List of Wii games which are widescreen only

[Lawfer]

The ones I confirmed are:

Another Code R

Arc Rise Fantasia

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Kirby's Return to Dream Land

Metroid: Other M

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Pandora's Tower

Rayman Origins

Resident Evil 4

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Trauma Center: New Blood

Trauma Team

Xenoblade Chronicles

Anything else?

[Blair]

interesting, I didn't know the wii had widescreen only games.

are we sure about resident evil 4? I always thought that it's 4:3 setting widescreen mode was just a letterboxed fake, similar to how it ran on the original GameCube.

[Guspaz]

Random useless observation: all of the videos in Metroid: Other M are encoded as 640x480 MPEG-1 videos, but with a 73/60 aspect ratio specified, which makes them ~780x480. Which you'll note is still not widescreen. I haven't played the game, I presume they stretch them to fullscreen?

The Wii is capable of decoding much better than MPEG-1, you'd think they'd have just encoded 16:9 videos at the native resolution of the Wii with a reasonable codec. It's not a space issue either, the MPEG-1 videos are like 6 to 8 mbit/s videos due to the inefficient codec.

[Ikaruga11]

I always hated how Skyward Sword was widescreen only. There was no reason to force letterboxing in 4:3 mode.

interesting, I didn't know the wii had widescreen only games.

are we sure about resident evil 4? I always thought that it's 4:3 setting widescreen mode was just a letterboxed fake, similar to how it ran on the original GameCube.

Yes, Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube only has a 4:3 display mode. It uses a "fake" letterbox format.

[Extrems]

The Wii is capable of decoding much better than MPEG-1, you'd think they'd have just encoded 16:9 videos at the native resolution of the Wii with a reasonable codec. It's not a space issue either, the MPEG-1 videos are like 6 to 8 mbit/s videos due to the inefficient codec.

MPEG-1 video is free to use, and that's DVD-Video bitrate anyway.

[Guspaz]

It wasn't free, they're in Sofdec containers, meaning they paid for the license to use it. Of course, these files use a proprietary audio format, so the royalty angle makes sense since the patents for MP3 (part of the MPEG-1 standard) hadn't expired at the time.

In any event, all of MPEG-2 will be out of patent by next year, so no more excuses!

[awe444]

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/rocket ... mes/89026/

The ones I confirmed are:

Another Code R

Arc Rise Fantasia

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Metroid: Other M

Pandora's Tower

Resident Evil 4

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Trauma Center: New Blood

Trauma Team

Xenoblade Chronicles

Anything else?

Also confirmed 16:9 only games:
- Kirby's Return to Dreamland
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii

[Lawfer]

Also confirmed 16:9 only games:
- Kirby's Return to Dreamland
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Added, thanks. That's a good number of games who are only wide-screen actually!

interesting, I didn't know the wii had widescreen only games.

are we sure about resident evil 4? I always thought that it's 4:3 setting widescreen mode was just a letterboxed fake, similar to how it ran on the original GameCube.

Resident Evil 4 is the same as all these other games listed, 480i/480p resolutions with underscan, it's called anamorphic widescreen, most Wii games are in full 4:3 though.

[Ikaruga11]

I wonder if it's possible using Homebrew hacks to force a full 4:3 image when in 4:3 mode. Supposedly, a lot of widescreen Wii games actually only show a 14:9 image. Apparently thin black borders are on both sides of the image to account for overscan. I believe this is seen in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, among other Wii games.

All of these major AAA Wii games that only run in widescreen is convincing me to use my Wii in 16:9.

[Lawfer]

I wonder if it's possible using Homebrew hacks to force a full 4:3 image when in 4:3 mode.

Wouldn't that distort the picture though? Especially CG cutscenes?

Apparently thin black borders are on both sides of the image to account for overscan.

You mean on the left and right side? If so, yes Skyward Sword, Arc Rise Fantasia, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Xenoblade Chronicles, Resident Evil 4, Pandora's Tower (haven't tested Metroid Prime 3: Corruption) do have thin black bars on the left and right side resulting in a an overall smaller viewing frame than Metroid: Other M, Trauma Center: New Blood and Trauma Team who only have black bars on the top and bottom.

All of these major AAA Wii games that only run in widescreen is convincing me to use my Wii in 16:9.

Most games are 4:3 fullscreen though, so for examples games who's CGs are 4:3 would be losing details due to cropping to change from 4:3 to 16:9, for example Project Zero 2 Wii Edition has quite a bit of CG cutscenes and they are 4:3.

[Ikaruga11]

Wouldn't that distort the picture though? Especially CG cutscenes?

Maybe. I guess it would depend on the game and how objects are handled in said game. This proposed fullscreen hack would work similarly to the widescreen hack for 4:3-only GameCube games using the Homebrew program Swiss. Showing in-game content instead of the black letterboxing could reveal pop-in and other visual quirks though as seen here with the widescreen hack on the GameCube using Swiss: https://youtu.be/hVX81e6Ig-s?t=25m8s

You mean on the left and right side? If so, yes Skyward Sword, Arc Rise Fantasia, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Xenoblade Chronicles, Resident Evil 4, Pandora's Tower (haven't tested Metroid Prime 3: Corruption) do have thin black bars on the left and right side resulting in a an overall smaller viewing frame than Metroid: Other M, Trauma Center: New Blood and Trauma Team who only have black bars on the top and bottom.

Yes. That's a real shame too. Nintendo and other developers should have used a full 16:9 image for the widescreen mode in their games instead of pandering to people with overscan on their CRTs by adding black bars to the sides.

Most games are 4:3 fullscreen though, so for examples games who's CGs are 4:3 would be losing details due to cropping to change from 4:3 to 16:9, for example Project Zero 2 Wii Edition has quite a bit of CG cutscenes and they are 4:3.

Right. All GameCube and Wii games render at 640x480i/p (4:3 resolution), and must have a 4:3 mode. Widescreen mode was an optional inclusion for developers. A few GameCube games supported 16:9 mode, but most were only 4:3. The Wii on the other hand had a ton of games which supported 16:9 mode.

Some games actually cropped the image like you said. I believe Twilight Princess (Wii Edition) did this. The original GCN version only supported a 4:3 output. The Wii version added 16:9 support that was achieved by cropping the 4:3 image into a 16:9 aspect ratio, throwing away picture information. I may be completely wrong though.

[theclaw]

No need to sugarcoat it, GameCube version Resident Evil 4 was bad design. You had a 4:3 image with baked-in black bars.
It couldn't fill the screen of any TV and look halfway decent. Vertical stretch to fit 4:3 ruins the aspect ratio, zooming in to fit 16:9 is too blurry.

[Lawfer]

Vertical stretch to fit 4:3 ruins the aspect ratio, zooming in to fit 16:9 is too blurry.

Well that's the same problem with every game mentioned in this list though, not just Resident Evil 4.

[theclaw]

At least most of those are alright on a widescreen TV.

[Ikaruga11]

Yeah, Resident Evil 4 is really blurry when set to 16:9.

[Lawfer]

At least most of those are alright on a widescreen TV.

Unless you have a good widescreen CRT they will look too blurry and aliased though.

Resident Evil 4 is on PS4, so you get a widescreen HD version without having to bother with the Wii/GC version anymore.

The same option isn't available for most other games on the list in the OP.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Assuming it's about games that are letterboxed on a 4:3 screen, Rayman Origins is one. I doubt there's any Wii game that doesn't do 4:3 at least this way.

[Lawfer]

Assuming it's about games that are letterboxed on a 4:3 screen, Rayman Origins is one. I doubt there's any Wii game that doesn't do 4:3 at least this way.

The Wii is an SD console, not much different from the GameCube so you get a native output of 720x480, however some games are natively widescreen 16:9, so what happens when playing a game who's native widescreen running on a console who's not? You get black bars on top and bottom when playing said widescreen-only games in the Wii native aspect ratio.

What I am talking about is this:

Xenoblade Chronicles:



Instead of getting a 720x480 active picture (like most Wii games), you are getting a 720x360 active picture with black bars on top and bottom, 720x360 being a 16:9 aspect ratio.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I also doubt those games to be rendered in actual, native 720x480 or even 720x360. Xenoblade Chronicles looked particularly sub-hi-res to me, that is - in comparison to something like Metroid: Other M viewed on the same RGB CRT.

One has to wonder what's the post-processing or whatever which makes Pandora's Tower look so tatty most of the time in 480i, as if there was no deflickering applied (but it's there while zooming in as well as when at home).
Something similar seems to be in The Last Story, but it's fullscreen 4:3 alright (although I believe its native resolution to be rather low too). I might add - The Last Story and Rayman Origins both suffer from their font obviously not designed to be read in 480i. On the other hand, Muramasa in 4:3 is fullscreen but looks cropped...

[TransatlanticFoe]

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles

Been a while but I only had a 4:3 CRT when I first got my Wii and recall this to be widescreen only, while everything else I had output in fullscreen.

[Ikaruga11]

The Wii is an SD console, not much different from the GameCube so you get a native output of 720x480

Technically the GameCube and Wii are both ED (Enhanced Definition) consoles that support 240p, 480i and 480p. Also the native output is 640x480 (actually 448 to account for overscan on CRTs).

[BazookaBen]

Sin and Punishment will actually use the full screen for the UI in 4:3 mode, but the actual game renders in a letterboxed 16:9 area.

But anyway, my strategy when playing any 16:9-only Wii games on a 4:3 CRT is to set the system to "widesceen", then go into the CRT's service menu to reduce the height of the raster until you get a proper 16:9 picture. The reason to do this is that you're at least getting the full 480 lines of resolution on the vertical plane, instead of the 360 lines you get when you just use 4:3 mode with letterboxing.

[Lawfer]

Sin and Punishment will actually use the full screen for the UI in 4:3 mode, but the actual game renders in a letterboxed 16:9 area.

Yeah I know but I don't care much for the UI, I care of the active picture is 16:9 or not, it's also the the same thing with Another Code R.

The best options for playing widescreen-only Wii games are the following:

1. Play them on a widescreen CRT (like one of these SONY BVMs) and have the Wii set to "Widescreen".
2. Play them on a widescreen LCD and have them upscaled to 1080p either using an upscaler to upscale 480p to 1080p or using the Wii U with HDMI which does the upscaling for you.

[Wachenroder]

Sin and Punishment will actually use the full screen for the UI in 4:3 mode, but the actual game renders in a letterboxed 16:9 area.

Yeah I know but I don't care much for the UI, I care of the active picture is 16:9 or not, it's also the the same thing with Another Code R.

The best options for playing widescreen-only Wii games are the following:

1. Play them on a widescreen CRT (like one of these SONY BVMs) and have the Wii set to "Widescreen".
2. Play them on a widescreen LCD and have them upscaled to 1080p either using an upscaler to upscale 480p to 1080p or using the Wii U with HDMI which does the upscaling for you.

Yeah pretty much. unfortunately i dont have an HD CRT so its HDTV for a proper picture or nothing.

Luckily i dont mind playing my PVM too much it supports 480p. Played through DKCR recently and while slightly annoying, it was fine.

[bateman82]

Great topic (never found a list online)!

That was the primary reason for my long "quest" to finda a GDM FW900

Another Code R

Arc Rise Fantasia

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Kirby's Return to Dream Land

Metroid: Other M

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Pandora's Tower

Rayman Origins

Resident Evil 4

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Trauma Center: New Blood

Trauma Team

Xenoblade Chronicles

Only 14 titles, I expected a lot more.

[Lawfer]

I am pretty sure that "Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure" is also a widescreen-only title, but I am not 100 percent sure.

If you would look at this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_W ... ii_U_eShop

You'll notice an interesting pattern, in that there is a big amount of widescreen-only title in there (half of them are, if not more than that)

There is also Project Zero 2 Wii Edition for Japan and Europe, but I can confirm that this title is 4:3 for both gameplay and cutscenes.

[Ikaruga11]

So the only advantage of playing widescreen-only Wii games in 16:9 is getting rid of the black letterboxing and having the game fill the entire screen?

What about the advantage of Wii games that support 4:3 and 16:9? Does 16:9 give you more field of view? Meaning can you see more of the in-game world in widescreen?

[BazookaBen]

I am pretty sure that "Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure" is also a widescreen-only title, but I am not 100 percent sure.

I don't remember that being widescreen only, but that was the first Wii game I ever bought, and I haven't played it since then. So we're talking close to 10 years ago now, so my memory is definitely fuzzy.

[Lawfer]

So the only advantage of playing widescreen-only Wii games in 16:9 is getting rid of the black letterboxing and having the game fill the entire screen?

Advantage of Wii games who are natively widescreen:

1. You can play them in their native aspect ratio on modern displays.

2. You will get the best visual quality by playing them in full screen in 854x480 mode.

3. You can easily upscale them to scale perfectly to a modern display who's native resolution is 1920x1080.

4. No compromise on quality since you are not trying to stretch an active 4:3 picture to make it fit on a 16:9 viewing while cutting off part of the to make it fit 16:9 (this is called "cropping"), this how Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster was done for CG cut-scenes, they "cropped" the 4:3 CG cutscenes to make it fit the 16:9 aspect ratio.

When you play a Wii or Original Xbox game in widescreen mode when the game is not natively widescreen, you are stretching a 4:3 picture which result in decreased picture quality and loss of part of picture (cropping), on the other hand with games like Xenoblade Chronicles, when you play them on 4:3 screen you get 720x360 active screen, which is a waste because when played inb the game native resolution you are actually increasing the picture quality by having the active picture not be 720x360, but an active picture of 854x480, that's a resolution incrase and all the resolution is focused on the game itself, while in 720x480 the resolution is dispersed throughout a 16:9 active picture letter boxed in a 4:3 output.

What about the advantage of Wii games that support 4:3 and 16:9? Does 16:9 give you more field of view? Meaning can you see more of the in-game world in widescreen?

That depends entirely on their native aspect ratio, you can play a Wii game who is natively 4:3 stretched and expanded to fit a widescreen format but as explained above it will always look better in it's native aspect ratio (720x480) and if output in 16:9 part of the picture will be missing, think of how the PSTV displays PS Vita games in 720p mode, the aspect ratio of the PS Vita is not 16:9 and the closest thing to a 16:9 resolution of 720p for the PS Vita is 1280x725, so the PS Vita just cut off part of the screen to achieve 1280x720 output. But that is from a console who's native aspect ratio is very close to 16:9, while the difference between 4:3 and 16:9 is much bigger, so the "sacrifice" would have to be much bigger as well to fit (crop) a 4:3 game in a 16:9 frame.

[Fudoh]

You will get the best visual quality by playing them in full screen in 854x480 mode.

by using what output on what machine ? 16:9 480p is still 720x480, just anamorphically stretched.