The Wii, Its Power of Backwards Compatibility, and The Effect

[BerzerkPixel]

I grew up with the NES, the DS and the Wii. Yeah that's huge time gap there. Most of my conscious life, I have been playing on my Wii (don't take that out of context, ). So what games have I been playing on the Wii. Uh... Gamecube games and using the Virtual Console service.

Of course, the Wii has had some absolutely marvelous games, a lot of which do not get as much attention as it should have gotten. Like Boom Blox! That game is weird but real cool. Or Muramasa: The Demon Blade. One of the arguably most beautiful looking games of the 7th generation. Or No More Heroes or MadWorld, which by the way are a couple of the most violent games I have ever seen.

But that is not the subject here. The Wii defined the term backwards compatibility. THIS IS A GODSEND. This is what made me the person that I am today. I have seen many comments over at Youtube about how the VC is just a cheap cash-grab for Nintendo, but what they don't understand is the impact it has on the newer generation of gamers. I got to play classics like:

Super Mario RPG
Super Mario 64
Super Mario Kart
Mario Kart 64
Super Mario Bros. 2 The Lost Levels (Hooh my god is that game maddening)
Paper Mario (can you tell that I like Mario a lot? )
Contra III (beat that game on Hard, 3 Lives, with a Gamecube Controller, Get on my level )
Yoshi's Story
Yoshi's Cookie (this is an interesting puzzle game)
F-Zero X (YEEEHHSZ )
Super Smash Bros. 64 (Aww hell yeah )
Donkey Kong Country
SUPER Metroid
SUPER Castlevania IV
There's probably some more I'm missing there.

AND THEN there's the ability to play Gamecube games. The Gamecube... is probably the best Nintendo system I have ever heard of. It probably has done more things different with its franchises than what Nintendo wishes to do today. AND it had wonderful 3rd party support. Maybe not like PS2 or Xbox, but it was still strong in that department. Most importantly, it introduced me to some of the best games I have ever played hands down. Here's what I have played:

Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door (Best game ever. Shiggy plz, don't interfere with the next one. )
Metroid Prime (THIS introduced me into the Metroid series. Wow. I must have played it through 14 times by now)
Soul Calibur II
Ikaruga (a very interesting Shoot-em-up. High octane shooting with puzzles. Ain't that a wonderful combination).
Super Mario Sunshine (****ing Blue Coins of Corona Mountain )
F-Zero GX (HOLY **** DIS GAME RIGHT HERE ).
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (interesting idea Nintendo.)
Super Smash Bros. MELEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (the announcer must have taken like a mountain of crack).
Luigi's Friggin' Mansion
Metroid Prime 2 (played through the Trilogy package)
There's probably more games I am missing here as well.

I actually bought a Gamecube simply for the novelty of having one.

My point is, backwards compatibilty has made a huge impact on me as a gamer. I am the minority of most people in my school when it comes to what games I play. You just don't hear 16 year-olds say that their favorite game is Metroid Prime or Super Smash Bros. Melee. Are you part of the newer generation? How as Backwards Compatibility affected you? I am very interested to hear your responses.

Now Nintendo plz, bring N64 and GCN games to Wii U VC.

 

[BerzerkPixel]

Someone is going to say TL;DR. Lol. Also, is my post in mostly red text? Every one of my posts have been like that. Does anyone know how to make it just white as my default text color?

 

[FinalArcadia]

Backwards compatibility and the Virtual Console has been really great for me too, even though I've had every console since the SNES. Because I was so young back when the SNES still had games releasing, there are a lot I missed out on, like Super Mario RPG which I probably would have been awful at as a child and my dad wouldn't have probably played (it was his SNES).

But thanks to the Virtual Console, I've finally played that game and absolutely loved it, same for others like Kirby Super Star and Mario Kart 64, which I somehow never ended up getting on my actual N64. Club Nintendo offering some of these games as rewards makes it even nicer and easier to play old classics that otherwise I likely never would have had the opportunity to play.

As for the backward compatibility with the Wii/Gamecube, I didn't play many GC games on Wii because it always caused a disc read error for me with only those games. Weird. But I do use the Wii U's compatibility with Wii games a lot for convenience, and that's pretty much my primary way of playing Brawl and Project M now.

Also, is my post in mostly red text? Every one of my posts have been like that. Does anyone know how to make it just white as my default text color?

It is red, but I think you can go to "Preferences" to change it. It's like "Custom Text Color" or something down the list of choices, and then set that back to white or the default. Hope that helps!

 

[BerzerkPixel]

I can't thank Nintendo enough for having this kind of thought for their systems. It's interesting to know that someone that grew up with the classic systems still buy retro games off the VC service. Rightfully so. Some retro games are ridiculously priced today. Prime example is Earthbound. Although, prices for the actual cartridge dropped since its debut on the Wii U VC service. It used to be like $300 but now it's around $100, which to be frank is still too much for that game. Other examples include Chrono Trigger or Mega Man X.

It's also pretty weird that your Wii gives you a disk error for reading Gamecube games. It's a real shame... Unless you already have a working Gamecube in which my comment is meaningless.

It is red, but I think you can go to "Preferences" to change it. It's like "Custom Text Color" or something down the list of choices, and then set that back to white or the default. Hope that helps!

I changed it. Is it white?

 

[FinalArcadia]

I can't thank Nintendo enough for having this kind of thought for their systems. It's interesting to know that someone that grew up with the classic systems still buy retro games off the VC service. Rightfully so. Some retro games are ridiculously priced today. Prime example is Earthbound. Although, prices for the actual cartridge dropped since its debut on the Wii U VC service. It used to be like $300 but now it's around $100, which to be frank is still too much for that game. Other examples include Chrono Trigger or Mega Man X.

Yeah, it's a real help when looking for games that are otherwise super expensive. It's nice Earthbound has at least dropped in price for a physical copy now, but yeah, $100... the VC version seems a lot easier to get unless you're a collector.

It's also nice since sometimes, the old systems get kind of finicky (like my SNES, it tends to freeze at the slightest of touches and fitting games in properly takes a few tries), so having a back-up way to play is always good too!

It's also pretty weird that your Wii gives you a disk error for reading Gamecube games. It's a real shame... Unless you already have a working Gamecube in which my comment is meaningless.

I do have a working Gamecube too so it's not too bad it doesn't work, but it's very mysterious that the error has occurred since getting this Wii and yet everything else works fine...

I changed it. Is it white?

Yep, it's white now!

 

[Minato]

My vote went to little impact. I've gamed since the NES days, and I've managed to catch up on quite a bit of games before the VC came out. For me, the VC is the ability to replay a lot of the games I already own on a newer console. There's also the off tv play which is great. Playing it that way can offer its own type of experience. Some of the games that I managed to play through VC were Sin and Punishment that were new to me along with a few others.

However, I still find playing them on the original hardware to be the absolute best option. Off tv Earthbound is pretty cool, but there's something special about playing that and Super Metroid on an SNES and SNES controller.

Of course, to clarify, my vote is just what VC is to me, not to everyone else. It's a nice thing that I enjoy, but it hasn't impacted me too much like how PS1 classics do on the PSP/Vita because of the handheld experience of those classics. There's the 3DS, but that library still needs some work and also lack crossbuy.

I am pretty happy that people like yourself get to experience these classics for the first time though. There's a lot out there that shouldn't be passed up on. And I hope Nintendo can bring the remainder of what was on the Wii VC to Wii U and then some.

I do have a working Gamecube too so it's not too bad it doesn't work, but it's very mysterious that the error has occurred since getting this Wii and yet everything else works fine...

Later Wii consoles removed backwards compatibility iirc.

 

[Spak]

I said little impact. I am in the newer-ish generation because I was holding a Game Boy Color with Pokemon Yellow and Silver by the time I was 3 (my iister and I shared) and grew up with my GBA, PS2, GameCube, got an N64 in 2005, and a Wii in 2006-07-ish. I think VC is great for people who have never played a certain game before, but some games (like N64 games) can't have the controller accurately replicated. In addition, I never bothered getting the Classic Controller, so all SNES games felt a bit weird with the GC controller, as they were not made for that platform. Optimally, games should be played on their original platforms, but the VC is a good backup plan. One of my best friends has an NES, so I've played a lot of NES games that way.