I’ve defended it for years. A very, very long time. Despite several setbacks, despite several problems, delays, disappointments, I remained skeptical of the criticism and tried justifying its issues. I can do it no longer, and I am about to say something that most my better friends would never expect me to ever say:
I hate the Nintendo Wii.
I honestly do.
Now, the system did have some masterful games and some of the top games in the past generation. The system did have plenty of wonderful moments in my households throughout its life. That being said, it is absolutely inexcusable for us to have next to nothing in the last two years of its lifespan. It is absolutely inexcusable that we still don’t have every classic available in the Virtual Console. And lastly, it is purely inexcusable to not truly figure out and master motion control until last year---with a slightly ironically disappointing Zelda game. While the Playstation 3 and XBox 306 hammered out smash hit after smash hit this previous holiday season, it was quite tough to watch the Wii release next to...nothing.
What frustrates me the most about the Wii was that it had so much potential it can bound and gag any game developer. That’s what hurts the most about this Nintendo system: it could have delivered so much—and even when it did deliver, it followed up with a disappointment and a couple steps backwards.
Metroid Prime 3 was the ultimate proof that shooters can work incredibly well on the Wii with the right amount of effort. Instead, Metroid Other M goes the entirely wrong direction in every single way----and we still don’t have that awesome collection of shooters that the Xbox 360 had. Aside from remakes like the Prime Trilogy, Goldeneye, Resident Evil 4, did Nintendo even have a decent shooter they can call their own?
Wii Sports was a superb way to introduce gamers to the world of motion gaming and sports. Unfortunately for all of us, aside from Mario Strikers Charged (and Punch-Out, but that game is much more precise button-pressing than anything else) the Nintendo Wii lacked a good collection of sports games that implement good Wii controls. And don’t get me started on the abomination that was Mario Power Tennis Wii version.
Even Super Mario took a step backwards. Mario Galaxy was an excellent franchise that tested the Wii graphical capabilities to the absolute limits. But everything else Mario just didn’t improve upon previous installations. The 2-D Mario games were decent but totally lack the personality and creativity of the SNES counterparts, Paper Mario Wii didn't hold a candle to the GC version, the Mario sports games were much scarcer and weaker when you did find them (Once again, Strikers Charged is the exception), and even the Mario Party series, a franchise that could have really benefited from motion controls, utterly sucked.
So we have these disappointments, but what really made my skin crawl was the utter lack of Nintendo franchises that made a splash in these recent years. The Wario Ware series never evolved after Smooth Moves, Pikmin , Star Fox, and F-Zero disappeared, Fire Emblem didn’t evolve, Pokemon went eight steps back, Earthbound is still a figment of our imagination, and Zelda became the only first-party beacon of hope in the last two years with Skyward Sword---although it still missed the mark. Don’t look now, but the 3DS is closely following the trend by STILL not delivering a sequel to Star Fox, F-Zero, Wario, Wario Ware, Pokemon (The next one is a DS title), and of course….Earthbound.
And it extends far more than just the present, what about the past? Virtual Console could have extended the lifespan of the Wii, and instead we still are missing games from the 90s, and the Wii is several years old!! What is the holdup!?!?!? Why is Earthbound still missing? Why is Yoshi’s Island still missing? There are at least 1,500 games between the NES, SNES, and N64. There are only 390 available in the North American region. Just saying.
All of this definitely comes extremely late, extremely delayed, but as I sit here and see PS3 and Xbox 360 still pour their hearts out while the next generation is looming nice and close, one can only become frustrated at the lack of execution of Nintendo and their most successful system in recent times. The Wii could have been so much more, it honestly could have.
It should have. And it’s not.
And now as I sit at home and stare at the Wii, it’s time to face the facts:
The Wii was quite a disappointment.
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