Nintendo announced overnight that it would be adding a number of Wii games to the Wii U’s eShop. If you have a Wii U and missed out on some of the Wii’s best titles, you’ll be able to pick up games like Super Mario Galaxy 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns and the Metroid Prime Trilogy for a stupidly low $13.
For the Metroid Prime Trilogy in particular — which is notoriously difficult to find and pricey to buy second hand — this is an incredible, incredible deal.
There’s also the fact that Metroid Prime is pretty much the best game ever made in my humble opinion. It has also survived the passage of time quite miraculously.
Nintendo is staggering the releases and the $13 deal only lasts for the first week of sale. Mario Galaxy 2 comes first, and that’s released today. Donkey Kong Country Returns goes on sale January 23 and Metroid Prime Trilogy is released January 30.
These three games are, pound for pound, the best games on the Nintendo Wii. Picking up these games for $13 a-piece is just an unmissable deal.
Comments
70 responses to “You Can (And Should) Buy These Wii Classics For $13”
I still have the discs for these 🙂 But these are great value if you don’t. MP Trilogy and DKCR are highly recommended.
Noob question here, if I buy these games, can I use the Wii U controller, or do I need to use the old garbage wiimote and nunchuk?
I think they said you could use the WiiU gamepad to play these games.
Only for games that were compatible with the Classic Controller.
Only for games that supported the Wii Classic controller apparently. Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime Trilogy in particular will definitely need the old Wii remote and nunchuk (which aren’t garbage at all, still one of my favourite control schemes for games that use it well – I hate navigating menus on the current gen consoles when it’s so much easier with a pointer for instance).
I got a premium, so have the sensorbar, but jesus H christ the wii plus controllers are fkn expensive! Wouldn’t mind one even for my NES classic collection though.
the chinese knock offs are surprisingly not that bad… check ebay… i have a couple because i didn’t want to spend heaps on all originals and they do the job
If the original game supported the Wii Classic controller you can use the Gamepad – however, DKCR is the only one of these that does.
Honestly, Galaxy and Metroid are made better by using the Wiimote. They only use the pointer (and rudimentary “shake” controls) so they don’t suffer from a lack of sensitivity in the same way that, say, Wii Sports does.
got galaxy 2, you need remote+nunchuck to play it, but it is still loads of fun
I was excited by this… Until this confirmation.
Ok $13 is a steal for games I missed out on after I sold my wii very early in its life… But adding an extra $100 for a complete nunchuck sours the deal.
What a pain in the arse.
Eb has 3rd party nunchucks and wiimotes for around 30 bucks a piece. They are colourful with see through cases.
It would be great if the original Xenoblade popped up on the eshop at some point.
Not going to happen with the release of the New 3DS version of the game unfortunately.
Ah.
Yeah I wanted this – then saw that the HD version was coming to stupid 3DS ;/
There’s nothing stupid about the 3DS, especially the New 3DS. That game is going move a tonne of new units when it’s released.
Yeah, I was playing silly and being sarcastic. 🙂
“HD” – 400×240
o m g
Metroid Prime Trilogy.
Shame that 1 and 2 play so much better with a gamecube control than the Wiimote+nunchuck
Is there a lot of difference in the experience between using the two different methods? I’ve only played the original and Echoes on GC and if they aren’t really as good on the Wii then I’ll probably just revisit them on GC.
The wiimote play is much more acceptable to modern gaming tastes than the gc controls, they make traversing feel incredibly fluid. I wouldn’t go back, and it merges seamlessly into MP3.
The only downsides to the trilogy are the lack of heat haze coming off the arm cannon (victim of freely moving your aim), and the replacement of the original Prime menu (which looked amazing).
Metroid Prime 1 and 2 are also displayed in widescreen, which looks great on modern TV’s. I played Metroid Prime with Wii mote a few months back, it felt very natural having the ability to free look while moving. You can also lock onto targets if you like just like in the Cube versions, which is a must in some boss fights.
I just prefer to not have to wave my arms about to play one of my favourite game series ever. GC worked nicely for 1 and 2. Ah well. Great games either way!
I was searching for a copy of Metroid Prime Trilogy for ages and was willing to pay up to $100 for it. Looks like this cements my plans to pick up a Wii U in Feb.
I searched for ages too, and ended up paying $150 for a brand new copy.
I ended my search months ago, was not willing to part with over $100 for it, for $13 I’m glad I didn’t go for the eBay options
Yeah, me too. That $100 is now going to go towards a Wii U.
$13 is a sweet deal, heck even $26 is a sweet deal. Nintendo are really showing that they love their customer base… Something the others really need to do more often.
They love customer base? So their back-compat WiiU console is over 1.5 yrs old before they reduce 1st party games below $70 ?
Woh woh woh it’s a great deal but let’s not kid ourselves. Nintendo normally drip feeds their fans 10 year old games and then charges an exorbitant amount for them.
What’s the price after the introductory special?
Double, I think.
The soul of your first born knowing nintendos pricing strategy
Oh sweet, they’re still going the bargain route.
To put it mildly. I am not particularly a fan of Echoes but $13 for three games of such high quality is almost beyond belief, really. The first one is an absolute masterpiece and stands as a defining work. Everyone should play through it at least once. Galaxy 2 and DKCR are both great, fun games but the Prime Trilogy is video game royalty, in my opinion.
My first reaction was “Donkey Kong in the pound for pound top 3 games on the Wii? That’s insane!”
Then I went back and looked at it and you might be right…..
The Wii did NOT get many genuine classics at all. I’d have Skyward Sword in that spot, but by the time you supersede Mario Galaxy with it’s sequel there isn’t much else that could take the (good but not brilliant) Donkey Kong’s place.
I’d also doubt we’ll ever get GC games on the WiiU if its any effort at all for Nintendo.
Wind Waker is already on WiiU so Nintendo wouldn’t re-release it cheaply.
The Metroid games are all available in the Wii trilogy.
Smash and Kart have both been superseded by updated versions.
Basically Nintendo are notoriously lazy with this kind of thing and I can’t imagine they’ll bother adding GC support just so we can play F-Zero GX and Mario Sunshine.
It had plenty of gems, you just had to dig for them.
It had quite a few above average games that didn’t get much attention, but I don’t know if I’d call many of them “gems” and certainly not absolute classics.
It got a couple of Mario games that you would put up there with the best of them, a solid (by Zelda standards) Zelda title, a Metroid that’s great but not as loved as the GC original, sound iterations of Kart and Smash….
I mean if you have a look at contenders for the top-5 N64 games you’ve got OOT, Mario 64, Goldeneye, Mario Kart and Smash Bros when they were new things, Majoras Mask, Banjo Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Star Fox ect. Games that were real best-in-class kind of titles.
Something like Donkey Kong ends up in the Blast Corps, Wave Race ‘very good game’ pile in that generation.
They bloody well should. It would be criminal for some GC titles to simply fade into obscurity.
This is a company that has waited two and a half years to release Wii games on the WiiU store and is now carrying on like it’s some kind of genius announcement.
You can’t even download SNES games on the 3DS store. Seriously, that’s just a goldmine waiting to be tapped and they’re too stupid to do it.
Nintendo is comically inept when it comes to this kind of stuff.
That’s so true, which is really sad. Nintendo are just sitting on their hands leaving cash on the table. We want convenient unified access to their back catalogue but they just don’t seem to understand. They are making progress, but at such a pathetically glacial pace that it can be very frustrating being a Nintendo fan at times.
It all got exacerbated (they were already behind) with their complete lack of foresight when it came to the development of an accounts system.
You can buy a game on the PSN using your account and play it on as many machines as can run it as long as the accounts are linked, that’s awesome! I turn on my Xbone and I can see all the games I own now and everything I played on the 360.
On Nintendo machines nothing’s linked at all. There’s a drawn out and ridiculous method of transferring your Wii VC titles over to WiiU but last time I checked it removed the games from the old system and still cost money(?).
Not that it matters much because there’s sh*t all games you want on any service anyway regardless of Nintendo’s access to a MASSIVE library of awesome games.
They made a big deal about signing deals with Sega to put their old titles in their VC libraries, but when I want the original Sonic on the 3DS I can’t get the Mega Drive version, or the Master System version… it’s the f*cking broken ass Game Gear version of the Master system game, complete with horrific framerate! WHY?WHY THE F*CK WOULD YOU DO THAT!?!
Ahhhhhh! So frustrating! This is why I want Nintendo’s hardware division to just keel over and die. Take all those IPs and all those talented developers and put the software on a powerful machine with a competent online infrastructure.
They really need to work out a system similar to the PSN’s cross-buy. If I didn’t have to commit to a platform I’d buy pretty much everything on the VC.
The new Mario vs Donkey Kong was announced as having such a system this morning. You buy on one system, and they give you a download code for the other system. That’s perfect, right? Right?OK, fine, adequate. OK, fine, marginally better than nothing.
Right. Still completely backwards. Best thing about this approach that I can go halves with someone if I want it on one system, and they want it on the other.
It really is a shame that they don’t get it, too. Since buying a Vita and a PS4 (in addition to my rarely played PS3), I’ve completely fallen in love with the cross buy system. It all just makes so much sense.
I’m not a big fan of my PS4 and Vita separately but little things like cross-buy make them complement each other really well. There’s some serious extra benefits to buying digital on those platforms. I just wish Remote Play would work in the other direction.
Nintendo can only do so much as a company. They’re really trying to be very forward facing at the moment, which is why they’re investing most of their resources in new games and new IPs. The culture of the company at the moment is looking towards the future. I would suggest that’s the reason they haven’t dedicated more resources to Virtual Console offerings.
I think the big hurdle for GameCube games is the triggers. Mario Sunshine for instance would need to be totally remapped for the Wii U gamepad.
Yeah, I found it pretty annoying that Nintendo didn’t think analogue triggers where important, there’s a lot of neat gameplay you can pull off with that extra control.
I don’t think it would be too tricky to change the controls. Either have 1 button for low flow and another for high flow, or have a water meter on the touchscreen so you can change the water pressure.
The problem is how it ties to movement and aiming. I never really think of the game has having those tank style movement controls because the triggers made it really smooth, but you’d actually have to dig into the code and rework the controls to get it to work properly. Granted the payoff would be that it would use twin sticks instead of stand and shoot which would be brilliant.
That said, we do have GC controls for smash bros, it would be but a small skip to allow them to work with a mario sunshine release
BOUGHT.
I am still holding out hope that Nintendo realises the demand and release HD versions of the Mario Galaxy games in a bundle (Super Mario Galaxy All Stars!) and an HD version of Metroid Trilogy. I would pay full retail to see those games in HD. I hope these digital releases aren’t the extent of Nintendo’s plans for those titles.
TBH, Wii U games hold up ok, not great mind you but after about 40 mins to an hour with mario galaxy 2 today, the rough around the edges feel of models and textures faded into the background and I was able to ignore it. some games will be worse obviously but it isn’t too terrible
Yeah I know what you mean. I actually still regularly play Wii games and sometimes I don’t even consciously notice that they’re not in HD. Every once in a while the lack of anti-aliasing reminds me though. Also, having played a lot of these games in HD+ on Dolphin, even though I don’t need them in HD, they really do look stunning with some decent resolution behind them.
YESSSSSSSS
Is there any way to buy them other than straight from the wiiu store on the console???? I have no internet At home atm.
Do we know if Metroid Prime Trilogy is actually up-res’d to 1080p?
I’m pretty sure that all of these games will still be running at their original SD resolution of 480p. If you look at the Mario Galaxy 2 screenshots in the Wii U eshop they all look pretty pixelated.
I bought SMG2 this morning and can confirm that it’s not upscaled, it’s definitely 480p. I can also confirm that it still looks amazing. Great colours, animation and lots of stuff happening all over the screen. Just as good as it was earlier. So MPT will be the same.
My Wii U should be rocking up in the mail today or tomorrow so the timing here is fantastic.
Question on storage – I’m getting the basic model which has f/all space on it, can you just use any external HDD or is it locked to particular brands?
I use a 32GB flash drive to store all my games. Works perfectly, even with downloadable Wii-U titles.
http://kotaku.com/the-best-external-hard-drives-for-your-wii-u-1616444509
That might be helpful. Personally I just picked up a SD card to go with it. I think it would have been either 16GB or 32GB. So far I’ve had no issue with space. The games library is made up of a small number of excellent games that don’t need to be installed and there’s no need for storing media on it, so it doesn’t require a 1TB drive or anything.
Righto. Cheers guys.
Mario Galaxy 2 takes up around 1.5 gigabizzles, should be fine even on standard model, but hard drive support is pretty great regardless. If you don’t have one though, fret not as MG2 will fit for now
I hope they patch that classic controller -> wiiu gamepad thing into wii mode for disc based games.
I’m amazed they didn’t split up the Metroid Prime Trilogy and release it across 3 weeks. Just drop the games Nintendo. You’re missing out on making money here. These and classics from your entire library from the NES through to the GameCube.
Where’s the best place to buy the controllers? I downloaded it before reading I can’t use the Wii u gamepad.
Jesus… the Metroid games. Everyone get them. All of you. Right now.
Even me. I don’t even have a WiiU and I have PRime Trilogy on my shelf. I’m still going to bully me into it.
Unf, if only the games actually looked like that promo pic. Delicious.
Metriod Prime Trilogy was so hard to get not long after release. I eventually got a $50 mint second hand copy many, many years ago though.
$13 though is a 1000% must buy. If Nintendo see interest in it that may kick along the next installment. GO BUY IT NOW AND SHOW NINTENDO THE METROID LOVE!
I like how Nintendo know how to price DLC and stuff. If this was Xbox and Activision I bet the game would be a $50 re-release….