Nintendo Should Add Wii to Switch Online Just for Dokapon Kingdom and 11 Other Classics

Nintendo's recent rollout of GameCube games on Switch Online with the Expansion Pack has done more than satisfy nostalgia — it has reopened the conversation about which legacy platforms deserve the same treatment. The Wii, with its massive install base and library of experimental third-party titles, stands out as the most obvious candidate. A new feature from The Bad Gamer makes the case for twelve Wii games that never received the audience they deserved, arguing that Switch Online could finally give them a proper second act.

The argument centers on games that fell through the cracks during the Wii's lifespan — titles that were critically praised but commercially overlooked, or that never left Japan in their original form. For players who missed them the first time around, the service represents more than convenience; it's a preservation effort for a generation of games that defined Nintendo's most experimental hardware era. The list spans genres from arcade racing to city-building to action RPGs, but one entry in particular illustrates why the Wii library remains so distinct.

Dokapon Kingdom: The Friendship-Ruining Board Game RPG

Released on July 31, 2008, and published by Atlus, Dokapon Kingdom blends RPG progression with board game mechanics in a way that still feels singular. Players traverse a sprawling board, battling monsters to build levels and capture cities, all while dueling each other for supremacy. The loser of a duel might wind up with a new hairstyle, or worse — punishments designed to be humiliating rather than merely mechanical. "I've lost track of how many hours I spent playing Dokapon Kingdom with my friends," the author writes. "We have never completed a longer run together, but conquered many shorter ones over the course of multiple game nights."

The appeal comes from the interaction, which unfolds in a lighthearted fantasy world that feels like it was ripped directly from Dragon Quest. That comparison is not accidental — the visual language and tone echo Square Enix's series, but the multiplayer chaos is entirely Atlus. The publisher itself warned the game might ruin a few friendships, and the author's experience bears that out: sessions stretch across evenings, alliances form and dissolve, and the board state shifts with every dice roll. A remastered version, Dokapon Kingdom: Connect, arrived on PC and Switch in 2023, but the original Wii release remains the version many players remember. Switch Online would place it in front of an audience that never had the chance to gather around a single screen and watch a carefully planned campaign collapse because someone rolled a three at the wrong moment.

From Arcade Racers to City Builders: The Rest of the Dozen

The list opens with Excite Truck, Monster Games' 2006 launch-title racer that used deformable terrain and nitrous-fueled air time to distinguish itself from the Excitebike lineage. A sequel, Excitebots: Trick Racing, followed in 2009 before the franchise vanished entirely. Dawn of Discovery — known as Anno: Create a New World outside North America — brought Keen Games' console port of the classic Anno 1404 city-builder to Wii in 2009, simplifying the interface without gutting the compulsive gameplay loop that keeps players clicking "one more turn" well past midnight.

Little King's Story, co-developed by Cing and Town Factory and released April 22, 2009, casts players as a cartoon monarch expanding a kingdom through real-time strategy and monster battles. A Steam port exists courtesy of Xseed Games, but the title remains underrepresented on consoles. The Dog Island, from wrestling-game veterans Yuke's, arrived April 26, 2007 as an unexpectedly solid adventure starring big-eyed puppies navigating cozy environments with mild peril and surprising emotional beats. Fortune Street, the first English-localized entry in the long-running Itadaki Street series, combined Nintendo and Dragon Quest characters on Monopoly-style boards in December 2011 — but poor marketing left stacks of unsold copies on store shelves for years.

Operation Rainfall Titles and Vanillaware's Early Masterpiece

The Last Story, released January 27, 2011, was one of three JRPGs at the center of the Operation Rainfall campaign. Developed by Mistwalker under Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, the action-RPG arrived in North America only after Xseed Games stepped in where Nintendo declined. Critics praised its innovative combat, stirring music, and deep story, even as they noted flaws that kept it from greatness. Muramasa: The Demon Blade, from Vanillaware (Unicorn Overlord), launched April 9, 2009 as a Wii exclusive before a Vita remaster titled Muramasa Rebirth. Its hand-drawn art direction and challenging action-RPG combat still hold up, though some players find the loop repetitive. A new retelling, Muramasa: Revenant Blades, is slated for February 2027 — making the original's availability all the more relevant.

Rounding out the list are Punch-Out!! (May 18, 2009), which gave Little Mac his last proper solo outing before Super Smash Bros. Ultimate; Elebits (December 2, 2006), a first-person hide-and-seek game where players hunt tiny creatures in domestic environments using physics-based manipulation; and several others that showcase the Wii's willingness to fund weird, genre-defying ideas. Each title represents a design risk that a modern publisher might reject — exactly the kind of game that benefits from a curated subscription library where discovery costs nothing extra.

Why Switch Online Is the Right Home

The Wii library works best with a subscription plan because its top titles lean into experiments, bite‑sized adventures, or multiplayer concepts that don't line up with the pricey $60 or $70 modern console releases. For instance, a session of Excite Truck turns a simple arcade race into a handful of minutes that feel fresh. Playing Dokapon Kingdom can take a whole night, and Elebits lets your curiosity guide you more than a checklist of boxes to tick. None of these games justify a full‑price remake, yet each one deserves to stay playable without hunting for a Wii or a sensor bar. Nintendo already runs the emulation engine that powers GameCube on Switch Online, proving the company can handle the technical demands. The Wii's hardware is close enough to that system that the gap in emulating it should be a manageable hurdle.

The business case is straightforward: these games generate zero revenue sitting in a vault, but they add tangible value to a subscription that Nintendo already charges for. The Expansion Pack tier needs compelling differentiators beyond N64 and Sega Genesis libraries, and a curated Wii collection — especially one highlighting third-party gems that never got ports — would be a persuasive upgrade incentive. For players, it means access to a generation of games that defined local multiplayer creativity, asymmetric gameplay, and motion-controlled experimentation. The twelve games on this list are a starting point, not a ceiling. The Wii library runs deep, and Switch Online has the capacity to become the definitive way to experience it.

The case for Wii on Switch Online isn't just nostalgia — it's about preserving a library that took risks modern publishing often avoids. Dokapon Kingdom alone justifies the effort: a game that turns friends into rivals, rivals into victims of humiliating hairstyles, and a single dice roll into a story you'll tell for years. Nintendo has the platform, the technology, and the catalog. The only question is whether they'll finally press start.

1. 2008-07-31 4 Dokapon Kingdom Released: July 31, 2008 I’ve lost track of how many hours I spent playing Dokapon Kingdom with my friends.
2. 2009-05-18 Released: May 18, 2009 Aside from letting Little Mac exchange blows with other mascots in games like 2018’s Super Smash Bros.
3. 2009-05-22 11 Dawn of Discovery Released: May 22, 2009 Known as Anno: Create a New World outside North America, Dawn of Discovery for Wii was an accessible city builder…