3DS games unlike other toys to life titles which pretty much only did business within their respective franchises this initiative killed so many birds with one stone it would be considered a spree Nintendo finally does toys to life a booming genre and one that was well represented on Wii U Already they actually use the NFC Reader on the gam pad they do something thing that may actually spark interest in wiii U which rumor had it at the time there was going to be new hardware unveiled E3 2014 whether that was a new console or new model of Wii U I don't know and that's because Nintendo know that could have also helped spark interest in the system I mean slim redesigns of consoles like the PS3 and Xbox One did wonders for them though Nintendo only really does those for their successful consoles what are you trying to say here who knows new hardware could have meant the figurines or Hell something they announced later that may in a promotional video detailing the Smash Brothers Invitational at E3 2014 the GameCube controller adapter for Wii U was revealed the initial idea of playing Smash Brothers for Wii U without a GameCube controller was troubling for many and sure the Pro Controller was fine and there was an announcement this month by PDP that they were making GameCube like controllers that plugged into the weote to coincide with smash but this this was the real deal a wired USB adapter that supported the original controller plus a new Smash Brothers themed One releasing alongside it this was exciting for multiple reasons Nintendo was actually embracing the competitive smash scene as something they had never done up until this point and the idea of GameCube compatibility with Wii U started to run rampant maybe I can play Mario Kart 8 with these controllers now or maybe this means GameCube games will join Virtual Console maybe the Wii U will succeed maybe World Peace will be be achieved maybe you'll give a as a Wii U supporter in this time period it finally felt like the console was a core Focus for Nintendo and the game industry as a whole that Mario Kart really rejuvenated things plus with consistent news popping up and good news at that for the first time it finally felt like I wasn't doing something wrong owning this and these positive feelings continued into June with E3 2014 now in terms of third party support oh wait a second I found the footage the only Nintendo games talked about at the show that Nintendo wasn't putting out was Sonic Boom which looked far worse than the initial trailer did the typical Skylanders Disney Infinity and just Dan centuries that year Watch Dogs uh Lego Batman 3 yeah there wasn't anything uh there were murmurings that 2014's Call of Duty was hitting Wii U that that never happened Ubisoft did mention how they had a family oriented Wii U game practically done but we shelving it until it made sense to release it never did it was all up to Nintendo and Nintendo alone this E3 to prove the worth of Wii U and did they do that no but to the fans they did the E3 2014 Nintendo digital event was one of the best presentations Nintendo's ever done and completely validated the digital presentation format they pioneered while the other company's live press conferences dragged and had technical difficulties Nintendo's digital event was a cool 47 minutes where no second felt wasted any moment that was wasn't focused on a particular game was still just flat out entertaining they commissioned the studio behind Robot Chicken to make sketches throughout and it was so amazing to hear Nintendo be so self-aware cracking jokes on how fans and critics would beg for Mother 3 and Star Fox complain about the overabundance of Mario games the lack of a live press conference even the criticism surrounding the tunelink style of Zelda then immediately we get this epic highly produced fight scene between Reggie and aada announcing the Miis as playable Fighters and Super Smash Brothers then we get an overview from sacai a trailer for smash 3Ds release dates and the formal announcement of NFP officially named amiibo all within the first 10 minutes at last year's Nintendo Direct I'm pretty sure there would be a full 10 seconds where aada was standing there saying nothing the production value here the self-aware comedy the phenomenal pce and the quality of the info shared and the announcements being made it was genuinely incredible and as the presentation moved from game to game it was so obvious how well they thought everything out some games just had basic trailers While others had full-blown sections where the developers sat down to discuss them but they didn't just have them talk out of their ass for 10 minutes no they had them talk about the titles we genuinely needed to hear discussion about Hyrule Warriors having the developers discuss that game really helped solidify it as so much more than just a cheap crossover the yarn Yoshi finally reappeared as Yoshi's woolly world that required a talk to and Splatoon yeah what the is that explain Captain Toad treasure Tracker Kirby and the Rainbow Curse banetta two comes with Nintendo costumes and bayetta one included X is now officially Xenoblade Chronicles x a paleta from kis and Smash Brothers and that was all just the tip of the iceberg because this was where we first saw footage of the Legend of Zelda for Wii U and this was me at that very moment oh my my God this exceeded any and all expectations this looked unbelievable an open world Zelda game that looked this good the blades of grass the incredible lighting the enormous Vista there were hundreds of things going on in this shot well nothing was going on and the action sequence afterwards gave you just enough to chew on before being left with the release window of 2015 yeah all right regardless this was a damn near perfect showing I don't think you could have possibly shown anything better in that moment Skyward Sword had its critics the consensus was the traditional Zelda formula had run its course so for this to be what was shown I mean this is what the Wii U needed pretty much everything we had gotten up to this point well mostly good was painfully derivative at times but that wasn't the case for Zelda my God 2015 couldn't come soon enough and this was the first time in which one year lasted three Mario Maker was this dream come true announcement like come on we've all thought of this one before making your own Mario levels what a great use of the gam pad's touchcreen and incorporating UI elements from Mario Paint made this all the sweeter hell it originated as a new version of the game for Wii U I will say though the status of it at this event felt very small downloadable title esque like this was all you could do make a Mario one level you could switch to the new Super Mario Brothers U art style but the physics were all still based on Mario 1 and it wasn't even that clear if you could share your levels online yet but man the potential of this one was through the roof just like Splatoon the one of the first brand new Nintendo IPS in years that anybody gave a dam am about contrary to popular belief Nintendo is always turning out new franchises but more often than not they're less so Mario and more so math fetus but Splatoon just seemed to instantly have that spark the way they were explaining the gam Play How It correlated with the world and characters a team based shooter where you cover the most Turf with your color of ink but you're these squid human hybrids you can recharge ink by swimming through it it just this was the most Nintendo way to do a multiplayer shooter it looked so unique and was amazing to see Nintendo take a risk on a new idea for Wii U amiibo figures look cool solely based on the fact they were the Smash Brothers versions of the characters they were just like the trophies from the game that's incredible and smash BRS wasn't the only game compatible with them all these other games were too not what did these figures do in them work yeah I don't really think even in Nintendo knew what amiibo were going to do in most of these games yet even the Smash Brothers support felt fairly Superfluous yet just trained them not nearly as compelling as other toys to life products re scan the character and can play as them instantly but that's not what Nintendo wanted amiibo to be they wanted them to work across numerous games and not lock substantial content behind the figures and then consumers weren't pressured to buy them and if there is one thing Nintendo was good at this generation it was stopping consumers from buying their stuff and finally at the very end we got footage of shago mamoto playing and Nintendo soft announced a new Star Fox for Wii U but it was in such an early State they had to censor it no this was leaked like an hour or so before the digital event Premier some press Outlets got the inside scoop early and accidentally published their articles before the presentation and these images are some of the clearest we were really able to see of this game wow Star Fox was right there alongside fzero when it came to neglected Nintendo franchises fans constantly begged for but didn't actually care about but it was still cool to see they were planning to do a new game on Wii U focusing heavily on the gam pad which this was one of three projects mamota discussed at the event with that Focus we got project guard and project giant robot as well the former being a tower defense game and latter being a project giant robot game you build a robot on the game pad and smack it around I don't know project guard seemed to be more flesh out with many reporting Star Fox Easter eggs in the demo so it was expected to eventually be combined with the Star Fox project but damn that's not all as a few games were showcased outside of the presentation Mario versus Donkey Kong this was actually showing off at GBC 2014 as a tech demo for the Nintendo web framework basically a way for developers to code their games in HTML 5 the widely used coding language for websites so this was a tool by Nintendo to make it easy for developers to bring simpler games to Wii U did it work this was practically the only game that used it but hey it was confirmed to be a full-blown title ed3 it looked like Mario versus Donkey Kong and so does the worst person you know the full-blown Art Academy Pac-Man and Smash Brothers IGN revealed the m-rated third person shooter hackin Devils third which was originally supposed to be published by TQ for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 was now a Wii U exclusive published by Nintendo okay Mario Party 10 hey y'all Scott here wait I I might actually be in a coma right now and mentioning Mario Party 10 might actually be what ends me aahah

Channel: Scott The Woz

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Length: 144min 1sec (8641 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 01 2024