The Wonderful 101: Remastered Review


The best moments from The Wonderful 101 were some of my best gaming moments in 2013, and you don't know, seven years later, it still hasn't lost its Platinum glow. Unfortunately, relatively few fans of action games have experienced it since it has so far been limited to Wii U, but The Wonderful 101 Remastered has finally leaked to Switch, PlayStation. 4 and PC and is as good as the original from 2013.

In fact, it's a little better thanks to more consistent performance, faster load times and a few smart add-ons that make your learning curve a little easier. I wish I could have gone further with these and done more with the visual update to justify the tag "remastered" rather than being a direct port with a few tweaks, but that's still the definitive version of one of the most refreshing and engaging action games ever made.

Rejoin!

The Wonderful 101 is a rare type of action, even for Platinum Games, the developer who basically wrote the book about them right now. His 10 to 12 hour adventure is an absolutely delicious superhero / felt inspired game with great characters, incredible music and some of the most impressive boss battles you have ever seen. You control a group of little heroes collectively known as the Wonderful 100, and using the right stick you can draw simple symbols that allow you to turn your mob into a weapon. For example, if you draw a circle, they will make a fist; draw a straight line, you will get a sword; an L shape turns them into a weapon; and a curved line creates a whip.

Where things get really interesting is in the way these weapons interact with the world and your enemies. Eventually, visual language begins to develop where you learn that when you see spikes, you have to whip; when there is lightning, you will need a sword to reflect it; When there is a circular bomb on the ground, you must use the weapon to absorb it and shoot it. Very little of this visual language is intuitive, so it is a problem that is rarely explicitly taught. You just have to pick it up as you go, and it can sometimes seem like developers expect you to read their minds when it comes to how avoid certain attacks.

The Wonderful 101 is a rare breed of action game.


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It also doesn't help that Wonderful 101 is a one-time punishment if you don't know what to do right now. Being hit, using the wrong weapon, or even using the right weapon at the wrong time, can cause your group of heroes to shoot in all directions, preventing you from defending or to attack until you are reunited again; Drawing specific glyphs can be difficult until you learn some tricks that prevent you from mistakenly drawing the wrong one; and fighting certain enemies without knowing the main weaknesses can be an extremely long and arduous affair without any indication that there is a better way.

Platinum has clearly identified the learning curve as a problem, as Remastered includes a few small tweaks that make it a little more attractive to newcomers. Unite Guts and Unite Spring, two essential techniques that essentially serve as the lock button and dodge, respectively, are now essentially free in the skill shop from the start, emphasizing more than ever that these skills need to be purchased immediately.

Likewise, Multi-Unite, another essential technique that allows you to create AI-controlled weapons, is now a recommended store purchase rather than a skill you have had from the start. This is a smart change because you don't really need Multi-unit for a while, and you finally forget that it exists when you really need it. Making it appear like something to buy in the store makes you more likely to experience it when you get it and understand its use from the start.

These are big changes and a good start, but the effort to make Wonderful 101 a little more accessible to newcomers still seems halfway there.

Once you learn it, the fight becomes … well, wonderful.


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That said, it's important to point out that once you've overcome the initial hurdles of understanding the Wonderful 101 fight, it becomes … well, wonderful. He is deep, flashy like hell and has a unique feeling of freedom and choice. There is usually an optimal way to defeat certain enemies, but they often cannot afford the type of combo points needed to earn these platinum and pure platinum medals. Therefore, you have to choose whether you want to play safely and finish a fight quickly, or be a little more risky and focus on bigger combos. There is also a special sense of urgency in each action, as new weapons have to be extracted very quickly to use their special properties in order to avoid being damaged or taking advantage of a brief opening : When you are able to take advantage of these opportunities, it feels good.

Beyond that, Wonderful 101 is one of the best action games out there when it comes to mixing it up. Most of the nine operations have at least one completely genre-changing segment, whether it's an arcade-style shooter, a direct homage to Space Harrier, or an underground chase that hits you with blocks. They are all fun in their own way and luckily they are never far behind.

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Then there are the bosses, who are some of the most interesting and exciting mechanical-inspired boss battles I have ever experienced. Seven years later, I would still hate to spoil the best, but even when they are inspired by obvious sources, they manage to explode creatively, and if their epic conclusions don't make you feel anything, you may need to check your pulse.

Always wonderful

The Wonderful 101 is a game that has made excellent use of the Wii U gamepad, but it turns out that it works just as well without it. You can still use the right joystick instead of the touch screen to draw the glyphs, and although there have been times when you have to control something on the joystick while being careful what happened on the second screen, these segments were They reproduce just as well with picture-on-picture frames on a single large screen.

As for perform ance, I only had the opportunity to play on the Switch and PC versions. It works like a dream on an Intel Core i7-6700k processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card, with smooth frame rates and incredibly fast load times, thanks to an SSD. The Switch version, while noticeably better than the Wii U (especially when it comes to load times), still struggles to keep that 60fps mark once the action is intense, as often happens quite often. . It's never a big deal, but it's a little disappointing to see how much better the Switch version of Bayonetta 2 is than its Wii U counterpart.

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