I love it that the Switch is doing so well.
I love that the 3DS has great new stuff too.
But... I tell you something - I still love the WiiU too.
Miiverse is about to die this weekend and that makes me really sad. (Kind of astounding the Wii Shop Channel will outlast it) Such a great platform for interacting with fellow game fans. I really hope Nintendo someday gives us something like that again. And I'm kind of bitter about this -- Miiverse has given the WiiU so much of its personality. The stamps. The memes. The adorable hilarious cringe of all that makes you really wonder if that's a child or oddball 40 year old man posting out there. But for real - great way to get tips on the game when you were stuck. Even for such a small audience, you really got great level of interaction from other players.
Not to mention - It literally kills that home screen. Turning on my WiiU from now on is going to feel like stepping into the house of someone who just died. You know they were they before - but now they'e gone forever.
And it brings my attention back to something: the WiiU is really dead now. You can't buy them in stores. Even the top-selling games like Smash are evaporated from store shelves. The eShop is barren of new releases of all kinds - apart from Just Dance nothing new has dropped on there. And very likely nothing else will.
So excuse me while I recount some good times I had with WiiU, while we shovel some more dirt on its grave.
The first place I played Shovel Knight...
The Wonderful 101 reignited my passion for games by being an authentically original game. And oh boy - same deal with Bayo 1&2.
Batman Arkham City and Origins helped scratch my Zelda itch when there weren't any new Zelda games out there. And when the Zelda remakes did arrive, I enjoyed those a lot too.
3D World and NSMBU and NSLU are all top-tier couch co-op games - really surprassing any co op offerings out there I'd say.
Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze was so good... it invaded my dreams. Not sure if any other game has really done that for me.
Rayman Legends = phenomenal.
Countless hours in MK8, Smash, Splatoon and Xenoblade X. I was genuinely content enough with these games regularly enough to ignore everything else out there.
And ACIV was a terribly underrated port. Great gamepad features!
Wii BC was great too! Got me caught up with Galaxy, RE4, and Metroid Prime Trilogy.
A solid indie scene with games like Affordable Space Adventures, Runner2, and Guacamelee...
And dammit - Star Fox Zero... once you nailed down the wonky controls it was great fun. And you know what? Graphically good I'd say too. I'm still playing it now.
And I could go on about other poorly-reviewed and niche games on the WiiU I enjoyed as well - but I think you get my point
And lest we forget: WiiU still has Breath of the Wild. It was a terribly long wait, and the Switch version is certainly more convenient way to play that game. But it's essentially the very same phenomenal GOTY-caliber game.
WiiU was and always will be a great console in my eyes. Fact: practically everything about the Switch is a huge improvement over the WiiU. So coming from a place where I really enjoyed the WiiU to begin? Slam dunk man. I'd say gone too soon, but that's not true. WiiU had to go. It just makes me sad to see this playful, weird platform in the WiiU really really really fade away into obscurity.
I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016
