The Wii is one of a few platforms that it is, for the most part, pretty cheap to collect for these days. There were a lot of copies of popular Wii games out there, and as such you can get your hands on some really great titles for pocket change in many cases.
But, as with any platform, there are exceptions; there are games that command lofty prices well above what they were originally released for. So let’s take a look at a few, shall we?
The prices we’re using are from CEX’s site, so you may be able to find these games cheaper (or even more expensively!) elsewhere. Prices and value may also vary in different regions; these are UK prices. Quoted prices are correct as of January 17, 2022.
Dokapon Kingdom
Top of the heap in terms of valuable Wii games — as defined by CEX, anyway — is Dokapon Kingdom. This is a genuinely great game that combines board game-style mechanics with an RPG-esque structure, challenging between one and four players to complete various objectives while fighting monsters, powering themselves up and generally trying to get one up on their rivals. The Game Grumps’ playthrough in the playlist above gives a good idea of how this unusual game unfolds.
It was originally released for PlayStation 2 and is a remake of a Super Famicom title from 1994, though only the Wii version came to Europe. (The PS2 version came to North America also.) If you fancy getting your hands on this today, you’re looking at nearly £150. Worth the money? Questionable, but it is one of the most distinctive and memorable games in the Wii’s library — especially if you’re a fan of developer Sting’s many and varied experiments with interesting game mechanics and structure.
The Last Story
This game, which was one of three unrelated RPGs that all hit the platform around the same time — the others being Xenoblade Chronicles and Pandora’s Tower — is absolutely fantastic. But then you’d expect that from the dream team of Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi and series composer Nobuo Uematsu. This isn’t just a straight clone of Final Fantasy under a different brand name, though — although one could argue that “The Last Story” is very much poking fun at Final Fantasy’s name — as it presents an innovative take on encounter-based combat that combines strategy and action to create something that has never quite been replicated ever since.
Grabbing a copy of The Last Story isn’t horrendously pricy if you can find one up for sale — CEX lists it at about £45 — but if you want the Limited Edition that was available around its original release, which includes an artbook and soundtrack CD, you’re looking at nearly a hundred quid. Which, compared to some other niche-interest RPGs out there, actually isn’t a terrible price for a nice edition.
Legend of Sayuki
The priciness of this one largely stems from the fact that not many copies were printed in the first place, but it also has quite an interesting story behind it. Originally intended as a sequel to Taito’s Pocky and Rocky, legal issues with Square Enix meant that it had to be made into its own thing — initially for both PlayStation 2 and Wii. In North America, this release of the game is known as Heavenly Guardian.
This game got ported to Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PC in more recent years under the name Snow Battle Princess Sayuki — as such it’s only worth paying the £90+ the Wii version commands if you really want it on your shelf rather than a hard drive or memory card!
A Shadow’s Tale
A Shadow’s Tale, also known as Lost in Shadow, is an inventive platformer from Hudson that you don’t see copies of very often. It was developed by the team behind Kororinpa — a game from the Wii’s launch that is much easier to come by than this one — and, like that game, makes creative use of its environments for some varied and interesting challenges. Playing as a shadow boy, the majority of your interaction with the game world is through what would be the “background” in other games — though there are some puzzles that involve manipulating light sources and objects, too.
Opinions were mixed on this one when it was first released — but in retrospect it’s a good example of the sort of interesting, creative games that were put out on the Wii… and promptly ignored by mainstream media and public alike in favour of complaining about shovelware. Whether or not that makes you think it’s worth £85 is a matter of your own principles.
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
Klonoa is best known for its original PlayStation incarnation, but that got pricey a while back — so the Wii remake used to be a viable alternative, even though it wasn’t simply a straight port. Now the Wii version has got super-expensive, too — so if you want to play Klonoa on anything (without resorting to questionable means, obviously) you’re going to be paying for the privilege — £80 for the Wii version, to be exact, but that’s literally half the price the PlayStation version goes for.
Klonoa is a great 2.5D platformer that hails from what was arguably Namco’s most creative age, and it still plays very well today. Featuring compelling mechanics, an intriguing story and plenty to do, it’s a game worth having in your collection if you can find it for a reasonable price — and as time goes on, it seems what counts as “reasonable” is only going to go up!
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn
For a while, this Wii-based follow-up to the notoriously expensive Gamecube title Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance could be picked up extremely cheap compared to its companion piece — perhaps because people were hesitant to pick it up if they didn’t already have the Gamecube prequel. Now, though, Radiant Dawn has shot up in price in its own right, with CEX listing the title for £80 at the time of writing.
These installments in the long-running Fire Emblem series are well-regarded by fans — and going by the general pattern of RPG prices over time, they’re not going to get any cheaper as time goes on, so you’ll need to dig deep if you want to play them.
Metroid Prime Trilogy
Finally we come to a package that is admittedly pricey at £80, but which actually represents pretty good value, since it includes three full games — all of which are critically acclaimed and quite sought after. With Nintendo’s apparent hesitance to rerelease these games on Switch, £80 for all three isn’t a terrible deal — particularly as this Wii version comes in a rather nice shiny slipcase.
Just don’t be mad if you pick this one up and Nintendo suddenly drops a surprise announcement of a Switch port… which has supposedly been coming for years at this point, though we still only have the word of questionable “industry insiders” to take on that right now.
Do you have any of these pricy games in your collection? I’ve got Metroid Prime Trilogy, Fire Emblem and The Last Story… the others are a little beyond me right now though!
