“Nintendo Land” is little more than a glorified tech demo.
Its main purpose seems to be to help new Wii U owners get accustomed to the new hardware, but once someone has done that, it’s unlikely they’ll be spending much time with “Nintendo Land.”
It consists of 12 mini-games. Six are single player only, three can be played by up to five players and three are multiplayer only.
Here’s a brief breakdown of each one:
Balloon Trip Breeze: The player moves a character around on a horizontally scrolling screen trying to avoid obstacles. It is fun in small spurts, but gets dull quickly.
Captain Falcon’s Twister Race: A simplistic racing game where the player must get to the finish line before time runs out. It plays competently, and feels like one of the more thought-out games. It is probably the second or third best game in the collection.
Donkey Kong’s Crash Course: In this single-player game, you tilt the controller left and right to move around and collect items while trying to reach the exit. The game’s difficulty comes solely from its controls, which are overly sensitive, making it incredibly easy to die in the game. I found my frustration mounting quickly after only a few minutes of play.
Octopus Dance: Octopus Dance is a rhythm game where you must follow the commands displayed by the computer. It’s basically the same thing as the old “Space Channel Five” game by Sega or Simon Says. It is also very distracting visually.
Takamaru’s Ninja Castle: The player uses the touch screen on the game pad to throw ninja stars at targets and occasionally deflect objects coming towards them in what is basically a shooting gallery game. It’s another one of the more thought-out games included in “Nintendo Land,” but the controls were uncomfortable and I found my hands getting tired and cramping quickly.
Yoshi’s Fruit Cart: In Yoshi’s Fruit Cart you avoid obstacles and collect pieces of fruit seen on the TV by drawing a line on the game pad’s touch screen. The fruit is not seen on the game pad, which provides the game with its challenge. The action is then viewed on the TV. If you screw up on a level and miss something, you cannot immediately try to redo the level. The game did not have much replay value and mainly seems to be an exercise to get you used to using the stylus.
Metroid Blast: In Metroid Blast, players move around an arena shooting at things. The game could have been fun, but you can only move around by tilting the game pad, which controls very awkwardly. I spent most of my time with the game clumsily trying to navigate my surroundings, and if a game’s difficulty is derived from its controls and not the actual game, then it just isn’t worth playing.
Pikmin Adventure: This is one of the better games, and it has a multi-player option. The game involves moving around a small map and throwing small creatures to collect items and kill monsters while navigating towards the exit.
The Legend of Zelda — Battle Quest: Up to five players can play this game, with one using the Wii U’s game pad to fire arrows at enemies while up to four other players swing Wii remotes like swords. The game’s biggest problem is that the players have no control over their own movement, turning the game into little more than a waggle-fest for the remote players and a scribble-fest for the game pad user.
Mario Chase: Mario Chase is basically a game of tag. It requires at least two players. One player controls Mario while the others chase after him. Mario must be caught within two minutes time or the game ends. I felt it was far too difficult to actually catch Mario unless you have several people chasing after him.
Luigi’s Ghost Mansion: Another multi-player only game, and it’s another version of tag basically. One person plays a ghost that must tag the other players three times without getting hit by their flashlights. The ghost player uses the game pad and can only be seen by the other players using the TV on certain occasions, but those occasions happen far too often and the game feels decidedly weighted against the ghost player.
Animal Crossing Sweet Days: Is a multi-player only game and probably the one I hated the most. In it, at least one player tries to collect objects and get them into a goal while being chased by other people who try to tag him (sound familiar yet?) What makes it so irritating is that the person being chased is slower than the people chasing him, and when playing with only two people, there are more chasers than chasees. If you don’t like unfair, frustrating exercises in futility then skip this turd.
Half-baked concepts and sloppily implemented ideas litter “Nintendo Land.” Many of the games included in the collection could have been so much better if only the designers had taken a little more time with them.
If you bought the deluxe model of the Wii U, then this came packed in with your system. If you bought the basic Wii U model, then definitely skip this one.
