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10. Phantasy Star Online
Phantasy Star Online is timeless– ask anyone who played it on the Dreamcast, GameCube, or Xbox, and they’ll tell you that. PSO is a title that really brought massively multiplayer gaming to consoles in a big way. Sega knew it had pure gold when it took the basic dungeon crawling, loot-em-all formula and put it online. I mean, there’s a reason why a large number of people are still playing the original games by way of private servers. Despite the game’s spiritual successor, Phantasy Star Universe, making an appearance on PC, PS2, and Xbox 360, it never caught on the way Phantasy Star Online did.
That being said, Sega just recently released PSO2 in Japan, and already has a few million subscribers, further cementing the notion that people love them some Phantasy Star. Better yet, people played the hell out of PSO when it was on GameCube. What this means is rather simple in my mind: Sega and Nintendo are no strangers these days. They do more collaboration than they ever have, and in truth, both companies would mutually benefit from putting PSO2 on Wii U. The Big N is looking to expand its online services and game library, while Sega is looking to make money. Put Phantasy Star Online 2 on that beautiful white box, and suddenly I go from working a nine-to-five desk job, to being unemployed because I can’t stop feeding my MAG monomates and trouncing baddies in Forest II (talk about a closed-group reference, my bad).
The point here is: RPGs and their obligatorily expansive inventories make the Wii U GamePad sing with delight. The two are meant for each other. You take that inventory, slap it on the little device I’m holding in my bear claws, and suddenly, you’ve taken a fantastic experience and made it infinitely better. Moreover, a game like Phantasy Star benefits greatly from being an on-the-go title, just simply due to its nature. Phantasy Star Portable 1 and 2, along with Phantasy Star Zero were on the PSP and DS respectively, and felt at home. Being able to take PSO to nearly any room in my house via the GamePad and continue destroying prodigiously large boss monsters with my buddies after my girlfriend has bogarted the TV to watch the latest episode of New Girl makes perfect sense. This is a series, and genre, that can only be made better by Wii U’s capabilities. And boy, talk about offering up some drool-worthy online RPG competition. Just imagine having Monster Hunte, Dragon Quest X, and Phantasy Star Online all on one, convenient, Nintendo-branded console. Damn, life would be good.
What about the Conduit? I know it had problems but, it could have a good chance to be alot better graphically and story-line wise if it was on Wii U or if the title was purchased by Nintendo and messed with by Retro
I think the Conduit is a solid series, however, I wanted to focus on franchises that hadn’t really made an appearance on a Nintendo console ever, or at least for quite some time. Since Conduit was just last generation, I avoided it. It’s a great game, though!
One game I wish I could’ve fit on there was the Souls series (Demon’s/Dark Souls). Now that’s a fantastic franchise that I think would really fit in line with Nintendo’s new focus on the “hardcore”. Talk about a game that is truly hardcore…
Another writer here shares my love of Shenmue!!! I would love to see a Yakuza title on Wii U as well. Better yet… Nintendo should team up with Yu Suzuki and Sega to finally release Shenmue III on Wii U. This could also accompany HD re-releases of the first two games on Wii U with the ability to continue your save file. The possibilities… I’m almost crying.
A fellow Yu Suzuki loyalist! There are far too many people who don’t know about Shenmue! I’m in the process of constructing an article idea for why I think Shenmue III belongs on Wii U. In the meantime, though, I agree whole heartedly with everything you said. I assume Sega is preparing a Shenmue HD release, however, as they’ve been slowly releasing their biggest titles on XBLA and PSN (Jet Grind Radio, Sonic Adventure, Virtual On, Daytona, etc.). So, I suspect Shenmue is coming. My hope is it’s released on the eShop.
So many issues with Borderlands would be fixed if all of the menu stuff was on the gamepad! It would seriously improve the game sooooo much.
I would absolutely LOVE to see the Persona series come to Wii U. Persona 4 is my all-time favorite rpg ever. Persona 5 for Wii U?
Third party games — I want them all. The Wii missed out on almost all good-quality 3rd party games. If Microsoft and Sony gamers gets something from third party companies, why not Nintendo gamers? There was no problem on NES, and there definately wasn’t any major problems with third party support on Super NES (N64 and Gamecube were largely ignored).
It’s a shame that people moved away from Nintendo, but hopefully, we Nintendo console owners, especially those has just a Nintendo console, can be equally as excited and happy as the rest of the gaming world.
Speaking of “world”, I’d love to see more come out of Japan. I’m not talking about your everyday action game or rpg. There’s far more, and they’re holding back so much, it’s not even funny. Nevermind the excuse about their games being “culturally different”…if games like Harvest Moon, 999, Phoenix Wright, and Persona can make it over (with pretty much all Japanese references intact), why not more?
Niche titles have grown into popular fan favorites in past generations. I wish there were more (I’d love to have the Densha de Go/Railfan series in English).