Platinum Says Low WiiU Sales Was Not The Only Reason Wonderful 101 Struggled To Find Success

Although The Wonderful 101 has its fans, the game ultimately failed to reach a large audience when it first released on the WiiU in 2013, and is only now getting a second chance in the form of a Kickstarter campaign.

While it would be fairly easy to blame on the WiiU’s own lackluster performance for The Wonderful 101‘s struggles, Platinum Games’ Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya believe there is more to it than that.

Speaking to Kotaku, Inaba and Kamiya explained in detail their thoughts on the original Wonderful 101, its shortcomings, and how they intend to improve upon them for the remaster.

Check out the highlights below, or read the full interview here:

Difficulty

Inaba: “No I wouldn’t say it’s the platform’s fault. Of course, it’s hard to say the Wii U was a success, but The Wonderful 101 had its own problems.”

Kamiya: “[Watching his relative’s kids struggle with the game] It made me think, I should’ve worked harder on this element in the game. There were lots of things that were just impossible for kids. I want to go back and change that. …At that time, we were trying to pack it with the most content we could, but it wasn’t always refined. What we need to do is go through and polish things up and make sure the game is more approachable.”

“One issue with the original game was the Easy Mode was too hard. It wasn’t easy! I want to make Easy Mode appropriate for beginners. Normal will be Normal. Hard will be Hard. We didn’t put much effort into Easy Mode, and I’d like to go back and fix that. We want to make the game more approachable. Like, this is a small detail, but some players need on-screen prompts when they get stuck. So, I want to add those button prompts or hints when necessary.”

Premise

Kamiya: “When we did Bayonetta, we clearly conveyed that it was a 3D action game like Devil May Cry. People got what it was and therefore wanted to play it. But for The Wonderful 101, there wasn’t really anything we could compare it with. It might have been hard for people to get their head around it.”

Inaba: “It’s not just how we explain it to players, but how players explain it to each other. That’s incredibly important—and for The Wonderful 101, perhaps it was difficult.”

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