CrazyKitty/blog

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Wii... U

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backstory

I had a Wii U when it was still supported by nintendo, it was modded torwards the end of it’s lifespan. I forgot it was modded and sold it because I never really used it.
After a long while I got homesick and I ended up buying another one on ebay for $50.

And I ended up modding it again…

premodding research

While waiting for my cheap Wii U to arrive I wanted to see how the homebrew scene evolved after x years of progress happening, and I was pleasently suprised.
actual post I made on the internet somewhere talking about this.

the classic hacks.guide

I used this site(wiiu.hacks.guide) to help me get the cfw (aroma) and generally get started with homebrew.
Once that’s done here’s all I’ve done with mine so far.

plugins, plugins, plugins…

Thankfully the main one that I need already comes with aroma and it’s the Region Free plugin. The wii u I bought is japanese so getting this is a must-have since my local videogame store mostly has games from North America.
The first plugin that I installed was Inkay it brings back miiverse and adds online to a bunch of games. Then I got StyleMiiU, it adds custom themes to the home menu; also don’t forget about UTheme which is a theme manager.
Currently using DRC-Sensorbar as a sensorbar, when I got my wii u it didn’t come with one so this mod enables the one built into the gamepad on wii u mode, whenever the gamepad is on in wii mode the sensor bar is also on, and you don’t even need to mod your wii u to do it.
There’s ftpiiu(installs via Aroma Updater) which is an ftp server that can run in the background.
Swip Swap Me is useful if you want to play a TV only game on the gamepad, an example of this is Splatoon.

there are a few applications that may or may not be useful.

There are a few apps that I use day-to-day on my wii u. The first one is HB App Store, it does what it says on the tin. It’s a homebrew app store that you can access directly from your wii u.
The second one that I use is RetroArch (I recommend using this fork).

The Wii U is a Wii too

I used a different guide to get the homebrew channel on the wii (this one), but it starts with using the vwii at least once, next getting a plugin that enables force shutdown in case of crashes, then running a piece of software from the homebrew app store that just installs the homebrew channel on the virtual wii.
After that I downloaded priiloader and got it configured (wiiconnect24 patches, mail, wii system settings, region unlocking, etc.).
Finally I got WiiLink! It’s a full reimplementation of wiiconnect24; it reenables weather, forecast, check mii out, everybody votes and the nintendo channel. The out of region wiiconnect24 channels also work on any region of wii! This means you now have access to Food Channel (with working food orders), Photo Prints Channel, Wii Room, and the PAL exclusive channel: Kirby TV.