The Wonderful 101: Remastered

[h1]An All Time Classic with Innovative and Fun Gameplay[/h1] Wonderful 101 is the kind of game that appeals to a very specific kind of person. Did you grow up on the GameCube playing stuff like Pikmin and Viewtiful Joe? Do you love arcade game genres like Beat 'Em Ups and Shmups? Did you grow up watching Tokusatsu films and television and have a weird manchild obsession with giant rubber suit monsters and martial artist superheroes? Do you want to be blocked by Hideki Kamiya on Twitter? If you answered yes to all of these... and owned a WiiU in 2013, then The Wonderful 101 was probably your favorite game of that year. For the rest of you out there, you probably looked at people who spoke highly of this game like they were insane lunatics. But hey, love is kind of a crazy thing ain't it? The Wonderful 101 follows the story of a band of over 100 superheroes you amas over the course of the game who must defeat the invading alien force know as the Geathjerk federation. To defeat these aliens, our heroes must form together physically into massive weapons like fists, swords, whips, and more. The main character is a school teacher turned superhero known as Wonder Red. He is very clearly inspired by characters like Viewtiful Joe, and as the story goes on, you'll come across other heroes who join the party who are inspired by Kamiya's other games. The story is mostly predictable Saturday morning cartoon shenanigans, but what makes it stand out is just how good the voice acting is. Each character goes HAM in the recording booth. In addition to the great voice work, the presentation is great. You have this isometric camera with depth of field that gives the game this toy like appearance from a distance which is cool. The enemies are all very distinct and have great telegraphed attacks and, even if they're off screen, most attacks have good sound cues which you should expect from the director of Bayonetta. The music is also so damn cheesy and catchy which makes it a joy to listen to. All in all, this game is a very charming masterpiece. The gameplay is where Wonderful 101 really shines. It's this character action, platformer, quasi-strategy game hybrid that truly feels unlike anything else. You control up to 100 heroes (plus up to 15 additional unlockable ones) and use your second analog stick to march them into formations to draw different shapes. These shapes then become weapons known as unite morphs. Circles give you a giant fist made out of multiple heroes, lines give you a sword, L shapes give you a gun, S shapes give you a whip, and there are many many more. The more heroes you use to draw, the bigger the shape, the larger, slower, and more damaging the weapon will be. Drawing your teammates can also slightly damage enemies and add to your combo. The fact that cycling between weapons is part of the combat loop is such a novel idea and it's executed extremely well once you get used to the controls. What's great is that multiple enemies may seem like they are very vulnerable to one specific weapon, but the truth is that there are multiple strategies to besting just about every enemy in the game. You can even draw shapes and then press the team attack button to have your allies perform a combo with that weapon drawn without you having to switch your current weapon out. You'll also level up each of your 100 heroes throughout the game which will then unlock different moves for the weapon they're assigned to. I personally didn't like the unlockable air combo move for the gun unite morph because it would cause me to shoot quest items I sucked into it up into the air. Well guess what? The game has a menu where you can disable specific combo moves you don't want to trigger by accident! That is such a great idea that more action games should consider. Overall, the depth here is insane! There are a ton of unlockables and secrets after you finish the game and excellent difficulty modes that change up enemy spawns and behavior. There is an insane amount of content for this game that makes the replay value near infinite. And you will want to replay this game given how great the bosses and combat sequences are. Just a superb package that will keep you coming back as you master the bizarre gameplay loop and complex controls. The primary drawbacks of this game are it's gimmick sections. There are scenes where you take control of a ship in a shmup inspired section, or have to watch your characters enter something on one small screen while the action happens on the main screen. You can cycle between these screens with the select button. This is a holdover from the game being on the WiiU with it's gamepad that had a screen on it and, as creative as these sequences are, these moments can be infuriating if you're not familiar with them already. Simply put, these don't work well with one monitor and can feel like pace breakers. The SHMUP sections fare about as poorly given how bad the camera can be during them which makes it easy to get shot during them. There are two Punch-Out inspired bosses also that some will find endearing, some will find infuriating. Lastly, this port is a little weird. I found that when I gained enough achievements to unlock one of the many unlockable characters, the game would instantly crash on repeated attempts of getting that achievement. Because of this, I'd recommend using the cheat codes that unlock the different post game heroes once you know you're close to obtaining the last achievement required for unlocking them. This really should have been fixed but you still see people complain about this unfortunately. Overall though, while this port may not be the absolute perfect way to play this game, it is an incredible privilege to get to play it on modern systems. This is one of the most joyful and creative arcade action games ever made and you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. Here's hoping Kamiya gets to make at least one more game this creative again at some point in his life.