Hooked mine back up and I'm loving it. It's the best way to play Wii games display wise. I've bought a few cheap 3rd party games including Bayonetta 1 & 2 and Batman Arkham origins, and I want to get around to playing paper mario colour splash, twilight princess HD and Metroid prime trilogy.

Wow has it been 14 years already, man I feel old. Me and my brother bought one on holiday (on launch!) with our pocket money/birthday money combined as our birthday fell on the holiday. We really thought it would be a PS4/Xbox one style console capable of playing big games, which it was. But sadly lots of time passed, and apart from us both enjoying Sonic Racing Transformed we didn't use it much and went to PC gaming. Anyway, we sold it after about 2 years. Then around 2016 I bought one back, bought Mario Kart, Toad Treasure Tracket, Minecraft, Sonic Racing Transformed again, Mario 3D World + the 2d version. Felt like a really fresh and changed console by that time we really enjoyed and it was great for Netflix too. We still have it boxed up safely! Great console towards the end! I always found the gamepad comfy myself. We didn't get a switch for years maybe around 2021 as we felt what's the point when all the games are still playable on the Wii U and much cheaper to buy (Mario Kart 8 for example!)

I said it then and I'll repeat it today. It was a lot of fun and the Gamepad enhanced the experience a lot.

I love my Wii U games. So many amazing titles. It had massive droughts, unfortunately, but since this is a retrospective the entire library counts.

This was also the beginning of off-screen gaming. The Wii U paved the way for the Switch.

At the time I was actually quite happy with it - I bought it late (2015), so there was a decent amount of great games to play (Mario Kart, Wind Waker HD, Smash Bros, Bayonetta, Mario 3D World, Tropical Freeze, Mario Maker, Shovel Knight to name some) plus the Virtual Console (I first played Super Metroid and Zero Mission on Wii U).
The drought quickly got real though, this being my main system at the time. There were months waiting for new releases and when Xenoblade Chronicles, Lego Force Awakens and finally Breath of the Wild came out, I played the heck out of them, like finding an oasis after wandering through the desert.

I found at the time the console itself looked good. For the gamepad, the plasticky, toy-like feel of it, its clunkiness and abysmal battery life and connectivity radius I somehow got used to and didn't mind anymore. But in retrospect I do feel there were many awful aspects of the Wii U that Nintendo should not (and in the grand consumer decision scheme of things did not) get a pass for.

Overall I would say the gaming memories I do have from this system are up there among the very best, but the system as a whole and its livability I am not looking so fondly back on anymore.

For anybody remotely Wii U nostalgic I strongly recommend Scott The Woz' epic deep dive into the ups and downs this system had in store for those few millions of us that actually owned one (as their main system at that), I think basically everything that needs to be said about the Wii U is mentioned at one point or another in this comprehensive trilogy:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59O4q_SLk4E
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilaJtPQsPvk
Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFNDRafZUn0

Gamepad was just a huge mistake. There were some cool things it could do for local multiplayer but without it they could have cut the price by at least $50. Should have been an optional extra for remote play and for some extra modes/features in some games (eg extra mario party minigames).

Imagine if they just called it the Wii 2 and it was only $249...

Launch window lineup was also horrendous.

It has some great titles but these days they're almost all on the switch anyway. MK8 is the only reason I bought a WiiU.

It was a nice prototype for the Switch with BC to the Wii.

I was very satisfied with Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8, and I don't regret buying WiiU, but at the same time, I can understand why it didn't become more popular 😅🥹

It was objectively bad. As much as I am a defender of the touchpad and think it maybe could have been cool Nintendo had no games that used it well aside from Nintendoland.

I still maintain though that the bigger problem was the library. It had titles that were good sequels or followups to established franchises but few true system sellers. Like 3D world or Tropical Freeze. Both great but neither would make you plunk down money for a system with weak specs and a questionable gimmick. By the time it got some really good games (Mario Maker, Splatoon, BOTW) it was way too late.

I wonder what it would have been like if the Wii U would have had Mario Maker, Splatoon, MK8 BOTW, and Splatoon in its first year or so. Wouldn't have been a wii like success but maybe could have hit XBone numbers. Alas we will never know.

The Wii U is a failure and will always be a failure. However, over a decade removed from the failure, it is a lot easier to appreciate its library and how Nintendo continued to support it and gave it memorable games.

NintendoLand is maybe the best party game ever. SM3DW is a game worthy of being a 3D Mario, MK8 is what most people think when they think about Mario Kart, Smash 4 is the bones of SSBU, Splatoon is the best new Nintendo franchise of the last 15 years, Mario Maker was great and BotW is one of the best games of all time.

If only Sony had done the same thing with the Vita.

I still think it's Nintendo's worst ever home console. I was skeptical about it right after the announcement. Nintendo tried to get both the "casual" and "hardcore" audience with this console but you got the feeling they had no idea what either of those groups wanted. Core gamers wanted better performance and didn't get it. And casual gamers sure as hell didn't just want to play Wii Sports (not even Resort!) or the same old New Super Mario Bros in HD. They really thought casual gamers would buy this thing to play Wii Sports and Wii Fit remasters with no new content in HD lol, what the hell. The hardware was clumsy, the OS was slow.

Some of the best games on the system were the GameCube Zelda ports. People like to wax poetic about Mario Kart 8 (and it was a great game) but when that released on Wii U it also had a terrible battle mode and way less content than the Deluxe version has these days. There were long game droughts, especially after launch. Pikmin 3 was a letdown for me (I like it, but it's the weakest series entry for me), as was the Wario Ware game and Star Fox Zero. New Super Mario Bros. felt stale and there was a distinct lack of games that made the Wii cool for casual play: No new Wii Sports or Wii Fit for example. Its best game, Breath of the Wild, released when the Switch was already out. Nintendo Land was cool, but "asymmetric multiplayer" and the gamepad fell short. Almost no game actually used the gamepad, it was often shoehorned in.

Also, the console had a clear identity crisis: Was it a system you would play with the Gamepad? Or one you would play with the Wii remote? This resulted in stuff like Star Fox Zero or the infamous Pikmin setup were Nintendo was like "yeah, okay, the Wiimote is clearly better for this game but hey, you can put the gamepad next to you on the couch and use it as a second screen". Uhm, what?