Playing A Game The Wonderful 101 WiiU

The Wonderful 101 makes a lot more sense when it's played from the beginning, rather than jumping in at the second level (like the demo apparently does). The game's wacky mechanics are explained clearly in thematically-appropriate tutorials, and the narrative scenario is laid out in perfectly-understandable, uh, Super Sentai terms. By the end of the prologue level, Wonderful 101 seems like a totally sensible action game with a unique gameplay twist and a fun cartoony setting.

That feeling of sensibility wavers pretty rapidly, though. As soon as the game gets challenging, it makes some demands: blocking, dodging, mastering the awkward camera zoom, and strategically managing weapon and battery usage. What makes matters worse is, the vital block and dodge moves must be purchased from the item shop between levels; on my first attempt, I didn't even check the shop, which made progressing through the subsequent level (the same one from the demo) outlandishly difficult. I only happened upon the camera controls - using the shoulder buttons to zoom in and out - by accident; and even then, the fixed angle can make it pretty tough to see when enemies are charging in from a distance.

So there are some weird design choices and some basic mechanical problems. But the core gameplay is still pleasantly wacky, and managing weapon deployments is pretty distinctly neat. Plus the attack-block-counterattack cycle makes it feel like a real character-action game, which is cool. When I can measure up to the game's challenge, it's plenty of fun. Hopefully I can continue to do so.

Progress: Operation 001-B

Rating: Good