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RetroGaming @lemmy.world
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Is the Wii good?

I hold the Wii pretty high in my head. However, I also know that the grass is often very green on the other side.

Is it actually as fun as I remember? I see that a lot of the classic games are pretty rare so that is not reassuring.

47 comments

  • The good games were great. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is probably the best Mario game full stop.

    The controllers were crap for traditional games.

    There was so much shovelware.

  • I love the Wii and I'm sad mine broke (it won't read the discs anymore and all attempts to fix that at home failed). It is one of the very few consoles my husband could use, him having cerebral palsy. We played that together constantly! It was great.

  • I have quite a few consoles from most of the generations and honestly Wii is my favourite. I love playing Wii games, I love the idea of playing on this console and I love collecting for it. I think I actually have 3 or 4 Wiis but I use my WiiU for the HD (I do have a dongle for the Wii as well). There is no video game updates every time you put the disc in, there are no trophies or gamer score, no communities, social media features, ads. You boot it up and enjoy. Because it was so much different from what was on the market, developers couldn't simply port games onto it. They had to develop with the console and its hardware in mind and that's what made it special. I know that on paper Switch is just a better Wii as it has the best of both worlds (it has motion controls and its beefy enough to play more demanding games) but as the focus is mostly to catch up with the other consoles, I think it lost a bit of that magic.

    • I'm really interested in emulation as you can do upscaling which should make the older titles look and run pretty well.

      • Wii games on WiiU look good enough on my 60 inches to me. Obviously you can do the upscaling and get all the bells and whistles but I don't know if these games would benefit from it at all. I like the slightly soft feeling as it is

  • As many have said, it's all about the games. How well the WiiMote functions in a game is largely dependent on the actual game as well. Nintendo pretty much showed the peak of what they can do with the Wii Sports games, and there are a few other games that use the motion controls well, but they tend to be the minority. That said, as a traditional controller it's not the worst thing in the world, and you can still use a Pro controller, the classic controller attachment or a GameCube controller for more traditional controls. The Wii library can be underrated due to the prevalence of shovelware, but there are great games like the Mario Galaxy games, Mario Kart Wii, the last good Mario Party before Superstars, the original versions of Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, the aforementioned Wii Sports games, the second Mario Strikers, the best of the New Super Mario Bros games, Metroid Prime 3, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn (if you can afford them), DKC Returns, Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Kirby's Epic Yarn (another game that used the motion controls well) and many more. (As an aside, I think the Wii U will also be known as a console with an under-rated library down the road.) Sadly, due to its perception and underpowered hardware for its generation, there's not much actually good third-party software for it, but Nintendo themselves supported the Wii more than adequately.

  • Wii was the only console I ever bought. I prefer playing with keyboard and mouse, so consoles were never really my focus.

    I had a lot of fun with it, it had some amazing games that made good use of the controllers. It was a great family console that even older people or people that don't usually play could use.

    It was also great at running old school emulators for other consoles (SNES, Genesis) after some tinkering.

    It also drove home my main hate regarding consoles: they are closed systems, owned not by you but by the manufacturer. The games were and still are expensive, unlike PCs where games get cheaper over time. They can also disable the servers providing services for your console (news channel, weather channel) when they feel like you should move on and buy their next console.

    So I won't buy another console again, even if I still love my Wii, that I power on occasionally.

  • The Wii was a console system for people who were unaware of or didn't like console systems.

    So if you're in that co-hort, or an active Nintendo fan... yeah, it's a great console.

    It says a lot that the best selling titles on it largely came with extra plastic bits that are likely collecting dust now.

    Full disclosure, I own a Wii, it's hooked up and running and everything. Other than occasionally showing off the absolute insanity that is Muscle March, I really can't think of any game on it I'd still play.

    https://youtu.be/2YRqI7JuZO8

47 comments