The Best Wii U eShop Games of 2015

Any gamer who consistently plays on Wii U knows just how rare new big releases are happening on this console. Luckily for us, eShop provides tons of games of all kinds to satisfy your gaming needs before the next Nintendo game is coming out. In some cases those “little” eShop games outshine even the bigger retail stuff and 2015 is a living proof of that. Let’s take a look at some of the best Wii U eShop games of last year.

BEST Wii U ESHOP GAME

Fast Racing Neo

While many dream projects came true in 2015, Nintendo still refuses to give people a new F-Zero game. It’s a good thing technical wizards at Shin’en Multimedia share our deep love for fast futuristic racing, and so the studio has given us Fast Racing Neo, a game with the most straight-to-the-point name ever. As you could probably tell from the title, Fast Racing Neo is fast. Oh boy, is it fast! The incredible sense of speed is accompanied by smart Ikaruga-like phase switching of your car, creative race tracks, and a blood-pumping soundtrack. With three types of speed, a solid online mode, and a separate Hero Mode for racing lunatics, there’s plenty of value in this racing masterpiece. Going fast never felt so good before Fast Racing Neo.

• Read Nintendojo’s Review

BEST Wii U ESHOP GAME RUNNERS-UP

Gunman Clive HD Collection

Another spiritual successor on our list is good old Gunman Clive. The original Gunman Clive was a really nice love letter to Mega Man and its tight level design. The sequel took everything that made the previous one so great and improved nearly every aspect of it. The game was more colorful, creative, and a little bit more ambitious. The series creator, Bertil Hörberg, has decided to share his two little gems with Wii U owners in a form of Gunman Clive HD Collection. The compilation doesn’t add much in terms of content, but it does give you an opportunity to play those wonderful games on the big screen in all their glory. And it’s really cheap!

• Read Nintendojo’s Review

Freedom Planet

Continuing the trend of spiritual successors (seriously, though, we did not plan this), the third place award goes to Freedom Planet. At first glance, it may look like a typical Sonic the Hedgehog-inspired game, and while it is, some of you action gamers out there would be happy to know it’s actually much more of a Treasure-inspired game that anything. Freedom Planet oozes with love to Sega’s 16-bit era of games, combining cute animal characters with strong visuals and tight gameplay. Freedom Planet provides a (surprisingly enough) competent story with some cheesy yet charming voice acting reminiscent of old-school anime dubs of the ’80s and ’90s. This game not only has its heart in the right place, it also excels at smart level exploration and challenging, yet satisfying gameplay. With the sequel already announced, I highly advice our readers to see for yourself what kind of great game the original Freedom Planet is. You might just become a fan.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Slender: The Arrival

Slender Man was a creepypasta character that became extremely popular a couple of yeas ago thanks to the YouTube series Marble Hornets and a video game that followed. The Arrival is a sequel/re-imagining of that video game with higher budget and obviously more time put into it. As simple as its gameplay may sound, Slender: The Arrival provided plenty of suspense and well-deserved scares. The scariest and most effective games do not necessary need to be complex.

Octodad: Dadliest Catch

Not so long ago a new little genre of physics-based wacky games became quite popular among gamers. While things like Goat Simulator concentrated solely on the fun factor, Octodad added an unexpected depth to it all. You play as Octodad, a not quite normal octopus trying to be a good husband and a good father. Being a family man, you have a lot of responsibilities like making breakfast, working, and picking up groceries. All of these activities would be easy for a human being, but not for Octodad and his constant need to touch everything in sight. Octodad revolves around its wacky gameplay, but it does give you a nice look into the life of a family man.

Affordable Space Adventures

In Affordable Space Adventures you are stranded on a hostile planet in your tiny little spaceship. Your ship is not equipped to directly fight off the threats you face, yet it does come with a variety of tricks, all of which are controlled through Wii U’s GamePad. You have to constantly think of factors like energy consumption and the mass of your ship in real time to successfully traverse the dangerous world outside. Things get especially interesting if you play the game in co-op mode with two other people, as every person becomes responsible for some function of the ship. Affordable Space Adventures is functional as a single-player experience, but it becomes so much better if you take a couple of friends on this journey with you.

Do you agree with our choices? Vote for which game you think should be number one, or choose “Other” and tell us in the comments below!

[poll id=”202″]