PaigeFTW: Woe Is You, Wii U
Nintendo has vehemently denied rumors that the Wii U will cease production at the end of this year, but one can’t help but wonder whether there’s still some truth to those claims.
It’s frustrating because the Wii U has some solid games to its credit — excellent remasters of the two GameCube Zelda titles, Super Smash Bros., Bayonetta 2, Super Mario Maker — yet the console has absolutely no momentum. Beyond Nintendo, who is developing big titles for the Wii U?
Nope, I can’t think of anything either.
I’ve always thought the main thing holding the Wii U back is precisely its most prescient characteristic — the second-screen controller.
It’s a novel concept that is particularly nifty in RPG games because you can dump all the menus and factoids on the controller screen, while keeping the big picture clean and uncluttered. However, taking advantage of the screen, which has no comparison on PS4 or Xbox One, is expensive and probably not worth the time and investment for most developers.
And it doesn’t help that in execution, the second screen is a little unwieldy. It’s distracting to have to look down and up, down and up. (The Nintendo DS/3DS does not have this problem because of the close proximity of its two screens.)
As a small Asian girl with tiny Asian hands, I also physically have a hard time reaching all the buttons on the big controller. Trying to do a soft reset in Smash is actually impossible for me. While this is strictly a personal gripe, I will not lie that it does discourage me from logging long hours with the console. I hate that controller.
It may be time, as Nintendo readies the NX for public unveiling, that the company moves past motion controls, multiple screens, peripherals and all those other gimmicks. Just you, me and Mario Kart — the gaming experience is what Nintendo has always done best. And that’s what it needs to go back to.
