You know, I can almost envision a reality where this game received the notoriety it so clearly deserved, and it wouldn't take much strain to imagine. Given the time period in which the game launched, it had everything it needed to click with anyone who laid eyes on it: a bright and colorful cast of characters that felt ripped right out of the system they were made for, a story of super heroes fighting off an alien invasion during an era where The Avengers were exploding in popularity, quirky gameplay mechanics you'd come to expect from a company like Platinum Games, an all star team of action game designers who had the experience and passion needed to bring this crazy concept to life and flourish, the works. With Hideki Kamiya at the helm, there was no chance this game could possibly fail, regardless of the system it was launching on.

So what went wrong?

Clearly something didn’t click with people despite Platinum’s best efforts. There are many reasons this could be the case (unorthodox control scheme, confused marketing, niche appeal of the action genre, etc.) but it would be difficult to pin down one specific thing that turned people away.

In my eyes however, what matters most is not that the game lacked something to wrangle in the highest number of potential customers, but that the game did not restrain itself in what it sought out to do.

Let me set the scene for you: June 2020, one of the worst years in recent history and it refuses to let up. Due to the recent shutdown of my job given the status of the world at that time, I had devoted a lot of my free time to playing games, as many others in my position likely do as well. Everything in my life is starting to drag, and I can tell nothing will get better any time soon. However, there is a momentary glimmer of joy coming my way. The Wonderful 101 recently had an incredibly successful kickstarter, and having heard many positive things about the game, I decided to give it a blind shot. Many of my favorite games were action games, so while Platinum didn’t have a perfect track record in my experience, I was interested in trying something I knew so little about. Even if it was disappointing, it probably had some interesting elements to dig into.

I didn’t expect my expectations to be shattered like they were after finishing the game.

I’ve never played a game before that appealed to all my sensibilities like The Wonderful 101 does, and even after nearly 200 hours of play, I’m still picking up on new things to love that I never noticed before. I won’t bore you with the semantics, but every element of the game is emblematic of everything I love about the medium. The story felt cartoonish and stupid in all the best ways, the gameplay presented incredibly distinct systems to set it apart from other action games while tackling problems about the genre in interesting ways I had never considered before, and the whole experience was uncompromising in it’s vision in a truly inspiring way.

In many ways, The Wonderful 101 made me feel like a kid again and ignited a passion for life in my heart at a point where everything felt so aimless and dark. As this global pandemic slows down and eventually fades into nothingness, I’ll be sure to leave a lot of things from this era in the past, but this game is sure to stick with me for years to come.

Regardless of how you may feel about the final product, what can’t be denied is that The Wonderful 101 is everything it wanted to be and didn’t settle for less. And for the time period when it came into my life, that’s all I needed it to be.

Team, diplomacy has failed, remove half a star from Bayonetta for not being as fun.

I cannot see my character. He is very small. His hitbox is very big. When I get hit I run around in circles on the floor. I cannot comprehend this. I try to make a whip, they turn into claws. I try to make a hammer, it turns into a whip. My character is behind a 50 gigaton robot. Where is he. I cannot imagine trying to 100% this and having to master the shooter sections. I hit a giant turtle with a big weapon. It works. I hit it again. This time it doesn't, and my amorphous blob is spread over an area the size of DMC 1's map.

A metallic clang reverberates inside my skull.

My Platinum™ damage metal instantly goes to a silver. By the time I finish mopping the floor, the giant turtle has already hit me again. The Kamiyagamers sit in the audience and they laugh at me - "You should have already played it when you do your first playthrough" - my smile turns into a frown. I wish I was playing Ōkami. Where is my character. I do a jumping action by pressing the A button. My character is instantly thrown into the isometric pit between two cliffs that looked like they were 1 nanometer apart. The turtle hits me again - it looked like this attack could be blocked, but unfortunately I either didn't properly understand the physics of jelly or I misjudged the weight of the attack to be 80 megatons instead of 120 megatons, which everyone knows is the lethal limit for cartoon gelatine. Except when it isn't. "I should have already played it" I think to myself.

I cannot find my character.

I have a lot of issues with this, but ultimately once you get past those comboing enemies is in fact really enjoyable (especially when you get several morphs going at once) and the setpieces are by far the best Kamiya has ever stood for, and probably some of the best in any character action game. The plot is fun, I laughed several times and the characters are all both enjoyable and cool. The wonderline is a Wonderful™ mechanic (the 90% of the time where it works as expected). I had a good amount of fun with this despite the admittedly pretty frequent frustrations. Where is Wonder Red. I cannot see him on my screen

What initially seems like an absolutely absurd, incomprehensible mess of ideas that almost seemed to hate those who decided to pick this up ends up being one of the single greatest gaming experiences I've had. Nothing about this game seemingly makes sense, but once you start really getting into it you realise just what you've been missing out on by considering it all as such. An idiosyncratic experience through and through that's willing to push boundaries and experiment a whole lot with its core mechanics to make it stand out strongly from the pack while also showcasing nothing but an unabashed love for the genre. It's got the standard ideas that you'll find in a lot of the Platinum Games lineup with the way it insists on being a mishmash of differing styles, has an insane skill ceiling that'll make you feel like a fool on your first playthrough in all likelihood, and also going absolutely all out in its sense of pure maximalism. The big difference that separates a lot of what this game does compared to a game such as Bayonetta is the way that it takes extra measures to do as much as possible to unify these styles, having them feel more in line with the rest of the game experience as to not entirely distract while still providing a nice bit of absurdity to the sharp left turns it can take to further reinforce its incredibly full on, over the top vibe.

One of the most truly bizarre aspects of this game is the way that almost all of its defining features can be seen as pure negatives when you start off before they eventually reveal their significance once you've gotten a bit better. The weapon drawing is definitely the biggest example of this with the way that it initially seems as if it's adding another layer of complexity to something that doesn't require it that also adds an additional thing that the player could get wrong. There are a few benefits to this however that end up making it extremely well worth it as a mechanic. Most importantly is the way this opens the door to a far more seamless method of swapping between the absurd amount of weapons at your disposal, with the player having access to 10 different ones by the end of the game and then a couple extra for repeat playthroughs, giving the player this method of quickly and (relatively) easily swapping between them all in a fast paced, chaotic game like this is a perfect fit, not to mention that the additional nuance of the different sizes for each weapon is another benefit of this. Furthermore, additional elements to do with actually drawing are quite interesting too, with enemy positioning and room layout potentially obstructing you and forcing you to make certain compromises or devise another strategy to deal with the situation at hand, providing a slight additional wrinkle to how the player approaches combat without becoming an extremely dominant element either, providing depth without being frustrating.

The other big point with the game that seems bad at first but has its own little positives is the camera, which I will admit feels closer to being equal parts horrible and genius. I'll definitely say that the camera in the game feels too zoomed in or outright misplaced in certain situations and it's absolute agony at times, but there are also other benefits that it has that end up justifying it and make the problem feel more akin to "they just needed to fix up a few spots here and there". My favourite effect of the zoomed out isometric camera style is the way that it makes every threat truly feel gargantuan with the way that your army will look like a colony of ants scurrying around against even a lot of the regular fodder enemies that are sent your way. The sheer spectacle of this cannot be understated and also adds a lot to highlighting the game's core theme about teamwork being what will help fight against insurmountable odds. It's also not as bad as it seems because while it might be hard to see your individual character, the morph weapons are positioned in such a way to act almost as beacons when activated, standing tall with these incredibly bright colours that make it impossible to truly get lost in even the most visually busy scenes.

Of all the flawed masterpieces that I've experienced, this might just be the most flawed with how often it feels as if the game's almost taking pleasure in slapping you around with outright infuriating scenarios and a mix of genres that sometimes just flat out don't work, but at the same time, the highlights are otherworldly and a lot of the frustration feels far more constructive compared to a lot of other difficult experiences. In most cases outside of the spiked enemies requiring the whip, when things feel as if they're taking forever, it doesn't quite feel like the enemies are too much to overcome, but rather than the player themselves are approaching the situation incorrectly and need to further explore the seemingly limitless possibilities of their immense arsenal. So many of the tough moments here feel less like traditional action encounters and more like minor puzzles, constantly asking you to work out how to further optimise your gameplay, usually showing off just enough for you to be able to figure things out if you're paying attention and are being inquisitive while simultaneously never completely bashing you over the head with the correct answer to further make it feel like your own accomplishment with each time you're able to take down these enemies slightly faster than before. I also feel like this was the reason for the relatively few types of common enemy in the game, because it instead wants the player to build familiarity with this smaller selection to truly master what they can do, because at the end of the day, Wonderful 101 is a game that encourages players to master the systems and dynamics at play in a way that I don't really see too often. It's not really fully content with players just stumbling through to the end, it wants them to fully get a grip on everything it has to offer, and the incredibly forgiving continue system is a huge indicator of this, clearly not really being concerned about whether the player is able to beat the game, but how well they can do it, which I do think is cool in a game as dense as this.

Above all, this really does feel like one of the purest expressions of adoration for the video game medium as a whole, and it's a big reason why I think it's a masterpiece. There's an outright ridiculous amount of effort put into even the smallest of details that simply would not be so strongly considered in other games, let alone one where you probably won't even be able to see a lot of it too well thanks to the camera perspective. The fact that each of the titular 101 heroes of the game each have their own unique model and little character bio is one such aspect I love, how even though you're likely not going to be seeing them in any detail beyond "these look like tiny ants", they're fully implemented without any signs of concessions having to be made, each of them also being really funny and charming in how they look. The ever intensifying stakes are also really cool to witness in the way that it's also represented through the gameplay ramping up in ways that not only feel more difficult, but more exciting too.

Rather than frontloading the experience in an attempt to hook people with the sacrifice of making the later portions often feel somewhat less climactic and interesting in comparison, the final 2 missions of this game are instead where things get kicked into overdrive with some of the most insane and silly things I've seen in a game. Nothing about the way the game presents itself is subtle at all but I think it works exceptionally well with the way it plays so strongly into replicating the feeling of goofy superhero cartoons, never straying from making clearly dumb jokes or throwing things all at the wall for no reason more than just "I thought it'd be neat", because above all, it just wants to be a fun, maximalist experience! I haven't quite played something like Wonderful 101 before and I'm not sure if I will again, but I can always hope to find another game that feels so committed to being such a joyful time that fully embraces and adores games as a whole that I am willing to call it one of the best things ever despite having so many points that frustrated me to the point of becoming an angry goblin creature who wanted to break her controller.

It's a damn shame this game can't seem to find any success. It sold poorly on the Wii U even by that console's dismal standards and the wider release on a number of systems that people actually own and it again feeling like a bit of a dud. Granted, I'm probably part of the problem since I didn't buy it a second time and only played this remaster on PS+ Extra. All this is to say that this game is incredible and deserves more love. The Wonderful 101 is a very unique game and offers all the things people usually love about Platinum games.

It's a character-action game where you control a team rather than a character. The main combat technique is the unite formation which gather your team together to take the form of a weapon. The main unite formations are fist, sword, gun, whip, hammer, claws and bomb. Rather than learning a long list of combos, it's more about picking the right formation for the particular scenario. The more teammates you shove into a unite formation, the bigger and more powerful it is. You can combo the different unites in interesting ways and it's fun to figure out which weapons are best to counter certain enemies. You also have a dodge into slow motion from Bayonetta and an attack counter from Metal Gear Rising which are fun to use.

The boss fights are fantastic which isn't surprising considering the developer. There's a lot to discover with these fights as some weapons are more effective against some bosses or are used to counter certain moves. The game generally leaves you to figure this out. The finishers on these boss fights are all really satisfying and the quick time events work really well in this game. A lot of the QTEs are using a unite formation at the designated time which wonderfully utilises the main game mechanic in the cinematics rather than just tapping a random button. There are some regular button tapping QTEs but this game has the singular best one in all of video games. The set pieces are really great and keep you surprised about what's coming next. Whether it be a boss fight turning into Punch-Out or a bullet hell.

It nails the Satuday morning cartoon vibe it's going for which kept me smiling and it has deep and interesting gameplay which kept me replaying in quick succession. It only comes second to Metal Gear Rising in my favourite Platinum game. Clearly not enough people have played it. We're never going to get The Wonderful 102 so I'll just have to appreciate this for the unique gem that it is.

I'm usually a massive Platinum mark (as can be seen from the scores I have given their games - including Infinite Space, a game from Platinum that nobody has played, but I love to death), but I couldn't with this one man. There were too many things that I actively disliked about the game and the gameplay that I couldn't bring myself to complete this.

The perspective is incredibly annoying and obfuscates a lot of the action. You sometimes can't even see smaller enemies on the screen at all, which is incredibly annoying! It also makes exploration of levels a pain as well, which added to my frustration immensely because this has some of the most hidden collectables of all of their games. Add to the fact that each mission is usually incredibly long and meaty, outside of boss fights, and you get a recipe for real one very annoyed gamer.
The second screen gimmick also does not work at all without a WiiU gamepad. I don't know why they didn't rework this port so it was more compatible with modern systems and controllers.

The combat is just not as fun and fluid as I have come to expect from the developer either. I got all of the good moves early on - such as Unite Guts, the dodge, and Hero Time upgrade - and that made things a little easier to manage in fights, but I was still taking hits from enemies I couldn't perceive or attacks coming from off-screen or because I was unsure of where an attack would land due to the aforementioned perspective.
The drawing mechanic was also so clunky and unresponsive that I had immense difficulty with it. If my line wasn't getting caught up in geometry, then it would extend randomly off-screen, despite my own input. It made pulling out weapons with more complex designs, like the Whip or the Hammer, an actual pain and required multiple tries each time I was forced to bring out those weapons for puzzles or to fight enemies (which is another irritating nitpick). You would think that the original team behind one of the best combat drawing mechanics (Okami) would be able to pull off the mechanic in a better way than this. Even something as simple as cramming heroes into a toilet or open doorway or window to get a collectable could result in some bullshit shenanigans.

The story and characters are cliche as all hell and, yes, that's never been a Platinum strong suit, but they are usually so dumb that they're immensely fun. Nobody took Revengeance seriously, but it has one of the most batshit insane casts and storylines in all of video games. The same can be said of many of their greatest hits! This one was not fun and I actually found myself vastly uninterested in it and the characters of the story, who are all just cardboard cutouts with no real personalities.
It doesn't help that the art style is not to my liking either. I know they were going for an aesthetic similar to Viewtiful Joe - another Super Sentai send-up they had made previously (which I have yet to play as well) - but I still didn't vibe with it all too much.

I made it halfway through the game, so I gave it an honest effort, but there were so many things bugging me that I couldn't force myself to continue. I'm shelving it for now, but I honestly don't know if I'll ever return to this. It was such an unfun experience for me, which is sad because I actually really love Platinum and consider them one of my favourite studios.

W101 is my favourite Platinum game and perhaps my favourite character action game. It’s colourful has a deep fighting system which takes some time and fine tuning, but boooi I am always excited to play this again and hone my skills. Hard difficulty is fine but I’m working on the tougher missions now.
And man do I love the theme song.
🎼Danger's coming, looming large
So who's gonna make a stand?
One-hundred rangers are taking charge
The line is drawn in the sand
Knuckles crack
In two-hundred very different ways
But each and every one has got
The same thing to say...🎼

You ever played a game that unapologetically reflects the person who created it? That's The Wonderful 101 for you.

The Wonderful 101 is like if Hideki Kamiya gifted himself a birthday present, and for that reason, it's why I feel this game was naturally going to sway a lot of people off from it. I mean really, how do you market this kind of game? It's like a big melting pot of action game ideas from Kamiya work fit straight into a game about controlling a crowd of superheroes you collect to fight giant aliens or mechs. Casually looking at gameplay of it, you'd think it was just a Nintendo-published Pikmin clone but with more sensory overload.

Now imagine actually booting up the game and playing it for yourself. My first hour of this game was a nightmare of fiddling with controls and testing buttons while the game assaulted me with neon HUD elements and tutorial prompts, as the game also is presenting you new gameplay ideas such as new characters with their own weapons you got to draw, and not even 10 minutes in you start unlocking new moves for them and leveling up your health or your battery gauge that's used to determine how much you can use the Wonder-Liner. Despite how much tutorialization it throws at the player, the game doesn't give you the dodge or block at the start of the game which means you have to buy these very important moves from the shop. Granted these are cheap to buy, but it's also baffling they didn't just give you these from the start. Kamiya and his team shove a lot of stuff at the player from the start with barely any breathing room to really take it all in, so I can't exactly say TW101 has a very graceful start to its premise.

But man, I was so wrong lol.

It didn't take long for the game's combat to really click with me once all the tutorial prompts got out of the way. I was surprised to see how many elements Kamiya took from his old games and managed to make it work as well as it does. You got the juggling combo system from DMC and Bayonetta, Ukemi from Viewtiful Joe, Witch Time from Bayonetta, and most notably, the drawing system from Okami but transformed into the main gimmick of this game.

Rather than a traditional weapon switching system, TW101 asks the player to draw the weapon (preferably on the analog stick) to get the desired weapon. The bigger they draw the shape, the bigger their weapon will be, which will be slower but deal more damage, compared to a smaller one that will be faster but deal less damage, but also take up less battery gauge... you see the depth here offered already by this system? The biggest skill mastery is not only learning to draw these shapes (which the game is very intelligent at knowing since they are all distinct from one another) but you also have to know which weapon is useful for each situation, as some enemies will have certain strategies that are more effective for each weapon. But then you learn how to open up enemies with each weapon, and you learn that you can use your team, or Wonder Green's gun, to stun the enemy and then put them in a juggle state.

Juggling is really when the game turned into something special for me because pulling out certain weapons to keep the opponent in the air for a long time is when the drawing system becomes outright impressive. You never feel like you are going to do the same combo in this game. They are creative spectacles of skill mastery because of the flexibility offered by the game's freeform weapon drawing system. Masters of the game's drawing system can outright demolish a giant mech with their 100 man team, and it's probably the most stylish combo system I've ever seen. Not only for the fact a team of superheroes comboing an alien dragon mech is fucking rad, but it also asks more from the player while doing so, creating a combat system that's all-around more rewarding to master.

All the little niceties the game throws to the player too also make TW101 a very welcoming experience. As mentioned before, a lot of Kamiya mechanics from his older games return here, but there's also a lot more. You have very tightly designed enemy encounters that Kamiya is known for, along with gameplay systems Kamiya has explained he likes that return, with surprisingly good and fair boss fights all guided by probably the funniest video game I've ever played. I really vibed with what Kamiya was putting on offer here. The game oozes with passion all the way through and the more I played of it, the more and more I really appreciate every bit of it. It just kept getting better and better. Even the climax of the game was like 12 endings on top of each other. It's like if Kamiya took all of his favorite toys and smashed them together, which really highlights the toy-box like wonderment the game offers here.

My main critique though is because this is a Kamiya passion project, it also features probably my least favorite Kamiya trope often and that is introducing new gameplay elements from old arcade games. There's a punch-out mini-game, an isometric 3D shooter, some side-scrolling space shooters, and of course, the fucking space harrier level Kamiya just loves to put in. None of these are poorly designed mind you, but it wrestles time away from the main combat I ended up craving the most from TW101, and I really hope Kamiya's next project isn't as egregious with these as this game featured.

But despite that, going into TW101 was a very pleasant experience, especially given that I was already a fair fan of Kamiya's old projects. But this is elevated to a whole new level. Kamiya sought out creating a game that he wanted to play the most, and there aren't many creators out there that have the balls to do that. Clover Studio, the studio he worked at before Platnium Games, was a studio designed to create wild and new ideas, but none of those games ever found their audience outside of Okami, causing their eventual shut down. The Wonderful 101 is kind of like a Clover Studio game. A very ambitious action game designed solely to introduce a brand new experience unlike anything else. It wasn't designed for everyone in mind, but only for those who would appreciate these mechanics in mind... like a Kamiya fan. Maybe that's all it needed to be in the end. As for me, I say you should stick with it. It's pretty wonderful! ba dum tiss

Every time a difficult game is released, the argument resurfaces whether game reviewers need to demonstrate a baseline level of competence before their article is considered “valid”. The argument for this is that competency in a game demonstrates understanding, and understanding is a requirement for conveying knowledge. However, I don’t think things are so simple. Games can catch someone’s eye for a variety of reasons, so it’s important to include the different experiences for someone with preexisting competency and someone without it. This gap between the expert-level breakdown and the novice experience might be widest for action games made by Platinum, The Wonderful 101 being the prime example.

Even before players get their hands on the basics of combat, they’ll notice that they’re being rated after every encounter based on the completion time, combo level, and damage taken. This is a useful feature for expert players, who want to get the highest rank they can on the mission overall. However, for new players, seeing "consolation prize" or bronze ranks after every fight is incredibly demoralizing, and they have no way of knowing that these evaluations are even biased against them. Like most Platinum games, important moves are relegated to the shop, but players have no way of knowing how useful these skills will actually be unless they’ve played comparable action games, or have encountered enemies that are already balanced around their use. Even moreso, the utility of some of these moves goes almost entirely unexplained, with the most famous example being the game’s block ability, Unite Guts. The description is as follows: “A Unite Morph materialized from a soul. Time with an incoming attack to bounce the attack back”. The way this is phrased suggests that it functions as a parry, but this is untrue. Not only are some attacks unblockable, but the timing doesn’t matter, and what differentiates blockable attacks from unblockable ones is that they’re “blunt” instead of “stabbing”. Nowhere is this explained, and the information passes mostly through word-of-mouth by the experts, who insist that this didn’t need in-game explanation because the blob of jello the team forms would offer no resistance to a blade. While this defense immediately falls apart when you consider how much resistance jello affords to a “blunt” hammer, the question to be asked is why this isn’t just explained in the game. Depth is created by complex decision making, not coyness about the functionality of core mechanics, and this is a problem that extends to many of the game's core systems and skills. Forcing players to take hits they don’t understand, and be criticized with poor rankings, just creates a hostile mood which isn’t conducive to the excitement these games live or die on.

The whole “turning into jello” thing may have thrown some people for a loop, so to back up, The Wonderful 101’s combat doesn’t have you control one character, but the titular hundred-and-one at the same time. You form a crowd of little heroes, who unite up into different weapons with their own specialties. This is accomplished by drawing shapes with the right analog stick, like a circle for a fist, a line for a blade, and so on. It’s a system that works pretty well, but the fact that you may have anticipated that clause reveals the problem. When it comes to recognizing drawn shapes, the question isn’t “if” the system will ever mess up, it’s “how often”. And truly, it works 95% of the time, but that means that one in twenty attempted morphs will fail. Guns are mistaken as whips, gliders as fists, bombs as hammers, and while novel mechanics do deserve some leeway, one must remember that this is an action game that will gleefully make fun of you for any mistake with a low rank. Not only that, but after an unintended morph, your morphing energy depletes anyway, leaving you in a worse state than you were before. However, this is another criticism that expert players will dismantle by saying they’ve played enough to where it works 99% of the time, and that drawing skills are part of the game. They can also point out how having to draw quickly and use energy efficiently is a valid mechanic, to which I at least partly agree. The reason I don’t like it is because of how nebulous of a skill this is, only developing as a result of errors new players had no way of anticipating. It’s a fun system when you already understand it, but again, making mechanics hard for new players to even experiment with is not equivalent to depth, and The Wonderful 101’s combat will behave more as a finicky barrier to entry rather than the exciting possibility space it should be.

This is the point where fans would point out that the director himself considers the first playthrough to function as a tutorial, and that he anticipated people would initially find the controls finicky and the skills opaque, but this is exactly my point. Is The Wonderful 101 actually that much more complex than other action games? Is the drawing system really as reliable as it could be? Would it be impossible to explain the basics of its mechanics on the first playthrough? The answer to all questions is “no”, so I have to question why this excuse is considered so bulletproof among action fans. I myself agree that one of the major joys of action games is in the discovery, but there’s a difference between giving players a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals while letting them discover the possibilities on their own, and simply failing to explain the basics and criticizing players for not knowing them already.

To wrap up this review, which is possibly the rantiest I’ve ever posted, I would like to note a couple things. Firstly, that I don’t intend to give the impression that this game is just terrible. There’s a reason why it has such a cult following, the people who really understand it can have a great time. It’s also not that anyone who isn’t an action game fan shouldn’t play this, but they will probably feel like they’re being repeatedly slapped in the face for trying to do so. It's to the point where even games analysts who praise the game's perfection and the importance of discovery will, somewhat hypocritically, post hour-long tutorials on how new players could even begin to enjoy themselves. As for myself, I had barely played any action games before my first try at The Wonderful 101, and quit about 70% of the way through for exactly this reason. By the time I went back and completed the HD version on PC, I had beaten the following action games:

Devil May Cry 1/2/3/4/5, Bayonetta 1/2, God Hand, Metal Gear Rising, P.N. 03, Nier Automata, Killer is Dead, Nioh, Viewtiful Joe, Vanquish, and Sekiro

… and even then, with more action game experience than 95% of players would ever have, The Wonderful 101 still felt insultingly obtuse at times. We, as the people who enjoy action games, shouldn’t just accept this sort of mediocrity because it’s the kind that resonates with us. Saying that the first sixteen-hour-long playthrough is supposed to be a frustrating tutorial, and that people should just git gud, kills interest in the genre and hurts everyone. And if The Wonderful 101 is trying to teach us anything, it’s that we’re stronger when we work together.

Wonderful 101 is Platinums most bombastic title and for that I have to give it respect despite having a few issues with it. Mainly being while I love Hideki Kamiya's style I do not care for his gimmicks and find that they all drag the experience down (besides Punch-Out that shit rules). All that being said It can't take away just how insane W101 gets in terms of not only providing a deep gameplay experience with tons of depth and personality, but also delivering an engaging story with some of the greatest spectacle in the genre. Wonderful 101 absolutely deserves to be played and I am immensely satisfied with going through its wild ride.

9/10.

The game Platinum Games was always destined to make. Maybe the most interesting action game I've ever played, and the ultimate Platinum package. It's such a bombastic journey from start to finish, and finally allows the over-the-top set pieces and genre-bending mechanics and levels to be the meat of the game rather than a distraction. It's by no means perfect, but it may be the perfect Platinum Game's game. Also, the finale is probably Platinum's best final act in any of their games. Thank you Kamiya for making really weird games.

101/10

There's not really any game like Wonderful 101. When it works, the combat can be really fun and satisfying. Though there are a lot of times when it doesn't as the game tends to throw new and one-off mechanics at you without decently explaining how any of it works. So it's best to first look at a guide before playing the game. The game just works better when replaying it as a result as well.

The plot isn't really all that interesting, but it continually ups the stakes in a way that's a lot of fun. It's probably got the most ridiculous self-indulgent over the top stuff I've seen happen in a video game. The characters and dialogue are often obnoxious though.

Kamiya's magnum opus. A dissimilation of action game design into something both original and a culmination of where Kamiya had taken action games.

Unlike other action games like Bayonetta which garner depth through a small number of weapons and a large number of combo chains; each with subtle variations and nuances, The Wonderful 101 creates depth through a small number of universal combos and a large number of weapons. With each weapon tied to the players skill at using the wonder liner tying the very act of weapon switching into the core gameplay loop. Considerations like team size and the unite gauge also offer other layers of depth. Enemies are also far less numerous, but far more aggressive and complex then those found in other action games creating a more struggle based rather then combo based dynamic. Enemies have a complex relationship with the players moveset with some attacks being blockable, some counterable by certain weapons, and some just dodgeable. But all attacks can be counter by a precise hero counter input, which creates risk versus reward. Juggling and combos is a victory lap reserved for when the player successfully stuns an enemy. The two unlockable hard modes also shake up the gameplay enough to make repeat playthroughs rewarding.

The Wonderful 101's greatest flaw then is it's overreliance on gimmick sections. Almost every level has at least with the exception of some bosses and some final levels. Kamiya clearly wanted to craft a massive love letter to games and includes sections from games as diverse as mr. driller, to punch out, and even to space harrier. Some of the sections are even quite clever like a shoot em up section where the play must run over buttons to control the ship, while also fighting enemies. But sadly most sections range from good but pointless, like the punch out boss fights, to the utterly terrible, like some an underwater isometric shooter with hit boxes too big and a one hit kill laser dodge where the player must maneuver a slippery boomerang through small gaps. This focus on gimmicks greatly diminishes the high score chasing replicability of the game by tying the players final rank to something outside of combat. A player may be able to get perfect platinums on combat but be unable to see that reflected in the final score due to a poorly designed gimmick segment. The gimmick heavy focus also deflates a lot of the real challenge from the final climatic chapter.

On a lesser note The Wonderful 101 also runs into the issue of upgrades that many action games face. Locking higher level skills behind a level or money cap may give newer players something to strive for and stop the game from being too overwhelming, but it also can lock key gameplay features behind arbitrary walls. One of the key changes in the remaster is the decrease in cost of the block and dodge in the shop to ensure new players can buy it after the prologue. This is a welcome change but also begs the question of why these moves aren't enabled by default. A similar issue comes up with the hero time ability. The base dodge offers the player no offensive advantage, and with the level of aggression of enemies, a very small window to attack. In contrast the base block damages and stuns any countered enemies making it the far more useful option; with its only caveat being that certain attacks cannot be blocked while everything can be dodged. By the late game (and especially in hard mode) many enemies have a move set that consists entirely of unblockable attacks, which requires the use of the dodge. In order to gain the upper hand the player must either rely on the occasional weapon specific counter, have hero time equipped to create a combo window, or purchase the general use hero counter. This again begs the question why hero time wasn't a default move as it would place the block and dodge on equal footing. Most egregious, however, is how combo moves are locked behind each weapons level. Key moves like stinger, cyclone, and juggling are locked behind weapon use which creates an odd paradox. Un leveled weapons are far less useful as they lack combos but to unlock combos the player must use inferior weapons. There is no excuse for atleast stinger and rising being equipped by default. Ultimately in the game's defense it is easy to unlock every move and purchase every upgrade in one playthrough making this a mootpoint on harder difficulty levels.

In the story department The Wonderful 101 does a wonderful job combining the childish fun of eastern and western superheroes in a way which makes The Wonderful 101 one of the best superhero games despite the lack of a license. The characters are all charming and fun with just enough depth to make them interesting. The story doesn't really have anything to say about superheroes (despite what the final twist would have you believe), as the theme song crones "fighting for the status quo", but it doesn't need to. It carries itself through charm and fun alone.

The Wonderful 101 is game out of step with a gaming landscape which holds pandering, live service, and skinner box content dear. The Wonderful 101 is like a classic arcade game where you keep replaying it to get a higher and higher level of competence rather then just seeing higher and higher numbers. The Wonderful 101 is genius, enjoyable, addictive, frustrating, flawed, and most of all fun. And I wouldn't have it any other way