The Legend of Zelda: Breath of Disappointment

The NES had the original The Legend of Zelda, the SNES had A Link to the Past, the N64 had Ocarina of Time, the Gamecube had The Wind Waker, and the Wii had Skyward Sword. On the heels of the release for Nintendo’s newest home console – the Switch – and a new entry in the Zelda series – Breath of the Wild – which will be released on both the Wii U and the Switch, I can’t help but feel so very disappointed in how Nintendo let the Wii U down: we never got an original and exclusive Zelda game for the Wii U.

There are a lot of reasons the Wii U didn’t do well, but Nintendo’s saving grace has always been its incredibly strong portfolio of games. Nintendo was slow to do so, but it ultimately released titles from this portfolio on the Wii U, but it never did so for Zelda. We got HD remasters of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, but never a new entry in the Zelda franchise.

I’m excited for Breath of the Wild, especially after hearing the Monolith Soft team lent a hand on the project, and will be playing it on my Wii U. In the end, the Wii U ended up with a great library of games from Nintendo’s existing portfolio like Mario Kart 8, new staples to add to their portfolio like Splatoon, and a (obviously) great game by Monolith Soft: Xenoblade Chronicles X.

I won’t claim that a Wii U exclusive Zelda entry would’ve saved the console, but it would’ve at least shown that Nintendo put its all into making the Wii U succeed. I hope Nintendo puts its all into making its future consoles and games succeed.