I know, I know, I’m a late adopter, but we *just *got one. So what’s good? I like the sound of the Legend of Zelda games, but I’m completely unfamiliar with them so after a squillion years and umpteen versions, I wouldn’t know where to start. Are there any other classic “must-haves”, especially for seven year-old? I understand that Nintendo as a whole have a raft of very family-friendly games.
Each major Zelda game is basically stand-alone, so just just jump right into Skyward Sword (which is great, BTW, but possibly a bit hard for a 7yo, depending on reading level and puzzle-solving ability).
The Lego games are also great - Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, all series were lots of fun. There’s also Batman and Harry Potter but I don’t have those. Gameplay is simple, you never really die and you get to smash everything!
Wii Games and Wii Sports Resort are great family fun.
I’m considering getting into Zelda myself - sounds like fun. Would Skyward Sword still be a good place for a complete newbie to start? I feel I’d be missing out on so many references and experiences if i didn’t start earlier…
The lego games can be fun, but they can also be very frustrating. Star Wars and Indiana Jones didn’t have split screen, so if you have two people playing, one can drag the other into a pit of doom. Have fun when you get into an infinite loop of that. I found Pirates of the Caribbean buggy - I had to restart a few levels several times before they could be finished because a trigger didn’t fire. Batman was fun, but Batman 2 was a confusing mess.
The games are cute, and can be a lot of fun, but they can also be extremely frustrating.
EDIT: I’d also recommend against Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. You’d think “I get to control a lightsaber with a wiimote!” would be awesome but the gameplay is very repetitive and the saber moves end up being “flail around like you’re having a seizure”.
For actual recommendation, I found Super Smash Brothers Brawl pretty much awesome. Super Paper Mario appealed to me but not my wife, you have to like platformers.
Since I don’t know what kind of games you would like to play other than Zelda (order doesn’t matter) my recommendations will be based on multi-player. The games that I play with my soon to be 6 year old son include New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Party 9, Mario Kart Wii, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and of course the Lego series of games. I played and liked Phineas & Ferb Across the 2nd Dimension on the PS3 but I don’t know how it plays on the Wii.
The series is 25 years old, sure there are shout outs to the older games, but not recognizing those isn’t going to hurt your enjoyment of this game.
Skyward Sword is fun, but way slow in the beginning. I’d go for it and if you like it, a lot of older Zelda games are available on the virtual console store on the Wii, not the Wii U, menu.
My friends and I play a lot of Lego Harry Potter, Rabbids Land, Nintendo Land and Super Mario Bros. That last one is especially nice because the least gamer-y player can do boost mode on the gamepad and not worry so much about dying.
OMG, how did I forget Mario Kart! I’m terrible at that game but it is quite fun to have an actual steering wheel to play with (my wife informs me that I would play better if I used the gamecube controller. I explained that was not the point).
Everyone I know enjoys Boom Blox.
I personally thought Okami was amazing, but the Wii version isn’t really my favorite.
Oh, yeah, Boom Blox is one of those great games that seems to reach across age gaps and also revealed to me that my mom is the biggest troll that ever trolled because she likes nothing more than to grab a block at the bottom and swing violently upward when we’re trying to get a gold ranking on a level.
Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are phenomenal. Mario Kart Wii too.
Zelda Skyward Sword, maybe I have not played it enough, but I found it a huge chore and not much fun. Go to the Virtual Console and download The Ocarina of Time (N64 game) for $10. My 8-year old LOVES it and has beaten the entire game.
Speaking of which, but am I crazy or are the A and B buttons switched on the classic controller compared to the original N64 controller?
I love Skylanders, but the characters can be expensive if you collect them all.
I wouldn’t recommend Skyward Sword as a starting point. The controls are just awful. I absolutely loved Twilight Princess, though.
Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 were such good fun. Also Geometry Wars Galaxies. Super Smash Bros Brawl. New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
Punch-Out! was a seriously addictive little boxing game.
I found the Tiger Woods games to be excellent, and I don’t even like golf.
Oh! I also like the Mario Party 8 better than 9 but both are good. As others mentioned, Kirby is fun.
World of Goo. Smart, fun, and old enough now to be dirt cheap. Joe Bob 'luc says: Check it out!
They’re the same as the N64 left/right, but swapped top/bottom. That said, the N64 is the odd-man-out here, the classic controller layout is almost identical to the SNES controller (except for the sticks and extra shoulder buttons, obviously).
Ignoring the Gamecube controller of course, that controller was awesome, but while more sane than the N64 one it was still very odd-man-out as far as controller layouts go.
The X/Y buttons are swapped from the XBox 360, however, which can cause some muscle memory problems. (And X on the Playstation is on the bottom, that X is such a drifter).
Skyward Sword is my favorite, especially gameplay-wise. But I realize that I’m the odd man out here. It had one glaring problem, and that was the enemy movement prediction which was a bit too instantaneous and omniscient, but aside from the enemies that anticipate your moves they’re perfect. Eventually you learn how to game the predictive blocking anyway.
Zelda is an intricate web of references to every other game. Each game works perfectly well standalone, but tend to shout out to other games in the series a lot. I think Skyward Sword was probably the “worst” as far as fan-porn goes, but it’s still definitely enjoyable to a newbie.
While 8 is considered pretty bad as far as Mario Party games go, I still enjoy it. But for the love of god, stay away from 9. While Mario Party has always fundamentally been an incredibly complicated random number generator that gives you the delusion that your actions actually matter, 9 adds so much capricious, random chance that it’s not even enjoyable to me.
Also, most people didn’t like TP. Oh… wait, let me consult my chat…
Another vote for Twilight Princess. I didn’t mind the SS controls once I got used to them; TP is just a much more satisfying game, combat and atmosphere in particular. It was worth the purchase price just to see my wife’s face whe she noticed I named the horse after her.