An Obituary for my Beloved Wii U

The Wii U was the much-maligned runt of the litter and I love it anyway

Today marks the eighth anniversary of what might be my favourite video game console ever. A powerhouse of cutting edge technology that changed the way the world looked at games. A towering monolith that cast a shadow over its competitors and that still stands tall, remembered by all of the so-called hardcore gamers as a thing made specifically and only for them. A console that sold so many millions of units that if you stacked them one on top of the other you could reach the moon. I am talking, of course, of…

None of those things actually describe my favourite-ever console, The Wii U. I’m sure anybody nerdy enough to read this already knows that the Wii U was dead on arrival, going on to sell a piddling 13 million copies.* Upon reveal it was laughed at. The hardware, while competitive with the PS3 and XBox 360, was prehistoric compared to the soon-to-be-released generation heralded by the XBox One and PS4. 

But hardware is more than just graphical capabilities and the ability to crush skulls and shoot people at 60 FPS. The Wii U had a conceit that I hadn’t really seen before and that I haven’t seen since. The Wii U’s gamepad, which when it wasn’t causing chuckles was being commented on for it’s ability to allow people to shit while they gamed, was actually a revolutionary idea. By providing a second screen, the gamepad removed the necessity to pause gameplay for things like inventory management or map-reading. It cleared HUD. Sure, it also made it possible to create silly trifling novelties like making blocks for people to jump on in “Mario,” but how is that a bad thing?

This innovation was most obvious in games that required a fair amount of time looking at maps, like Pikmin 3 or Windwaker HD. And it was an integral part of the experience in Xenoblade Chronicles X, a 100+ hour sandbox epic that just might be my favourite RPG of all time. The gamepad acts mostly as an interactive map and you will spend about half of your time staring at it, figuring out where to go and even chaining together towers in the map to earn you money and other benefits. The touchscreen is vital to X because the map is massive; tap on a section of the continent you’re on to learn about what’s happening there. The gamepad will then let you know whether there are pending quests in the region, what kinds of monsters like to hang out there, and any other important information you would want. 

Nowadays people mostly think of the Wii U gamepad as a sort of stopgap towards the switch- a screen for an HD console that you could take with you to the bathroom but not on the bus. And it was. But I think more importantly it was an evolution of the Nintendo DS’s second screen touchpad. The gamepad was the perfect place to put maps and HUD and all of the other annoying clutter that makes a game less immersive, and the touch controls meant that the HUDs and maps and whatnot could be interactive and thus hold even more information.

But my hot-take fondness for the Wii U isn’t only a function of the hardware. The Wii U was a repository of amazing Nintendo games. It had the best version of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, by far; a beautiful remaster with streamlined sailing and easy item and map management courtesy of the gamepad. It had Pikmin 3, with its lifelike plastic fruit. And it had Super Mario 3D World, which might be the best 3D Mario game of all time.

Mario 3D World was a terrible showcase for the gamepad’s potential. It was mostly used for petting cats and making blocks, if I remember correctly. But this isn’t a knock on it; not every game needs to make use of every possibility that a console has to offer. A game needs to be fun to play, and Mario 3D World was unbelievably fun. The level design is as close to perfect as in any game I’ve ever played. Almost every level has an entirely new gameplay hook, from shooting bullets out of a cannon on top of your head to jumping inside of a Toad-sized ice skate and skating around. It also had the perfect difficulty curve, ramping up from fun jaunts through the mushroom kingdom to excruciating Meatboy-level difficulty in the final levels far after the game was supposed to be over.

There was even at least one brilliant multiplatform release that was best on Wii U because it was supposed to be a Wii U exclusive. I am talking, of course, of Rayman Legends, a game that should be on any list of the best 2D platformers of the past ten years. It has jumped onto other platforms now, like many of the games I’ve mentioned here, but on the Wii U the gamepad could be used in multiplayer to clear obstruction on the map, adding an extra level of fun.

I no longer own a Wii U. My limited edition Wind Waker HD themed Wii U is in Hong Kong somewhere, probably sitting in someone’s apartment or gathering dust on the shelf of one of the densely packed games malls in Mongkok under a pile of Sega Genesises or Wiis. But I still have my memories, and because it sold so poorly, I even still have the chance to play many of its games on my switch. You can kind of get the feeling of the Wii U by playing your Switch in handheld. You’ll at least kind of feel the ergonomics that everybody complained about. Nobody’s complaining about them now, for some reason.

The Wii U was a maligned, stunted and unfortunate little runt, but it was my maligned, stunted and unfortunate little runt and I love it accordingly. It lives on in the likes of Pikmin 3, Rayman Legends, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and the upcoming Super Mario 3D World, which funds allowing I will be buying on day one.

*By comparison, the Nintendo Switch has already sold over 65 million