Best First-Party Wii Games

10. Wii Sports (Wii)

You played it, your mum played it, your granddad played it; more to the point, you all enjoyed it. Drawing people in with a gimmick is relatively easy, but Wii Sports managed to genuinely entertain entire families and get them playing video games together for an extended period of time — perhaps for the first time ever. This pack-in brought huge numbers of people together in silly Mii form and showcased the potential of motion controls to gamers from all generations. It's quite simply one of the most important video games ever made, and the most killer of apps.

9. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

Showcasing the sort of swordplay we'd hoped Twilight Princess would contain, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was a beautiful entry in the series which dared to try some new ideas, something the franchise desperately needed at the time. It arguably didn't get everything right — and we're still confused as to why Nintendo ditched the beautifully accurate IR pointer in favour of a gyro alternative which required constant re-centering (especially when everyone already had the IR sensor hooked up anyway!) — but we found the MotionPlus swordplay itself excellent.

As the very first game in the Zelda timeline, it's pretty much required reading for series fans, and while it has its naysayers, we look back on our time with Skyward Sword very fondly.

8. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Wii)

A co-development between Intelligent Systems and Nintendo SPD, Radiant Dawn is a direct sequel to Path of Radiance and could even accept save data brought over from its predecessor which boosted character stats. It was well worth doing, too, as Radiant Dawn was noted for its high difficulty and any advantage was welcome. This Wii entry brought back dark magic into the fold and increased the scope and number of characters in comparison to Path of Radiance, but wasn't the sales success Nintendo had hoped.

Despite being proclaimed as absolute pinnacles of the series, with many fans citing one of these two as their franchise favourites, the GameCube and Wii entries represented a low point sales-wise, which unfortunately signalled a retreat back to portable hardware only. Indeed, it would be 12 years until the series would grace a television screen once again.

7. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)

Following the online exploits of Mario Kart DS, it was almost a given that Mario Kart Wii would follow suit and include the ability to play against the world — thankfully, despite the console's rather anaemic online capabilities, the experience was nothing short of stunning.

From the outside, the Wii entry might have sacrificed some of the kart racing series' personality, but the online multiplayer with support for up to twelve players, optional motion controls (who could forget that plastic wheel accessory?), and additional vehicles and characters helped make it one of the most accessible entries in the series. Successful, too. It sold a staggering 37.14 million copies.

6. New Play Control! Pikmin 2 (Wii)

Some might say this is the finest version of the finest Pikmin game, offering the best of all worlds with Wii Remote pointer functionality and a surprisingly good multiplayer component, too. The sequel might make the fruit look tastier in gorgeous HD, but Pikmin 2 is still the gold standard of the series in our book, whether you play on GameCube, with some New Play Control! on Wii, or on Switch.

5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

The third entry in the scrap 'em up series, Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the first to introduce Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake, and included the lauded Subspace Emissary mode.

Picking up the baton from the celebrated GameCube entry, Brawl pushed the series in an all-encompassing direction as far as content was concerned, and set the precedent for the 'more is more' approach to stages, fighters, music, and more that kept Masahiro Sakurai occupied eight-days-a-week for many years after.

4. Wii Sports Resort (Wii)

Showcasing the new MotionPlus accessory (eventually built into the Wii Remote Plus), Wii Sports Resort offered the kind of motion-tracking fidelity many of us had imagined the Wii would offer out of the gate, with highlights including fencing and throwing a frisbee for an adorable pooch.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)

Ground-breaking as it was in the '90s, the 3D Zelda formula was starting to look a little tired by the mid-2000s, so while Twilight Princess is a very fine game, it certainly lacked the impact of its predecessors. The additional 'waggle' implemented in the Wii version didn't live up to the ideas of 1:1 swordplay we'd imagined, either. Did the entire world really need mirroring just to make Link right-handed?

Still, at the time this was the only way to play the game in 16:9 and it made for a satisfyingly meaty launch title in North America. Not one for the purists, perhaps — you'll want to track down an expensive copy of the GameCube version for the left-handed, canonical geography of Hyrule (or just play Twilight Princess HD on Wii U).

2. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)

With Super Mario Galaxy 2 Nintendo gave us that rarest of treats — a direct sequel to one of its finest games. While anyone who played and fell in love with Super Mario Galaxy would have been overjoyed to hear there was more on the way, the expectations couldn't have been higher. Somehow, Galaxy 2 expanded on the first game's inventiveness, turning up the colour dial to eleventy-stupid. This was EAD Tokyo tearing up the text and pasting it back together in fascinating, surprising ways, flexing its beefed-up and confidently creative muscles with a huge variety of environments and obstacles, plus Yoshi and a host of new power-ups. It's an absolutely brilliant time. It may be missing from Switch's 3D All-Stars collection, but this game is truly worth hunting down a Wii for if you missed it.

To argue over which Galaxy is better is pointless, really — they're both wonderful and utterly essential, so if you never got around to playing the sequel, carve out some time as soon as possible.

1. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Where Sunshine faltered, Super Mario Galaxy truly did shine. Taking Mario into space gave Nintendo the opportunity to play with gravity and give him a whole new (final) frontier of planetoid playgrounds to blast between, setting the stage for endlessly creative snippets of platforming perfection.

All that aside, there's also Rosalina and the Lumas' story to enjoy if you go looking for it; an affecting and underrated aspect of an utterly sublime game. It's available to play on Switch, and you really should — Super Mario Galaxy is an infectiously fun trip through the cosmos which begged the question: Where could the plumber possibly go next?