The story so far:
As the GEATHJERK have now broken through the Earth’s main line of defense, the CENTINELS have redirected their efforts to Project Stinger: a comprehensive strategy to wipe every last JERK off the face of the Earth. Heroes from across the planet have assembled in the CENTINELS’ flagship, the Virgin Victory, undergoing highly classified operations as the Wonderful One-Double-Oh. Wonderful Ones! Hurry up! The Earth is tapping its foot!

Hey, ICHI here.
The design of Wonderful 101 is a pure and simple action game focusing on the fun of battle, but that being said, there might be a few of you out there that aren’t exactly the best at the genre. Maybe you’re playing The Wonderful 101 because you’ve always wanted to punch something with a huge fist made of human beings, or you just want to ride the water slide over and over again, or you think all those tiny characters moving around the map together is adorable and just had to get the game.

For those of you who want to enjoy the game casually, we’ve prepared a variety of difficulty settings.
Normal mode will provide a solid challenge, while Easy and Very Easy allow you to dish out all sorts of combos automatically just at the press of a button. Any route you’ll take you can still play to the game’s end, worry not.

You can play the game with one slice of pizza in your hand at all times.

What’s more, any difficulty you chose has infinite continues, and since the game lets you respawn on the spot, you’ll never be put back at the stage’s beginning. If you’ve dealt a certain amount of damage to the boss you’re facing, we don’t take that away. It’ll be just where you left off. If you practice patience, you’re sure to succeed (eventually).

And of course if you can raise your skill to clearing each stage without getting creamed over and over again, that’s just going to make your end result score that much higher.

For today’s episode, let’s touch on something you’ll be needing if you’re going to attempt getting through the game without dying: items.

There are a few ways to get items.

The first way is just finding them sitting around, or hiding inside breakable objects, or left behind after defeating an enemy.

The Wonderful One-Double-Oh run on a healthy diet of soup and cake.

Wonderful Noodle Soup and Wonderful Cake restore the team’s Vital Gauge and Unite Gauge, respectively. Most of the items you find during your missions take effect immediately, but among soup and cake, there are takeout versions that you can store away and use for later.

The Vital Gauge is the bar in the top left that decreases when the leader takes damage. If this reaches zero, it’s Game Over. The gauge won’t drop if members beside the leader get hit, but they’ll go flying and get knocked unconscious, so be careful. When your vital gauge looks like it’s getting low, it might be time for some takeout Wonderful Noodle Soup.

Your max Vital Gauge will increase as you find more of the 100 members, but there’s an item that increases your max vitality too.

Hero Heart Fragment. Some assembly required.

Like its name says, the Unite Gauge is needed to use Unite Morphs. If you leave it be it’ll regenerate gradually on its own, but if you get in the mood for using a few huge Unite Morphs back to back, you’re going to be out of batteries before you know it.

You’ve finally got the enemy staggering, right where you want him, but your gauge is dry! Let’s celebrate this failure in planning with a nice piece of takeout Wonderful Cake.

You’ll be able to get through the beginning of the game without paying the Unite Gauge much mind, but once you’ve progressed some and you’re unleashing three, four Multi-Unite Morphs at a time, you’re going to become very closely acquainted with the Unite Gauge.

When that happens, remember this next item.

You’ll find these Wonderful Batteries scattered around everywhere. Collect enough of them to temporarily increase you max Unite Gauge. Don’t ask yourself why there are a bunch of batteries laying around the entire Earth, just pick up every last one so you won’t regret it later.

Here’s another trio of items you’ll be running into.

Don’t they look… delicious?

They have a somewhat familiar shape, but make no mistake: these are SPACE VEGETABLES.

You can’t use them by themselves, but you can try mixing them in different quantities and combinations to get some useful items. This is another way to make sure your inventory’s high.

Mix anywhere! Even when you’re on the go.

When you’re down on your luck, remember mixing. You might be able to come up with something to save you in a pinch.

Next are some items you are going to be collecting like crazy.

O-Parts have three sizes: small, medium and large.

O-Parts are a kind of precious metal infused with galactic energy. GEATHJERK will be leaving a lot of these behind in their tracks. To the CENTINELS, they act as currency.

There is some research that suggests hitting the enemy with more attacks and thus increasing the Combo Points in your battle score will result in a higher amount of O-Parts dropped.

Think of your enemies like big piggy banks you have to hit repeatedly to get money out of.

The O-Parts you collect can be traded in for some very high profile stuff at the CENTINELS Emergency Strategics Bases, known as Wonderful Marts. These Wonderful Marts have been built in various locations across the planet. The team will more than likely be able to find one wherever their mission takes them.

I’m so glad these Wonderful Marts are open 24 hours daily.

Look at this selection!

Next time I’ll touch on some of the power-up items you can find in these Wonderful Marts.

Next Episode:

Emergency Strategics Base, a.k.a. Wonderful Mart!

Stay tuned!