"As of March 27, 2023, it will no longer be possible to make purchases in Nintendo eShop for the Wii U system and the Nintendo 3DS family of systems."
- Nintendo, 2022

With the Wii U and 3DS eShops closing down for good this "eShopocalypse" has given console owners time to lament over the loss of many fantastic games. Wii U exclusives, Indie gems, Virtual Console ports, and likewise are unable to be obtained legally anymore. The Nintendo Switch may be the notable sales successor of the bunch, but for people like Moe nothing can replace the nostalgia that the Wii U brought to the table. In honour of the past decade's lifespan of Nintendo's devices of the 2010s here is a free downloadable mixtape produced by none other then Moe himself! Sampling a variety of songs from the Wii U's bios sounds (and a couple from the 3DS too) this mixtape highlights the greatest moments of any caring Wii U owner. Setting up console information, doodling on Miiverse, browsing the eShop, downloading DLC, it's all here! Here's some words from Moe to look back in retrospect of the most underrated and overhated console in history:

"
I'm grateful that I kept my Wii U. Everyone else pawned theirs in for cash to get the Switch with and that's their loss. I myself got a Nintendo Switch nearly 2 years after it's release and until I owned one my beloved Wii U kept me occupied (since 2012 in fact). The Wii was already a cult classic which pioneered motion controls for Nintendo's lineup and the Wii U in a way was a new and improved sequel. Some people may say that it was a marketing failure and that "all the good games made it to the Switch" but they forget that if we didn't have the Wii U there would be no Switch to begin with. From a technical standpoint I'll admit that the Switch was the Wii U but more convenient. With the tablet now being properly portable and connectable to televisions it's a no brainer why it sold outstandingly compared to it's predecessor. I'm not here to praise the Switch for it's track record though. Why? Because the Wii U has the better identity.

As a kid in the 2010s who was smart enough to keep Christmas money I can say that the Wii U was the first console I bought using my own funds. On the last week of 2012 I remember walking into a EB Games (now called Gamestop because of some stock market reddit losers) with family and buying my black 32gb model that I still own and use to this very day. In it's early years when I had friends from school the Wii U was our go-to. Hours spent in the various modes of Nintendo Land, co-op save files for New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario 3D World, races upon races in Mario Kart 8, and need I mention Super Smash Bros. up to 8 players? It was a nerdy teenager's dream to own one of these and play locally with anybody on the block. When there weren't any friends to have over there was a lot of single player games to kill time on too. I only owned a few Wii U games physically (because y'know, not many franchises had a mainline game on the system) but the offline highlights for me were frolicking around in the cutesy Yoshi's Wooly World, making chaotic levels in Super Mario Maker, and my favorite 2D platformer of all time Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. I was already the biggest DK fan I knew and had a blast when I got DKC Returns as an early Christmas gift so when Tropical Freeze came out I sunk into it like a mobster victim under a bridge. DKCTF gave me so much nostalgia alone that after getting in trouble with the law as a youth it was one of the only things that kept me sane for the most difficult times of my life (but I'll save that type of talk for the next A Tribe Called Kong album). I didn't even mention the times I had at Smash 4 tournaments or my on / off time with Splatoon; so to summarize, I loved my Wii U growing up.

Not only were the games fantastic but just toying around with what came on the console was fun. A lot of memories I had were buying as many of the old school games as I could on the console's eShop. One time I remember was Christmas break in 2014 where I met up with a friend after the holiday. We both used our gift money and went straight to EB where we bought Amiibo and eShop cards. As soon as we got back to where I was living at the time I redeemed all those cards and went on my own spending spree. We then played Smash the rest of the day and tried out Duck Hunt's port with the new (and tolerable) Wiimote control scheme. If buying digital games was that much fun then watching them download was like watching paint dry cranked up to 9000. The download manager theme was so catchy that I always looked forward to opening it after eShop purchases to wait in excitement for whatever I was installing. Then there was Miiverse. The friendly shitshow known as Miiverse. I never used it for malicious purposes though, as my time on the app was spent doodling characters from my favorite games to go along screenshots. I also met one of my closest friends on Miiverse where we kept in touch from the direct message feature. When she got banned on occasion we then moved to email messages daily and now at least have each other added on Discord despite not talking as much as before. So many memories from using the console alone, and I knew that it's death would be sooner then later once the Switch dropped. Fortunately, I was only half-right.

After owning a Switch for some time and getting bored with the library I encountered a YouTube channel called NintendoDuo. Ran by 2 handsome devils known as Kez and Moxy I at first came in contact with them to ask for assistance on patching a Super Mario 64 romhack. After that I kinda slept on their discord server, until I realized they play more retro games then they did newer ones. From netplay nights, to parsec parties, the recording group always had something to play on many days of the month; including Wii and Wii U online titles. We've played modpacks for Mario Kart 8 and Smash on top of many nights casually competing in Splatoon friend rooms and they were always a breath of fresh air. Instead of pondering alone on the Switch I met some great friends along the way to play a handful of eras of games with. They all love the Wii and Wii U as much as me to the point where I realized that no console life can die if the players choose to keep it alive. The Wii already had Riiconnect24 and Wiimmfi of which people could play games online after the Wii was discontinued. The Wii U on the other hand still has Nintendo's servers but knowing that the eShops were announced to close in 2022 only started the downward spiral that we live in now.

I'm typing this forward on January 29th 2023 so I'm personally unaware of what Nintendo plans to do after March. Everyone's guess is that within the year the Wii U's online compatibility will be shut down and I see it happening myself knowing the casual playerbase for the games the NintendoDuo group has played. Luckily though a group known as Pretendo Network plan to make their own servers like what the Wiimmfi team did for the Wii. As of right now everything is in beta, and from what I tried of it the project is slowly but steadily progressing. A public beta was announced for select titles in the last trimester of 2022 and it was fun to see what was already up and running. Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon were the only compatible titles up so far but seeing these servers in action was a blast! A replacement for Miiverse known as Juxt was also working when I tried the beta but that got temporarily shut down as soon as I got to use it. Regardless of what works or not I see Pretendo advancing steadily in the future. Whenever everything is officially done I'll be playing on their servers with my NintendoDuo friends for years to come. If you would like to support this project yourself I encourage you to visit their website. You can make an account on there to then use on your Wii U as a NNID alternative (known as PNID) and choose to donate to the project in amounts of 5 to 20 dollars a month. If you're like me and want to see the Wii U (and 3DS for that matter) remain playable online then I recommend you at the very least check out their website here: pretendo.network (You will need to eventually homebrew your console to use their services so also check out this guide on how to do that to prepare for the future: tiramisu.foryour.cafe ).

Oh yeah, I forgot this is an album so I guess I should talk about the music.

Immediately after I finished the production work for ATCK I began producing this project in September. I managed to get around 1-2 tracks done per week and was able to finalize everything in the early weeks of January, so for 14 short & sweet beats (and 1 bonus track) I'd say that's a productive time period. None of the music was as stressful as the A Tribe Called Kong tracks (knowing how much effort went into them) but getting these done before March was the goal. That way I could release this mixtape as a celebratory tribute to the console knowing how many people will be doing their last minute eShopping. By the time the eShop is dead this album will be publicly available as a free download, so I only hope that fans discover this to continue their love for the Wii U. If I may quote the Wii U HB store creator GuestDreemur "so far this is a masterpiece imo since its been quite some time like 10 years almost 11 since we've had a dedicated wii u album; only one i've seen is wii u grooves by dj cutman". I only included a small medley of 3DS tracks reworked on here because I felt that the Wii U had the better system soundtrack. A lot of music was shared between the two and after browsing 3DS music only a couple stood out to me. I still love my 3DS absolutely but I sank more hours into my Wii U and grew an appreciation for it's soundtrack more then the handheld counterpart. Still, I feel that what's on here is enough for fans to enjoy themselves with. Everyone I sent the demos to had nothing but good things and small sonical critiques to say about them so I'm glad this came out alright.

With all that said I hope you enjoy your time with this mixtape. I'm moving onto producing a few more things for this year so until a certain unpredictable guy and I finish off some things I'll see you humans the next time I choose to.

Thank U

- Moe
"

Stream / listen on other platforms:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-hhIP0vtMo&feature=youtu.be
soundcloud.com/anunclenamedmoe/sets/wii-got-it-from-here-thank-u-4