10 Best Wii U RPGs

Citizens of Earth is a role-playing video game developed by Eden Industries and published by Atlus. You play the newly elected Vice President of Earth, and your first day on the job opens with protestors and a missing president. The Vice President doesn't do any fighting himself. He gives commands to his party of up to three characters, all of them regular townspeople with job titles like Hippie Guy and Programmer. One review called it "a giant spoof on EarthBound", and the director has said the setting was inspired by EarthBound.

Some of the battle rules come straight from that game too, like weak enemies being beaten automatically. It is the smallest game on this list, and it plays like a love letter written by someone who has played EarthBound many times. Players who know the eShop's smaller games keep it on their lists of picks.

Unepic is a role-playing platformer with Metroidvania elements, made by Francisco Téllez de Meneses and a few collaborators. It was inspired by the 1987 MSX game The Maze of Galious, and it plays like an old computer game that grew a skill tree. The weapons and armor you can use depend on your level and where you spent your skill points. The merchants in the castle believe the player is a possessed monster, which is a fair read on most RPG heroes.

Finish its long and difficult challenges and you earn UnEpic Points, which buy gear like laser guns in a castle full of swords. It came to the Wii U as a download and got lost among bigger names. Players who dug through the eShop rate it as one of the best finds there.

In Child of Light, the Black Queen has stolen the Sun, the Moon and the Stars. You play Aurora, a young princess whose soul is brought to the kingdom of Lemuria, and you have to win the light back. It was built with the UbiArt Framework engine, the same one behind Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends. The team could put concept art directly into the game, which gives it the look of an animated painting.

The whole story is told in rhyme. One critic found the rhyming a little forced, enough that it kept him from getting fully absorbed in the characters. That is fair, though it grows on you. The game received mainly positive reviews. Players keep putting it on their lists of the console's best games, usually right next to Rayman Legends.

Darksiders II is the sequel to Darksiders, and it was a launch title for the Wii U in November 2012. You play Death, one of the Four Horsemen, and his job is to clear the name of his brother War. To do it, he goes looking for the Crowfather and proof of War's innocence. The first game was mostly an action game. This one added a full leveling system, skill trees and side quests on top of the fighting.

It also kept the series' love of puzzles, so expect a lot of levers, doors and portals between fights. There is a lot of game here, and the loot keeps coming the whole way through. Players who recommend third-party games for the console keep naming it.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a prequel to the original Deus Ex, and it mixes first-person shooting and stealth into an RPG. It is set in the year 2027. You play Adam Jensen, a security officer for Sarif Industries, a company that builds artificial organs called augmentations. The look borrows from the artwork and ideas of the Renaissance, and the story leans on the myth of Icarus.

It first came out in August 2011 on other consoles, and the Wii U got the Director's Cut, which was praised for its revamped gameplay. The boss fights were the big complaint, and the boss battles were outsourced to another developer due to time constraints. Players rate the Wii U version highly, and the GamePad is the main reason.

Mass Effect 3 is an action role-playing game in which Commander Shepard leads a final campaign against the Reapers, a machine race that has invaded Earth. You recruit squad members from various species and classes, and your choices decide which characters survive. The Wii U version, Mass Effect 3: Special Edition, came out as a launch title on November 18, 2012.

It won Best RPG at the Spike Video Game Awards, and its ending caused enough of a fuss that BioWare released the Extended Cut to expand it. It is the final installment of the original trilogy, so a lot of Wii U owners started the story at its last chapter. Players who played it there still recommend it.

Color Splash sends Mario to Prism Island, where the colors are draining away. You fix it with a paint hammer and a deck of Battle Cards. The paint idea came from Atsushi Isano, the director at Intelligent Systems, and it was built to use the Wii U GamePad. At launch it got praise for its graphics, soundtrack and comedic writing.

The combat and its lack of RPG elements were criticized, and that is the honest catch. This is the least RPG game on this list, closer to a funny adventure with card fights. Still, the jokes land, and a paper world being painted back in looks lovely on a big TV. Plenty of players who own it like it a lot more than its reputation suggests.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is a crossover role-playing game from Atlus and Intelligent Systems, based on their Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem series. A group of teenagers team up with friendly Mirages, based on characters from the Fire Emblem series,. Producer Kaori Ando's first idea was a crossover between Fire Emblem and Pokémon. That was rejected, since Pokémon Conquest was already being made.

The musical numbers were produced by the Japanese entertainment company Avex Group, and the Western release keeps the Japanese voice track with subtitles. Critics praised the battle system. It came to the Switch in 2020 as Encore, but the Wii U had it first. Fans of Japanese RPGs keep recommending it to anyone with the console.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is the enhanced version of Monster Hunter Tri, with over 200 quests. You play a hunter in a small settlement, taking on quests to track and slay monsters and earning equipment upgrades. Tri added underwater hunting and the Switch Axe, a weapon that changes between axe and sword forms. Ultimate brought all of it to the Wii U and the 3DS.

The two versions talk to each other. Wii U players can hunt with 3DS players over a local wireless connection, and your save can move between the consoles. That was a big deal before the Switch made the idea normal. Players keep putting it in their ranked lists of the console's best games. If you have one friend who will hunt with you, it is very hard to stop.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is an action role-playing game and a spiritual successor to Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii. It is an open world built for exploring, and later you get Skells, giant robots about four times the height of your character. Skells can fly, cross water and turn into vehicles like motorcycles. The music was created by anime composer Hiroyuki Sawano, and the localization was handled by Nintendo Treehouse and 8-4.

Critics praised its combat and world design but criticized its story and how little it explains its systems. Players do not seem to mind. They recommend it more than any other Wii U RPG, more than twice as often as anything else on this list. One player's advice was "Be prepared for many months of pure dedication". A remaster came to the Switch in 2025, but this is where it started.