Skip to main content

Pandora’s Tower, Wind-Up Knight 2 join Wii U eShop

pandoras tower out on wii u eshop header
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Xseed’s action-RPG Pandora’s Tower joins the Nintendo eShop this week, becoming one of the first legacy Wii games to launch digitally for the Wii U as part of the Virtual Console service.

Originally released in North America in 2013, Pandora’s Tower is a hack-and-slash action game with a unique premise, challenging players to defeat gigantic creatures in order to prevent a young woman’s monstrous transformation. Between trips to Pandora’s Tower itself, players can strengthen the main character’s relationship with the cursed woman, changing the way gameplay progresses and shaping one of multiple endings.

Related: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time headlines Wii U eShop update

Pandora’s Tower was one of three key releases targeted by Operation Rainfall, a fan-driven campaign that sought to increase awareness and drum up localization support for a handful of RPG-influenced Wii games. Operation Rainfall centered its awareness campaign around Pandora’s Tower, along with fellow Wii RPGs The Last Story and Xenoblade Chronicles. All three games eventually saw release in North America after a sustained effort from Operation Rainfall.

Pandora’s Tower is the latest in a steady stream of Wii Virtual Console releases from Nintendo in recent weeks. Last week saw the digital launch of Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, joining previous releases like Metroid Prime Trilogy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Punch-Out.

Developer Robot Invader’s Wind-Up Knight 2 also arrives on the Wii U eShop this week. A sequel to a 2011 mobile game, Wind-Up Knight tackles the endless runner genre with an array of unique momentum-based mechanics.

Nintendo’s 3DS hosts a number of new games as part of this week’s eShop update as well, including I Love My Dogs, Best of Arcade Games: Air Hockey, and Best of Arcade Games: Bubble Buster. Brave Tank Hero additionally launches this week from publisher Natsume and Guilty Gear series developer Arc System Works.

Digital versions of the 3DS retail games Garfield Kart and Paddington: Adventures in London are also available as part of this week’s eShop lineup.

Editors' Recommendations

Danny Cowan
Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…
Nintendo’s Wii Shop Channel and DSi shops are back online
Nintendo 3DS close-up.

After months of service outages, Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel and DSi Shop are back online.

Nintendo's two virtual marketplace services went down in March of this year. In a statement to Kotaku on the outage, Nintendo acknowledged the downtime but had nothing to report other than that the shops were undergoing maintenance and that it would provide updates on them at a later date. It seems it completely skipped the update and simply put both back online instead.

Read more
Pick up these 7 great Switch games before Nintendo’s big eShop sale ends
Lego rey fighting kylo.

Steam isn't the only platform holding a big summer sale. Nintendo Switch users can currently get a whole bunch of games up to 50% off on the eShop from now through July 6 in a "Big Ol' Super Sale." While gaming sales are a dime a dozen, a Nintendo sale is especially significant. The company is usually stingy when it comes to discounting its exclusives, so events like this are rare.

The list of discounted games isn't one to ignore. While it doesn't include any recent releases, like Mario Strikers: Battle League, it's a great way to get some of 2021's best console exclusives at half price. Here are the games you should grab before the sale ends. Get them this week and you can take them on your Fourth of July vacation.
Monster Hunter Rise | $31

Read more
I paid $2 a day to play an abandoned Wii Sports sequel
wii sports club retrospective boxing

It’s hard to find someone who was alive during the Wii’s heyday that hasn’t at least tried Wii Sports. It’s one of the bestselling games of all time, and its simple but accurate motion controls made everyone from young kids to seniors feel like they were an athlete for a few minutes. Those are big shoes to fill for any game trying to follow it up, and Nintendo Switch Sports is poised to reinvigorate the formula on April 29 with its reworked visuals and new sports offering.
But did you know that another Wii Sports game came out between those two titles? In the early days of the Wii U, Nintendo released Wii Sports Club, a remake of the classic casual sports title for the failed Wii U console. It enhanced the controls and visuals and tried to give the Wii Sports series a lively community.
Nintendo Switch Sports rekindled my memory of Wii Sports Club's existence, and following the announcement of the Wii U eShop's impending closure, I knew I wanted to check it out and see why this follow-up fell into obscurity. This meant paying $2 a day to access a remake of Wii Sports with broken features that almost no one was playing. Was it worth it? No, but it's a very fitting Wii U game as it's also a product completely overshadowed and made redundant by its predecessor. 
Wii U - Wii Sports Club All Sports Trailer
Pay to play
I was able to find Wii Sports Club on the Wii U eShop and download it for free. While free-to-play Wii Sports seems like a fantastic idea, it doesn’t last long. The first time I booted up the game, I had a 24-hour free trial to try any of the five sports -- tennis, bowling, golf, baseball, and boxing -- that I wanted. I got a bit of tennis and bowling in on my first day with the game, but didn't see everything it had to offer.
After that first day, it was time to pay up. I was given two payment options in-game that would then bring me the Nintendo eShop. I could purchase the individual sports for $10 each, which would give me access to them and their associated minigames forever. My other option was to pay $2 a day to access everything.
Although having to buy a $2 day pass several days in a row for an abandoned Wii U game wasn't really a wise financial investment, I was curious enough to succumb to this microtransaction and keep playing. Doing that and only spending around $14 makes a lot more sense than paying $50 for remakes of games I got for free with my Wii over 15 years ago. This monetization scheme doesn't seem like it was that good of a deal in 2014, and it definitely isn't one now when there are tons of cheaper or free fitness apps that people can get much more out of. But what exactly did I get for that money?
Reinventing sports
Since June 2014, Wii Sports Club has featured the same five sports as the original Wii pack-in: Tennis, bowling, golf, baseball, and boxing. The individual sports play as you remember them in the original Wii Sports for the most part. Swinging the Wii Remote causes your character to make the same motion with a tennis racket, golf club, bat, ball, or fist. Some training mode minigames do shake the formula for each sport up a bit, but none kept my attention for long.
The most significant gameplay differences between the original Wii Sports and Wii Sports Club are Wii MotionPlus support and the Wii U GamePad. Wii MotionPlus is obviously more responsive than the basic Wii Remotes, so the movement of whatever you’re holding in-game does feel more accurate in Wii Sports Club. That said, the game is still easy and accessible enough that I’d call it a must-try for players who love Wii Sports.
Then there’s the Wii U GamePad, which comes up in golf and baseball. In golf, you place the Wii U GamePad on the ground, and it displays the ball you have to hit. It’s a fun visual touch but very gimmicky. Meanwhile, the GamePad’s gyroscope is used to aim pitches and catch balls in baseball. Although baseball makes much better use of the GamePad, constantly switching between it and the Wii remote can get tiring. Outside of those features, the Wii U GamePad is fairly useless in Wii Sports Club, so it isn’t nearly as good of a tech demo for its system as the original Wii Sports was.

Overall, these five sports are only slightly enhanced versions of what you remember from the original Wii Sports. It’s a remake that’s not wholly necessary, considering one can play the original game on Wii U via backward compatibility. That’s not a good thing when there are over six times more copies of Wii Sports out there than there are Wii U systems. It's a bite-sized version of the conundrum that the Wii U also found itself in. 
Gone clubbing
Wii Sports Club is so named because Nintendo focuses on in-game clubs. Each day, players can choose to join a club -- many of which are based on states, regions, or countries. These clubs are then ranked individually for each sport, depending on their players’ performance.
I joined the Illinois club, but this didn't have a noticeable impact on my experience because Wii Sports Club's social functionality doesn't really work anymore. While it still tracks clubs' performances online, there's no good way to communicate.
Playing Wii Sports Club is a lonely experience in 2022.

Read more