My Experience with the Wii U

When the Wii U was about to release, I made a decision to not get it right away. Like many, I saw it as a newer, upgraded version of the Wii that had some features we had hoped would originally be available on the first iteration. But unlike a lot, I also knew and recognized it as a separate console and not just a tablet controller upgrade. Ultimately, I decided to delay the purchase because there wasn’t really anything that I really wanted to play on it immediately. And even though it had been 6 years since getting the Wii, I still felt sorta like I hadn’t gotten enough time with it due to school, work, and family obligations preventing me from playing to my heart’s content – something I had felt with the N64 due to being out of the country for a while. I also felt that the price was a bit much for what was offered, even though we had more money coming in at the time. Plus, it hadn’t been a tremendously long amount of time since my last purchase – the 3DS. So all of those things combined led me to not buy it upon launch.

It was about 10 months later that I finally got one. What pushed it over the edge was that there was a price drop of $50 for the deluxe setup, and it came with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD (digitally). The Gamepad was also Zelda themed, with the Hylian crest and script decorating it. I went to Wal-Mart at midnight to get it, and they had the shelf tag out, but nobody could actually find one or knew anything about it. So I went home upset, went to work the next day, and bought one from GameStop on the way home.

At the time we didn’t have a TV with HDMI ports, and we had maxed out all the inputs on it as it was, so it had to share the A/V cable with the regular Wii. Most of the time we played on just the Gamepad, essentially treating it as a glorified handheld. When we wanted to play on the TV we had to reach behind the Wii and unplug the multi-out cable and plug it into the Wii U, and then vice-versa to play something on the Wii. About 9 months later, our TV broke and was replaced with a newer, flatter model that had HDMI capabilities, so then needing to swap cables back and forth was no longer necessary.

I elected to not migrate all the settings and save files from the Wii to the Wii U for a few reasons. Firstly, I had hacked the Wii with emulators and didn’t know how that would go over during the migration. Secondly, I quite liked being able to play my new WWHD game off TV while the kids kept playing Wii Sports Resort, or whatever; migrating would mean they would have to start a new file for that to happen. But mostly, it was a matter not wanting to go through the hassle, especially when I was planning on keeping both consoles going strong; I wasn’t going to be one to migrate and then sell/discard the Wii.

The console said it came with a coupon for a copy of Hyrule Historia. I planned on redeeming it and giving it to my friend’s son who had become a Zelda fan because of me. Unfortunately, it was a digital copy so I have a physical copy as well as the digital version on the Wii U. At first, the only game we had was Wind Waker HD, and I mostly enjoyed the updates that were made. But one of the best ones was using the Miiverse as a replacement for the Tingle Tuner, and getting pictures of harder-than-usual-to-find photos for the figurine gallery. But other than a few random posts, I didn’t use the Miiverse for much, and I while I had a few “friends” on the console, I didn’t really do anything with them.

We later bought a white Pro Controller when it was on sale. I had hoped for a black one to match the console, but never got one. While I liked using it more than the Gamepad, it still didn’t feel as good in my hands as a Gamecube controller did (which I consider to be the best controller Nintendo has ever made). I got used to having separate fingers on the R and Z buttons on the Gamecube controller, but when I did that on the Wii U Pro controller it felt like it was almost on the verge of falling out of my hands. The grips were a little too fat to be held by just 2 fingers, and it lacked the Gamecube-style “scooped” shape of the R/L buttons which helped support some of the weight of the controller. I also thought that Nintendo feared being called out for copying the X-Box controller so they put the right control stick above the buttons meaning the right thumb always felt “out of place” from its natural position.

Because we already had 4 Wiimotes and nunchuks, we didn’t need to buy any more. We purchased a fifth Wiimote – one that was black and had the Motion Plus built in. Now we have 2 white original ones, and 2 black Motion Plus ones. The other older white one became the one we use with our emulator Wii. Though we swap them back and forth between both consoles as needed, I would like to leave the newer black Wiimotes to stay with the Wii U and the older white ones to stay with the Wii.

Our first Christmas with the Wii U, Avery got Splinter Cell: Blacklist. Having played the previous Splinter Cell games, I felt that they were ok for him to play. But it turns out that I should have done a little more homework/research because the games was a bit more violent/mature than I had anticipated. 

We ended up getting Hyrule Warriors, Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, Mario Kart 8, and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U at various Christmases over the next 3 years. The kids will go through small spats of playing these games every so often, but it doesn't happen all that much, and for some reason I'm just not as into them. Other purchases included Nintendo Land (used), Star Fox Zero, and Avery bought Super Mario 3D World. My brother also bought me Deus Ex. 

The principal of the school I teach at was somewhat of a gamer, and while he was in Gamestop one day to get something, there was something of a line forming because a mother was trying to return a bunch of stuff her son had bought and didn’t have everything. After a lot of hassle, they offered her a really low price for what she was trading in, but then rescinded when some cables were missing. Seeing an opportunity to get a great deal and get the line moving again, he offered to pay what Gamestop offered and got a Wii U and several games for $75. He brought it to school and I showed him how to set it up and everything. He intended to give it to the family for Christmas, but nobody really wanted it so he ended up selling it all for about $150.

One reason I got the Wii U was for the Zelda titles. Obviously buying the WWHD themed console was part of the motivation to break down and get the console. I also got the Twilight Princess HD remaster. There were rumors of how the next Zelda game would function, with some envisioning a Motion Plus sword (like Skyward Sword) with a satchel-like attachment for the Gamepad that allowed link to look through it and view Hyrule. It was an intriguing idea, but one that never came to fruition because it kept getting bumped and eventually released on the same day as the Switch. So this became the only console that had no exclusive new Zelda games (WWHD and TPHD were remakes, and BotW was released on the Switch as well). I purchased Minish Cap on the Wii U Virtual Console just because I was curious about it and because it would mean not having to pull out the GBA to play it. As a bonus, it made it more convenient for Anne to play it (and the save state made the figurine quest way easier).

I would bet that over the years since its purchase, the Wii U has gotten about equal playing time with the Wii, which is to say I’m surprised at the Wii’s longevity and a little disappointed with the Wii U. They’re both side-by-side in a cabinet under the TV [Editor's note: FWIW, its younger brother, the Nintendo Switch, already has more playing time on it than the Wii U]. We also use it for watching YouTube on the big TV, but it definitely hasn’t been played as much as I would have thought.

One thing I did that breathed a little life into the Wii U is that I hacked it to add some custom firmware. It was actually considerably easier than doing the same thing on the 3DS. With the new firmware, I was able to add a few things. Though I could add all of the same NES/SNES/GB/GBC/GBA emulators and games that I had on my hacked Wii, I chose to leave those on the Wii or 3DS because the only ones I really was interested in adding were the N64 games since they run a little better on the Wii U. I installed as many Zelda games as I could to the home menu, but I was most curious about how the DS games worked on the Gamepad.

Along with the slightly better (but nowhere near perfect) N64 emulation, I also installed Nintendont, which allows me to play GameCube games (which does have perfect emulation). To help with the controller situation, I also purchased the Wii U to GameCube controller adapter as well as a couple of adapters allowing me to use N64 controllers. I haven't done it yet, but I should also have the ability to install digital versions of Wii and Wii U games onto the external SSD I added. So that means that my Wii U can play/emulate basically any Nintendo console and handheld perfectly except for the Switch (because it's newer), the 3DS (because the Gamepad can't do 3D), and the N64 (because that console is just a mess from a technical hardware standpoint).