Why I Just Bought a Wii U
When I woke up this past Sunday, buying a Wii U wasn’t on my list of things to do. In fact, buying a Wii U has really never crossed my mind. But that’s what I did last weekend.
Discovering the Virtual Console
Last week, my sister was asking after our old cartridge version of Earthbound for the SNES. While digging through my old boxed-up SNES games, and indulging in nostalgia from looking through all the game manuals I’ve saved over the years, I started to wonder if Earthbound had been re-released on any newer system.
I knew that Mother 1 had recently been released for the Wii U Virtual Console, though I’d honestly never really looked into the VC before this. When I did a search, I found out that Earthbound had also been released on VC.
This got me curious about how all this stuff worked. So I started searching and discovered just how many amazing old games from my SNES library were actually ported over to the Wii and Wii U virtual console. I did buy the original Wii a few years after it released, but never did much with the online store aspect of it as the whole Wii points thing turned me off. Little did I realize the gems I could find there.
Like…
Ooooh!
And….
No way!
And, how about…
Aw yeah… My childhood. <3
So, I quickly did some research about how the Wii U backwards compatibility works with Wii stuff, including the VC. I got to thinking how my little Wii could be nearing 10 years old soon – I don’t really know the age because I bought it used, but it is an earlier model. And I saw how some games were exclusive to the Wii U store – OMG: Uncharted Waters: New Horizons? Really??
I saw how cheap I could get all these old games I used to play, and in their original formats… no fancy new graphics. No updated translation. They’re all just how I remembered them, even in the box-shaped screen resolution (no wide screen TVs back then).
Making the Console Choice
I’ve been kicking around the idea of getting a console for a while, but couldn’t decide what I wanted for the kind of cost that goes into one. I’m usually a PC player, and most the games I’m interested in tend to be right there online. I don’t really need a console that does nothing but replicate the same games I can get for PC… which is usually what I see in XBox and PlayStation now days. When I look at the games lineup, there’s very little that excites me.
I did the exact same thing back when I ended up settling on a Wii years ago. I saw that Wii just had so many Nintendo exclusives that I can’t get on the PC, while PS and XBox are duplicating PC stuff. So that, on top of wanting the Wii Fit, settled my purchase.
This time around, discovering the old SNES games on the Virtual Console sold me. It’s the first brand new console I’ve purchased since the launch of PS2 about 15 years ago – scary! While the system came with Splatoon, I’ve yet to actually try it (though I hear it’s fun). At this point, I own more SNES games on Wii U than I do Wii U games! XD
I also have to say that at first glance, I wasn’t sure what I’d want a little screen on my game controller for. But now that I have it and I see how it works, I’m in love with it.
I’m looking into buying Super Mario Maker, perhaps, as I was a huge SMB fan when I was a kid. And the idea of this game really seems to capture that kind of fun again.
Until then, though, I’m getting my head handed to me enjoying my time in Earthbound.
