Now that Platinum Games Wonderful 101 has had a very successful kickstarter to port the game to the Nintendo Switch, it’s got us here at The Outerhaven thinking about other games from the ill-begotten Wii U era that could get either life or new life on Nintendo’s latest successful console. So here’s a list that I’m sure a million other sites are doing at the moment, but you came here to see ours because we know what we’re doing.
Mario Party games are always fun to enjoy with friends. Even today I spend many weekends with my housemates and friends playing through Mario Party 1 to 8 via the Nintendo Wii console, along with Mario Kart. But since Mario Kart 8 got a remix for the Nintendo Switch, that leaves the other multiplayer game that I love to play to get a Nintendo Switch port. Not to mention that the version of Mario Party that we got for Nintendo Switch somehow fells like you’re getting a lot less with a very small amount of boards available to play means I’m wanting a bit more to play with in my Mario Party games, so bringing Mario Party 10 from the Nintendo Wii U to the Nintendo Switch would be a great idea.
9. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD
Ok, ok, I know I would be copping a lot of flack if I didn’t include at least one of the Zelda games on this list. I think it’s demanded by the Nintendo law in Japan or something. Personally I’m not a huge Zelda fan, but I understand the importance of making sure that every single Nintendo console has some soft of Legend of Zelda game on it. In this case we would have the first third generation port of a Zelda game since Twilight Princess was originally on the Nintendo Wii, then ported onto the Nintendo Wii U. So if we go to the Nintendo Switch then it would be the third time that this Zelda game has been ported. Easy money Nintendo.
8. The Legend of Zelda:The Wind Waker HD
Yep, I’m adding the other Legend of Zelda game from the Nintendo Wii U era into this list. I think that originally this was on the Nintendo 3DS (I’m sure some fanboy in the comments will correct me) and then ported to the Nintendo Wii U, which means that there was no original Legend of Zelda game for the Nintendo Wii U at all…. Interesting. Well maybe they can port this one more time just for some quick cash or something while we wait for a Breath of the Wild 2 or something like that. Maybe do like they did on the Nintendo Wii and release them both as a “Master Collection” like they did with Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask on the Nintendo Wii way back when.
Xenoblade Chronicles X was THE RPG to play on the Nintendo Wii U since Fire Emblem was all over the Nintendo 3Ds at the time. So why not give the game a port onto the Nintendo Switch and find out if it can topple Fire Emblem from the top RPG spot? Xenoblade Chronicles X gave us a huge world to explore and some amazing fights to do while giving us a story that would stand out from the typical RPG conventions. One of the highest rated games during the Nintendo Wii U era, it seems that with the limited reach of the Nintendo Wii U itself, a lot of people didn’t get a chance to play this game at all.
6. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker was a very weird and interesting puzzle game that deserves more game time than it got. Not only is Toad a very cute character that actually found his way into Super Mario Oddessy, but the game design of turning and changing the landscape to undercover the answers to the puzzles is a very unique and fun gameplay mechanic (I know that Phil Fish did it with Fez, but given the way he punked himself out of the business, I’m going to give more credit to Nintendo here).
… Wait… What’s that? This is already on Switch? …. Mother f***er! Well it’s too late, I’m still including it.
Author Note: Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is out on Switch and Nintendo 3DS with more levels and all that stuff. Stupid me didn’t do a double check as I think this was an early release game that is currently out of print, leading to me not knowing about there being a Nintendo Switch version available.
If there is one thing as good as Mario games on a console, it’s Yoshi games. Everyone loves that little green thing and his adventures… Except the first one where we were driven insane by the sounds of baby Mario screaming because you got his by something in the original Yoshi’s Island… But I digress. The big attraction for Yoshi’s Woolly World is in its graphical style and how the player can use that style to do all sorts of weird things like creating objects, pulling the scene together to skip a gap and all other weird and amazing ideas that wouldn’t be topped till Yoshi’s Crafted World, which did the exact same thing with cardboard. However I think that the wool version is more impressive in both graphics and gameplay. Let’s get this one a port so more people get a chance to play it.
Look, I know CAPCOM has a hit with Monster Hunter World on every platform except Switch, but given that this series really works well with handheld consoles it’s a surprise that it never appears on the Nintendo Switch. So instead let’s use the opportunity to bring back one of the most popular versions of the Monster Hunter games that brought some great cross-play between the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3DS consoles for the first time. Maybe even work something where you can use the Nintendo 3DS version with the Nintendo Switch version since the Wii U version is going offline (or might be already, I’m not too sure). But the chances of this one getting a port is next to impossible since CAPCOM like only using the current game with all it’s DLC and stuff at the moment.
Paper Mario is one of those series that works well because it is very simple to play and all the cute graphics and stuff appeal to family and kids all over the place. So let’s get this one onto the Nintendo Switch. However the biggest problem with this game is that you do a lot of custom placement of stickers in the game in order to progress and other mechanics; given how badly that worked with Super Mario Maker 2, it might be just as annoying to work that mechanic into a Switch version. But still it’s Paper Mario, and the appeal of the series outweighs the fiddly back end stuff; let the developers work that out.
If there is one thing that sells Nintendo products it’s nostalgia. From Super Mario Oddessy having a great musical tribute to the series origin, to just releasing the same Mario collection over and over again through virtual consoles, people will eat that shit up. So when Nintendo released a NES challenge collection remixing things enough to make classic games new again, people bought it like crazy. It was originally released on the Wii U before being ported over the to Nintendo 3DS and sold well on both versions, so why not make either another version or re-release this version onto the Nintendo Switch? Nostalgia sells in great amounts and when you do something new with the classics, it makes that appeal a whole lot stronger.
Of course the top game I would love to see ported to the Switch is a Super Mario game. Even though the port of New Super Mario Bros Wii U to Nintendo Switch wasn’t as great as it should have been, I still want to see the Super Mario 3D World game get a chance to do something too. I had the original game, Super Mario 3D Land, on Nintendo 3Ds back in the day and loved the hell out of it, so to get a chance to play the bigger and better version from the Wii U era, complete with the new cat transformation, would be awesome to do. Not to mention I want more games with decent multiplayer and Super Mario 3D World had that in spades… Unlike New Super Mario Bros Wii U, which lasted a whole 10 minutes of trying to play. But anyway, Super Mario 3D World… Port it now Nintendo and I will throw you money!