Last year’s wishes are this year’s apologies - a fitting sentence for when I bought a Wii U in 2016 and 2024.
I originally wrote this for BasedGamer, the video game website I used to write for, but I’m just repurposing this for my blog instead since that site has been gone since 2018 or so.
Why did I buy a Wii U anyway? What’s the appeal?
First, there was Xenoblade Chronicles X. When I worked at a cellphone store in 2015, my manager was a big gamer like I am. He recommended the game but I didn’t have a Wii U yet. He showed me footage of all the robot combat and how big the world was and I basically said “SOLD.” I immediately went to the used game store in the same mall I worked at and bought a Wii U, just like that.
Second, I’m a sucker for Dynasty Warriors-like games so Hyrule Warriors made me wanna get a Wii U. I’ve never fully played a Legend of Zelda game before so Hyrule Warriors is the first one that I absolutely love. I’ve tried other Zelda games and I never got into them. They just aren’t for me.
Third, video game website Giant Bomb made Super Mario Maker look fun and it genuinely is after I bought it and spent several hours designing levels to upload. I love seeing how people died in levels I made and what they’d say about it in the Nintendo forums, or Miiverse as it was called.
I genuinely loved how the controller was basically a tablet with buttons. It felt nice and comfortable for someone with big hands. It was a unique gimmick but I also bought a standard controller (that was marketed as a “pro controller”, funnily enough).
I remember trading in my Wii U, my 3DS, and all my games for those two systems to GameStop just to upgrade my PS4 to a PS4 Pro just for the benefit of 5 gigahertz wifi. Another bonus is that my PS4 Pro ended up being the super cool limited edition Death Stranding edition.
The Wii U is like the friend you get bored with because you’ve run out of things to talk to. You know you want to spend more time with it but you just run out of interest in anything it has to offer. But you don’t hate the Wii U, right? You’re just bored of it. It’s indifference that kept the Wii U in cement shoes. But I digress.
It wasn’t until December 2024 where I kinda wanted to get a Wii U again just to play Xenoblade Chronicles X. I already preordered the game for the Switch but goddamn it, I wanna play it on its original console. It was a big reason why I bought the Wii U in the first place. Mario Maker isn’t that fun now because Nintendo’s online services for the Wii U have shut down. I got Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition for the Switch and it’s absolutely amazing on it so I probably won’t need to buy it again for the Wii U (but I most likely will because I’m a collector).
I traded in a dozen or so games that I don’t care about or don’t play or have never played to the local retro game store I frequent and I basically got a Wii U for free. This Wii U bundle came with 3 Wii U games I’ve never played before - Smash Brothers for Wii U, New Super Mario Bros. U, and Mario Kart 8.
I played a bit of Super Mario Bros. and I remember why I only enjoyed making levels and not playing them. The jumping feels a little floaty and not accurate compared to older Mario games but that’s fine. Wall jumping is fun but that doesn’t really save it for me. Maybe I’ll give it another chance soon.
Playing Xenoblade Chronicles X on the Wii U with a remake coming in 2025 would make someone think that I’m crazy but trading in enough games to get a Wii U for free and just paying 40 dollars for Xenoblade - a game that can go up to 120 dollars for some reason. I never gave my Wii U a chance so buying Xenoblade would definitely be a starting point.
