If you’re a Wii U owner you’ve probably heard of The Wondeful 101. This title is a fast paced action game developed by fast paced action game masters: Platinum Games who you may also recall from games like Bayonetta and the recently released Metal Gear Rising. The Wonderful 101 is one of the last big games for the system this year and it’s been in development for what feels like ages. It has long served as a beacon on the horizon of the woeful Wii U release schedule that was 2013. So was the long wait worth it? Well, unfortunately I’d have to say “not really”.
The Wonderful 101 takes place on the planet Dearth which is in the process of repelling an alien force known as the GEATHJERK. If that sentence didn’t give it away let me tell you that this game is terrible when it comes to naming schemes. You take control of Will Wedgewood, a school teacher by day, but by night he’s something much more: he is the (apparently) new leader of the Wonderful 100, a masked super hero team specifically tasked with battling inter-galactic forces.
Shortly following Will in the character roster is one of his students, Luka, who serves as a key source of dramatic friction throughout the game. Luka, despite coming across as bratty and annoying for the majority of the game, is an interesting character with a somewhat tragic backstory. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for the remainder of the cast.
While Will comes across as the least eccentric core member of the Wonderful 100, his character most easily described as bland and forgettable, the rest of his team is an obnoxious collection of stereotypes and catch phrases. We have the gun-toting Wonder Green who basically serves as an obese Pepé Le Pew, complete with french accent and womanizing ways. Wonder Pink (of course) is the only named female on the team. But the award for most insufferable character has to go to Wonder Blue, a character so hip to all the modern lingo of the world that when Luka reveals that his parents are dead the best Blue can respond with is “Oh Snap.”.
Wonder Blue is so hip and fresh and he totally understands the situation.
You’ll notice upon starting up the game you’re allowed to choose between “very easy”, “easy”, and “normal” difficulty settings. You can change the difficulty between missions and there doesn’t seem to be any kind of penalty for doing so. I’d actually suggest at the very least starting out on easy and then testing your own limits from there.
Unfortunately The Wonderful 101 is yet another entry in a long line of Wii U games that fail to properly utilize the system’s unique control scheme. The game’s combat is built around the act of drawing the different weapons that your characters can use but the entire premise is undercut by the simple fact that drawing with the analog stick is almost always faster than using the touch screen. Sure you’ll likely need the screen for the rare occasion where the whip or hammer (which are both somewhat complex to draw) are necessary to progress, but otherwise you’ll probably find yourself creating all your combos with the stick.
The drawing system is simple enough to follow at the start of the game but as you move on it becomes trickier. Unite Claw is performed by drawing a zig-zag while Unite Whip is created using a squiggly line. I can all but guarantee that at some point during your play through you will draw one when you intended to draw the other. Not a big deal in some circumstances, but incredibly frustrating when you’re under pressure.
Most of the enemies in the game will have at least one power attack that will cause your teammates to scatter. When this happens they will lay on the ground for a few seconds and you will be unable to use any moves that will actually do damage to your enemies. You can either retreat and wait for your team to wake up and return to you or you can wake them up yourself by running over their bodies. Frequently you’ll find yourself collecting your unconscious teammates only to be scattered all over again when you finally grab the last one. It’s about as much fun as being juggled in a fighting game, it completely stops the flow of a fight and the AI is able to do it fairly frequently if you’re not careful about blocking and dodging.
Despite all of Platinum’s efforts it’s still sometimes very hard to tell what on earth is happening on screen.
To make matters worse by default you don’t have a block or dodge ability. Both are entirely optional purchases in the Wonderful store and if you’re not careful you might make the mistake of not making them the first things you buy. Even if you do have the abilities some attacks can’t be blocked. There’s not really any way to know without some good old fashioned trial and error.
Although I’m sure some people can get right into the groove of the game I’m also betting a healthy portion of players will die many a time as they traverse the early levels. Don’t worry, presumably because this happened lot during testing, death in The Wonderful 101 is almost entirely meaningless. Upon dying your score will be diminished and you will have the option to continue or exit the game. Should you choose to soldier on you will be dropped right back where you left off and you can continue wailing on your opponents as though nothing happened.
Even flying a ship in this game is more work than it should be.
Walk into a building? Hope you weren’t comfortable in that seat because now it’s time for the mandatory “touch screen justification” puzzle. The television will simply show the exterior of the building you’re in while the game pad will display what is essentially a puzzle room. You usually don’t perform any touch related actions in the puzzle rooms, instead you simply use the game pad to move the camera around while controlling your characters like normal. Controlling the camera entirely by moving the gamepad around is not intuitive and feels like it was just tacked on because they felt like they had to use the pad for something else.
There are a handful of moments where the dual screen setup works somewhat well, one that comes to mind is controlling a spaceship on the television by moving the characters to corresponding buttons on the touch pad. Most of the time though the TV just sits there dormant while you try to navigate a room with the worst camera imaginable.
I think Platinum Games fans will probably find something to like here but the average Wii U owner should avoid this title. Hell even if you are a Platinum fan you might be better off waiting for Bayonetta 2. The game was a source of endless frustration for me and although you can argue I didn’t like it simply because “I was bad at it” I think a lot of that blame can be placed squarely on the game’s shoulders, its tutorial system is light at best and it has some of the most obnoxious controls and camera issues that I’ve seen in years. Even after I learned the game’s quirks and was able to pull off Gold and Platinum medals I still didn’t feel like I was having any fun.
I’ve never had any of the problems I’ve had here in other Platinum games like Metal Gear Rising or Bayonetta. The Wonderful 101 felt like a chore to grind through and I can’t really recommend it unless you already know this is your kind of game.
