We’re winding down on my coverage of my favorite Wii games, in honor of the upcoming release of the Wii U! Only two articles left! In this one we’ll look at my favorite Wii 3-D adventures. Some are platformers, some are action-adventure games. All are good.

Epic Mickey

I don’t think that Epic Mickey was some amazingly epic game. It was just a pretty decent 3-D platformer, that’s all. But we don’t have too many of those nowadays so I guess that’s a good thing. But Epic Mickey did bring the famous mouse into the gaming spotlight again. Not to mention feature some other little known Disney creations, including Oswald, and bring them out of obscurity. I really can’t wait for the sequel, although I may get it for another console like the 360 this time. Ever more so, I’m looking forward to the 3DS Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion game, as it’s a 2-D platformer and a sequel to the Castle and World of Illusion classics on Genesis.

PokePark & PokePark 2

These side Pokemon spinoffs are geared toward a younger crowd, but hey, there’s nothing wrong with that! They’re just cute and colorful little 3-D romps where you play as Pikachu and befriend other Pokemon and play games together. Sometimes you can battle for fun, too. I’m getting a little tired of the main Pokemon games’ one on one turned based battles, and I think that I want the next Pokemon RPG to have action packed battles like the Tales games. And the PokePark battles are like that, sort of. If you love Pokemon and don’t mind a game skewed towards a younger audience, you should try the PokePark titles. You know, speaking of Pokemon side games, I wish the Wii had more of them. Wouldn’t a Pokemon Snap game be great on the Wii? Actually after playing Game & Wario on Wii U, I want a Pokemon Snap game for that console, now! And with the Wii remote, a new Pokemon Channel game would’ve been awesome (I loved the GameCube Pokemon Channel; I don’t care what you say).

Soul Calibur Legends

A lot of reviewers and gamers bashed this game, but I didn’t think it was THAT bad. Granted, it wasn’t that good, either, and doesn’t even deserve to be in the same class as the great SC fighters. But it was still a slick action game that let you play as your favorite characters like Siegfried, Taki, and Sophitia. And I like the Soul Calibur characters so I was OK with that.

Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2

Believe it or not, Super Mario 64 is one of my favorite Mario games, and definitely still my favorite of his 3-D endeavors, even to this day. And don’t get me wrong, I loved Super Mario Sunshine, I really did. But I think it was missing something that Mario 64 had. Luckily, the Galaxy games brought back a little bit of what made 64 so great; whatever that was that I can’t put my finger on. Aside from the solid platforming and creative level design, I think my other favorite thing about the Galaxy titles was the orchestrated music. I wish more games would do that.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

This Wii launch title was on everyone’s list when the Wii first came out, but it actually ended up being one of my least favorite Zelda games in the series. Don’t get me wrong, TP was still great. It’s just that there were tons of other Zelda titles I liked much more. I think my main problem with the game was the graphics were all brown and muddy and smeary. Normally I don’t complain about graphics, but in this game the visuals made it hard to tell where you could and couldn’t go sometimes. At least that’s the way it was for me. But TP was still a fun adventure with awesome dungeons and memorable characters (like Agitha the crazy bug lady).

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

I liked this Zelda game a little better than Twilight Princess, although it had a few problems of its own as well. I appreciated the more colorful graphics and new style of overworld, although I can understand why people didn’t like that and wanted more exploration. But it was just Nintendo trying something different. It’s one of those situations where people complain when they try something new, but if they didn’t, people would complain it’s more of the same. Nintendo couldn’t win. My main problem with Skyward Sword was sometimes the one to one motion controls were a little unforgiving and broken. But otherwise I still enjoyed it. My favorite character was Scrapper the Robot. I liked how he talked trash to Link and fell head over gears with Fi (I called her Autotune).

Zack & Wiki

This Wii game from Capcom was released early in the Wii’s life, so not a lot of people know about it. In the game you play as a little pirate named Zack who has a magical flying monkey friend named Wiki. Together with their band of pirate bunnies (yes), they search the globe plundering treasure and thwarting a Tron Bonne wannabe. The game is a little hard to describe. It’s like a combination of a point and click adventure, puzzle game, and 3-D platformer. But it was one of the first Wii games that used the motion controls in ways that didn’t feel gimmicky, at least to me.

In my opinion, Zack & Wiki was one of the last games that truly felt like a classic Capcom title. The main reason was because of the difficulty. This game was HARD. I think Zack & Wiki was one of the hardest titles I ever actually managed to beat. Anyone remember the last ‘main’ level? Wasn’t that one a doozy? Those who have played the game probably know what I’m talking about. The other reason why this game felt like a Capcom classic was all the old school Capcom references. You could collect secret Capcom game sprites from really obscure classics, and uncover hidden music mini-games featuring classic Capcom game tunes. Wouldn’t a music/rhythm game with Capcom classic tunes in it be awesome? I wish Capcom would’ve used Zack & Wiki as fighters for their Marvel vs. Capcom series. Anyway, I hear that Zack & Wiki is a really rare game now, so if you see it, get it!

And that’s all for now! What were your favorite Wii 3-D adventures? On my last “We Love the Wii” blog, we’ll look at my favorite 2-D games on the Wii! Later!

Tags: Misc