The Wonderful 101

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About

The Wonderful 101 is an action-adventure game published by Platinum Games and released for the Nintendo Wii U. It was directed by Hideki Kamiya. While the game was critically praised, the game did not fare well commercially due to what some have called poor marketing. Nevertheless, the game's fanbase remained active, a Kickstarter campaign launched to get the game remastered for the Switch, Playstation 4, and PC proved highly successful.

History

The Wonderful 101 is an action game in which the player controls a horde of superheroes, including the titular Wonderful 101, and can morph them into various objects to defeat enemies. The game was developed by Platinum Games and directed by Hideki Kayima. The first trailer debuted on January 23rd, 2013 (shown below).

After being marketed at that year's E3 conference, the game released in August of 2013 in Europe and Japan, and a month later in North America.

Remaster Kickstarter

Kamiya stated he had begun thinking about a remastered port of the game for the Switch in May of 2018.^[1] On February 3rd, 2020, the team launched a Kickstarter campaign for the game with goals to have it ported to the Switch, Playstation 4, and PC. In a matter of hours, the campaign greatly exceeded its $49,555 goal and as of February 5th stands at $1.3 million with 30 days left in the campaign.^[2]

Reception

The Wonderful 101 released to generally favorable reviews from critics, scoring a 78/100 on Metacritic.^[3] Critics praised the game's style and found its use of the Wii U Gamepad enjoyable, but others were split on the game's difficulty, citing gamepad and camera issues added frustrating levels of difficulty. The game also sold poorly, netting only 5,000 copies sold in its first week of release in Japan.^[4]

Online Presence

Despite its poor sales, the game became a cult favorite online. On March 2nd, 2018, Redditor KevinCow called it, "the most frustrating case of a great game bombing," blaming poor marketing on its poor sales.^[5] Upon announcement of the remaster, praise and excitement for the game was found throughout social media. Threads featuring news related to the Kickstarter gained over 4,000 and 8,300 points in /r/NintendoSwitch.^[6]^[7]