Hey folks, welcome to the second Wonder-Blog! We’re THAT MUCH CLOSER to the official release of this game. Last time, we went into detail on the seven types of Unite Morphs that are used by your heroes for their offensive capabilities. However, in addition to those Unite Morphs, you start with two additional Unite Morphs that help you traverse the environment, and can purchase more Unite Morphs from the Wonderful Mart in between missions, which further boost your capabilities. By the end of a single playthrough, you will have such an extensive arsenal at your disposal that it can be easy to forget to use an ability, especially in the heat of battle.
Starting Unite Morphs
Unite Chain
There are instances where you must cross gaps that you can’t double-jump across while making smart use of Wonderful Stinger. Draw a Wonder-Liner across the gap to the location you’re trying to reach. If it’s a valid target, your team will automatically form a chain (or even a full-sized bridge, if you have enough people for it) that will let you cross safely to the other side.
Unite Glider
The Unite Glider is very situational in nature but absolutely vital when it needs to be used. Transforming your entire team into a glider, this Unite Morph allows you to fly across normally uncrossable chasms and even figures heavily into several missions (and a boss battle or two) throughout the game. However, by itself the Unite Glider has no offensive capability and nothing defensive save for its maneuverability to avoid attacks in the air. Summoning it on the ground is a…questionable tactic at best.
Purchasable Unite Morphs
Unite Guts
This is one of the first Unite Morphs you should purchase from the Wonderful Mart. Purchase it immediately after finishing the Prologue. Unite Guts transforms your whole team into a candylike shape and allows you to bounce back a large number of incoming attacks from a wide variety of enemies throughout the entire game. Some attacks might require a larger form of Unite Guts to defend against, so always be looking for new recruits to max this ability out. Unite Guts requires good timing to use well. You can’t just hold down the button and wait for the attacks to land; the form fades after a very short time, leaving you vulnerable. It also costs Unite Gauge to use, so if you keep spamming Unite Guts in anticipation of an attack, you might not have enough meter to use Guts when you really need it. Use it too late, and you’ll take damage because the morph wasn’t fully completed before the attack landed. Properly executed, Unite Guts can stun enemies, allowing you to launch them into the air for juggle combos. Well-timed uses of Unite Guts also earn you an O-Parts bonus to your Combo multiplier. A full list of attacks that can be reflected, organized by enemy, can be found starting on page 348, in the GEATHJERK Files.
Unite Spikes
An enhanced form of Unite Guts, this ability causes the morph to produce spikes the moment it reflects an enemy attack. This causes damage to foes using melee attacks. As a side effect, Unite Spikes can also deal damage to anything else that happens to be close enough, regardless of whether you were reflecting their attack.
Unite Spring
This Unite Morph is the other purchase you should make immediately upon completing the Prologue. As with Unite Guts, Unite Spring is one of your key defensive abilities, allowing you to dodge away and over attacks when used with the proper timing. So long as you have at least ten heroes on your team, you can use Unite Spring. Similar to Unite Guts, evading an attack with Unite Spring grants you some bonus points to your Combo multiplier.
Unite Drill Spring
Unite Drill Spring is an upgrade to Unite Spring, turning the purely defensive ability into a useful offensive move when used well. Barring enemies possessing thick armor (or spiked armor), using a defensive barrier, or simply being too large to drill through, Unite Drill Spring can pass through most GEATHJERKs with ease. As a bonus, you can maintain your Combo multiplier (and even increase it) by sneaking in a Unite Drill Spring in the middle of your attacks.
Unite Blade Glider
Not an essential upgrade by any means, Unite Blade Glider adds blades to the front of Unite Glider. You can use this on enemies to help maintain juggle combos, but in practice this can be tough to set up. On 101% Hard Mode, where you don’t get time dilation to draw the Wonder-Liner in relative safety, it’s quite hard to work in the Blade Glider. Of course, if you’re able to do this regularly on your enemies, there’s no denying the style points you’ll get from it.
Unite Ball
Another key Unite Morph, Unite Ball can be used directly after Unite Spring to speed away from your enemies or just to travel faster. Most importantly, there are several collectibles in the game that require you to use Unite Ball, so it’s important that you snag this ability as soon as you can afford it.
Unite Spike Ball
Unite Ball gains a set of spikes all around it, which allows you to roll into enemies to cause damage. This does not protect you from incoming attacks, so watch your rolling!
Unite Rocket
A somewhat situational Unite Morph to use, Unite Rocket allows you to blast your team to tough-to-reach heights. You can get more height by charging up the rocket prior to launch.
Unite Tombstone
This is a very situational offensive Unite Morph, but it can be extremely effective at capping off a long air combo. Your entire team transforms into a tombstone that when dropped from a height causes a powerful impact shock wave. The tombstone can cause damage to any enemy below it, with only the thick armor of a Megang or the spike armor found on Gehdowns or Gedie Dough-Goo able to resist. Combine this with a Wonderful Rising launcher on a stunned enemy. If timed right, you can land multiple hits on an enemy with Unite Tombstone before landing on the ground.
Unite Camp
This utility Unite Morph turns your team into a camping tent, fully restoring your Unite Gauge. The real advantage of Unite Camp comes from its ability to supercharge the Unite Gauge, turning it from gold to silver. While you have any amount of supercharge, your Unite Morphs will automatically be at their maximum strength without having to draw larger shapes with the Wonder-Liner. This ability can be used before major fights, or if you’re feeling particularly cheeky, you can use it during battles if you can find a spot to set up a Unite Camp. Mind you, it takes time before the ability actually triggers, and you are vulnerable to attack while using it.
About That Versatility…
As with any game, it’s totally possible to play through The Wonderful 101 using a small group of proven effective abilities in every fight, with little variation. You’d be doing both yourself and the game a serious disservice though. You have all these abilities for a reason, so experiment a little! Once you understand how to fight specific enemies, you can really take advantages of their weaknesses and dismantle them with your varies arsenal. Here’s a sample of what you can pull off with the combat system in this game:
This is a Diedough-Goo. It is big, powerful, and the punching bag used for our explanation below.
Say you’ve stunned a large and heavy opponent, such as the towering Diedough-Goo robots that GEATHJERK like to deploy regularly among the invasion forces. You could have landed the stun either by blocking one of its melee attacks with Unite Guts or Spike Guts, or you could have overwhelmed the enemy with Team Attacks. From here, you can launch the enemy into the air with Wonderful Rising. However, the Diedough-Goo is pretty heavy, and doesn’t stay aloft for very long without a lot of effort on your part. You can perform another Wonderful Rising to blast the enemy higher into the air right away…or you could use Team Unite Morphs to keep up the pressure, and while your allies maintain the air juggle, you can drill through the enemy with Unite Drill Spring. If the enemy is about to hit the ground, you can ‘catch’ the with Unite Drill Spring to maintain the combo.
Of course, if you elected to launch the enemy higher up with a second Wonderful Rising, you can follow the enemy into the air and keep pounding them with your various Unite Morphs, but eventually they will still fall. You can pre-empt this rather unsatisfying end to an air combo by using Unite Tombstone to fall ‘through’ the Diedough-Goo, causing ridiculous amounts of damage, and if well timed, puts you on the ground before your enemy.
Touching the ground resets your ability to double jump, which also means you can re-launch the Diedough-Goo with another Wonderful Rising, or you catch it with another Unite Drill Spring. Or you could get really stylish and get in a few extra stabs with the Unite Blade Glider, or the Unite Spike Ball. If you’re REALLY fast, you can even use Unite Rocket to blast your whole team back up through the enemy before they hit the ground.
You’ve really got to wonder why the GEATHJERK are even bothering with the invasion of Earth if theyre up against opponents capable of doing all that.
Remember folks, The Wonderful 101 launches in North America on September 15th! If you’re looking for a fun, funny, and challenging action game for your Wii U, this game will scratch that itch nicely.
For more The Wonderful 101 strategies and all the collectibles, get the official game guide!
Published: Sep 13, 2013 06:00 pm