I have a spare working Wii (homebrew, of course) that i‘m gifting to my little cousins as a combined christmas present.
He is a 8 year old boy, loves Sonic, Mario and Marvel stuff. She is a 4 year old girl, she likes marvel stuff and also Mario.
Aside from the Mario sports games (these are a must, acording to their parents), any suggestions?
They played video games before but never owned one.
Games shouldn’t require reading.
Kirby's Epic Yarn!! The best Wii game straight up. My GOAT
@“marxseny”#p145042 very curious experiment to give a console of this age to young people as their first game system! I guess you'll start with all the Marios and Sonics.
I'd also add:
-samba de amigo
Boom Blox and Link's Crossbow Training come to mind.
@“exodus”#p145047 My first console was passed down to me this way!
It was an old Master System 3. Not quite the same experience, but i loved it regardless.
It came with:
Probably another one but i can't remember. I played the heck out of it, until my parents gave me a N64 for my bday a few years later
I'm curious to their reaction because the wii is so gimmicky.
Add that Wario Ware and Rythm Heaven in there!
Also Wii Party and Wii Play are good for kids imo
@“穴”#p145055 God i loved Smooth Moves so much. RH was GREAT
I‘m gonna go the other direction and suggest you get them games they’d be unlikely to encounter otherwise. As for what those games might be (and assuming you‘re fine with handing them a hard drive full of homebrew and various games you’ve already installed to it)…Saint? Walk It Out?
OK, so my plan to expose them to interesting games early is quickly hitting a wall.
Kids tend to like weirder stuff that you wouldn‘t expect, so it’s worth putting some weird stuff in there. opoona? spray? graffiti kingdom? Endless Ocean? The other thing is, if they are going to have this console for a long time you might want to put some more aspirational games in there, like the big RPGs and whatnot.
Fragile Dreams
@“connrrr”#p145064 I would've recommended this if not for the reading requirement.
@“Video Game King”#p145068 in the hopes they grow up playing the thing into their teens.
@“sdate”#p145071 The Wii was and is totally cool, but it also had a lot of uncool garbage software that buried the awesome stuff.
If it were me I'd partially-ignore the “no reading” requirement because an 8 year old is gonna be reading up a storm if they have the console and actually play it for a year
If it‘s got homebrew don’t rule out some of the VIrtual Console games - some are available to play with just a Wii remote, a bit easier than some of the titles released specifically for the machine, and as the file size is tiny they can have a huge library of games and feel like they have loads of different choices on what to play!
Unsure without all the context of course but if I were doing this I would try to limit the gift to just a few games to start, like two or three. I feel like loading it up with every game you can think of could be overwhelming and discourage deeper engagement (am I projecting my tendency toward option paralysis on the youth?)
I'd go for some of these:
get 'em a GameCube controller or two:
i remember enjoying sonic and the secret rings way back when, though i understand that it and its sequel are not thought of quite so fondly these days. still, might be nice for a sonic fan.
i never played _lostwinds_ but that seems like a pretty age-appropriate and interesting game as well.
and maybe _punch-out!!_ could be cool. or one of the rabbids games, or even _rayman origins_.
could also load up the _metroid primes_ as a down-the-road style of game. or even a now style of game; when i was in elementary school, one of my friends (who was 9 at the time) was really into the first one, i remember that he made a crayon drawing of a metroid that we featured on the school news. shout out wes, hope you're doing alright these days, you had all the best video games.
Another one of the reasons a hacked Wii was so popular as an emulation box is the Wii outputs 240p natively.
Mario Kart Wii
Sonic Sega All Stars Racing
I should add the disclaimer that the kids do read, but not in english lol. There‘s a few fan translations for wii and older games (i’m installing emulators too) and those ones are going. I also will be curating the games as they get older so maybe in the future they can play games in english!
That's how i started learning english btw. Freaking 007 goldeneye, Ocarina of Time and Pokemon Blue