MY BRAIN HAD A THINK ABOUT A GAM3

Why I also mentioned the 3DS as now we do only have one Nintendo system, while we had two back then, sure you have to buy both of them, just I still reckon if we looked at all what was out be a good bunch.

And inferior 3rd party games still a thing

The 3DS had its dark times too but I don't think they coincided with the Wii U's much. That said, when we were doing Buska's Nin Ten Years thing I remember 2015 being an absolute bastard to put together musics for. Looking back, I needed to resort to DLC to make a list. 2016 was pretty lousy too, Spirit of Justice notwithstanding.

I think overall I'm with Cappa, but then I've had the eShop to last me through 2018 and 2020, something (as he frequently reminds us) that Mas didn't have because he gets them all on inferior machines for prices that reflect said inferiority.

Maybe my memories of the Wii U times would be fonder if there was a fully-fledged Animal Crossing for it. Animal Crossing is a massive part of my memories for the GameCube, Wii, DS and 3DS, eating up loads of my total gameplay time for them all. New Horizons was worth the generational wait for sure, but in it’s empty void there’s just memories of Turbo Super Stunt Squad and Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth.

That part of issue as I do look at 3DS and U sort together, as you point out Wii U didn't get a proper Animal Crossing.

Which is understandable due to how well Animal Crossing did on 3DS and poorly Wii U did.

The gamss Wii U did get clearly are good as look at how they're doing on Switch, that I do wonder if Wii U wasn't called Wii U and had better marketing etc if it could had been successful. If it had what we have now a 4KDS handheld and PlayBox console.

There are things that could have been done for sure, but ultimately I think the Wii U was an idea ahead and behind the times.

We already had smart devices, as in smart looking things, like iPads which are aesthetically far better looking than the fisher price tablet the Wii U had. But that gamepad was the, quite literally, big thing the Wii U had to distinguish it from the Wii or the other consoles.

There were some cool things you could do with duel video outputs, you know one player looking at the tablet the other player(s) using the TV, but ultimately most people play with their mates online now, or they're happy sharing a TV screen. For single player games, let's be honest, games that forced you to look at the tablet over the TV would generally have been better forsaking the tablet. An extra screen is fine on a DS but maybe less so on when you are looking up at your TV and then down at a tablet.

The unique things the tablet brought to the table weren't really good enough. The Wii had a gimmick that intuitively captured the imagination, while the true portability of the Switch and it's modern look are also great. Compare either of those to the Wii U tablet and even without Rufus Hound getting his sweaty paws all over the marketing it would have flopped. Like, what do you think parents would prefer; something their child can hold or a Wii U gamepad?

People can point at the name, the marketing, and all sorts of other things when it comes to the Wii U, but for me it all boils down this: The Wii U concept didn't capture the imagination of enough people.

And I like the Wii U tablet. I found it surprisingly comfortable, a convenient Netflix device, and it brought a lot of good to the fore in certain multiplayer games. But I can see why it didn't work for so many people.

For me, the more interesting hypothetical question is: If we had a Wii 2, which had about the same power as the Wii U but the gamepad was a separate peripheral you could buy that was compatible with all games as a controller, as a screen for when the TV is off, and as a second screen in some games, would it still have flopped?

I think there's a couple of questions to untangle from that last one Muss. The first is, was the tablet a good enough gimmick? (Probably not given that Nintendo themselves didn't seem to know what to do with it half the time.) The second is, would Wii 2 have had clearer messaging and sold better? (Surely.) And the third is, which of those was the bigger factor?

One that I don't see anyone mention about the Wii U: I think there was also a launch issue. Of course, bad launches aren't insurmountable: the 3DS ended up doing well enough. But New Super Mario Bros. U and Nintendo Land aren't the killer apps. anyone needed or wanted. Nintendo Land ended up being a cult classic, sure, but cult classics don't sell machines. The home consoles either side of it had a Zelda apiece, not to mention Wii Sports.

masofdas wrote:

That part of issue as I do look at 3DS and U sort together, as you point out Wii U didn't get a proper Animal Crossing.

I do this as well, and I don't care much for Animal Crossing, and I still think the Switch has been better overall than last gen. Probably not the gen. before though, Wii and DS included.

Blimey the DS was good wasn't it?

Over on our affiliate, people were doing the best game on every Ninty machine they've owned (also scoring them, which even Mr. Numbers here thought was ridiculous).  I went a step further, giving my favourite games on each at the time and my favourite games on each in retrospect.  I've had every machine since the 64 (ignoring Minis and anything that only plays one game), and the entire list was full of Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon - with two mentions for Smash, which contains Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon.  The only exception was the DS, which was Meteos at the time and Ghost Trick now.

Because that's what third parties were doing in that era!  More so than on the Wii, where it felt like it was a case of 'wang motion controls at a game and call it a day', it feels like the DS was when they really went to town with crazyness and made some really interesting games.  Meanwhile I felt Nintendo's own efforts sometimes fell wide of the mark (producing my least favourite Zeldas that I played at time of release, a duff port of Mario 64, and the worst mainline Pokémon games among others).  It really didn't matter, because companies like Capcom and Squeenix were absolutely churning out the hits.

Blimey the DS was good wasn't it?

That list if anyone cares:

I can do this for almost every system under the sun, and then I have my weird view on multiformat games that I could expand it even further to my favourite multiformat game from 8th generation game is MGSV.

Nintendo
NES Kirby Adventure
SNES Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
N64 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
GameCube The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and my favourite game of all time
Wii The Last Story, Skyward Sword was considered
Wii U Bayonetta 2
Switch Fire Emblem: Three Houses
GameBoy Pokémon Red
GBC Pokémon Crystal as it is a Color only game where Gold/Silver are enhanced games
GBA The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
DS Pokémon White, This got me back into Pokémon and even Nintendo I would say
3DS Fire Emblem: Awakening
Virtual Boy Mario's Tennis
Pokémon Mini Pokémon Pinball Mini

SEGA
Master System Sonic Chaos
Mega Drive Mortal Kombat II
Mega CD Sonic CD
32X Star Wars Arcade
Saturn Nights into Dreams
Dreamcast Shenmue II
GameGear Deep Duck Trouble Starring Donald Duck, I thought it was Quackshot but Wiki says that wasn't on GG

PlayStation
PS1 Final Fantasy IX
PS2 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
PS3 Journey
PS4 Persona 5, Likely Royal if I ever get around to playing that version
PS5 Astro's Playroom, By default
PSP Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
VITA Persona 4 Golden
PSVR Moss

Xbox
OG Halo: Combat Evolved
360 Halo: Reach
ONE Forza Horizon 4
Series The Medium, as not a lot that is just Series/Next Gen

Other
CD-i  Burn:Cycle
Neo Geo CD  The King of Fighters '95 by default
3DO Street Fighter II Turbo
Jaguar Alien vs Predator
Lynx Blue Lightning by default
Game.com Batman & Robin well it was this or solitaire
Neo Geo Pocket Color Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure, and the best Sonic game
WonderSwan Color Digimon Something that was a fighting game
N-Gage Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
OnLive Dirt 2 or 3 just I'm not sure which one I played
Stadia Gylt as it remains exclusive and one of few games I've finished on Stadia
Quest Dear Angelica is more of a experience but for VR it fits
PC Football Manager, the newest one

NES The Legend of Zelda - I'm not just being facetious, I really liked it!
SNES Super Metroid - Played this for the first time fairly recently and it was still one of the best in the genre
N64 Super Mario 64 - It created 3D games, and nailed it. The second half is dodgy.
Gamecube Pikmin - One of the most emotionally engaging games I've ever played. Beautiful.
Wii Super Mario Galaxy - One of the all-timers. I did consider Skyward Sword as it represents the Wii better.
Wii U Splatoon - I could have put BotW here but that would feel disingenuous
Switch Breath of the Wild - duh

Game Boy Pokémon Red - Life-changing and majestic
Game Boy Color Pokémon Silver - The business
Game Boy Advance Astro Boy Omega Factor - Powerful stuff
DS Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations - I'd say the whole trilogy if I could.
3DS Monster Hunter Generations - An absolute obsession for me. 4U is probably a better package but I didn't play it as much.

PS1 Metal Gear Solid iconic
PS2 PES V Had to think about this, but PES V was probably the game I played the most
PS3 Batman: Arkham City Outstanding game
PS4 The Witcher 3 I love this game. God of War would also have been an acceptable answer here
Gamecube F-zero GX YEAH, THE FINAL LAP
N64 Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Calibre Not that I ever owned an N64, but I played a lot of this unique tactics game
Wii Wii Sports Would never say no to a game on this
Wii U Mario Kart 8 Too many good times for it not to be my favourite
Switch Hades Yeah, this is my 3rd favourite game of all time.

Game Boy Pokemon Red Second game that ever hooked me, first being Super Mario Land.
Gameboy Colour Pokemon Silver My personal favourite game in the series, so many innovations and improvements
GBA Sonic Advance 2 - Not a system I had all that many games for, this was mostly used to play classic Game Boy games with
DS Mario Kart DS
3DS A Fire Emblem or Bravely Default... Honestly, barely played my 3DS

Windows 90's Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 2 Wait, was this the first game that hooked me?
Windows 2000's/XP Rome: Total War Loved the game, and also loved tuning into the shortlived BBC programme Time Commanders
Windows Vista/7 Medieval: Total War This was just an evolution of Rome. Had loads of factions, humour, and it was just a good time
Windows of Today Crusader Kings 2  Endlessly replayable grand strategy game if you like staring at maps

I don’t think I can rank my favourite game on each console I own, and besides, several of them would just be Crazy Taxi.

“Blimey the DS was good”, but we’re both saying that from different perspectives. I got my joy from the Professor Layton games, the Sonic games, the Kirby games, the Nintendogs games, the Touch Generations games, the WarioWare games and puzzlers like Puzzle League DS and Zoo Keeper. Without having bothered with it’s Zelda games or it’s countless JRPGs and point-and-click adventures, what makes the DS so brilliant for me is probably quite different from what it brilliant for others.

Muss wrote:

Windows 90's Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 2 Wait, was this the first game that hooked me?

I miss that era of popular titles hosted or presented by ordinary sounding blokes. Jimmy White's Cueball, Nigel Mansell's World Championship and Jeremy McGrath's Supercross. I guess Madden is the main remnant of that and wonder how many gamers now even know what a Madden is.

Cappa wrote:

I don’t think I can rank my favourite game on each console I own, and besides, several of them would just be Crazy Taxi.

Yeah I'd need to seriously think about this. So yeah I'll just have Crazy Taxi as well.

Spoiler:

I honestly thought people would be more interested in the DS than the lists. Shows how much I know.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

“Blimey the DS was good”, but we’re both saying that from different perspectives. I got my joy from the Professor Layton games, the Sonic games, the Kirby games, the Nintendogs games, the Touch Generations games, the WarioWare games and puzzlers like Puzzle League DS and Zoo Keeper. Without having bothered with it’s Zelda games or it’s countless JRPGs and point-and-click adventures, what makes the DS so brilliant for me is probably quite different from what it brilliant for others.

That's exactly why it was so good though! It had so much new and interesting stuff! (So long as you weren't into MANLY GENRES.) I too got into the Professor Laytons, Kirby and the Power Paintbrush, WarioWare Touched, and Zoo Keeper - but I also got into a lot of RPGs that you wouldn't bat an eyelid at. Third parties were churning out good stuff of all kinds. Remember Henry Hatsworth? Imagine EA producing something like that today. Wouldn't happen.

Balladeer wrote:

I honestly thought people would be more interested in the DS than the lists.  Shows how much I know.

Your post was written such that the DS part reads like a throwaway line.

The DS was the first machine I bought with my own money, and it was the point at which my parents gave up on trying to limit my playtime. Subsequently I started actually finishing games and really appreciating them.

Mario 64, Mario Kart DS, the Mario + Luigis, Pokémon, Zelda, the Phoenix Wrights, Hotel Dusk . . . aye, cracking machine. I was also into the Brain Training and the Wario Wares and the more gimmicky stuff. And man, the DS Lite, what a sexy machine.

I didn't play much DS as for kids innit give me COD pew pew.

Due to that attitude I've missed what someone of the better games you bring up and I very much like to see Hotel Dusk Switch port.

And lists are great

Balladeer wrote:

I honestly thought people would be more interested in the DS than the lists.  Shows how much I know.

I think you've underestimated the amount people would like to exclaim "HERE IS MY FAVOURITE IT IS THIS"

masofdas wrote:

I didn't play much DS as for kids innit give me COD pew pew.

We would not have been friends when we were 15 . . .

Who knows as if I had a friend more into Nintendo then might have payed more attention to DS and Wii at the time or maybe you might have tried a Nontendo sooner if you saw my 360 with all the pew pew.

My friends did have Xboxes and Playstations, to be fair, but most of them got a DS and Wii eventually and they were always up for some Ninty at mine.

I don't think I knew anyone that had Nintendo stuff, why I bring up Pokemon Black as peeps in work all where playing it.

I remember bringing my Gamecube and WarioWare: Mega Party Game$ to a friend's house when we were maybe 13 and at some point his mum asked us when we were going to start playing something grown up like GTA. The fact that I still remember that so clearly probably shows how embarrassed I was at the time

That makes me a little angry just to hear that.

That's reminded me of being bollocked by my mate's step-dad, who went needlessly radge at us because we spent a hot summer's afternoon inside fannying about on PGA Tour '96.

Any other stories of other people's shitey parents acting shiteily?