Topic: Buying a Wii U to play Zelda

So, the day is almost here. The Switch and Zelda launching together is huge deal for gaming in general, and excitement is rising. Impressions for the Switch are universally great, and Zelda looks stunning. But excitement for many of us is somewhat hampered by anxiety when it comes to whether or not we will be able to get a Switch at launch. I think it's safe to assume even many who visit this site don't own a Wii U, and we all remember the launch of the Wii, or even the NES Mini.

So the question is for non Wii U owners. Are you planning on buying a Wii U on March 3rd if you cannot successfully secure a Switch? Has the thought at least crossed your mind? Or, will you hold out until you can play the definitive version of Breath of the Wild? Personally I have at least entertained the idea, but I have the Switch version of BOTW pre-ordered and paid in full at Gamestop, and I really want to play the most beautiful version. I'm very interested to hear the responses.

@McGruber
Nope. I have my Wii U, and I won't get a Switch until end of March/beggining of April (if I manage to find one), but I prefer to wait. The idea of higher res, portable Zelda is too attractive to pass.

I love XCX, but one of my problems is that I don't have time except on weekends to plop down in front of my TV. The Switch fixes that, so it will give me the best Zelda experience.

I won't deny that waiting will be a pain though. Most likely, I'll avoid gaming websites like the plague between March 3rd and getting my own console to avoid spoilers - the only thing I'll see will be the review.

I doubt many people on this forum don't have a Wii U.

It's definitely worth getting one though. You can find them cheap if you look.

Not only for Zelda, but also all of the other exclusives that probably wont get ported. And then for the entire Wii library, which we might not see on the Switch at all, unless they re-release some games as HD ports. It's not clear if the Switch would be powerful enough to emulate them though.

Yeah I always intended to get a White Wii U before they get crazy expensive. I had a black U at launch but got rid of it a year later.

If anyone is interested enough in this to buy a Wii U for, don't forget about Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD. Both are excellent remasters and a worthy addition to any Zelda fan's collection.

I personally still think the Wii U is a pretty good buy full stop if you don't want to plonk down a lot of money for the newest version, and actually has some advantages.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti Switch, I'm still shelling out for it on launch day, but, with a Wii U purchase, for about £300 (all brand new), you can easily get the Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon bundle, and Zelda, and even a Pro Controller.

Add free online to that, and for £300 you got a brand new console, 3 top games, two controllers and a catalogue of amazing Wii U games library to catch up on, as well as an enormous backwards compatible Wii catalogue that you can play if you missed out the first time around.

Personally, I wouldn't think anyone is daft to pick a Wii U over a Switch right now.

Perhaps in a years time, but not right now.

Just my opinion anyway. I'm still hyped for the Switch. I've never wanted a console as much since the N64.

@McGruber I think with all the other great games it has to offer, buying a Wii U right now to play BotW isn't a bad idea at all. Anyone who doesn't already have a Wii U can definitely have a great time with it and get the Switch later at a more reasonable price.
That's probably what I will do. I pre-ordered a Switch and it will arrive tomorrow, but I'll probably return it and buy a cheaper one when Splatoon 2 and ARMS are released. I'm happy with playing BotW on my Wii U until then. The differences between both versions supposedly aren't that big, so I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. Of course, I could still buy a Switch copy of the game later on when it gets a bit cheaper too.

@GoneFishin Actually, I think even more than that, right now the Wii U is the only console where you can play all the LoZ games ever created (except for the 3DS titles, of course).
I've recently bought all the remaining titles during the promotion where all Zelda games were 30% off, so now I can easily jump back into OoT, TP or any other Zelda game, for example. Just a few days ago I finally started playing Majora's Mask, the only non-DS 3D Zelda game I haven't beaten yet, and I really enjoyed it so far!

Nintendo are promoting the Switch as the one device that unifies all the work Nintendo has done in the past - but I'd say it's rather the Wii U that collects everything from the Nintendo back catalogue. Because it supports Wii U and Wii games, it has remasters of some GC games and it offers N64, SNES, NES, GB and DS via VC too. So right now you can have the most complete Nintendo collection only on Wii U.

Ok ya'll I appreciate the Wii U love, but this thread wasn't about that lol. Maybe I should have explicitly excluded Wii U owners. I have already owned a Wii U, and while I agree it has some great games, there's a reason I don't have one any more. The point of the thread was to see if anyone who did not already own a Wii U would buy one once the Switch sold out everywhere (it has). Anyway, I was one of only 3 people who got to my Chicago Walmart at 11:55pm on Thursday, and got my Switch and Zelda that night. I hope everyone get's to play Zelda soon! As far as the Switch goes, I kind of wish I bought a White Wii U instead. It's great, but theres nothing to do other than play Zelda and a Snipperclips demo.

Since the breath of the wild thread "switched" forums I'll post here for Wii U specific topics.

I am playing off disc and USB. A couple of times, in the middle of a furious battle, my framerate has dipped so bad it's like the game is freezing. Is this happening at all to other people?

Wondering if its worth the hassle to move stuff around and have breath download to internal memory.

@blaisedinsd I was worried about that with having the install on my USB, so I made sure I had enough room on my system so that it installed there. Aside from the fact that the download seemed faster than to my USB, I haven't noticed any major slow down problems like you say.

@blaisedinsd I'm playing off disc and internal memory and I've run into the same thing. What you describe happens regardless of storage position. When there's too much going on on screen (example, you're fighting multiple big enemies in the wild) the game tends to have those minor freezes, or clicks. It doesn't happen very often but when it does, it's really noticeable.

@spizzamarozzi Thanks for the feedback. Its'happened twice to me but it was pretty annoying, both times in battle in the overworld. Gives me minor switch envy as it runs a bit better by all reports.

Three of my co workers bought a wii u after I started talking about BOTW.

Moblins, those bigger trolls with the long snout.
These are the enemies where the game seems to be freezing for a second when you smash them.
I'm playing the Switch cartridge version, and I'm glad to see that the Wii U disc version has the same issue.

However, it's just that enemy, anything else is smooth apart from that one grass field that drops a bit in fps.

It's a very weird and clunky framedrop. No one has ever seen such an incredible "framerate freeze" in a Nintendo game during gameplay before and one may wonder what causes it. My guess is it's something to do with the physics of the weapon impacting with the ragdoll physics of the Moblin.

This appears mostly on Death Mountain (Eldin) when there are multiple Moblins at once, and only when you're hitting them with a weapon.