FGC #272 Nintendo Land

The WiiU is dead. Time for a post mortem.

Nintendo Land had some big shoes to fill. Wii Sports, the game that launched the phenomenal Wii, was maybe the most successful launch game of all time (eat it, Duck Hunt). It was an amazing introduction to the system… and… uh… it was also a complete failure. Wii Sports is good! Unfortunately, it was so good, that many people bought the Wii exclusively for Wii Sports, and never purchased another game. This would simply be kind of annoying for Microsoft or Sony, but Nintendo actually makes software for their hardware, and if someone is buying the hardware but none of the following five years of software… that ain’t no good. And Wii Sports was an excellent showcase for everyone’s favorite Miis, but it didn’t include so much as a Mario cameo, left alone the obvious Punch-Out tie-in over in Wii Boxing. In short, Wii Sports was a marvelous system seller, but a terrible Nintendo seller.

So the course was clear for the WiiU: Nintendo needed a new killer app to sell its system with all those exciting new WiiU features, and it needed a game that featured all the new (old) friends you’d make on the WiiU, like Mario and Olimar. Nintendo has been making videogames for twelve billion years, so this should be a walk in the (Nintendo Land) park, right? Heck, let’s throw in a new mascot character that is a talking TV screen for some damn reason! Nothing is more exciting than a literally two dimensional rectangle with an annoying voice!

Of course, I am writing this article from a dystopian future where the WiiU is done. The Switch is now king, and Miiverse is a sad shell of its former glory (though still talking about Splatoon, for some reason). Nintendo apparently has no plans to release first party games on the WiiU ever again, and the only thing on the WiiU release schedule is… Cars 3: Driven to Win. I don’t think that’s going to push any systems. Whether the WiiU was a success or not, what’s important is that it is now dead. Sweet dreams, WiiU, may paratroopas lead you in.

But we’ve still got Nintendo Land sitting here, so let’s see if any of the various minigames involved were at all relevant to the WiiU and its general trajectory.

Yoshi’s Fruit Cart

The Game: It’s everyone’s favorite thing! A game that deliberately hobbles your view so as to create a challenge out of nothing! Hooray!

WiiU Relevance: In a way, this is the prototype for Kirby and the Rainbow Curse… a few years after Kirby Canvas Curse. And instead of enjoying the innovative momentum system that makes either of those games a blast, now you can only see half the game at any given time on either screen. The fruit is on the top screen, and your drawn line is on the pad, so the challenge lies in spatial relations. Unfortunately, there’s a hole in my bathroom that tells you everything you need to know about my depth perception (to elaborate, that hole was supposed to be a cable jack a room over…. I am bad at measuring).

Nintendo-ness: It’s Yoshi! In cart form! Yoshi eating fruit is Yoshi to a T… though the whole “is a mechanical cart” thing is a little weird. Also, if you’re going to go with a Nintendo protagonist that rolls along and eats everything in his path, how about, ya know, Kirby? Was HAL sick that day?

Overall Rating: I’m sure there are some people out there that enjoy this kind of thing, but I’m not one of them. I can’t freehand to save my life, and I can’t guide a Yoshi to save his. You know what killed the dinosaurs? Me.

Donkey Kong’s Crash Course

The Game: Navigate a little cart thing through an obstacle course themed after the original Donkey Kong construction “maze”.

WiiU Relevance: This one uses the WiiU pad’s gyroscope “leaning” powers. This seems to be the feature that got reused the most in later WiiU games, and even worked its way into the final WiiU game, Breath of the Wild. Come to think of it, this means that this game is partially responsible for those damn “labyrinth” shrine puzzles. Zero out of five stars.

Nintendo-ness: Donkey Kong is about as Nintendo as it gets, but this game recalls the original Donkey Kong, and not the more iconic Donkey Kong that would return for Tropical Freeze. Also, every time Nintendo references original DK, it reminds us all that we still have yet to see a perfect arcade port of DK, and that’s horrible.

Overall Rating: Oh, did I mention this game is impossible? Because it is. I’m just glad this nonsense only ever reappeared as a minigame distraction, and not, like, Super Mario Tilt ‘n Tumble.

Captain Falcon’s Twister Race

The Game: It’s racing! With F-Zero cars! It’s kinda F-Zero!

WiiU Relevance: As the Switch release of Mario Kart has reminded all of us, when it came time for racing to hit the WiiU, Nintendo had already abandoned the whole “use your controller like a steering wheel” thing. Oh well. The control scheme here is as smooth as silk, so good on Nintendo at least making this seem like a viable option, even if it wasn’t really used outside of the WiiOG.

Nintendo-ness: Nintendo loves Captain “Show me your moves” Falcon. This is F-Zero through and through, with futuristic venues and the good ol’ Blue Falcon (no Dynomutt, unfortunately). On the other hand, this game serves to remind us that we haven’t seen a decent F-Zero game since the friggen Gamecube, and we wouldn’t see another on the WiiU. Way to be a tease, Nintendo!

Overall Rating: It’s no Falcon Punch, but it’s pretty close to being a Falcon Slap. I do appreciate how the game offers two different (and viable!) views of the same action on two different screens. That could have reappeared on the WiiU at least once.

Balloon Trip Breeze

The Game: It’s basically Balloon Trip Advance with a stylus-based control scheme. This gives me very little to complain about.

WiiU Relevance: This game controls by blowing a breeze to move around your Balloon Tripper via stylus motions. This is… actually kind of fun. It’s frantic in a good way, and it’s always enjoyable to have a complete freak out attempting to keep your lil’ balloon buddy out of the maw of a giant fish. Unfortunately, I can literally hear these swiping motions doing permanent damage to my WiiU screen, so I can see why this didn’t become a popular control scheme.

Nintendo-ness: Billy “Balloon Man” Balloonguy is popular with the old-school crew, but he still has yet to get his own game in the modern era. That said, the Balloon Trip theme has somehow infiltrated my brain to an intense degree (likely thanks to Smash Bros), so it is synonymous with Nintendo in its own way.

Overall Rating: Honestly, of the one player games on this collection, this one saw the most play. It’s probably the only game I’d buy a la carte… but that’s mostly because Balloon Trip is my Tetris. It’s hard to get this wrong…

Takamaru’s Ninja Castle

The Game: It’s basically a shooting game ala Time Crisis or Link’s Crossbow Training. Turn the WiiU gamepad sideways, and hurl shuriken at an endless army of ninja. The ninja vaguely look like characters from South Park, so let’s consider it a crossover.

WiiU Relevance: Wow, I had totally forgotten the WiiU pad had “aiming” functionality like the Wiimote. You mean there could have been shooting games like House of the Dead for the WiiU, but nobody ever bothered? That kind of makes me sad.

Nintendo-ness: This game is based on a Japan-only game, Nazo no Murasame Jō, that is vaguely Zelda-esque. The star of Nazo no Murasame Jō, Takamaru, has cameoed here and there in various Nintendo games since… but you probably thought he was a random Kid Icarus character, didn’t you? Sorry, Tak, you’re not exactly Mario.

Overall rating: Middling. Fun game, but ninja seem out of place next to Donkey Kong and Yoshi.

Octopus Dance

The Game: Somebody at Nintendo played Just Dance, and now you have to, too.

WiiU Relevance: Despite the myriad of ways this could be more interesting, this is just Simon Says with the occasional “flip” between the screens so you will confuse your left and right and feel like a damn kindergartener again. I guess this reminds you that there are two analog sticks on the WiiU Pad? Has anyone ever “missed a button” on a videogame controller? I usually try every damn thing I can find about two seconds into any given game…

Nintendo-ness: Mr. Game and Watch has become the hipster of the Nintendo pantheon. Oh, you never played Octopus, a game likely older than 80% of the people reading this article and only available on severely outdated hardware? Oh, that’s cool, I mean, I have, but you wouldn’t understand. As such, given Mr. Game and Watch never actually existed and was basically a homunculus created for Smash Bros, anytime you see ol’ G&W, it’s because Nintendo is trying to be cool with the retro crowd. … Though I can’t say that’s a bad thing.

Overall Rating: The moral is never purchase a Just Dance game for WiiU.

The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest

The Game: Link, he comes to a town, he comes to kill like a billion bokoblins.

WiiU Relevance: This is a fine demo for 1-to-1 sword slashing ala The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword. Unfortunately, Skyward Sword apparently put Nintendo off ever doing the whole “motion control sword” thing ever again, so this is basically the last hurrah for the concept.

Nintendo-ness: Link is literally a system seller, so it’s only natural that he’d appear here. Come to think of it, is Zelda in this one? Or Ganon? Is he a piggy or a pile of smoke?

Overall Rating: I mean, it’s fun to show off what the Wii could do, but that’s old news, Nintendo. Move on, you’ve got a new system to promote. Maybe you should be thinking about what Link could do with a magical ipad, like, I don’t know, control mammoth mechanical elephants or something.

Pikmin Adventure

The Game: It’s co-op, “simple” Pikmin.

WiiU Relevance: Was there actually a Pikmin game released for the WiiU? There was? Awesome. Mission accomplished.

Nintendo-ness: Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit’s Pikmin!

Overall Rating: When Nintendo Land had been released, we’d gone an entire console generation without a Pikmin game. This was a delightful little way to be reminded the franchise existed before moving on to any other game in the compilation. What was that thing with Yoshi again?

Metroid Blast

The Game: You are heroic bounty hunter Samus Aran, and you’ve got a hell of a lot of bounties to collect. Is that thing supposed to be Ridley? Eh, better kill it to be sure.

WiiU Relevance: Aside from the WiiU Pad owner getting a gunship while the rest of the nerds have to run around in their spacesuits, this is probably the most straightforward, least gimmicky game on the collection. Likely as a result, it’s also probably one of the most fun single-player experiences in Nintendo Land. Go fig. Hey, which games on the WiiU wound up becoming the most popular, anyway?

Nintendo-ness: As ever, Nintendo has no idea what to do with Samus Aran. She’s basically reprising her role from Metroid Prime Hunters here as Nintendo’s resident character most likely to wind up in a death match, and… I guess that’s where Federation Force originated, too as well. Hey, Nintendo? You know that the word “metroidvania” doesn’t refer to just shooting stuff, right?

Overall Rating: This is fun! It also has nothing to do with anything! Maybe that’s good! This might be more fun if Samus was a squid, though.

Mario Chase, Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, and Animal Crossing: Sweet Day

The Game: These are three different multiplayer experiences where, one way or another, the dude with the WiiU Pad gets to mess with the poor schmoes that are stuck with the Wiimotes.

WiiU Relevance: This was always the promise of the WiiU, right? That we could have wonderful, creative asymmetric multiplayer games that aren’t possible on other platforms? Oh what games we’ll play with… oh, the system is already dead? Dammit.

Nintendo-ness: I’m probably not the only person that thought asymmetric multiplayer would take off, as Mario and Luigi, the biggest horses in the Nintendo stable, headline two out of three of these attractions. Animal Crosser has been trying to achieve some moderate level of fame since the Gamecube, and it’s important that we keep ignoring that dude. Should Animal Crossing ever become as popular as Mario, Nintendo will find a way to monetize the AC model for mobile devices, and then we will not have enough money to afford food.

Overall Rating: This is super fun and… it was released opposite a four player Mario game? Oh, screw this noise, give me my real Mario.

Post Mortem

Well, that was more telling than I expected. The best game in the compilation was the one that employed the least random WiiU BS, and, the further we got from “it’s a videogame” to more “it’s a gimmick given form”, the less fun was had. This is pretty much how the WiiU worked, as Breath of Wild is the most amazing thing that has ever happened, and it didn’t even need to be on the WiiU. Meanwhile, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is a game I have to continually look up to make sure I’m not confusing the title with its DS incarnation. The WiiU was a noble experiment, but its greatest strengths didn’t exactly lend themselves to what the public seemed to actually want, so, at best, we got games like Mario Maker and Splatoon that kinda sorta remembered we had a stylus at hand.

The Nintendo WiiU. Cause of death: Trying.

FGC #272 Nintendo Land

• System: Well shucks, I totally forgot what system this game is for. N64?
• Number of players: As many as you can imagine. Or four. It’s probably four.
• Favorite Attraction: Metroid is pretty much always going to be the answer.
• Just play the gig man: The faux retro themes that permeate this game are right up my alley, so it almost feels like cheating to note that I really like this soundtrack. In other news, I also enjoy games that feature Mario.
• Did you know? I’m assuming this will be the last disc-based pack-in game I ever see in my lifetime. Even the WiiU learned pretty quick that it’s a lot cheaper to just include a download code in the box than a disc that is totally for resale.
• Would I play again: Nope! It’s surprising that, even though there is so much content available on this game, all of it feels completely perfunctory, and I would rather play practically anything else that provides a more full experience. So, sorry… uh… television guy… I’m going to go play something else now.

What’s next? Random ROB is insulted he was not in this game and has chosen… Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves for the NES! Huh, not the game featuring well-meaning thieves I would have expected from this blog, but whatever. Time to rob from the rich and give to the Nintendo kids. Please look forward to it!