With Nintendo recently announcing that the fan-favorite Xenoblade Chronicles X will be making its way over to the Switch in March next year, other under-appreciated Wii U titles have the chance of finding a larger audience and wider acclaim. This exact thing has happened time and again over the Switch's lifecycle – Nintendo will re-release one of its Wii U-era games with minimal to no changes, and the games end up seeing bigger critical and commercial success than they ever found on their original console.
With how regularly Nintendo has been porting Wii U games, it can often be tempting to assume that pretty much every major title from the beleaguered Switch predecessor has made its way over by now. There remain, however, a surprising number of titles still stranded on Wii U that Nintendo and its third-party partners could bring over to the Switch. Such games below don't include any games that, while they may not have been ported to the Switch, have direct follow-ups, such as Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Mario Maker.
10 The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD
Action-Adventure
The Wind Waker's reputation was already on the up in the years following its launch, but The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD on the Wii U was the release that allowed the game to bloom into the masterpiece it always hinted at being. Other than the very comprehensive visual update, which makes the already beautiful game even more graphically timeless, the Wii U release also addressed a lot of long-standing complaints about the original game, while also adding some great quality-of-life improvements.
A re-release of The Wind Waker HD on Switch has been widely requested for pretty much the entire lifespan of Nintendo's hybrid console, but is yet to manifest. With the Switch entering its twilight years now, hopefully it showing up is a matter of when, not if.
9 The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD
Action-Adventure
The Wind Waker HD was not the only GameCube era Zelda title that saw a facelift on the Wii U. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD was a makeover for the at-the-time bestselling game in the series, and while it is nowhere near as comprehensive of an upgrade as The Wind Waker got, it still remains the definitive way to play the game.
I’m still, perhaps foolishly, holding out hope that Twilight Princess will come to the Nintendo Switch, because I’ve only ever played it backwards.
While the two are usually requested as a pair, knowing Nintendo's pricing policies, and the value the company places on its individual games, it seems highly unlikely that they wouldn't get released individually. In which case, it would be even more important for Twilight Princess HD to get a Switch release - otherwise it would be the only console title in the series not playable on the console.
8 Star Fox Zero
Rail Shooter
Unlike the other games mentioned so far, Star Fox Zero is a Wii U original title. Unlike the other two, however, it is also not all that great. Tasked with justifying the existence of the Wii U's unique hardware by utilizing it in a game, legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto created a game that, while it can certainly be called innovative, wasn't a total home run in terms of delivering a satisfying Star Fox experience of the type that had made the franchise so beloved to begin with.
The fact that it was – yet again – a retelling of the same story that had already been covered in the original Star Fox and Star Fox 64 meant even the narrative hook was lacking. If Nintendo was to port this game, it would have to rework it a fair bit, given how much of it is tied into the Wii U's hardware – but if it does put in the effort, an unusual chapter in Star Fox history can be made available to a much broader audience than it had the chance to reach before.
7 Yoshi's Woolly World
Platformer
While the solo outings for Mario's trusty dinosaur steed Yoshi haven't necessarily been of the best quality following the incredible Super Nintendo original, Yoshi's Wooly World has the distinction of being not only the best Yoshi game since the first, but also of being a great platformer all-around in general. It's a lovely, charming, breezy platformer that is also an utter visual delight, with a striking aesthetic brought to life by some incredible graphics.
Woolly World did receive a 3DS port, but given how much the presentation contributes to the charm of the game, that is hardly the ideal way to play it. It also launched right on the eve of the Switch release, so it really didn't get the attention it should have gotten. Perhaps a release on the Switch could fix that.
6 Kirby And The Rainbow Curse
Platformer
Kirby and the Rainbow Curse followed up on the beloved DS-exclusive Kirby spin-off Kirby: Canvas Curse. Deciding to follow up on that same style of indirect touch-screen focused gameplay (via the Wii U Gamepad), infused with a pretty lovely to behold clay aesthetic, it might not have been the best Kirby game around.
However, on a system where it is not the sole representative of the franchise – such as a certain hybrid console that has already received three retail Kirby releases, including the long-awaited first 3D adventure for the pink puffball, the captivating Kirby and the Forgotten Land – its more experimental style has a chance of finding much broader acceptance. With how many Kirby games are released, and the franchise's propensity for revisiting prior games via ports and re-releases, this one is likelier than most games on this list to actually get a Switch port.
5 NES Remix
Compilation
The Switch may have received speedrunning paradise Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition in 2024, but while it scratches its own itch, it is a poor substitute for the NES Remix games on the Wii U. While the central conceit is obviously the same, NES Remix went far beyond the simple speedrun and competitive style play of World Championships.
The NES Remix games revitalized decades-old games, making them fresh and fun to play through all over again. And while the concept has survived on the Switch to some degree in the emulated classics library Nintendo releases on the Nintendo Switch Online service, a full-fledged NES Remix Switch port would be welcome as well.
4 Nintendo Land
Party Game
If there was one game that truly hinted at the fresh and new possibilities that the Wii U could achieve via its Gamepad, it was Nintendo Land. The party game collection Nintendo bundled with the more expensive Wii U models at launch is a bit of an underrated gem, with its various attractions, each representing one of many Nintendo IPs, exploring different styles of gameplay that the menagerie of input methods supported by the console could enable.
With how intrinsically the game is tied to the console's unique control inputs, it would probably take a lot of effort to rejig it into something workable for the Switch – but with how much of a celebration of Nintendo the game is, hopefully the company is exploring ways to bring the game over.
3 Paper Mario: Color Splash
RPG
The new style of Paper Mario games remains divisive for ditching the RPG trappings the franchise originally became popular for. By the time of Switch's The Origami King, it seemed like developers Intelligent Systems had figured out how to properly deliver a well-received non-RPG Paper Mario, butthe Wii U's Color Splash represents a bit of an awkward transitional point between the 3DS's threadbare Sticker Star and the former.
Nonetheless, there are a fair few merits the game can lay claim to, from sharper writing than its predecessor to gorgeous visuals that may be in the running for the best the Wii U managed to put out. Color Splash is a game that few will be clamoring for a port of, but it's still a reasonably solid entry in the series that doesn't deserve to be lost to time – hopefully, Nintendo agrees and gets the game over to the Switch at some point.
2 Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
Action RPG
Capcom's Monster Hunter series is bigger now than it has ever been before, but before Monster Hunter World finally let the franchise break into the mainstream by allowing it a release on home consoles, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was already out on Wii U with full online multiplayer support to boot.
Now, it was an HD port of a handheld enhanced edition of a Wii game – so not really the console Monster Hunter game people had in mind, but that wasn't really a problem when it delivered the most feature- and content-complete take on Monster Hunter yet. While older Monster Hunter games can be hard to go back to after World, 3 Ultimate especially has some unique aspects to it – such as the first and so-far last appearance of underwater combat and hunts – that make it worth revisiting.
1 ZombiU
Survival Horror
ZombiU was another Wii U launch title that seemed to utilize the unique hardware much better than any subsequent game was able to manage. The surprising thing was that, in this case, it was a game not from Nintendo, but from Ubisoft. And while modern Ubisoft games often bear (merited) criticism for following formulaic templates, ZombiU was anything but.
In fact, it was very unlike most other games out there, with an extremely tense perma-death system paired with real-time inventory and survival-management all while having to fight off and escape the undead, making for an unusually tense game. Bringing ZombiU to other systems does lose something, as the PS4 and Xbox One ports of the game ended up proving, but even a slightly compromised ZombiU on the Switch is preferable to no ZombiU on the Nintendo Switch at all.
The Nintendo Switch is the successor to 2012’s Wii U console. The Nintendo Switch allows gamers to easily switch between playing on a TV to a handheld console. The first model was released in 2017, followed by the Nintendo Switch Lite, which is strictly a handheld console. In October 2021, Nintendo released an upgraded Switch console with an OLED screen.
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