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Retro Which had the better Nintendo games: Wii or Wii U?

Which console had the better Nintendo-published games?

  • Wii

    Votes: 102 67.5%

  • Wii U

    Votes: 49 32.5%
  • Total voters
    151
Honestly BotW is the only game that even makes this a conversation. Otherwise I think the Wii is a clear winner.
 
Wii wins just on quantity. The Wii U library feels like it only had half a generation of games and Nintendo clearly gave up by the end on quality for some games infamously like Mario Tennis Ultra Smash or Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival.

I do think Wii U has some wins over Wii though. It's Mario Kart and Donkey Kong entries are pretty commonly considered superior to their Wii counterparts. It also covered some bases Wii didn't such as the presence of new entries in Pikmin, Yoshi, and Star Fox (though SFZ isnt really much of a "win") alongside newer experiences Nintendo brought like Splatoon, Mario Maker, and Captain Toad.

But Wii U just lacked a lot of pretty essential Nintendo IP. It did not get what people would consider mainline entries in Animal Crossing, Metroid, Kirby, Wario, or Fire Emblem unlike the Wii. It also didn't get a mainline Zelda until the point the console was considered obsolete unlike Wii having Skyward Sword and being the more popular platform for Twilight Princess. Then you get into the whole "Wii" series of games and while those experiences were a mixed bag (on one end you have a great game like Wii Sports Resort and on the other you have Wii Music) they were a huge gain for casual focused titles that the Wii U didn't really do much on.
 
I remember back in the day thinking that Nintendo was rising the bar with every new release, how each game was almost always the best in the series or even in the genre. I mean, Tropical Freeze is a GOAT platformer. MK8 is the best MK. Splatoon was a completely new and awesome spin on the shooter genre. Xenoblade X was incredible: I remember telling my GF how at some moments playing Dark Souls I would stop just to look at the beautiful scenery, but in Xenoblade X I was doing that almost every couple of steps, that seemed crazy to me back then. NSMBU was very, VERY good, almost SMW-good. Mario Maker was a landmark title for me, I don't know how many hours I put into it and it was what ultimately made me come back to hobbyist game development. And BotW was the perfect final, a landmark title.

Apart of Mario Galaxy, I can't think of any other Wii game I'd put at the level of Tropical Freeze, Splatoon, MK8, SMM or BotW...but it's also true that I wasn't as much into gaming back then, it was with the WiiU that I really started playing regularly again and became an absolute Nintendo fan.
 
Wii for Mario Kart Wii and its modding community wins for me(never been really a fan of 8/8DX). For Zelda games Wii U I think wins, Mario I would take Galaxy 1/2 over Mario 3D World any day. I only first played 3D World almost all the way through on Switch and it was a bit underwhelming. Still a great platformer!

And yeah Wii has a much bigger library and variety
 
They’re basically equal as far as Nintendo games. Various series are better on Wii than Wii U and vice versa. Some are present on one and not the other. Etc. But non-Nintendo stuff was way better on Wii, so I’ll give it the edge.
 
Nuclear bomb vs coughing baby.

Wii wins

Tropical freeze and botw carry the wii u hard.

The Mario games make the big difference imo

I may like 8 deluxe more than wii but base Mario kart 8 is garbage compared to wii.
 
The Wii had Punch-Out, Rhythm Heaven, Sin & Punishment, and a lot more weird stuff than the very conservative Wii U library (imo).

Wii U was definitely a quality over quantity machine, but I felt like the Wii (and now Switch) had both tbh
 
wii u may as well be the dark ages of nintendo for me on most fronts, so i'm going to easily go with the wii.
 
I'm giving a slight edge to the Wii. If nothing else, the Galaxy games put it over the top for me.
 
  • Super Mario 3D World is better than both Super Mario Galaxy games;
  • New Super Mario Bros. U is better than New Super Mario Bros. Wii;
  • Tropical Freeze is miles better than Donkey Kong Country Returns;
  • Mario Kart 8 is miles better than Mario Kart Wii;
  • Breath of the Wild is insanely better than Skyward Sword;
  • Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is also a huge margin better than Brawl (in some regards they are equally underwhelming);
  • from what I heard (I didn't play it), Pikmin 3 is also much better than both ports of Pikmin 1 & 2 on the Wii;

Yeah, I think the Wii is in a tough spot here. Other than a better Mario Party, Paper Mario, having an actual mainline Kirby game and two Metroid games and better Mario & Sonic entries, it's hard to not to vote to the Wii U (which makes up with new things like Super Mario Maker, Yoshi's Woolly World, Splatoon, The Wonderful 101, Captain Toad and Xenoblade X)
 
Both systems were very disappointing for me personally after the triumph that were SNES, N64 and GCN.
Mario Galaxy was a masterpiece though and easily beats 3D World and I preferred Brawl over Smash 4 due its great story mode. On the flip side the Wii U had the always lovable Pikmin 3, the stellar Tropical Freeze and a gorgeous Mario Kart.
Also due to the Wii U‘s failure Nintendo had to quit their antics and by and large stopped dictating what control method people had to use. All in all Wii U wins for me.
 
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Jbone916 said:
NSMB Wii = NSMB U
Mario Galaxy > 3D World
MK Wii < MK8
AC City Folk > AC Amiibo Festival
Zelda TP + SS = BOTW
Prime 3 + Other M > (No Metroid)
Pikmin NPC < Pikmin 3
Xenoblade 1 > Xenoblade X
Wii Sports + Resort > Nintendoland
Kirby RTD + Epic Yard > Rainbow Curse
(No Splatoon) < Splatoon
Mario Party 8 > Mario Party 9/10
Pokémon Battle Revolution = Pokken
Fire Emblem RD > (No Fire Emblem)
(No Mario Maker) < Mario Maker
(No Star Fox) < Star Fox Zero
DKCR < DKC Tropical Freeze
Punch Out Wii > (No Punch Out)
Mario Sports on Wii > Mario Sports on Wii U
(No Hyrule Warriors) < Hyrule Warriors
(No Pushmo) < Pushmo World
Brawl > Smash 4

Final Score:
Wii 14 - Wii U 10

It’s close, but the Wii prevails in my book.
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Pikmin 3 > (no new pikmin on wii.)

Final Score

Wii 14 - Wii U 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Wii U wins xD
 
CyberWolfBia said:
  • Super Mario 3D World is better than both Super Mario Galaxy games;
  • New Super Mario Bros. U is better than New Super Mario Bros. Wii;
  • Tropical Freeze is miles better than Donkey Kong Country Returns;
  • Mario Kart 8 is miles better than Mario Kart Wii;
  • Breath of the Wild is insanely better than Skyward Sword;
  • Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is also a huge margin better than Brawl (in some regards they are equally underwhelming);
  • from what I heard (I didn't play it), Pikmin 3 is also much better than both ports of Pikmin 1 & 2 on the Wii;

Yeah, I think the Wii is in a tough spot here. Other than a better Mario Party, Paper Mario, having an actual mainline Kirby game and two Metroid games and better Mario & Sonic entries, it's hard to not to vote to the Wii U (which makes up with new things like Super Mario Maker, Yoshi's Woolly World, Splatoon, The Wonderful 101, Captain Toad and Xenoblade X)
Click to expand...
I love 3d world but better than not one but both Galaxy games? Is it even legal to say that ? xD

Galaxy and Galaxy 2 just outclass 3D world lol
 
CyberWolfBia said:
  • Super Mario 3D World is better than both Super Mario Galaxy games;
  • New Super Mario Bros. U is better than New Super Mario Bros. Wii;
  • Tropical Freeze is miles better than Donkey Kong Country Returns;
  • Mario Kart 8 is miles better than Mario Kart Wii;
  • Breath of the Wild is insanely better than Skyward Sword;
  • Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is also a huge margin better than Brawl (in some regards they are equally underwhelming);
  • from what I heard (I didn't play it), Pikmin 3 is also much better than both ports of Pikmin 1 & 2 on the Wii;

Yeah, I think the Wii is in a tough spot here. Other than a better Mario Party, Paper Mario, having an actual mainline Kirby game and two Metroid games and better Mario & Sonic entries, it's hard to not to vote to the Wii U (which makes up with new things like Super Mario Maker, Yoshi's Woolly World, Splatoon, The Wonderful 101, Captain Toad and Xenoblade X)
Click to expand...
Bait used to be believable
 
Bulborb said:
I love 3d world but better than not one but both Galaxy games? Is it even legal to say that ? xD

Galaxy and Galaxy 2 just outclass 3D world lol
Click to expand...
Djehuty said:
Bait used to be believable
Click to expand...
giphy.gif
 
Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one but some are shittier than the others

dabs and leaves the room
 
Old Sorta Fan said:
Wii had better Nintendo games and third party games. It was like the NES with all the arcade style goodness. Just so much fun. So many good games, both high profile and hidden gems.

Since this is a list thread, I’ll make a list of excellent Wii games that don’t have a counterpart on WiiU. I played the heck out of my Wii and skipped the WiiU.

First Party games:

Punch Out!
Wii Fit
Wii Sports
Wii Sports Resort
Wario Land Shake it
Kirby Return to Dreamland
Animal Crossing
Wario Ware Smooth Moves (just pure silly fun distilled in disc form)
Kirby Epic Yarn
Excite Truck
Sin and Punishment Star Successor
Link’s Crossbow training
Metroid Prime 3

Boy did I play the heck out of the Wii. It’s an all time great system for me after the Dreamcast, NES, and Switch.
Click to expand...
I absolutely love Zack and Wiki. BTW, in case you're interested as a fan of the above games, some of them did have a counterpart on Wii U - specifically, Wii Fit U, Wii Sports Club, Game & Wario... and depending how you look at it, Yoshi's Woolly World. Some of these were pretty under the radar if you weren't following Wii U. Wii Fit U was a really stellar experience.
 
Making my top 10:

1 - (w) Mario Galaxy
2 - (U) BOTW
3 - (w) Mario Galaxy 2
4 - (U) DKC Tropical Freeze
5 - (U) Mario kart 8
6 - (w) DKC Returns
7 - (w) Super Paper Mario
8 - (w) Wii Sports Resort
9 - (U) Nintendo Land
X - (U) Yoshi's Woolly World

They both are very close to me. I like both. The Wii more because it have a lot more and better third parties.

But, while the Wii is in our memory, the majority of the Wii U games receive a better version on Switch, what make the original game looks like a inferior product on you memory.

Wii U became a rough draft of Switch and their games became the inferior version too.
 
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I enjoyed the Wii U more honestly, even had more games for it.

Says a lot about the Wii that we're comparing it to the Wii U lol.
 
AngryAlchemist said:
People who could never get Pikmin 3 on Amazon because it was always out of stock and had to wait 7 years to play one of the best games Nintendo ever made

leon-kennedy.gif

(it's me, I'm people)
Click to expand...
Ouch. Yeah Pikmin 3 is incredible and the DLC at the time made it even better. One of the best on the system for sure.
 
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Hailinel said:
Playing Radiant Dawn is like pulling teeth. Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a silly game, but fun.
Click to expand...

Radiant Dawn is a game with a lot of larger maps, so that inevitably leads to a bigger focus on surviving enemy phase, which granted can totally be a drag in Part 2 and Part 4. But Part 2 and 4 are totally redeemed by their brilliant endgame chapters. Part 3 of Radiant Dawn is probably some of my favorite Fire Emblem ever. It's just a quality and diverse selection of maps with varied objectives and side-objectives. And you get to play as the Greil Mercenaries for most of Part 3.

But yeah I don't know. I feel like the problem with the WiiU in 2024 is that most of its best games have already been ported to the Switch, but a Wii still feels totally worth holding on to since there's a lot of games I feel probably won't be seeing ports for a long time, if ever. And unfortunately a gyro just didn't feel like a proper 1:1 replacement for the IR pointer controls for games like Super Mario Galaxy to me. That and the Wiimote + Nunchuck is just a lot more comfortable to hold compared to split Joycons lol
 
Forks said:
Radiant Dawn is a game with a lot of larger maps, so that inevitably leads to a bigger focus on surviving enemy phase, which granted can totally be a drag in Part 2 and Part 4. But Part 2 and 4 are totally redeemed by their brilliant endgame chapters. Part 3 of Radiant Dawn is probably some of my favorite Fire Emblem ever. It's just a quality and diverse selection of maps with varied objectives and side-objectives. And you get to play as the Greil Mercenaries for most of Part 3.

But yeah I don't know. I feel like the problem with the WiiU in 2024 is that most of its best games have already been ported to the Switch, but a Wii still feels totally worth holding on to since there's a lot of games I feel probably won't be seeing ports for a long time, if ever. And unfortunately a gyro just didn't feel like a proper 1:1 replacement for the IR pointer controls for games like Super Mario Galaxy to me. That and the Wiimote + Nunchuck is just a lot more comfortable to hold compared to split Joycons lol
Click to expand...
Radiant Dawn also feels like a slog because it jumps through four different storylines. The Dawn Brigade is introduced, set aside, and when they return are upstaged by Ike even though RD is (ostensibly) Micaiah's story. And Ike is an extremely uninteresting character in RD compared to Micaiah and Elincia.

And the endgame chapters of Part 4 were miserable the first time I played them, because I just wanted the game to end and it kept going with nonsense like the fight against
Sephiran
, and Ashera's AOE spam. And that's not even getting into the weird mechanical mess of the game, the existence of one of the worst support systems in the entire series, and story details that require you to not only play the game a second time but require steps tailor made for selling strategy guides.
 
It’s Wii U for me by such a bunch of country miles.

It might very heavily include the fact that I largely abandoned the Wii years in favour of being an angsty emo kid in high school instead of playing games, but my affiliation for the Wii literally doesn’t stretch beyond the Galaxy games and Skyward Sword.
 
Hailinel said:
And that's not even getting into the weird mechanical mess of the game, the existence of one of the worst support systems in the entire series, and story details that require you to not only play the game a second time but require steps tailor made for selling strategy guides.
Click to expand...

You should play absolutely play Thracia 776 since it has all that stuff you hate in it 😉
 
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Wii U, much higher peaks. I guess Wii wins by sheer volume but a lot of those I didn't care for at all. Xenoblade 1 is still my favorite XB to play though so it's got that going for it.
 
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Definitely Wii. Wii U had Pikmin 3 and Tropical Freeze which are great, but Wii had Excite Truck Twilight Princess and Red Steel on Day 1.
 
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It had a better Zelda, it had a better Mario (I personally like 3D World more than the Galaxies), it had a better Smash, it had a better Mario Kart and it even had weird shit like Splatoon, Mario Maker, Yoshi's Wooly World and Captain Toad. The Wii wins in quantity, and obviously in sales, but for the mainline games this was Nintendo at its finest on its worst designed system since the Virtual Boy. The fact the original games were so strong was the reason they were either ported or adapted to the Switch (like Smash, in which 4 was a foundation to Ultimate) and still managed to be outstanding successes.

The games from some of their flagship franchises are along the strongest Nintendo has ever developed. It was a lecture on building on top of the knowledge you've amassed from previous entries. Outside of the aforementioned Mario Galaxies and Donkey Kong Country, I don't think any of most of their flagship franchises even had better, more incremented entries on the Wii back than on the GC.

Not being mathematical, and more on a gut feeling, I find it nigh impossible to not give the edge to Wii U software over Wii. Less, undoubtedly, but some of the strongest games ever conceived. I don't even think the Switch would find all of that success if it didn't have the Wii U library graveyard to dig it up. Software is everything, but it's an everything which needs to be paired up with hardware people actually want to purchase.

In an alternate universe where the Wii were a failure and the Wii U a success, porting mostly Wii games to make up the Switch library would have never been enough on its own. Having MKWii, Twilight Princess and Brawl coming out as flagship titles after 8, BOTW and 4 would have absolutely made no sense. These games had already evolved. It would be anachronical.
 
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This is definitely a question where my answer can vary depending on how I'm feeling/what criteria I'm using, because I honestly loved both consoles, but right this moment, I feel like I have to give my vote to the Wii.

There was just... so much on it that I enjoyed, that when added up give it the edge. I also really enjoyed the motion controls at the time, though admittedly I'm not sure how well I'd handle them today. Admittedly this could also be seen as a quantity over quality answer, because while the Wii U didn't get nearly as many releases as I and I'm sure many others would have liked, what software it did get was generally really strong (Xenoblade Chronicles X my beloved).

But the Wii had Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3 Corruption (flawed but I started with it so I have a soft spot for it), the first Xenoblade Chronicles...

Watch me post this and then tomorrow think "No, I should have chosen the Wii U". Oh well. Maybe if a similar question is asked a few months from now...
 
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I should preface this by saying that I've never owned a Wii U - so all statements regarding the games are based on observation rather than on-hand experience.

For the two Nintendo series I like the most - Metroid and Zelda - neither console is a winner. I do kinda like Prime 3, but Other M is just too much of a blemish on the series's record to overlook. With Zelda, the Wii U would take the spot just for Breath of the Wild being there, but I'm unsure if that fully counts as a win for the Wii U - on the other hand, the Wii is home to the two home console Zelda games I consider the least good of the series, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. For Mario, it's mainly down to preference, I favour the slightly open nature of Galaxy over the course-oriented gameplay of 3D World and I could not care any less for NSMB past the first entry. Paper Mario is the one thing where I'm honestly incapable of making any serious comparison because I don't know that much about Colour Splash to make a concrete decision.

This leaves me with just focussing on the titles that are exclusive to each system - or to be more, precise, used to be, since quite a number of Wii U titles were ported to Switch later on and so I won't be listing any Switch ports for either system - and in that regard, the Wii still outranks the Wii just by sheer quantity. Captain Rainbow, The Last Story, Pandora's Tower, Batallion Wars 2, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Excitebots, Excitetruck, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and Zangeki no Reginleiv stand in opposition to... well, just Xenoblade Chronicles X for me. (Sorry squiddy kids, I don't care for Splatoon).

So yeah. Wii has more games and games that are more interesting to me. Even if Zelda was a letdown.
 
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