Kaihaku

The most detailed Strategy RPG not named Fire Emblem to see release in decades. It's beautiful, with deep but accessible systems. The battle system is 'real time with pause' and most similar to Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen which allows for an impressive array of tactics, strategies, and scenarios. There's no one winning strategy. The overarching plot is fine - closer to Langrisser than Tactics Ogre - but mostly serves as a framework for the individual scenarios, where the most interesting narrative elements are hidden. The game does take itself seriously, unlike Fire Emblem Engage, which is a breath of fresh age in an age of tropes. The characters are charming and well written, with mostly good voice acting, but generally they don't match the heights of characterization seen in Vanillaware's last Strategy RPG 13 Sentinels. I'm okay with that because there are a mountain of characters here and there isn't a single "dud" among them. Music is fantastic and graphics are jawdropping - but it's a Vanillaware game, what did you expect?

The Awakening DLC, #FE, Heroes, Warriors, and now Engage all seek to milk nostalgia with the same increasing lazy approach. I love the old Fire Emblem titles but that doesn't mean I want those old characters regurgitated again and again in lazy ways. Fates was the first Fire Emblem to bore me - I enjoyed Shadow Dragon - and Engage is now the second. The engage mechanic - ripped straight from #FE - works fine as a quasi-Persona mechanic but doesn't add that much over Awakening's pair up. The only appeal of this title is the strategy but even there its subpar compared to other titles in the series. Very disappointing anniversary celebration and a lackluster follow-up to Shadows of Valencia and Three Houses.

A long time ago, my Aunt gave my family the original Legend of Zelda for the NES. It was like nothing we'd played before. There was a vast world to explore with little direction. We spent months adventuring in that world and sharing our discoveries with each other (this was long before the spoilers of the internet). Since then there have been a lot of Zelda games and I've finished most of them. They've all had excellent **** none of them came close to offering the same sense of wanderlust and exploration. Until now. Breath of the Wild is a return to the series roots with the benefit of modern technology and game **** somehow it manages to feel as revolutionary as the Legend of Zelda did back on the NES despite the prevalence of open world titles. Let me be clear. Breath of the Wild is not a perfect game. There are some performance issues, especially in this the Wii U version, and there are some weak points in the storytelling. But, despite that, it still manages to be one of the best games that I've ever played and will set a standard for decades to come. It's an instant classic that demonstrates what Nintendo can do at their best. One of the most fundamental differences between this game and other open world titles is that it's not about conquest. The vast open world isn't there for you to conquer. It's there for you to explore. Most loot is expendable. Enemies reincarnate. But with 120 shrines and 900 seeds to find, there's always something you missed another each corner...even if it's just the scenery. The inclusion of the stamina bar - which I loved in Skyward Sword - makes getting from here to there across the varied terrain a fun challenge rather than a boring march. It put the joy back in travel. It's an open world title that is full of life (many settlements, towns, wanderers, and wildlife). And, unlike most previous Zelda titles, Breath of the Wild goes back to the NES era in regards to difficulty - you'll find little handholding here. It's challenging but in a fun way. The combat reminds me of the Witcher, even fully equipped you need to prepare for most fights and approach them strategically. In general, the game ran well on the Wii U. It takes time to **** performs far better than titles like Lego City Undercover and Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze (which doesn't make any sense). Compared to Xenoblade Chronicles X, another vast open world title, it manages similarly robust technical performance. There are slowdowns in towns, during particularly complicated fights, and some weather (lighting storms in certain locations) but none of this distracted from the game. I haven't played the Switch version but I've read that the Wii U version has one plus - the shrines load slightly faster, good for you speedrunners out there. My only real gripe is that the Wii U specific functionality was cut from the game. After Windwaker HD and Twilight Princess HD, it took some time to get use to no inventory management or minimap on the gamepad. The game was clearly built with a second screen in mind only to have it removed late in development. A shame to limit Wii U version in such a way. In any case, I finally finished the main quest and am enjoying exploring Hyrule. There are still so many secrets, fun locations, and sidequests to discover. I'm looking forward to the DLC and seeing the games that this inspires down the road. This is the Zelda game that I've been wanting since the NES era and I hope that we'll see more in this vein now.

I was very excited for this title and bought it immediately, when after months of delays it, finally released. It's been a complete disappointment. The graphics and music are decent, not really what I play strategy titles for, but the gameplay is shallow, slow paced, and awkward. With a touchscreen built into the main controller the Wii U screams for strategy games... But there haven't been many released and this one is a dud that's definitely not worth the price of admission.

Disclaimer: I actually finished this game. I've been gaming since the 80s and have a high tolerance when it comes to this sort of thing, plus there wasn't much else out on the Wii U at the time. Sonic Lost World could have been great. It has lots of potential but there are too many bugs, too few interesting levels, and too many dissident elements. Bugs: This would have been a far better game if Sega had put in another three to six months of polishing. There's a lot of potential in many of the levels that's ruined by buggy implementation. It's not fun to die over and over again because of a bug in the level design. An auto-run level should not kill the player six times out of time when they're pushing the exact same inputs simply because a bumper wasn't properly placed. One of the more interesting boss fights, which involved climbing up on the boss, was ruined because **** implementation were running up the bosses' back only worked 20% of the time. Too Few Interesting Levels: There are some very good levels buried in Sonic Lost World but there's a lot of levels that could have been good but which are just boring, buggy messes. It's clear that the development team could do better so the question is why didn't they? Probably a rushed release to meet a deadline. Too bad, this could have been a much better game with a bit more effort. Also, I usually love the boss fights in Sonic titles but the vast majority in this game are unclear, random messes that feel like something to endure rather than a challenge to overcome. There are expectations, this game has a few really fun boss fights, but again that only proves that the development could have done better on the others. Dissident elements: It say something that the cut scenes were my favorite part of this game. The dialogue between Sonic and Eggman is often hilarious, the Deadly Six are far less entertaining...both in cut scenes and in the actual game. I found their dialogue to be trope, violent, boring, and out of tone with Sonic. When it became clear that Sonic was killing them off one by one - this is confirmed by dialogue - I began to wonder what Sega had been thinking. I also often found myself wondering why giant watermelons and other clearly Mario inspired elements were showing up so overtly in a Sonic title.

This is an impressive first effort from a one person strong indie studio that makes solid use of the Wii U's various controls and delivers a solid Mario 64/Sunshine experience. There are some gravity sections but it's a mistake to think this takes after Galaxy, there's a lot more focus on exploration. The in-game assets are decent but forgettable. The music doesn't annoy, which is a major plus, but does little to add to the experience. The world design is cluttered but with clear separations between points of interest. There's a lot of humor in the game, especially in notes scattered across the world, and the main character is a great female lead. Despite being the namesake of the game, the freeze mechanic doesn't come into play too often and is far from overbearing. Basically, go in with reasonable expectations and you'll find a fun but imperfect game that delivers on the Wii U experience, offers some new elements in an nostalgic format, and a kind of goofy charm that often doesn't make it into games anymore. All in all, I found it more enjoyable / less buggy than Sonic Lost World which was also a Wii U/PC exclusive in the genre.

In my opinion, Shovel Knight sets the bar both for a retro title and for a kickstarter backed title. It's clearly inspired by old school classics but instead of being derivative with a twist like so many others it uses them as a base to fly from, establishing a new experience that's just as evocative as those retro titles were to me when I was young. It's a fantastic title with tons of charm that showcases the potential of kickstarter and it's only getting better as the stretch goals are rolled out.

I did not want another side scrolling platformer for the Wii U but it was hard to hold onto that complaint when Retro delivered one of the best entries in the genre of all time. I've been gaming since the 80s and there's very little that can compare to the polish, challenge, and fun of Tropical Freeze. It's one of the greats with incredible level design that makes each stage feel like a character in and of itself, extreme difficulty that rarely feels cheap, an amazing soundtrack that develops with the level, and an experience that's equally fun in co-op or single player. There are only a few downsides that hold this back - I found a couple of the bosses to be unbalanced (especially the blow fish) and the loading times make it feel like the system is struggling with the weight of this title.

It's very rare for a game to surprise as much as Splatoon did. I couldn't understand what all the hype was about from watching videos and almost didn't pick it **** I owe a Wii U and there wasn't much else being released at the time. I've never regretted it, this is one of the best games that I've ever played and one of the few that is worthy of being called revolutionary. It's very different from the other shooters I like (Unreal Tournament, Halo, Timesplitters) but that's not a negative. This made competitive team play fun for me again and added in a whole new layer of strategy that other shooters will be scrambling to mimic. Splatoon is not perfect but it delivers on so many levels that it might as well be.

This is a great fighting game with a lot of depth. There's a ton of content here and the Wii U exclusives are definitive, in my opinion. I'd have rated it higher except that it has surprisingly long loading times which are very jarring and make the otherwise smooth title feel glaring under-optimized. This is a great companion to Super Smash Brothers and offers a very different take on the genre, though it's exclusive Mushroom Battle can offer a surprisingly similar experience and there's a fun cast of characters to be found here as well.