Wii U Hands on: Roll Up, Roll Up – Welcome to Nintendo Land

I was fortunate enough to attend the EB Expo that was in Sydney this year and I had the chance to try out the Wii U! The Wii U gamepad was pretty light and solid, and it felt quite comfortable in my hand. The latency was minimal and the screen was looking pretty good! Colours were vibrant and crisp and it felt like a portable gaming console on its own. But enough about that, I managed to get to play some of the games there and one of them was Nintendo Land.

Nintendo Land

Having been introduced at E3 2011 as the grand finale for Nintendo’s conference, many people did not want to believe what they just saw. For some, it was nice; but for others, it was one of the most pointless things that Nintendo had been working on. Fast forward to the present and it looks to be a very well polished game and it made sense – it’s essentially the Wii Sports for Wii. What this means is that you have a compilation of minigames made to showcase the Wii U Gamepad and boy do they do that very well. Each minigame has its own unique Nintendo theme with characters based off the Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong universe and there are many more.

Recently in one of their Nintendo Direct broadcasts, this game will be included with every Wii U premium set and even for just short minigames, some of them are quite extensive; you’ll definitely get a lot out of this game! Although it was not the final version of the game, there were five out of the twelve games playable and here they are below.

Donkey Kong’s Crash Course

Similarly following the theme from the classic NES Donkey Kong game, DK’s Crash Course is a single player minigame and looks great on both the TV screen and the gamepad. On the TV, you have the whole map shown on the screen and on the gamepad is locked to where your cart goes. In this attraction, you tilt the gamepad much like WarioWare Twisted! for Gameboy Advance. The idea of this game is to navigate through the stage without failing three times and getting the highest score possible by collecting bananas and getting the fastest time.

Donkey Kong Crash Course

This game is ideal to those who like score attack games, those who would like to get the highest score or finish it as fast as possible. You simply tilt the gamepad and your cart glides on the track, but you must keep both wheels on the track or else you crash. At some point in the course, if you go too fast or too slow, you’ll crash too. Throughout the level, you pass through checkpoints and should you crash, you can resume from that checkpoint rather than going back from the start, at least that’s forgiving. There are also obstacles at different parts of the stage which involves extra input from the gamepad, such as the shoulder buttons and the right analog stick. For example, there are platforms which are raised/lowered by holding down L/R buttons and a twirly track needs to be unwound with the right analog stick.

I played it thinking, sure it’s simple enough. Turned out I didn’t get past the fourth checkpoint – I didn’t finish it. It was rather difficult. Like, wow! The obstacles were interesting and makes great use of the gamepad and its physical controls. There was no lag between what’s happening on the gamepad and the TV screen, also the art style looks similar to Kirby’s Epic Yarn, it’s very cute!

Takamaru’s Ninja Castle

This single player game depicts you as a ninja warrior and you throw ninja stars at other ninjas. What more can I say? They’re ninjas! The more ninjas you defeat in a combo, the more points you get; and this game is all about points!

You hold the gamepad sideways and a shuriken is shown on the gamepad’s screen. To throw them at ninjas, you simply just flick it in a forward motion. The faster you flick, the further and faster the shuriken will strike. Aiming is done by tilting and moving the gamepad as if it was its own pointer, but the magic comes from the gamepad’s gyroscopic sensors which is pretty much functions like a Wii MotionPlus without the pointer.

Holding it like this was a bit awkward, with my fear of dropping the gamepad. I didn’t get far enough to comment on other mechanics but I heard if enemies were closer to you on the screen, you attack them with your katana. A very simple and yet challenging game in regards with controls, but I wish I could’ve seen more, it looked fun and challenging.

The Legend of Zelda – Battle Quest

In this multiplayer game, teamwork is involved to get through the game, so time to team up with your fellow players! Everyone is dressed as a different coloured Link with 4 players manning the Wii Remote Plus’s equipped with swords, while the player with the gamepad is manning the bow and arrow.

Everything is on-rails, but that doesn’t detract from the experience. For the archer, the player is placed in a first person view and by using the gyroscope of the gamepad and draw arrows by pulling down on any analog stick. Aiming is exactly how you aim in Ocarina of Time 3D for the 3DS and the extra feature is that you can see not only what’s in front of you, but what is around you too – something the TV screen cannot do. The archer carries a certain amount of arrows at once and once depleted, they must lower the gamepad to reload their arrows.

Basically in this game, you are venturing off as a group in a dungeon and there are enemies who will try to stop you. There are enemies that and players must hack and slash and shoot their way past them to reach the end, but there are some puzzle elements involved as well. Some puzzles include having to hit multiple switches at the same time and eliminating all the enemies in the room, even those that are very far away that only the archer can take out.

In the end, it was quite an extensive game for a minigame – we didn’t get to finish it, as we died at the boss itself. But it was fun! The gamepad controls was very responsive and the extra screen is just very nice to have.

Luigi’s Ghost Mansion

Apparently, this was the main attraction based on everyone’s opinion – and I will gladly agree to that statement too! This chaotic multiplayer game features a similar gameplay mechanic as Luigi’s Mansion, but with a multiplayer concept. You can be a part of the ghostbusters team and eliminate the ghost with your flashlight, or be the ghost and kill the players by scaring the wits out of them!

You are placed in a mansion and there is a ghost lurking in the shadows of the house. With the gamepad, you control the ghost and is only visible on the gamepad screen. Your goal is to catch the players and scare everyone to death. You can run faster by pressing the dash button, but in turn this will show your position for the other players to locate where you are.

As a player, you team up with up to three other players to try and kill the ghost, equipped with your flashlight. You control your character by holding the Wii Remote sideways and use the flashlight with the 1 button. As you walk through the corridors of the building, if your controller starts vibrating a lot, it means that the ghost is really close to you! The flashlight itself has a certain amount of charge so constantly shining it will weaken its beam and it shines a smaller range. Throughout the game, you can collect batteries to recharge your torch ready for some ghostbusting action. Should you get caught by the ghost, don’t fret just yet, as your teammate’s torches have the ability to bring you back to life, by giving you light. If your team is down to one player, a special item called the ‘super torch’ will appear on the map and will give you unlimited charge for a little while.

I was able to play as both the ghost and the player, and boy was it chaotic. Being a ghost has its merits and downfalls, but it is very enjoyable. Being able to work alone means that , but on that note, 4 against 1 is not very fair. As a player, teamwork is very crucial in defeating the ghost, letting players know that you are about to die could help where to locate the ghost; but who knows, he might be waiting in the next corridor waiting to kill you! It was great fun!

Animal Crossing: Sweet Day

This attraction is a take on the basic pastime of tag and executes it quite nicely. You are placed in the town centre of “Your town name here”, the residents of the town (controlled by up to four players using the WIi Remotes) have found out that trees grow candy and pick them off at their desire. The two guards of the town (both controlled by the gamepad) will seize the perpetrators who steal the candy off the trees.

This game get quite frantic, as a resident who wants to take the candy, you move around with the control pad and pick up candy with the 1 button to collect them. These candies go into your hat which holds all the candy you’ve gathered. The more candy you collect though, the heavier the hat will be, making you run slower and easier for the guards to catch you. This is also a team based game, as the goal is to collect 50 pieces of candy from the whole team. It’s not that simple though, some trees have buttons which the residents can stand on for a short time and will drop candy. There are some trees which need two or even three other team members to help get the candy. In the event that you are being chased by a guard and you have a load of candy, you can press the 2 button to drop as many pieces of candy for you to run away from the guard. Candy does not disappear, so you could just simply go back and get them, after you have escaped.

As for the guards, both of these characters, one equiped with a big fork and the other with a big knife, are controlled by the left and right analog sticks respectively. The camera monitoring these characters are not as you think they would be, with the typical split screen for each guard – no, they are both shown on the one screen on the gamepad. The camera pans out isometrically as far as the whole map should the two guards be on the opposite corners of the town. Although this may be difficult to keep track of where the guards are going, it most likely was the better alternative as split screen on the gamepad would be difficult to manage. Whilst chasing a resident, you can lunge at them for a quick attack for those out of reach opportunities.

This minigame proves to be fun and chaotic with everyone screaming as the guards come chasing after you and the only way to escape is to go bellemic and vomit out candy to get away from them! Well, you’re just simply tossing candy out of your hat, but I like that interpretation better.

Conclusion

Overall, Nintendo Land showed a lot of promise from its offerings so far. This game demonstrates the  potential of the Wii U Gamepad and does it quite well. It’s responsive, accurate and practical for asynchronous gaming – adding a second screen changes so much to the gameplay mechanics for not only single player, but multiplayer too.

From what I have played, there is so much packed in and be sure to get as many people playing this game – it gets crazy fun! Who knew adding a fifth person into the multiplayer aspect could change so much in the fun factor! If you’re getting a Wii U premium set, this game will not let you down; but for those who is just getting the basic set, get this game! First game on Wii U, get it! You won’t regret it.