The galaxy is a big place. Every star in it represents an opportunity for life to perhaps find a way to evolve, become a civilization, rise and fall, or reach for the stars to expand their influence. In a relatively short period of time, the humans of Earth have managed to become the dominant species of our insignificant blue marble, and BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.
GEATHJERK (Guild of Evil Aliens Terrorizing Humans with Jiggawatt bombs, Energy beams, Ray guns, and Killer lasers) appeared in the skies over our world at some point in our happy, ignorant future. The results were devastating. Humanity spent years getting its hiney kicked up and down the battlefield, and kicked up once more for good measure. It was a time of sacrifice. It was a time for heroes. Somehow, the Jerks were beaten back, but as we all know in life, a minor setback like losing a war that you really should have won (seriously guys, come on) is not enough to keep a good and persistent Jerk down. Twenty years ago, the GEATHJERK returned, and thus began Earth Defense War 2.
This time, humanity was ready. An army consisting of every nation on the globe had been formed. The CENTINELS organization was established, and through the brilliant inventions of Professor Shirogane, they created a new breed of soldier, 100 to be exact, who would go on to be the greatest heroes the world had ever seen. They would be known as the Wonderful One-Double-Oh. Living among the populace anonymously, when the call went out, the Wonderful Ones responded. After great sacrifice, humanity once again triumphed. But even this is not enough to stop the GEATHJERK Federation. And so, 20 years after their second surprise defeat, the alien invaders appear once again in the skies over our cities, and once again the Wonderful Ones are our only hope.
What Is The Wonderful 101?
The Wonderful 101 is an action game that isn’t quite like other games within the same genre. But it does share many traits of games that have come from the PlatinumGames stable. People who have played other character action games, particularly from Platinum, will feel right at home.
Placing you in control of a large group of superheroes, your job is to guide them through the various Operations to save the planet from GEATHJERK, bolstering your numbers with recruited civilians or with other Wonderful Ones from around the world. Using their fellow teammates as “building blocks,” every Wonderful One is capable of using the awesome Unite Morph ability to create massive and powerful weapons to dole out the punishment to the invading GEATHJERK forces.
As you play through the game, you will unlock new abilities and be able to purchase enhancements between missions with the points you earn based on your performance. The better you do, the more points you earn and the faster you can purchase all the upgrades. Additionally, every Operation in the game has several ranked battles that contribute to your final score for the whole Operation, which can further increase how many points you earn for upgrades.
In that sense, The Wonderful 101 is a game that wants you to keep getting better at it. Every difficulty level is designed to have you take your knowledge and skills into the next difficulty setting. The primary difference between the various difficulties is that the higher you go, the fewer mistakes you can make before you end up on the continue screen.
Starting Out: What Difficulty Is Right for You?
When you first load up the game, there are three difficulty settings available to you: Very Easy, Easy, and Normal. If you beat the game on Normal, you unlock the Hard difficulty, and should you manage to defeat the GEATHJERK on Hard, 101% Hard waits to crush your hopes for a better future, and possibly your confidence in your own skills.
Very Easy and Easy
Enemies do less damage to you by a large degree on these settings, which can give people who are just trying to enjoy the story a chance to play through the game with comparatively little stress. You can make plenty of mistakes, and enemy health levels are lower. This is actually an excellent difficulty to practice on, as outside of enemy stats, every rated battle has the same sets of enemies as those that appear on the Normal difficulty setting. These settings are great for people who want to bone up on their skills before challenging Normal mode. Note that you cannot fully complete all of the missions in the game by playing on Very Easy and Easy. The Kahkoo-regah secret missions can only be challenged on Normal, Hard, and 101% Hard.
Normal
The standard difficulty for the game, and one of the difficulties this guide focuses on. Normal uses all of the same sets of enemies for all of the rated battles that the Easy and Very Easy settings do. However, the price for every mistake is ramped up significantly, and the enemies will require more effort to defeat. Normal will reinforce the importance of evading or blocking enemy attacks while keeping up your own offensive, which makes it the perfect primer for Hard mode. Additionally, you can take the time to purchase all of the abilities and find all of the hidden items on this difficulty (or the easier settings if you prefer), which will allow you to concentrate entirely on the combat in later difficulty modes and will not affect your time ratings on the scoring system.
Hard
On this setting, the enemies do significantly more damage while also enjoying a considerable increase in their health totals. However, the biggest change comes in the form of altering the sets of enemies you’ll face in the vast majority of the ranked battles throughout every Operation. As early as the Prologue, you’ll encounter enemies and variants of enemies typically introduced later in the story. Some encounters that previously felt like a cakewalk are now close-quarters nightmares. Hard mode is a test to see if you were paying attention in class on earlier settings.
101% Hard
The greatest challenge offered in the game, 101% Hard uses the same enemy sets that Hard mode does but further increases how much damage they can sustain while still reducing just how much you can take. The biggest change, however, is the removal of the time-dilation effect while inputting commands for your Unite Morph special attacks. This means that the game will be running at full speed unless you use special customizations that slow down time, making going on the offensive a much more frantic affair.
Basic Game Flow
The game has 11 separate Operations (including the Prologue and Epilogue). Within each of these Operations are missions that are graded based on three factors: time, combo, and damage taken. The 9 main Operations of the game are divided into multiple parts, the last of which is the boss battle. In between Operation sections, you’re given a chance to visit the Wonderful Mart to buy upgrades to your team’s abilities.
Ideally on your first playthrough of the game on Normal Mode, you will complete all the missions (including the secret Kahkoo-regah missions), find all of the heroes hidden throughout the levels, and grab all of the hidden collectibles. You’re probably not going to get the Pure Platinum ranking your first time through. This is okay! Save it for your later run-throughs of the game.
After you finish the game at least once and have filled out the roster for all of the Wonderful Ones in the game that are not unlocked by completing certain Bottlecap Collection achievements, you can start focusing on obtaining the Pure Platinum ranks on the Normal difficulty, or you can move onto the more challenging Hard mode. Additionally, once you have played through all the hidden Kahkoo-regah secret missions on the Normal difficulty, you will unlock Operation 101, which is a thorough test of your skills acquired over the course of the game.
After completing Hard mode, 101% Hard Mode becomes available for you to challenge. This is the game at its peak difficulty, demanding players be at their best if they want to score the highest rank possible on every mission.