From the moment tꦜhe Power Glove captivated audiences through The Wizard, one thing was made clear: Nintendo’s love for weird controllers. Over the years, Nin﷽tendo has always made their passion for experimentation known, going so far as to develop accessories specificall🎐y for games. The Wii Zapper was designed out of Miyamoto’s growing appreciation of the FPS genre, of all things.
Across the generations, however, Nintendo has also made a bad habit of developing games that, for whatever reason, cannot be played with a regular controller. In the era of release, this is hardly a problem and more a testament to the ingenuity of both the hardware and the deཧvelopers.🎐 Once time has distanced itself, though, these games raise concerns about preservation. How do you keep a piece of history alive when it’s impossible to play without a regular controller?
10 Mario Paint (Super NES Mouse)
Mario Paint is the definition of a game that iജs more than the sum of its parts. Part virtual coloring book and music com🤪position simulator, look up Mario Paint on YouTube and you’ll find thousands of incredible covers of songs a🗹ll recreated in the 16-bit SNES title. Not just that, there’s a freeform painting that can actually produce some fantastic art.
Of course, to take full advantage of Mario Paint requires having the Super NES Mouse. Simply put, Mario Paint won’t function as it should without the mouse🌞. It’s 💫for this reason that it’s unlikely Nintendo would feature Mario Paint on💮 NSO or any future virtual console. A pity considering the game’s legacy on the SNES.
9 Yoshi’s Safari (Super Scope)
Th💎ere’s a specific kind of thrill to playing a light gun cabinet game at an arcade that’s very difficult to emulate in a home environment. Motion control helped to an extent, but most of the time peripherals are needed. Developed for the Super Scope, aཧ light gun for the SNES, Yoshi’s Safari is one of the most unique games on the SNES.
Althoug𝔉h a bit on the easy side, the Super Scope controls very well with Yoshi’s Safari, leading to a game that’s quite fun to just kill s൲ome time in. That said, Yoshi’s Safari will not work with any other controller.ꩵ The Super Scope is a must for this title.
8 Gyromite & Stack-Up (R.O.B.)
We would be remiss not to mention R.O.B. An accessory that stretches the line between “video” and “game,” R.O.B. is nonetheless an incredibly important part of Nintendo’s early history within the medium. R.O.B. was meant to be a console companion of sorts, complete with curated titles that would take advantage of the toy’s physicali😼ty– adding another layer of interactivity to gaming.
At the end of the day, though, R.O.B. skews more towards a traditional toy. Both Gyromite and Stack-Up give players access to R.O.B. 's mobility via🅠 the NES controller. 𓄧In that sense, R.O.B. can be played with a regu𒁃lar controller, bu𒅌t Gyromite and Stack-Up, its two (and only two) compatible games, cannot.
7 Mario Artist (Mouse NUS-017)
A successor to Mario Paint on the Super Nintendo, Mario Artist was r🐭eleased on the Nintendo 64DD as a killer app of sorts. Any Nintendo fan knows the fate that would ultimate🦂ly befall the Nintendo 64’s unfortunate add-on, but Mario Artist nonetheless attempted to showcase what the 64DD was capable💃 of. Something F-Zero X Expansion Kit largely did better.
Regardless, like its predecessor, Mario Artist was developed with a mouse in mind. Specifically the NUS-017, a Nintendo 64 accessory. Notably, Mario Artist allowed players to create their own polygonal models. While an i🎃nteresting piece of Nintendo hဣistory, there’s a reason you don’t see as much Mario Artist discourse as you do Mario Paint.
6 WarioWare: Twisted! (Haptic Technology)
The Game Boy line’s love affai🎐r with haptic technology is something those who grew up in that generation will remember with fondness. Amidst the odd pinball games were often rather unique titles that would use haptic technology’s motion cap𒀰abilities in increasingly creative ways. One of the absolute best was WarioWare: Twisted!
Worth noting, WarioWare: Twisted! It is a game that demands to be played on original hardware. Some mini-games require moving the Game Boy Advance in incredibly specific ways that would only work if you were 🎃holding a proper GBA. That said, the most recent WarioWare managed to translate a few of Twisted’s microgames via gyroscope.
5 Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (DK Bongos)
Put an asterisk next to this one as Donkey Kong Jungle Beat can technically be played with a re♔gular controller, but– and this is arguably what makes the control scheme so interes💟ting– the standard GameCube controller controls are so aggressively bad, you’ll never want ♎to play Jungle Beat without the DK Bongos.
I✱t’🌄s pure madness that the main control scheme is so awful when the DK Bongos turn Jungle Beat into one of the best feeling games on the Nintendo GameCube. If the game ever gets an HD port, expect a tweaked version of the maddening Nintendo 🌌GameCube controller controls.
4 The World Ends With You (Touch Controls Intimately Designed Around The DS)
Square Enix has ported The World Ends With You to mobile devices and the Ni🀅ntendo Switch, but understand that both ports are blatantly and explicitly worse than the Nintendo DS original. Without dual screens, The World Ends With You loses an entire half of its combat system. On the DS, players control Neku on the bottom screen with the stylus while using the D-pad to control Neku’s partner🙈 on top.
It made for one of the most dynamic gameplay loops on the Nintendo DS and was the central crux of the combat, something all subsequent ports have greatly failed to u🐟nderstand. To say nothing of how Neku’s gameplay is meant to be controlled with a stylus and not youꦰr fingers or an analog stick.
3 Skyward Sword (Wii Motion Plus)
The most infamous 3D Zelda game to date, Skyward Sword is a game that’s going to be very difficult to preserve lest it gets quite the remake. Even then, its intended control scheme will forever be🀅 locked to the Nintendo Wii without the Wii Motion Plus, a peripheral that greatly enhanced the motion capabilities of the Wiimote.
In the case of Skyward Sword, it quite literally makes it playable. Skyward Sword simply does not functi𝐆on without the Wii Motioღn Plus. Fans who keep asking for a Skyward Sword HD need to really understand how Wii-꧟specific the motion controls are. It’s not just a matter of wagജgling your arm around.
2 Red Steel 2 (Wii Motion Plus)
Making use ♑of the Nintendo Wii’s motion control capabilities, Red Steel was supposed to be a killer app. The revolution that would revolutionize the Nintendo Revolution. Of course, as was the case with the name ꦫ“Revolution,” this was not🌃 meant to be and Red Steel 1, while generally liked by f♈ans, released to underwhelming critical recep꧒tion.
Designed with the Wii Motiꦜon Plus in mind, however, Red Steel 2 better-made use of the W💯ii’s motion controls– to the point where playing Red Steel 2 with🧔 an꧟y other controller would be next to impossible. Interestingly, Red Steel 2 was designed so intimatel🍰y with the Wii in mind, a sequel was planned specifically as a Wii exclusive (though it seemingly never made it past initialไ planning phases.)
1 Wii Sports Club (Wii Motion Plus)
At this point, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that late-era Wii games required the Wii Motion Plus add-on to outright work🌱, but here’s the thing about Wii Sports Club: it isn’t a Wii game. Wii Sports Club was not only released exclusively for the Wii U, requiring the Wii Motion Pl🦩us to work, but it also wasn’t even bundled with a controller.
Wer♐e you an unlucky Wii U owner💖 who happened to buy Wii Sports Club without owning a W♌ii Motion Plus beforehand? Tough luck, there’s a reason the Wii U faiཧled, sucker. With games like Wii Sports Club on shelves, no wonder audience𒐪s didn’t know the Wii U was a brand new consoleಌ.