Wii U was a nice idea on paper. The GamePad, to me, was certainly a more interesting idea than the Wiimote, and "waggle controls", which is all Wii motion controls ever really managed to be, outside of the IR pointer, which was THE best thing about the Wiimote concept. It was great for shooters and navigating menus. But tacked-on motion controls otherwise tended to ruin games that would have been better without them.
Sadly, that is a lesson they did not fully learn with Wii U (or if what I'm hearing about Mario Odyssey is right, even Switch).
The thing with me and Wii U is this: I was really stoked for it. It is THE only system, period, that I ever pre-ordered and got AT LAUNCH. I would have likely gotten Wii at launch, but I was dumb and didn't pre-order one, so I had to wait until Feb. 2007 to finally get one. With Wii U, I wasn't gonna have that. I was really excited, mostly for Pikmin 3. I'll fully admit that I mainly got a Wii U for Pikmin 3, a game that I was originally excited for on Wii, and then it got pushed back, and back, and back. I was excited by the apparent "strong third party support" at Wii U launch, because it WAS there. The Wii U actually had one of the most robust launch lineups in gaming history (certainly better than Switch).
Unfortunately, the only games AT LAUNCH that I really cared about, were NSMBU, and Tekken Tag 2. Tekken Tag 2 is fine, except for the god awful dubstep style music. NSMBU is great, except that they had JUST come out with NSMB 2 on 3DS a few short months prior. So people were basically getting burnt out on NSMB games. They really shouldn't have done that, they should have given NSMBU a wide berth, so that people would have been more enthusiastic for it. Regardless, I also got Nintendo Land, because it came with the set I pre-ordered. And I was enthusiastic about too at first, having Metroid and Zelda inspired games. Problem is, unlike Wii Sports, which was legitimately fun and easy to just pick up and play, Nintendo Land was just not that. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't Wii Sports either.
And then came the drought. Rayman Legends, which was supposed to be a Wii U exclusive (a BIG deal when first announced), got delayed so they could make it multiplat. For months, barely anything came out on Wii U retail. They even got Lego City, which is ok, and a REALLY good port of Need For Speed, but no one really cared. Those were not system selling games, and console sales similarly dropped off the face of the planet, because there just weren't games people cared about coming out.
It took them until August 2013 to finally put out Pikmin 3. And when they did, I'm sorry to say, it wasn't even worth the wait. It's not a BAD game by any stretch. But it's not a good PIKMIN game. Which, not surprisingly then, it really frustrated me to hear many people proclaim it the "best Pikmin game", even though many of the people saying that had admittedly NEVER played the brilliant original two games on Gamecube. Here's the thing, the REASON that Pikmin 3 is NOT a good, let alone the BEST Pikmin game, is because in Pikmin 1 and 2, I would say easily 50% of the gameplay, and strategy involved, was in the C-stick "Manual Swarming" mechanic. Being able to move your Pikmin around individually of Olimar with the C-Stick was not only a brilliant concept, but it was also ESSENTIAL to the gameplay, to help them avoid hazards and needless deaths. Because the fact is, Pikmin are morons, and NEED to be constantly herded.
And for some insane, face-palm worthy reason that I've still never heard, they REMOVED that swarming ability completely from Pikmin 3. They also completely removed hunting for treasures, you literally just go, day to day, trying to gather fruits for juicing. Then they also removed the ability to ZOOM the goddamn camera, which is also face-palm worthy, because it makes no goddamn sense why you would ever do that. So you literally can't zoom the camera perspective in or out, to get better viewpoints of the action, which at times was ALSO super integral to the gameplay and strategy of Pikmin 1 and 2. And as the cherry on the cake, they also started what is becoming a very disturbing and frustrating trend with Nintendo, giving the player only ONE save slot. I found this out the hard way, not having previously heard about it, and naturally ASSUMING that, like all well designed modern games, it would have multiple slots. I went to start a new game to show my friend the opening parts, and oops, "Do you wan to overwrite your data?" It was a slap in the face.
Mind you, I'm not just trying to nitpick. But I REALLY was psyched for Pikmin 3, and then what they delivered after such a long wait, was a shallow version of the gameplay experience I had fallen in love with, with the name Pikmin slapped on the box. I don't HATE the new characters or food-gathering concept, though I'll absolutely admit I'd rather have Olimar. But to take away treasure hunting, and camera zoom, and save slots, and detrimentally, manual Pikmin control, all that was left was a hollow shell where you gathered fruits, and picked up and threw Pikmin. Picking up and throwing them was only HALF the strategy in the older games, there were many times when it was far more advantageous to manually swarm them around something instead. And boss battles? Forget it. Without the ability to manually move Pikmin out of danger of being eaten or trampled, boss battled suddenly were a chore. But the end product they gave me...just wasn't the Pikmin experience that we all deserved. All it had to be, was some amalgamation of what made Pikmin 1 and 2 great, with better graphics and more stuff. Instead, they "fixed" what wasn't broken, not even by addition, but by subtraction.
I don't HATE Pikmin 3, in fact I really really wanted to LOVE it. And I think, in all blunt honesty, that also sums up my feelings about the Wii U as a whole. I bought the thing at launch, and suffered through the continuous software droughts that popped up. I was even excited by the "ton" of indie titles that were continually getting announced as coming to Wii U at one point, and figured that, well, if I wasn't going to get enough good retail titles, at least the indies would tide me over. Having a bunch of great indie games could still make owning the Wii U somewhat worth it, except then a lot of those never came out. Some, like Another Castle and A.N.N.E., straight up became vaporware or were officially cancelled. And others, like Two Brothers, and Heart Forth Alicia, and Reven, have been in development so long that at this point, they seriously might not even be able to be released on Wii U, even though people paid for those Kickstarter stretch goals. Because by the time they're finally out, Wii U's eShop might well be closed down. So in the end, I didn't even get all of the awesome indie games for Wii U that I was greatly looking forward to.
The Wii U wasn't a total waste for me. I had some games on it that I enjoyed, but I think it says something when the one I put the most hours into was Hyrule Warriors, when I don't traditionally even like those Warriors games. To be fair, HW was fun. But the thing about Wii U, to ME at least, is that while it had many GOOD games, I would hesitate to say that it has a single title, that ONE game on the system, that you can point to when telling other people "THIS is why you should own a Wii U!" At least, until Breath of the Wild, except that came far too late to really matter for the system. Part of the problem, to me, is that Wii U had several games that COULD have been great, but were either missing something, or had something seriously holding them back. Such as:
Pikmin 3 - Great graphics, missing seriously essential components of the Pikmin gameplay experience.
Mario Kart 8 - Brilliant racing mode, arguably the best MK since MK64 (for me), except ZERO actual Battle Arenas.
Smash Bros. - Great graphics, mostly good roster (except poor Ice Climbers), but ZERO Adventure mode, at all.
Mario Tennis - Mario Tennis in HD finally...and laughably short on actual content.
Star Fox Zero - FINALLY a new Star Fox...but wait, it's just rehashed SF64, with HORRIBLE tacked on motion controls that literally no one wanted or asked for.
NSMBU, and Mario 3D World, and Mario Maker, Splatoon, Xenoblade X, Captain Toad, etc, all good games. But honestly, just not enough to really make me feel like WOW, sure glad I bought this. Especially at launch.
I don't HATE Wii U, and I think it could have been great. The GamePad concept, a regular controller with a touch screen, that also acts as a second screen, is a great idea, even IF it needed to not be so clunky. The buttons, the d-pad, the joysticks, the touchscreen, everything was FUNCTIONALLY great about that controller, so long as Nintendo wasn't forcing me to use bad motion control gimmicks. The system itself was just full of too many disappointments, to me, to outweigh what good it DID bring to the table.
As for Switch? To me the jury is still out. I see people raving about Mario Odyssey, which I'll get to try later this month when my roommate gets one. I look forward to it, even though I've heard certain moves are locked behind motion controls, which if true, is just Nintendo continuing to not learn. And the third party and indie support DOES seem strong, and unlike Wii U, the system is actually WELL advertised, and it seems to be selling really well. All of that sounds great. But I'm not going to be an early adopter this time around. I was left too burnt by my Wii U experience, honestly. I likely WILL get a Switch eventually, once it has more games, and perhaps (yeah right) comes down in price. And I hope it does really well, and it hope it has a lot of great games that DON'T wind up leaving me disappointed. But for now, I'm content to just sit back and see what happens.
