A Wii U owner’s send-off to a deeply flawed but essential Nintendo console
I haven't taken a poll or anything, but I suspect I'm the only person on the Ars staff who happily and without reservation plunked down for the Wii U version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild instead of springing for a copy of the game and a brand-new Nintendo Switch.
Though the game was originally developed as a Wii U game, it's clear that this version is being released almost as an afterthought. The Wii U version comes with the same content as the Switch version, and the DLC will be available for both platforms, but the pricey Special and Master Editions are Switch-exclusive. Breath of the Wild will be a quiet coda for Nintendo's least successful home console since the company helped birth the modern game industry back in the '80s. This is a system that Nintendo pretty much gave up on before concrete details on its successor had even been announced.
But somehow, I think history will vindicate the Wii U; at the very least, it should go down as a "good" failure like the Dreamcast rather than a "bad" one like the Virtual Boy. It was and is a system that's worthy of attention, it was just done in by poor timing and messaging and a central gimmick that nobody (Nintendo included) ever really managed to figure out.
What happened?
Right from the jump, Nintendo's messaging on the Wii U was... not great. Start with the name, which to this day feels bad to say (really roll it around in your mouth. "Wee You." It sucks.). It's not immediately clear whether the "Wii U" is an upgraded version of the original, super-popular Wii, if it's a new thing, or if it's just the tablet, or what. The console's graphical upgrade ended up being more important to the overall experience than the usually vestigial tablet accessory, but the name didn't convey that.
And let's talk about that tablet. The few games that used it well (Mario Maker is the prime example) were exceptions that drove home how poorly the tablet was used in most games. It usually either duplicated what you saw on the TV or offered a sort of map or inventory screen. Further, by the time the Wii U came out, the tablet's hardware was already rendered chunky and cartoonish next to Apple's lineup of increasingly slick iPads and an emerging class of low-cost, high-quality Android tablets. It didn't help that the Wii U stood still while tablets and phones got refreshed all around it at least once a year. Shigeru Miyamoto himself pointed to the GamePad's poor timing and execution as a reason why the Wii U failed to connect with consumers.
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So Nintendo started with that less-than-compelling sales pitch and then added in a totally predictable lack of third-party support. Third parties released mostly reheated versions of years-old Xbox 360 and PS3 games at launch, and those old games inevitably didn't sell well. From there, third-parties used low sales to justify staying away from the Wii U. It's a perfect recipe for mass-market failure, even if you do have a hardcore base of customers that will buy everything you put out.
If Nintendo had been able to build some first-party momentum, the Wii U might have ended up looking like the GameCube, but the company could never quite make that happen. The Wii U's best sales bounce was right around when I bought it, when the one-two-three punch of Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, and the new Smash Bros title combined to build up a bit of momentum for the console. Splatoon and Mario Maker made sure those new buyers had more stuff to play, but Nintendo's first-party games couldn't ultimately carry a release calendar all on their own. By the time the delayed Star Fox Zero game flopped in April of 2016, any wave of momentum had dissipated and Nintendo was already playing the Wii U off the stage.
Why I'll still remember it well
One word: games.
The Wii U didn't have many games, but taken as a whole the library offers an abundance of bright, fun platformers, entertaining party games, and just enough action games, RPGs, and weird experiments to keep things interesting (I'm also not counting multi-platform indie games like Shovel Knight or Virtual Console releases like Earthbound, since they can be played elsewhere and it's a mystery how long Nintendo will keep the Wii U version of the eShop up once the Switch is up and running). The only thing this console is really short on is first-person shooters, but those exist in abundance on every other platform.
The Wii U's crown jewel is probably Super Mario 3D World, which takes the Super Mario Galaxy games' rapid-fire creativity and makes it actually fun to play with multiple people (something the sidescrolling New Super Mario Bros games never really were). It's got a ton of replay value, and it's far and away the most fun I've had on the system.
But the list of solid platformers and platform-puzzle games is still a lot longer than what you'll get elsewhere. New Super Mario Bros U and the speedrun-focused Luigi U expansion are mostly forgettable but still entertaining. I'd also put Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Yoshi's Wooly World onto that list; the former is better if you're looking for a challenge and the latter is better if you want to relax and luxuriate in a cool art style. Both Pikmin 3 and Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker are fun puzzle-platformers that aren't especially adventurous but still build nicely on previous games in their respective franchises. It's almost more fun to sit with friends and play bizarre Super Mario Maker levels made by kids on the other side of the world than it is to actually make levels yourself.
On the action side, the two HD Zelda re-releases may not be new, but I enjoyed the streamlined version of Wind Waker much more than the GameCube original, and the tablet's second screen is actually really helpful here. Bayonetta 2 follows the bizarre, over-the-top template set by the original, even if its extreme objectification of the title character can make it harder to enjoy. ZombiU and The Wonderful 101 received more mixed critical reception than the platform's best games, but by most accounts they're at least worth trying. And if you're looking for JRPGs, both Xenoblade Chronicles X and the oddly named Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE are solid adventures you can't get anywhere else.
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Even aside from the Wii U's library, the thing can play a lot of games, including everything released for the original Wii. If you're comfy with a little bit of hacking and with ripping ISOs of your GameCube games, a nifty little program called Nintendont will even kind-of-sort-of restore the GameCube compatibility that Nintendo stripped out of the Wii U's Wii Mode. The Switch leaves three generations of games behind, barring future Virtual Console releases (the jury is out on whether the Switch is powerful enough to emulate the GameCube or original Wii, though it's not entirely out of the question given the state of third-party emulators like Dolphin running on modern Android tablets).
The games of the Wii U stand a pretty good chance of living on, given how obsessed Nintendo is with reliving its own history. A version of Mario Kart 8 is a Switch launch title, Splatoon 2 looks more like an expansion pack than a sequel, and if we don't see more Wii U titles ported over to fill up holes in the first-party launch calendar over the next couple years, I will take my Wii U apart and eat it. In this instance, the reintroduction is a good thing. The Wii U's games deserved more attention than they got, and they deserve a wider audience than the flawed Wii U could give them. Based on the early reviews, Breath of the Wild is a fitting capstone on its legacy.
