Nintendo held a special Nintendo Direct Friday for one of the Wii U‘s most anticipated (and few) third-party exclusives, The Wonderful 101. The 20-minute video, which you can watch below, shows off more about the game’s alien invaders (they’re ridiculous), the gameplay, special moves, replayability, and an epic-length trailer for the game that seems to give us hints about its insane story.
That being said, the most exciting thing about the Nintendo Direct of The Wonderful 101 is the fact that there was a demo for the game released to the Nintendo eShop a few hours later. I managed to get my hands on it, and so far, so good.
You get taken through a few missions, with a tutorial on how to use the Wii U GamePad to control your group of heroes. Drawing a line or circle on the GamePad, or using the right control stick – which is handy for left-handed folks like myself who don’t want to look down all the time – you can create weapons, rescue citizens, stack your group of heroes on top of each other to form a ladder or bridge, and more.
Combat can be as simple as button-mashing, but you’ll want to take some time and learn the nuance involved with the special moves; it makes combat much smoother and more satisfying.
The art style is very inspired by Viewtiful Joe, and Platinum Games has done a great job so far at crafting a comic book-ish game that doesn’t take itself very seriously, with a sense of humor and parody about the whole thing. Over-the-top is good in this case.
The Wonderful 101 hits stores September 15th, and is looking to be a worthy addition to your Wii U library.
