Nintendo Land

Nintendo Land was a game that was developed to show off all the new gameplay aspects the WiiU brings to gaming, as well as being a showcase of what Nintendo were planning on bringing out for the WiiU. I got a WiiU for Christmas, and part of my New Year's celebration included playing Nintendoland with a few friends.

The setting

Set in a theme-park, Nintendo Land has 12 different attractions which can be played either on your own or with others (though not all attractions are solo attractions). I love the setting, including the coin minigame (which I'll be talking about later), but the Nintendo Land guide, Monita, really annoys me.


The attractions

Team attractions (1-5 players)

The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest

This game can be played with or without friends, and it allows you to play as either an archer (with the gamepad) or a sword-wielder (with wii-motes). I quite enjoyed playing as both the archer and the sword-wielder. One issue with playing multiplayer is that the archer has to stop to shoot, meaning that the sword-wielder either has to wait for them or goes on without the archer, possibly leading to them becoming heavily injured.

Metroid Blast

This is a fun game with three different settings- "Assault Mission", where players cooperate to defeat waves of enemies and complete missions; "Surface-Air Combat", where all players with wii-motes try to take down the player with the gamepad (who is the ship); and "Ground Battle", where all players battle for tokens using Wii-motes. It's a fun little game, and the mode I prefer is Surface-Air Combat because it allows those who are on the ground to be sneaky and the ship to explode them!

Pikmin Adventure

I couldn't really get into this game. There are two modes- one where players work together to navigate levels and defeat enemies, the other where players compete to get the most green candy.

Competitive Attractions (2-5 players)

Mario Chase

In this game, players play a tag-based game to try and catch the Mario player (with the gamepad). The Mario player wins if they aren't caught before the timer runs out. I enjoyed playing this game with friends, and didn't mind losing.

Luigi's Ghost Mansion

This has got to be the game that myself and my friends enjoyed the most. The person with the gamepad plays as the ghost, and the others play as ghost hunters. The job of the ghost hunters is to track down the ghost and flash their lights on it until its health reaches 0. The ghost's job is to catch the ghost hunters several times without losing all of their life.

Animal Crossing: Sweet Day

There are up to four players trying to collect candy before they are caught three times by the guards. This game is fun, but it's quite hard to play because the rules aren't very well explained.

Solo Attractions (1 player)

Takamaru's Ninja Castle

The player uses the gamepad's touchscreen to launch paper shuriken at waves of enemy ninjas. Katanas are used when playing against bosses or close-range enemies. As someone who loves all things ninja, I loved playing this game, but it would've been nice if there was a possibility to have a multiplayer mode.

Donkey Kong's Crash Course

This is based on the original Donkey Kong game, but uses the gamepad to tilt through the levels. It's actually quite hard to play, and quite often I crashed into things and my head (in game) exploded quite a lot.

Captain Falcon's Twister Race

This is based on F-Zero and the player must race down a track while avoiding obstacles. The gamepad is held vertically, using the gyroscope to steer the vehicle.

Balloon Trip Breeze

In this game, you control your Mii by swiping the screen. Your job is to pop the balloons and you can either do this by flying into them or popping them by tapping the touch screen. It was quite an enjoyable little game.

Yoshi's Fruit Cart

You play your way through each level of this minigame by leading Yoshi round courses of ever-increasing difficulty by getting Yoshi to eat fruits, whilst avoiding traps on the screen. You can only see the fruit on the TV screen, so you have to use reference points to get yourself around the course.

Octopus Dance

This is a rhythm game which uses the gamepad's sticks to control your Mii. Remember to watch the screen on the gamepad and not the screen, because the gamepad's screen shows the dancing the right way around.

Overall thoughts

I really enjoyed Nintendo Land's variety of games, as did my friends. I feel that some of them are definitely better than others, and some should probably only be played with friends.

MmRed

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