Wii and Virtual Console games

D

Deleted User

Guest
What games would you recommend for both the Wii and the Virtual Console? I'm new to the Wii and I just purchased a second hand unit that came with some games. Those games are:

Xenoblade Chronicles (purchased separately)
Mario Galaxy 1
Mario Galaxy 2
Zelda: Twilight Princess
WarioWare: Smooth Moves
Resident Evil 4
Mario Kart Wii
Wii Sports
Monster Hunter Tri (purchased separately)

Games I am probably going to buy at some point:

Monster Lab
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
Final Fantasy 4: The After Years
Zelda: Skyward Sword
Donkey Kong Country Returns

I'm a diehard RPG fan but I'm pretty much game for anything. What other titles for the Wii would you recommend I check out?

I'm also interested in Virtual Console titles because even though I played those consoles as a kid, there are a ton of games on there that I haven't played and I'm sure are good diamond in the rough type games. My Virtual Console must-buys are:

Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy 2
Final Fantasy 3
Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen
Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber
Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4
Legend of the Mystical Ninja

And that's pretty much it so far. What else should I be looking into? Again, I love RPGs but I'll play anything that's good (shooters, strategy games, side-scrolling platformers, etc). Looking for some hidden gems for the Virtual Console, and games in general I just may have missed out on as a kid. There's so many titles on Virtual Console that I simply know nothing about.
 
Zelda: Twilight Princess and Resident Evil 4 are both very good games. In fact, Resident Evil 4 is one of my all time favorite console games. I like the original Gamecube version better than the Wiimote controlled version though.

Chrono Trigger is a classic.. definitely worth playing if you never have.

I would skip Final Fantasy 2 & 3 if those are the SNES versions. Get the PS1 rereleases instead.

I started playing Xenoblade Chronicles today, but I'm not quite sure what to think of it yet.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,299
Location
Florida, US
I would be playing Xenoblade now too but unfortunately I just purchased the Wii and Xenoblade from Ebay last night and have to wait for them to arrive. Should be early next week I'm hoping.

I've played all the Virtual Console games except Ogre Battle 64 on their original systems. Reason I wanted to get them all again is because I wanted to have one system where I could conveniently play all of them without having to have other systems hooked up to my TV simply to play one or two games on. Curious though, what is better about the PS1 re-releases of Final Fantasy 2 and 3?
 
Fluent said:
Curious though, what is better about the PS1 re-releases of Final Fantasy 2 and 3?
Click to expand...

The PS1 versions are the same as the original Japanese versions and also include some additional story cinematics. They also feature superior translations compared to the SNES versions.

The American SNES versions, especially FF IV(FF2), were missing things that were cut from the original Japanese games. The US version of FF IV was also significantly easier (dumbed down) compared to the original version, and some of the character's special skills were removed.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,299
Location
Florida, US
Fire Emblem: Radiant dawn is an excellent game. Remember that a Wii can also play GC games, so get a GC controller and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.

Other games worth considering:
Okami
Punch-out
Muramasa - The demon blade


As for VC games:
Sin & Punishment
Bomberman 93
Castlevania Rebirth
Contra Rebirth
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
1,756
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
Fnord said:
Fire Emblem: Radiant dawn is an excellent game. Remember that a Wii can also play GC games, so get a GC controller and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.

Other games worth considering:
Okami
Punch-out
Muramasa - The demon blade


As for VC games:
Sin & Punishment
Bomberman 93
Castlevania Rebirth
Contra Rebirth
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions! Castlevania and Contra Rebirth are probably must-buys for me as well. I love those series. Have never played Bomberman but heard it's pretty cool. Also, Okami and Muramasa both looked very cool when I looked into them, and will probably be purchases down the road too.

I did not know the Wii can play GC games. Oh wow. That is crazy. I never had a GC but I'm sure there are some good games for it out there. Now I have to look for GC games as well. Thanks for the heads up. Do I need a GC controller to play them or can I use the Classic Controller Pro?

Also in Fire Emblem, do you get a lot of varied characters in the game? I only played one FE game for the SNES and loved it. It was the one where you had a whole party of characters, and SPOILER!!! (Spoiler tag isn't working for some reason.)
...they got mass killed by the enemy, and their children formed your party in the 2nd half of the game.

END SPOILER!!

That one was great. And can you change your characters class at all in the game? In short, how are the RPG elements of that game? I may pick that up one very soon because it does look quite good.

JDR13 said:
The PS1 versions are the same as the original Japanese versions and also include some additional story cinematics. They also feature superior translations compared to the SNES versions.

The American SNES versions, especially FF IV(FF2), were missing things that were cut from the original Japanese games. The US version of FF IV was also significantly easier (dumbed down) compared to the original version, and some of the character's special skills were removed.
Click to expand...

Good to know, thanks for the info.
 
Last edited:
Fluent said:
I did not know the Wii can play GC games. Oh wow. That is crazy. I never had a GC but I'm sure there are some good games for it out there. Now I have to look for GC games as well. Thanks for the heads up. Do I need a GC controller to play them or can I use the Classic Controller Pro?
Click to expand...

You need a Gamecube controller for Gamecube titles.

There are some really good Gamecube games if you can find them. All of the Resident Evil games are good, imo. Tales of Symphonia is pretty good as far as jrpgs go, and so is Skies of Arcadia. I also enjoyed the Metroid Prime series.


Fluent said:
Also in Fire Emblem, do you get a lot of varied characters in the game? I only played one FE game for the SNES and loved it. It was the one where you had a whole party of characters, and That one was great. And can you change your characters class at all in the game? In short, how are the RPG elements of that game? I may pick that up one very soon because it does look quite good.
Click to expand...

I've never played Fire Emblem, but it sounds like you should check out the Shining Force series. You can get SF 1&2 on the VC. The first game especially is a classic.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,299
Location
Florida, US
That one was great. And can you change your characters class at all in the game? In short, how are the RPG elements of that game? I may pick that up one very soon because it does look quite good.
Click to expand...
There are a lot of different character classes in the game. There are basic classes, and two stages of upgrade classes, and once a basic character reaches level 10, it can be upgraded to a new class (same with the first upgrade step), at which point it will be at level 1 again, but with all the stat upgrades from its previous levels (so it is generally speaking a good idea to not upgrade character too early, do it when they have maxed out several stats, or reached level 20).
And even though two characters might share the same class, they don't level up the same way. Each character has individual stat growth (and starting stats).

And there are a lot of different characters in the game, so depending on which characters you focus on, your playstyle will be very different.

(Path of radiance only has 1 upgrade step, but you still have a lot of characters to chose from)


And by the way, avoid Meg like the plague in Radiant dawn. She has to be one of the worst characters, if not THE worst character in any western released fire emblem game. Apart from that, there are no "beginners trap" characters. Brom is pretty lousy in Path of Radiance (funny enough, Meg is Brom's daughter…), but he won't be a huge liability.

The Shining Force series is a good suggestion as well. I prefer Fire Emblem though, in part due to the perma-death element, and in part due to how much personality those games have.

Bomberman is best played with friends. The singleplayer campaign is a bit "meh", but 4 player Bomberman is a *blast* (that was a bad pun :( )


By the way, did you play the unfinished FE4 translation, or did someone get around to actually finish the translation?
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
1,756
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
Fnord said:
By the way, did you play the unfinished FE4 translation, or did someone get around to actually finish the translation?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it was a finished translation. I believe the next game in the series was still being translated, and I never got around to playing that one. Not sure if that one was ever finished or not, but I know for sure the one I played was, which is why I played it. It was also a very good game that got me interested in the Fire Emblem series.

Thanks for the breakdown of Radiant Dawn. It sounds awesome. I haven't played a turn-based strategy RPG since Tactics Ogre (which is also awesome, if you haven't played it). I didn't know Radiant Dawn had permadeath either. That's awesome. Ogre had that too and it really made you cautious in every battle. I never wanted to lose anyone. I'm sure I'll be the same way in Fire Emblem.

Looking at this list > http://www.listal.com/list/rpg-world-gamecube-edition > it seems like there are quite a few interesting Gamecube RPGs out there that I will eventually want to try. I just hope I'm able to buy them for reasonable prices. I hope it's not like some of those PS1 or SNES RPGs, which go for over $50 a pop on Ebay.

JDR13 said:
I've never played Fire Emblem, but it sounds like you should check out the Shining Force series. You can get SF 1&2 on the VC. The first game especially is a classic.
Click to expand...

Shining Force is definitely on my radar. Saw a little bit of it on Youtube and thought it looked cool. Will probably pick that one up as well.

Will I need some sort of memory card or additional hard drive device to save Gamecube save files? How much hard drive space does the Wii even have? Sorry for the newb questions but I really don't know much about the Wii at all.
 
Last edited:
Fluent said:
Will I need some sort of memory card or additional hard drive device to save Gamecube save files? How much hard drive space does the Wii even have? Sorry for the newb questions but I really don't know much about the Wii at all.
Click to expand...

Yes, you'll need a Gamecube card to to make saves for Gamecube titles on the Wii. Fortunately, they're cheap and easy to find. You can still purchase them at places like Gamestop and Best Buy, and there are tons of them on Ebay.

Not sure how much hard drive space the Wii has.. I never bothered to look. It doesn't matter though because you can expand it with SD cards.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,299
Location
Florida, US
Fluent said:
Yeah, it was a finished translation. I believe the next game in the series was still being translated, and I never got around to playing that one. Not sure if that one was ever finished or not, but I know for sure the one I played was, which is why I played it. It was also a very good game that got me interested in the Fire Emblem series.

Thanks for the breakdown of Radiant Dawn. It sounds awesome. I haven't played a turn-based strategy RPG since Tactics Ogre (which is also awesome, if you haven't played it). I didn't know Radiant Dawn had permadeath either. That's awesome. Ogre had that too and it really made you cautious in every battle. I never wanted to lose anyone. I'm sure I'll be the same way in Fire Emblem.
Click to expand...
All of the FE games have perma-death, that is part of what makes that series so rewarding. And the games go on, as long as you don't lose the main character. Also, the games are rather punishing in terms of in-game saving. You can save mid-level, but as soon as you load a mid-level save (and you can only have one of those), it gets deleated, so you have to be careful. The levels are well balanced, and while tough, they are not unfair, and built with this system in mind.

And I'll really have to get that translation patch and try it out. I've heard a lot of good about FE4 (though the big plot twist that happens mid game has already been spoiled to me, a long long time ago)
Tactics Ogre is sadly incredibly expensive over here, and I just can't justify spending so much money on a single game.

By the way, Ogre Battle is very different to Tactics Ogre. While Tactics uses a Final Fantasy tactics-like system (roughly), Ogre Battle uses pre-set groups of creatures that can level up as you play, and you move them around, in real time, on a strategic map, conquering towns and such. It has a rather interesting morality-system, where the game actually punishes you (or well, turns you more evil), if you use very powerful groups of your units to bully weaker groups of enemies, which will impact the campaign, giving it a lot of replay value. Unlike most SRPG-ish resources are used on the game map in order to call in more troops. Don't buy both Ogre Battle games from the get-go, get one and decide if you like its game style before you get the other, it is a very polarizing game.

Fluent said:
Looking at this list > http://www.listal.com/list/rpg-world-gamecube-edition > it seems like there are quite a few interesting Gamecube RPGs out there that I will eventually want to try. I just hope I'm able to buy them for reasonable prices. I hope it's not like some of those PS1 or SNES RPGs, which go for over $50 a pop on Ebay.
Click to expand...
JRPGs always seem to go up a lot in price, no matter what. And don't buy the LOTR one. It was given to me as a bit of a joke gift a while ago, and I sure hope the people who gave it to me did not pay more than a few € for it...


Oh, and another game that is worth getting from VC is Super Mario RPG. It might not have the deepest of stories (what did you expect?), but it is surprisingly entertaining, all the way through, and manages to effectively sidestep a lot of the common issues with JRPGs.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
1,756
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
Fnord said:
All of the FE games have perma-death, that is part of what makes that series so rewarding. And the games go on, as long as you don't lose the main character. Also, the games are rather punishing in terms of in-game saving. You can save mid-level, but as soon as you load a mid-level save (and you can only have one of those), it gets deleated, so you have to be careful. The levels are well balanced, and while tough, they are not unfair, and built with this system in mind.

And I'll really have to get that translation patch and try it out. I've heard a lot of good about FE4 (though the big plot twist that happens mid game has already been spoiled to me, a long long time ago)
Tactics Ogre is sadly incredibly expensive over here, and I just can't justify spending so much money on a single game.

Sadly I sold my copy of Tactics Ogre many, many years ago for about $5 to a local video game shop. Also sold them Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 6, Grandia, Vandal Hearts, and a bunch of other gems for pennies at the time. All because I wanted to buy a new game for my PS1. What a mistake.

But Tactics Ogre is a great, great game. The story is top notch and involves a lot of treachery and politics if you like that sort of thing. The characters are pretty cool, you create a killer party of cool characters and classes, there is perma-death (until very late in the game when you get a Raise spell), there are branching paths in the story based on what choices you make, and certain characters will or will not join you based on those decisions. There's a secret 100 level dungeon with the most powerful items in the game. There's secret characters. It's a monster of an RPG. Also very long and pretty challenging if you are trying to keep everyone alive.

But yeah, the FE game I played was great. That plot twist was super cool and completely caught me off guard. I never expected that to happen. I would definitely recommend playing that game though. It was a lot of fun.

By the way, Ogre Battle is very different to Tactics Ogre. While Tactics uses a Final Fantasy tactics-like system (roughly), Ogre Battle uses pre-set groups of creatures that can level up as you play, and you move them around, in real time, on a strategic map, conquering towns and such. It has a rather interesting morality-system, where the game actually punishes you (or well, turns you more evil), if you use very powerful groups of your units to bully weaker groups of enemies, which will impact the campaign, giving it a lot of replay value. Unlike most SRPG-ish resources are used on the game map in order to call in more troops. Don't buy both Ogre Battle games from the get-go, get one and decide if you like its game style before you get the other, it is a very polarizing game.

I played both those games a little bit, not much, and thought the gameplay was kind of weak in each of them. I didn't like that I didn't really have direct control over my units in battle, and the moving of your units into position on the battlefield was pretty boring. I figured I would give them another shot on VC and hope I come up with a different outcome. But they might not be must-buys for me at this point.

JRPGs always seem to go up a lot in price, no matter what. And don't buy the LOTR one. It was given to me as a bit of a joke gift a while ago, and I sure hope the people who gave it to me did not pay more than a few € for it…

The LOTR actually looked interesting but I only looked at a few screenshots. I was more interested in Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy Star Online, and a few others.

Oh, and another game that is worth getting from VC is Super Mario RPG. It might not have the deepest of stories (what did you expect?), but it is surprisingly entertaining, all the way through, and manages to effectively sidestep a lot of the common issues with JRPGs.

I love Super Mario RPG. Didn't even know it was on VC. I will definitely pick that up. That's one of my favorite RPGs ever I think. It was just a really fun game.
Click to expand...

Responses in bold.
 
Last edited:
Super Mario RPG's sequel, Paper Mario (N64) can be found on the virtual console as well, so if you liked Super Mario RPG, then that is a must buy as well. Super Paper Mario (Wii) is also quite fun, though it drops the turnbased combat in favour of platforming (you still gain experience & levels).

The LOTR game does a few things quite well. There is a lot of loot, and they managed to make loot feel meaningful. It both has a noticeable impact on your characters performance and there are a lot of different skins & models, which gives a distinctive feel to each piece of loot. Sadly the game is very repetitive and the story is a real throwaway story. You play as a party that looks like the fellowship, and that follows the fellowship, but which is not the fellowship. It feels pretty pointless, really. Combat is handled in a similar way to the PS1 Final Fantasy titles, but there is just too much of it. Fight is really the only thing that you do.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
1,756
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
Fnord said:
Super Mario RPG's sequel, Paper Mario (N64) can be found on the virtual console as well, so if you liked Super Mario RPG, then that is a must buy as well. Super Paper Mario (Wii) is also quite fun, though it drops the turnbased combat in favour of platforming (you still gain experience & levels).

The LOTR game does a few things quite well. There is a lot of loot, and they managed to make loot feel meaningful. It both has a noticeable impact on your characters performance and there are a lot of different skins & models, which gives a distinctive feel to each piece of loot. Sadly the game is very repetitive and the story is a real throwaway story. You play as a party that looks like the fellowship, and that follows the fellowship, but which is not the fellowship. It feels pretty pointless, really. Combat is handled in a similar way to the PS1 Final Fantasy titles, but there is just too much of it. Fight is really the only thing that you do.
Click to expand...

Wow, I learn so much by reading your guys' responses on this site. I had no clue that Paper Mario for the N64 was a sequel to Super Mario RPG. That's awesome. I never checked out the Paper Mario games for some reason. The name "Paper Mario" just didn't hit home with me. But if those games have RPG elements I will definitely want to check them out.

The LOTR looked like Final Fantasy 7 in the screenshots I looked at, and that was the number 1 reason I was interested in it. Good to hear it sucks though. I won't be buying it now :).
 
Damn. Paper Mario is stellar. How did I not know about this game? I just never gave it a chance because it didn't really make much sense to me. I mean a paper Mario? I didn't get it. But the game is awesome really. Thanks a lot for the recommendation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom