Test The Wonderful 101 Remastered: the great anything tasty

So here we are on Earth, in a resolutely futuristic era protected by the Wonderful. Numbering 100 (the player being considered the 101st), these gentlemen rely on mysterious technology to transform themselves, in due course, into their heroic alter ego. As it stands, the time is more than wanted since a gigantic alien army is invading the planet, and it is therefore up to our men to protect it, at all costs. Then begins an absolutely supercharged adventure tinged with a constant Japanese delirium which, in itself, is completely in line with PlatinumGames. But beware, The Wonderful 101 is not a game like the others and it is therefore advisable to read the following lines to try to understand the whole concept. Yes, Hideki Kamiya has imagination to spare. 

RED FORCE

Undeniably, the first thing that surprises in The Wonderful 101 is its isometric camera, particularly distant and rightly so: all the gameplay does not reside on a single playable character, but rather an entire group of up to a hundred individuals who move and attack evenly. Thanks to the alien powers in our possession, we will literally be able to put our team in weapons designed on the job, the nature of which will depend on your path with the right stick (Okami has been there and Astral Chain will be greatly inspired by it in 2019). Said like that, it may not be very clear, so let's try to be concrete. For example, by making a more or less long straight line with the joystick, it will materialize into a more or less gigantic sword. It is the same with the shape of the circle which will give a fist, of the right angle which will give a firearm and one passes and of the best. A very large part of the gameplay is therefore based on these stick paths which will not only make it possible to make weapons, but also elements to cross the void (by making a detaplane or a bridge), to climb on buildings (by making a ladder or a rocket) or by protecting oneself from enemy attacks (by making a bell).

The Wonderful 101 was, is, and probably always will be an amazing, completely unbridled experience, straight out of the sparkling mind of a studio that has nothing left to prove.

A whole absolutely unique system which detonates with surprise and which will require several hours to be apprehended correctly. Even seven years after its release, The Wonderful 101 is the result of unparalleled ingenuity on the part of PlatinumGames and Kamiya which, once again, proves its talent for designing singular gameplay. Of course, like any good self-respecting action game, the arsenal can be cleverly improved over time, we will recover other Wonderfuls who will have other powers and the clashes will expand as we go along. Overall, these mechanics, which are not necessarily easy to assimilate, are the great strength of this unique title: you still have to adhere to the rest which, undeniably, turns out to be so wacky and deliberately cliché that it can sicken more than one .

BLUE FORCE

If we had to sum up The Wonderful 101, it would probably be with the term “always more”. First of all, this distant view, combined with super-smooth and brilliant art direction (literally), almost feels like controlling toys in a strange miniature world in which absolutely everything… explodes. There is absolutely nothing serious in this epileptic journey where the boss fights last tens and tens of minutes in the middle of endless free falls, passing shoot'em up phases and ultra-elaborate phases that do not allow almost never to breathe. Admittedly, some scenes, game mechanics and even 3D models come to us directly from Bayonetta, probably extrapolated even further; and it's not the writing, succinct and deliberately “old-fashioned” - most of the dialogue is turn-based - that airs the mind.

The Wonderful 101 is a no-holds-barred superhero story, freely borrowing the broad strokes of the Power Rangers into an almost exhausting sentai concentrate. This incessant action, always in excess and nonsense (and it's intended) quickly turns out to be tiring, even downright repetitive. If it is not in the expansion of its gameplay, we have a long game of around twenty hours, reinforced with an additional level in 2D with the Remastered, which keeps a talented but little renewed constant. It's his bias, it's like that, and it won't please everyone. 

GREEN STRENGTH

Then there are also a few other obvious shells: despite the originality of its cogs, The Wonderful 101 Remastered still suffers from an obvious visibility problem. Its isometric view, its sometimes narrow plans, its urban level design and its dozens of characters are far from offering clear action. It is even, in reality, quite rough and the game on the big screen is recommended to the detriment of the portable mode of the Switch, for example. The feeling of being thrown into a perpetual explosive anthill is constant and it often interferes with the gameplay itself. Graphically, this redesign is far from bringing the long-awaited makeover. The set is even quite hairless but, fortunately, the flashy, sparkling and rather cartoonish graphic style still hits the mark and has, it must be admitted, aged correctly.

This incessant action, always in excess and nonsense (and it's intended) quickly turns out to be tiring, even downright repetitive.

On the technical side, since the Switch version where we carried out this test, the framerate proved to be satisfactory. We just regret that the touch screen was not used more than that, it's all the more unfortunate for a game that relies so much on the layouts (on PS4, the touch pad of the DualShock 4 is however used ). The Wonderful 101 Remastered nevertheless remains a sincerely refreshing work, different for sure and with an astonishing rock'n'roll atmosphere; Perfectible, it's obvious, but which should appeal to fans of totally unbridled action.