I was discussing the WiiU on a separate blogpost where I started looking at the top games I played on the system. Turns out, only 6 of the top games I played were WiiU games and the rest were Virtual Console ports of SNES and N64 games. List looks like this:

1. Breath of the Wild: 70+ hours

2. Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE: 60+ hours

3. Mario Kart 8: 40+ hours

4. Mario's Super Picross(Virtual Console): 40+ hours

5. Musou Orochi 2 Hyper: 30+ hours

6. Super Mario Maker: 30+ hours

7. Ocarina of Time (Virtual Console): 20+ hours

8. Super Mario 3D World: 10+ hours

9. Super Mario 64 (Virtual Console): 10+ hours

10. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest (Virtual Console): 10+ hours

I had always thought that I had gotten a lot of mileage from my WiiU but looking at the list written out like this I don't know if I actually have. From 8 downward I barely cracked 10 hours. For comparison, my 10th most played Switch game is 40+ hours. I looked at my 3DS history and I played 5 games for longer than I played Mario Kart 8.

I was always of the opinion that the WiiU was an underappreciated system and got a bad rap because of the mishandling of the announcement and not making it clear that it was a separate console and not just a controller upgrade. The fact that Nintendo ported most of the games to the Switch and they're selling gangbusters for the most part shows that the games were good at least. But I guess it's also a sign that the second screen on the controller was mostly just dressing as you can play all those games perfectly fine on the Switch.

Super Mario Maker was pure lightning in a bottle and it's a shame that its sequel could replicate the X-factor it had that made the game so fun to make and share levels. It was also the system I introduced my son to video games with. When he first started to talk he would shout "Eiiiiighhhht!" along with Mario when I booted up Mario Kart 8. I was finally able to replay the N64 games from my middle/high school years through Virtual Console.

All in all, despite not clocking in as many hours as I have on other consoles, the WiiU still holds a place in my heart for the time I did have with it.

As the person who led you astray in the other thread I guess I have to comment here.

First of all, is Musou Orochi 2 Hyper REALLY a Wii U game? It's a port. I guess you can argue that a (minimally) enhanced port is different from emulation, and it is, but I would assume you have other platforms you could have played that on.

Secondly, I think part of why Mario Maker caught fire was because there was so little out for Wii U. Yes the gamepad is great for Mario Maker, and it was a new idea at the time, but I think a lot of it was you had this hardcore fanbase waiting for something to play and this game appeared and it had UNLIMITED content. It was a reason to own Wii U and something to play on it. There are other examples of this, a game that breaks out in part because it's on a platform without that much competition. You can argue that the N64 had this effect repeatedly, where people were starved software so when good stuff came out people jumped all over it and made it bigger than it would have been otherwise.

Thirdly, you're "allowed" to love the Wii U even if it wasn't your most played system and you only have a handful of games that you spent a lot of time with. Our affection for consoles is not always directly proportional to the amount of time we spend with them. A few great experiences can really drive our opinion of a system, and it sounds like the Wii U led to some special times with your kid, which is often a big factor for warm feelings and nostalgia. Priceless memories are priceless.

That being said, while the Wii U might be underappreciated I don't think that the announcement was the biggest issue. I think Nintendo badly misread the market, not just with the gamepad (which really seems gimmicky and not all that useful) but by selling such an underpowered console at that time. You can argue the Switch is the most successful Nintendo console of all time and may end up as the most successful console ever, and that's underpowered, but the Switch is ultimately a handheld, and that changes things. People were more accepting of the Switch's limitations because they understood it was a tiny tablet they can play handheld. The Wii U just seemed a generation behind. I also think that Nintendo failed to launch with a killer game, and that really hurt it. Wii Sports sold the Wii. Breath of the Wild sold the Switch. Nintendoland did not sell the Wii U.

The name and marketing didn't help, but the Wii U just wasn't compelling at launch and by the time it found its footing the PS4 was only slightly more expensive and was a whole generation ahead in terms of graphics. The Wii U did eventually get Mario Kart and Mario Maker but by that time it had lost third party support and its fate was sealed. Even Nintendo pretty much abandoned it in its later years. It is probably underrated as a console but it had a lot more problems than just a dumb name.

@bigsocrates: I don't doubt that Musou Orochi 2 Hyper isn't a true WiiU game cuz, as you said, it is a port of a PS3/360 game. It was actually the first and only Musou game I really played.

I didn't really intend for my post to be an appeal for permission to like the WiiU but I just wanted to show appreciation for a console that, for the most part, isn't looked at too fondly in the history of Nintendo consoles. And rightfully so. You were correct in that it wasn't just the initial messaging that tanked the system. If it was at least competitive with the other consoles in terms of power and third party support, it would've sold better. But then I guess we wouldn't have this gem.

If Nintendo didn't go out of their way to port most of the games worth a spit to the Switch it would;ve sucked a bit more but still being able to play those great first party games on their current console is a pretty good consolation.

Still waiting on Wind Waker HD though.

@chamurai:I'm interested now to know why it was the last Musou game you played. I mean you put 30+ hours in. Maybe one of those types of games is enough, though I think the Hyrule Warriors games are interesting from a fan service perspective (Though I haven't come close to finishing either.) Age of Calamity is really cool in a lot of ways.

I think the Wii U could have done better if it were a little more powerful (not necessarily at the level of the Xbox One but enough that it had a power advantage at launch, instead of launching with some games performing worse than on the 7 year old Xbox 360, which seemed absolutely nuts to me at the time) and if Nintendo had an actual killer app at launch instead of New Super Mario Bros. U.

If the Wii U launched at a power level somewhat above the Switch (which, again, is a portable and so judged differently) and with Mario Kart 8 or Mario Maker I think it could have sold at least 40-50 million units even without a ton of third party support (which would have been there if it had some momentum.) Oh, and of course a name change would have helped.

I think Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD are coming in the back half of this year. It just makes too much sense given the massive gap in the release schedule and how hot Zelda is after Tears of the Kingdom. It's the perfect time to port them. What I'm really hoping for is Xenoblade Chronicles X but Monolith said that game would be super hard for...reasons.

@bigsocrates: The reason I've only played the one is just a lack of interest in the genre, I guess. I didn't really have any affinity to the source material so it wasn't something I would spend a whole lot of money on. I bought Orochi 2 Hyper because it was 2,000 yen (roughly $20 at the time) brand new and I needed a game for my new system. I got a lot of mileage out of it and was able to play with a friend for the bulk of it and we both had a good time. I did buy the Age of Calamity game when it went on sale, like, a couple years ago but I haven't actually started it yet. I think I saw my younger son play it once.

I sure hope Wind Waker HD gets ported to the Switch this year. I always wanted to get another crack at it since I bounced of the WiiU version because of a dumb reason.

@chamurai: Yeah I understand your perspective. I just think the fact that you played so much of the game on the Wii U because you "needed a game for [your] new system" but then never felt the need to get into any of the other similar games shows how mediocre the launch really was. We've all played launch games that we might not have under other circumstances, but I can't say I've ever had one be in my top 5 all time for a system and then never really looked into sequels.

If you own Age of Calamity and you like Breath of the Wild (which it seems you do!) it's worth at least messing with. It's not an all time great game but it's pretty fun.

I really want Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD ported too. That would be awesome.

But you have to tell us all what the dumb reason you stopped playing was. You can't just dangle that out there and not resolve it. I added Peppa Pig to the UUGPGC list for you. We're both going to have to play that. We're trauma bonded.

Wii U is an underrated console and it's perfect for those who love platformers, kart racing, action-adventure and many other genres.

@bigsocrates: Yeah, I guess I kept ya hanging with that one huh? It's like, I got the Wind Waker baton and I tried to do the thing to get the wind to change but, unlike Ocarina of Time where you could just hit the C buttons as fast as you can and play the song to do the warps and such, you had to actually push the buttons in time to the beat and that just irritated me because I was failing to do the most basic thing in the game that, from what I've heard, is also the most important thing in the game.

But, yeah, my reason for bailing out of one of the best Zelda games ever was that I was too impatient to wait for the little marker to come back to the center each time I wanted to push a button.

@bigsocrates: Xenoblade chronicles X always seemed super appealing to me but I never owned a WiiU to try it out.

I did try the other Xenoblade game when they ported it to the Switch but it didnt quite click with me, I didnt find the combat too interesting.

The sci-fi mech setting of X seemed cool though!

@gtxforza: It's really fortunate that Nintendo ported the first party games to the Switch so at least there's some easy way to play them now.

I also have a special place in my heart for the WiiU, and I didn't even own one! But my brother bought it, and I do legitimately have some fond memories of us playing Nintendoland together. Later on he lent it to me and I played some bangers, like the criminally underappreciated Severed, the wonderful Steamworld Heist, Mario 3D World (♥), and the definitive version of one of my all-time favourites: Wind Waker HD.

But, yeah, my reason for bailing out of one of the best Zelda games ever was that I was too impatient to wait for the little marker to come back to the center each time I wanted to push a button.

Hahh, considering my previous sentence, you might assume this fully gave me the fiercest case of the vapors, but I think I get it. I've been in exactly the wrong headspace/mood for something I'm sure I would enjoy later, where just a little something irks me and in my impatience I just alt+F4 right outta there. But hopefully you get to check it out again eventually, if you've enjoyed any Zelda in the past I'm sure you'd end up having a whale of a time! Half a whale, at the very least. And your son might enjoy it as well?