The concept of “here’s a separate screen” felt forced.
The concept of “asymmetric gameplay” felt more like an excuse for the hardware limitation of “one actual Wii U controller… but you can hook up your Wii controllers too” than anything that had a revolution cooking behind it - like the motion controls on Wii, the touch screen on DS, or the hybridization on Switch.
“Off screen play!” Yeah… that was tacky. The hardware wasn’t capable of doing that anywhere near adequately. Nintendo didn’t even bother to hook it up to the WiFi networks which at least would have allowed me to play anywhere in my house instead of just the living room… most of the living room, near the back the screen would flicker. But Switch I can take out to my hammock in the summer.
The plus side about Wii U is that it was sandwiched between the Wii/DS and the Switch. That meant it didn’t hurt as much as the Gamecube did, which came after the fall from grace that was the N64. I don’t know. Consoles like that always had at least a few memorable games: Wii U had XCX, which is one of my favourite games of all time… take out Wii Fit (really more of a continuation of Wii) and Earthbound… and Wii Mode (which I regret transferring over), and XCX might be about 90% of my playtime on Wii U.
It’s interesting how Mario Kart 8 was made for Wii U… but with the Wii U features the game is a C+/B-; but on Switch, everyone with their own screens, up to 12 players local via WiFi, the game becomes the definitive Mario Kart experience, A+/S arguably the best racing game ever made.
Last edited by Jumpin - 3 days agoI describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
