The Shrine

Still trying to find some good Wii games. I bought four games when I got the Wii after Xmas:

Paper Mario RPG - Good game, had a lot of fun with it.
Little King's Story - Got repetitive and difficult after a few hours of playing, could be a neat idea, but if you can't level build, it makes it a lot harder to get past the major boss areas.
Super Mario Galaxy - Just didn't like it too much. I had a lot more fun with Super Mario World, or the above Paper Mario RPG.
FF: Crystal Bearers - Turned it off after an hour or so. Realized that I didn't want to play YASR (Yet Another Shitty RPG).

So, one good game and three duds. Pretty disappointed. We might pick up Moster Hunter Tri, but now I'm leery about any purchases now. Where are the good games? Anything else I should consider?

Here's a preliminary list:

Super Smash Bros Brawl - amazing game, easily the best in the series, and it even has a pretty decent 3-hours single-player, cutscene-driven story mode
Muramasa: The Demon Blade - don't think about it, get it
Punch Out!! - if you liked the original, this game is for you
House of the Dead: Overkill - if you enjoy good gun game, get a couple of Perfect Shots by Nyko and get this game. It's just a blast to play and is under $20 now
Tatsunoko vs Capcom - this is Marvel vs Capcom 2.5. If you like the Vs series, you'll love this game
Zack and Wiki - I'm not going to bother trying to sell you on it, just read the reviews
Metroid Prime Trilogy - if you're lucky enough to find it for under $60, it's an amazing collection of 3 kick-ass first-person adventure games
New Super Mario Bros Wii - insanely fun, particularly with multiple people. Not to mention its tough-as-nails, a true successor to Yoshi's Island the the DS version
Okami - if you haven't played the PS2 version, this is a pretty great version. The waggle, if you don't try to wave your arms like a moron, works pretty well
Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition - less than $20 used, this is the definite version of one of the best games this decade if you haven't played it yet
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves - yet another excellent game in the series, it also has some of the most clever and well-done use of the waggle yet

That's just the best of the best, there are a few other "lesser" titles that could easily be worth a pick up as well (such as de Blob, Conduit, and Boom Blox; heck the Sam and Max seasons 1 and 2 are pretty neat on it too). And don't forget about Sin and Punishment 2 (June 27) and Another M (Aug 31). I'd also say Galaxy 2 is an absolute must-have but you just don't like the series. And if you want a FF game on the system, get Chocobo's Dungeon, that's easily the best of them.

Did you want us to start mentioning downloadable games?

I am not sure what to say, my opinions of those 4 games were exactly the opposite. If your taste is the opposite of mine; you might like games like Madworld, No More Heroes, and Zack and Wiki (the three games I bought and disliked; that others seem to like).

Crystal Bearers is more of an adventure game than an RPG. It really does kind of suck early on when you're learning the world, but once you get more into the story, into the pretier areas the game, and become more familiar with things, becomes a lot more rewarding.

Little King Story, there is an easy difficulty setting that I was able to get through without too much difficulty. I actually loved this game with it's combination of exploration, conquest, collection, and kingdom building.

Super Mario Galaxy - my major issue with this game was the easy difficulty; no surprise that the rewarding levels were the ones that actually challenged me. The second game supposedly ramps things up a lot better. Overall, I found the first game to be very well done, with lots of little things and big things, to make progression rewarding; and I enjoyed the more difficult stages a lot. I found Super Mario World really bland the last time I played - WAY overly easy, slow moving, simple level design. New Super Mario Brothers Wii and Mario 3 are more my taste in terms of 2D. Paper Mario was the one I put down and didn't pick back up.

I love Monster Hunter Tri, but it might not be your type of game. It's similar to Rune Factory Frontier which is probably my favourite game in years. If you get Monster Hunter Tri, join me online.

I actually liked Little King's Story, but I got tired of getting killed in the gauntlet of enemies up to the major bosses. (This was after the map was expanded a few times.) I would get to the entrance of the cave to the boss, but then I was already down several men and felt that if I went in, I would just lose the rest. (Losing people in this game was a real let down, since you lost all of that experience, etc.) I might pick it up again, since that was a while ago.

FF:CB was something we played last night. The thing that turned me off to it was the shitty story. I really really hate the generic stories I've seeing on 90% of the RPGs I play. It's a major part of what makes a RPG an RPG, and most game don't have anything decent for a story. What kind of gameplay does the game have? Hell, I didn't even get far enough to see anything besides these stupid "mini-games", like the Chocobo cart chase.

I do want to get Muramasa, as I really liked Odin Sphere. Already played RE4, Metroid 1/2, and Okami on different systems. Probably get NSMB, too.

FF:CB is more of an action adventure with a focus mostly on exploration. The battle system involves moves with telekensis most of the time. It has not much fo story, but some nice environments and societies. It's more of a niche title; I like it, but realize most people won't.

I was surprised with Muramasa, it's a fun title for fans of the 2D genre.

Don't forget about Prime 3, that'll complete the trilogy for you

Yeah, I have Prime 3. Need to finish it. Just think Prime 2 was the best one, though.

Tried Little King's Story again, and realized that I've put in 10 hours into the game, but there's no way to change the difficulty midway through. Oh well. Just flinging people to the fights was getting boring.

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves? Was that the one from the SNL joke? Nah, that was something involving money bags.

What are the good downloadables? Still hate that I can't play any demos, but maybe I'll risk a few games. I wanted to play Cave Story, but I'm disappointed when I found out that it's a freeware game, and they are trying to sell it for $12.

I just bought a copy of WarioWare Smooth Moves today. I can't wait to play it.

Smooth Moves was a launch title (well, December 2006) and like all Wario Ware games before it, is very, very solid and a ton of fun to play. If you like the series, it's right up there with the rest (really, the only "weak" one was the GC one and that was still pretty fun to play).

I'll avoid the VC stuff other than the original Sin and Punishment. I paid $50 for this on Ebay about 10 years ago and it was worth every penny then. For $12, it's a steal. Oh, and Super Mario: Lost Levels (the original Super Mario 2 from Japan). It's an insanely hard version of the original SMB, I love it.

As for the WiiWare stuff, I've only had experience with a few since the lack of demos really pisses me off as well. But for $6, get Bubble Bobble Plus. It's a phenomenal deal for one of the best co-op arcade games of all time. Not only do you get the original arcade game, you get a re-arranged version of it plus regular and re-arranged versions of a whole new set of 50 levels (hence the "Plus" in the name). And the newer levels are all 4-player too. It's a spectacular deal IMO. I haven't played it, but apparently Contra Rebirth is spectacular. Imagine Contra 1 done like Contra 3. That one might be worth your $10 if you like that kind of game. Castlevania Adventure Rebirth is a remake of the original Gameboy Castlevania Adventure and I hear it's aight but at $10, is a little too much IMO. If I had a demo (*stares in Nintendo's direction*) I may have been more convinced to get that (or Blaster Master Overdrive). As it is I'm on the fence right now 'cause all I have to go by is videos and reviews (and word of mouth).

You know about World of Goo and there was that LostWinds game (I think I have that name right) and it sequel. It was one of those early WiiWare games (might have been in the first batch) that was supposed to be awesome and one of the best uses of the Wiimote. There was that Final Fantasy My Life As A King game (and the DarkLord sequel) that was one of the launch titles for WiiWare that a few people here played. At $15, it's one of the very few premium priced WiiWare games (like World of Goo) and the style didn't really appeal to me. The Strong Bad games are supposed to be a ton of fun too. Excitebike World Rally is one of those I'm VERY seriously considering as it's supposed to be awesome but again, lack of demo has hurt that (and if it were $6 instead of $10, I'd probably take a shot in the dark). They're also in the middle of re-releasing all of the Phoenix Wright games redone as WiiWare games if you care.

Oh, don't forget about the 9-part Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. That was the cellphone FFIV direct sequel that we never got here 'til it hit WiiWare. It'll end up costing about 2600 points or so for all of it, but that's about 20 hours of game time or basically a full SNES RPG, which is what it basically is with all parts together. It's supposed to be really good. A few people here have played it, they can tell you more about it. And there is this new one called Dive that's coming out, IGN just did a preview on the game:

http://wii.ign.com/articles/108/1088898p1.html

And I'm seriously with you on the lack of demos. It's fucking retarded and something they should have fixed 3 years ago. There's a bunch of stuff I"m interested in but I really, really want to try them first for a couple of minutes to make sure they're not shit and I can't 'cause of their stubbornness.

I can tell you that I have pretty much all of the games you have mentioned minus world of goo and lostwinds, and then life as a darklord game. I really enjoyed Castlevania the adventure rebirth and I can tell ya that he is right on the level of awesome of the contra rebirth. There is also gradius rebirth if you enjoy a very good gradius game. Excitebike world rally plays more or less just like Excitebike, and has online multiplayer as well which is a blast. Blaster Master Overdrive is another one I have had a hell of a lot of fun with. The Strong Bad games are defidently enjoyable if you enjoy the cartoons or a humorous point and click style adventure. I finished My Life as a King but was overall disapointed that you never actually leave the city. You never get to go out and fight with your armies which was disapointing to me.

As for VC, there are actually a decent chunk of import titles that never came out to the states. Also I actually have bought a lot of the other VC stuff just because I like being able to just pick the game out of the menu and play rather than have to hook up my NES or my SNES.

Yeah, I've got FF:Darklord, and it's pretty enjoyable, though I still need to beat the last part. (Pretty damn hard at the last chapter, and no place to level build.)