Winding back the clock to Mega Man's NES roots with a potent throwback, Inti Creates and Capcom tapped into our nostalgia beautifully with Mega Man 9 , returning the bombardier bleu to his original 8-bit stylings in the first numbered entry in the original series for 12 years.
Simply making it look authentic wouldn't have been enough, though. Fortunately, Inti Creates crafted a tight little run-and-gun platformer worthy of bearing that hallowed digit.
Before the sublime Rayman Legends , there was the sublime Rayman Origins .
A 2D platformer par excellence (as they say in Ubisoft's homeland), the limbless wonder always had an impressive heritage in the platforming genre, but this arguably raised him up alongside the invention and beauty of Nintendo's own offerings — perhaps even higher if you ask players who aren't fans of Super Mario's 'New' adventures.
No More Heroes certainly isn’t perfect; the tasks you’re given in between missions are dull (calling to mind the same boredom experienced when you had to get a job in Sega’s Shenmue ), the Grant Theft Auto -style driving sections border on pointless (we can only assume they’re intended to be a thinly-veiled dig at the successful franchise), and the general gameplay doesn’t actually change during any of the assassination missions.
But regardless of these points, it still entertains in a way that few other games can manage. It’s a chaotic riot packed with gleeful videogame references, over-the-top dialogue, and some seriously awesome-looking combat action.
A far more accessible proposition than Killer7 ever was, No More Heroes is so wonderfully amusing that it’s easy to forgive its minor shortcomings; Suda 51’s epic fully deserved to garner the kind of attention and praise that unfortunately eluded its predecessor.
A sequel to Treasure's cult classic N64 rail shooter (which didn't make it to the West until it appeared on Wii's Virtual Console in 2007), this sequel improves on the experience and is arguably the better of the two games — yet another fantastic addition to a huge and impressively varied console library.
We're thankful we didn't have to resort to importing this one back in the day.
An early showcase of the Wii Remote (or the 'Form Baton' as it's known in-game), WarioWare Smooth Moves brought the anarchic micro-gameplay and aesthetic of the handheld series to the Wii in an entry which surely ranks as the most widely played of any WarioWare title.
You never quite knew what was coming next, and this ranks up there alongside Wii Sports as an off-the-wall demonstration of the console's potential in those first few months.
The first 2D entry to come to a home console since Mario World in the early '90s, 2009's New Super Mario Bros. Wii brought chaotic — a little too chaotic for some — four-player local multiplayer to the series for the first time.
This game gave old-school fans yearning for a side-on Mushroom Kingdom adventure something to chew on, with plenty of clever nods to the past, although as with the rest of the 'New' series, you could argue that the visual presentation was a little bland. Cracking music in this one, though.
Arriving in a red Wii case which really made it stand out on the shelf, anyone put off by the New series' 'wah' s and cuteness missed out on a real platforming treat in NSMB Wii.
Coming from Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy , The Last Story was an impressive RPG and one of the last big releases for the system. While it struggled from a technical perspective at times, it's an ambitious title that's worth playing today if you missed out back in 2012.
Along with Xenoblade Chronicles and Pandora's Tower , it's also notable as one of the titles North American players campaigned to see released in that territory — Nintendo, who published that game elsewhere, eventually granted Xseed publishing rights and it released six months after PAL regions.
Next Level Games managed to recapture all the character and energy of the original Punch-Out!! on Wii while adding a beautiful cel-shaded graphical style.
With all the fighters from the NES game returning, the motion controls were cute, if a little hit-and-miss, but the option to play using the old-school control style made this a truly excellent update of a classic boxer where it's all about watching your opponent.
A gorgeous, low-stress game that transports Kirby into a world of fabric and thread, Kirby's Epic Yarn was the first of Good-Feel's material-based platformers and is arguably still the best.
We adore it . Anyone who says it's lacking in the challenge department is correct... but missing the point entirely. Kirby's Epic Yarn is one of the most joyous and creative games on Wii, or indeed any platform. (It's also available on 3DS in Extra Epic form.)
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.
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.
Taking Kirby back to his classic game style following a couple of genre departures, Kirby's Return to Dream Land was a worthy return and yet another glittering gem in the Wii's platforming lineup.
With all the colour and creativity you'd expect from HAL, and a ton of content to delve into, this was a wonderful trip to Kirby's land of dreams.
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 — 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.
Introducing Wii Remote control into Retro's Prime template, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was an excellent conclusion to the trilogy (well, until the next entry eventually makes it a quadrilogy), a series of games that proved Samus could not only survive the jump into 3D first-person shooting, but absolutely flourish in that genre.
Prime 3: Corruption as a separate release was subsequently rendered a tad redundant with the release of the entire trilogy on one glorious disc, but this is still a cracking shooter on its own.
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 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! — is still a source of confusion for us. We found the MotionPlus swordplay itself excellent, though.
Chronologically, this is the very first game in the Zelda timeline , so it's pretty much required reading for series fans. While it has its naysayers, we look back on our time with Skyward Sword very fondly.
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 37.38 million copies.
This was arguably the game which proved that third parties had mastered the grammar of the 3D language Nintendo invented with Ocarina of Time . Okami is a gorgeous Japanese adventure with an oddball cast of characters, fabulous music, and an unforgettable art style.
The HD version on Switch is probably the best way to play these days, but the Wii port of Clover's PS2 original was a delight back in 2008.
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.
Showcasing the chonky new MotionPlus accessory (eventually built into the updated 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.
Highlights of this game — which introduced Wuhu Island and expanded on the original game with a bunch of new activities — included fencing and throwing a frisbee for an adorable pooch.
This revival of Rare's treasured Donkey Kong Country series came after developer Retro Studios had successfully reinvented Nintendo's Metroid as an exploratory first-person shooter, so we shouldn't have been surprised that the team was able to recapture the spirit of that 16-bit platformer series three console generations later with Donkey Kong Country Returns . However, just how good the 2010 game turned out still came as a big shock.
The 3DS port was equally impressive, although having played the excellent Tropical Freeze, it's tougher to return (ahem) to Returns these days, even Forever Entertainment's Switch port which combines the two versions into an HD dish with the tiniest dusting of tweaks.
Still, when it comes to resurrections, Retro was Nintendo's go-to studio for a long minute there and DKC swung back in fabulous form on Wii.
A remarkable breath of fresh air for a franchise that was getting a little stale, this put the Resident Evil series on an action-based path away from the fixed-camera, pre-rendered, 'staged' survival horror of the previous games.
What you lost in nail-biting tension was more than made up for by the brilliantly chunky gunplay and impeccable progression through a story that continually ups the ante and adjusts difficulty automatically to keep you on the edge of your seat without pushing you off entirely.
While the additional pointer controls arguably make the Wii version a little too easy, you've still got the option to play with a GameCube controller if you wish (or that chainsaw variant if you're proper hardcore). Subsequent remasters might have upped the resolution, and the remake is a marvel in its own right, but there's a genuine argument that the Wii Edition of Resident Evil 4 remains the best way to play this genre-defining classic, even all these years later.
As groundbreaking as it was, 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 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. And 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 Wii 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).
2010's Xenoblade Chronicles was epic in scale and setting in a way few games of the era were, and this isn't a title to rush through. You'll need many hours to examine and enjoy its incredible complexity, enhancing your abilities and exploring the world's ecosystem as you go.
The creativity Monolith Soft employed in producing this world was staggering. In terms of presentation, the immense landscapes remain a delight to traverse. While some close-up camera angles expose the Wii's graphical limitations, the art design more than compensates. Although some of the voice acting is hit-and-miss, the soundtrack is superb, genuinely enhancing the experience.
The sublime Definitive Edition on Switch is the easiest and best way to catch up with the first entry these days, but this game delivers a huge (and hugely enjoyable) JRPG experience wherever you play, laying a foundation that Monolith would build on with its sequels.
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 textbook and pasting it back together in fascinating, surprising ways, flexing its beefed-up, confidently creative muscles with a huge variety of environments and obstacles, plus Yoshi and a host of new power-ups. It's a brilliant time.
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. Inexplicably, it was missing from the 3D All-Stars collection, but it arrived on Switch eventually . Even if it hadn't, this game is truly worth hunting down a Wii for.
Where Sunshine faltered, Super Mario Galaxy truly did shine. Taking Mario into space gave Nintendo the opportunity to play with gravity and give the character 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 (in two flavours , in fact), 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?
And there we are — the finest Wii games available to humanity! Such a variety of genres and quality games from all developers, and so many we should catch up on.
Nintendo Wii FAQ
Before we finish, let's answer some common questions readers have about the Wii and its catalogue.
When did the Wii come out?
The Wii release date was slightly different depending on where in the world you lived, although the three major territories all got it in 2006.
It launched first in North America, followed by Japan a couple of weeks later and the following week in Europe and Australasia.
Here's when Wii released in each of the three main territories:
North America: November 19th, 2006
Japan: December 2nd, 2006
Europe: December 8th, 2006
How many Wii games are there?
According to Wikipedia’s list of Wii games , a total of 1612 Nintendo Wii games were released for the console.
The exact number of releases varies depending on the territory (Europe, Japan, North America), but you'll find all Wii games listed by region on that page.
Can you play GameCube games on Wii?
This depends on the model you have. The original Wii is backwards compatible with GameCube games and has controller and memory card ports for its predecessor under the flap on the top side of the console.
Later Wii models — specifically the RVL-101 revision without a stand and the Wii Mini — removed backwards compatibility with GameCube games, unfortunately.
What's the best-selling Wii game?
According to Nintendo, Wii Sports is the best-selling Wii game, with 82.90 million copies sold. Wow!
It's worth remembering that Wii Sports has a pack-in with many Wii consoles (and Nintendo sold 101.64 million Wiis in total), so it's unsurprising that it's the most popular Wii game.
In terms of software that was sold separately, the next best-selling Wii game is Mario Kart Wii, which sold 37.38 million copies worldwide. In 2018, a decade after the game launched, we reported the figure as 37.14 million , which means Nintendo managed to shift a further 24,000 copies in the Switch era. Crazy!
You can check out Nintendo's Top 10 if you're interested in the rest of the Wii's best-sellers.
How can I add a game to this article?
Disagree with this ranking? Do you think Excite Truck or Animal Crossing: City Folk need some love? You can find all Wii games using the search tool below (or via our huge database ) and score your favourites out of 10.
Note. In order for games to become eligible, they need a minimum of 50 User Ratings in total for a chance to show up in the ranking.
Feel free to let us know your thoughts on this ranking, as well as your personal Wii highlights, in the comments!
Gavin first wrote for Nintendo Life in 2018 before joining the site full-time the following year, rising through the ranks to become Editor. He can currently be found squashed beneath a Switch backlog the size of Normandy.
