Nintendo hasn’t had an easy year and we don’t mean in terms of sales where it actually showed some improvements over the previous year. The gaming giant’s Direct presentation at E3 was heavily criticized and nothing could prepare any of us for the tragic passing of its CEO Satoru Iwata. Iwata started out in the company as a programmer and had a hand in some of its greatest franchises including Pokémon, Earthbound and Kirby. Iwata was also the driving force behind the Wii and DS. Even if the Wii U and 3DS haven’t done as well as their predecessors, we wouldn’t have any of the releases we did this year without Iwata.

And what a year it’s been for Wii U fans. Whether you’re a Mario nut or just want something refreshingly different to play in your favourite genre, Nintendo did its damndest to provide for you. Here are our nominees for the best Wii U game of 2015.

Nominees:

• Xenoblade Chronicles X
• Super Mario Maker
• Splatoon
• Skylanders SuperChargers
• Freedom Planet
• Yoshi’s Woolly World

Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles X

The relationship between Nintendo and Monolith Soft has always been strong, dating back to Baten Kaitos on the GameCube. Monolith Soft has also been highly instrumental in co-operating with Nintendo for the development of many its releases over the years including The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and Splatoon.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is perhaps its greatest creation yet. The enormous open world RPG has a scale that ably competes and at times dwarfs that of The Witcher 3, Fallout 4 and Just Cause 3. It combines a compelling story with even cooler mechanics like large towering robots called Skells that can fight in battles and be used for navigation. Though its use of the Wii U Gamepad wasn’t revolutionary, Xenoblade Chronicles X proved you could have an epic, beautiful game on the Wii U that could compete with the so-called “superior” consoles’ exclusives.

Note: GamingBolt’s Game of the Year categories, nominations and awards are selected via an internal nomination, voting and debate process. You can check the rest of categories and the respective winners here.