Best Adventure Games on the Wii

The adventure games worth playing on the Nintendo Wii start with Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, Xenoblade Chronicles.

The Wii and Adventure Games

A console that got into more houses than any other by not competing on power. Half its library is aimed at people who had never held a controller; the other half is some of Nintendo's best work.

Adventure Games are a solid rather than a defining part of this library — worth knowing, but not the reason anybody owns the machine.

Filtering to adventure means the place and the story are what you want back, not the challenge. It is the right filter when the thing you remember is where you were rather than what you did.

The Adventure Games Worth Playing

  1. 1. Super Mario Galaxy

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  2. 2. The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  3. 3. Xenoblade Chronicles

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  4. 4. Metroid Prime 3

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  5. 5. The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  6. 6. Super Mario Galaxy 2

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  7. 7. No More Heroes

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  8. 8. Muramasa The Demon Blade

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  9. 9. Red Steel 2

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

What Makes a Good Adventure Game

A world with a reason to wander it, and writing that survives being read rather than skipped.

Mechanical depth. Several of the best adventure games have combat that is deliberately unsatisfying, because they want your attention somewhere else.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best adventure game on the Wii?

Super Mario Galaxy is the usual first answer, and there are 9 in the library we cover.

Was the Wii good at adventure games?

It is a solid rather than a defining part of the library.

What counts as an adventure game?

Anywhere the story and the place matter more than the skill ceiling — point-and-click, walking sims, narrative thrillers and most open worlds. The label alone tells you very little, which is why each pick here says what it actually is.

Are adventure games long?

They split hard. Open-world adventures run to a hundred hours; the narrative ones are often finishable in an evening, and the short ones are usually the better written.

How is this list put together?

From the games this site covers on the Nintendo Wii, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.

Adventure Games on Other Consoles

More From the Wii

Or browse the whole Nintendo Wii library.