Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.
Nintendo’s latest attempt to do something with their Mii characters just hit the Switch (and along with it, the Switch 2). The game is Tomodachi Life, and while, like its real-time counterpart game Animal Crossing, it’ll take time before we really know everything it has in store, whether it’ll blow all of its content on the first couple of days of play or if it has new scenes, conversations and items that it’ll unlock over time.
Miis originated on the Nintendo Wii game system, an extraordinarily popular game that, now, seems almost forgotten. Besides the odd Wii Sports sequel and Miis, it seems like there’s not a lot of the Wii’s innovations that have persisted into later systems. Maybe games with motion controls? We know the Switch and Switch 2 are capable of them, but not a lot of games are as enthusiastic about them as the Wii.
We can set aside the question of whether that’s a good thing or not, but to interject my own opinion, Miis, one of the defining features of the Wii, really should be utilized more. Remember when the whole internet was abuzz about them? Social media would be full of everyone’s takes on recreating celebrities or comic characters with Nintendo’s limited yet oddly expressive tools. The Wii showed them off in a number of ways. The Mii Channel downloaded random Miis from other users Wii systems, and the Check Mii Out Channel provided a way to show your creations off to other users. Both of these sharing methods are defunct now, even if you have an operational Wii. They could well stand to make a come back, but who knows if Nintendo will ever think to do so.
Beyond that, there was a secret code that let you upload Miis into a Wii Remote. And now, on the Wii-U and Switch systems, you can upload single Mii into an Amiibo figure at a time, a trick I used to rescue our entire Mii collection from my Wii-U… but more on that story later.
Louie Zong, Youtube musician and comedy creator, posted a tribute to the Mii Channel a couple of weeks ago. (3 minutes) If you had a Wii, it’s certain to bring back memories. Maybe even fond ones.
