A Kick for Kickstarters: The Wonderful 101: Remastered

The rumors about PlatinumGames launching a Kickstarter campaign for ports of The Wonderful 101 didn’t seem believable at first. They developed the Wii U title, but Nintendo published it (in their first collaboration), a company that tends to maintain strict control over the original IPs they’re involved with. They even gave it its own Direct. But the clues that this was actually happening were adding up over the weekend. Rumors from insiders (and sometimes supposed insiders) were one thing, but a hint about this from director Hideki Kamiya was another. This appeared to be happening, and the only outstanding questions were when it would launch, and what platforms it would be for despite Nintendo’s involvement with the original.

Even so, seeing the crowdfunding campaign for The Wonderful 101: Remastered launch was a big surprise. Not only is it planned to be mostly (more on that later) PlatinumGames’ first publishing gig and their first crowdfunding initiative, this is also the biggest crowdfunding campaign in a long time. You know, the kind I implied were all but dead in several previous A Kick for Kickstarter posts. Those claims sure look good now.

It also makes a lot of sense that PG had to take the crowdfunding route for TW101. The game originally released for Wii U in fall 2013, but while its critical reception was good, all indications suggested that it sold poorly everywhere. Being on Wii U didn’t help, Nintendo’s worst-selling console, but its gameplay and art styles also didn’t appeal to a large-enough audience.

It’s a shame that happened, given its intriguing concept. TW101 occurs during a war between Earth and an alien organization, with the player-controlled Wonderful Ones being the planet’s best hope. The superheroes venture through areas in a large group to find stranded citizens who can be recruited after being rescued. The large gathering is why the game is played from an isometric point of view, which makes it resemble a superhero spin on the Pikmin series in screenshots. But its core gameplay has more in common with previous PG and Clover Studio games — especially Viewtiful Joe. The concept appealed to certain people (like me!), but was hardly mainstream friendly.

There were indications that PG wanted to work with Nintendo for a Switch version, but they also had multiplatform aspirations. That’s why they’re going with crowdfunding, which couldn’t have been a better move given how it’s performing.

PG asked for a mere $50,000 for the initial goal, enough to fund a Switch port. But to merely say it’s sailed beyond that would undermine just how fast this campaign’s funding moved after it launched. It reached the initial goal within around 10 minutes, and made twice that in about 20 minutes. Funding might have moved even faster if Kickstarter’s website didn’t slow down due to the sudden influx of traffic.

Within the first 24 hours, it reached the three stretch goals for the Steam version, PlayStation 4 version, and the Time Attack mode at $250,000, $500,000, and $1 million, respectively. The early stretch goals for the ports indicated how PG was hesitant to add new content to an already-finished game, but the high rate of funding has opened them up a bit. At this rate, it should hit the goals for Luka’s First Mission (a 2D side-scrolling side game) and a remixed soundtrack at $1.5 million and $1.75 million, respectively.

The backer rewards being good isn’t hurting it. The price of a physical copy costs $41, possibly cheaper than the final retail price. There’s also a pledging tier that includes everything, and the chance to be blocked by Kamiya on Twitter. Not that you can’t do that for free by tweeting stupid shit at him.

Curiously, no Xbox version is being considered for porting, nor has it been added among the stretch coals. Kamiya’s mention that an Xbox version would be coming in an interview with Gematsu makes this even more peculiar. They could port it down the line, but if not, it’s possible Microsoft would be willing to help them with it. They’ve shown this kind of openness recently with other niche games, like with getting Yakuza titles on Xbox Game Pass.

The big question is how this is happening at all, given Nintendo’s involvement with TW101. As it turns out, it also perplexed Kamiya that Nintendo is letting them run this in collaboration with Dangen Entertainment (a company that’s battled serious accusations of malfeasance lately), in an interview with Video Games Chronicle. PG producer Atsushi Inaba chalked this up to the company’s “really good relationship with Nintendo,” given the number of games they’ve released with them on Wii U and Switch.

There’s a chance Nintendo’s letting this happen because the game bombed on Wii U and, thus, aren’t too concerned with what PG does with it. Select PG fans are hoping this will open the door for an Astral Chain port, though reports suggest that game actually did well. Still, Inaba didn’t deny the chance of it going multiplatform one day, so we’ll have to wait and see if it happens.

PG plans to release The Wonderful 101: Remastered very quickly, specifically in April this year. Several other physical rewards aren’t planned to arrive until November, however. This is a crowdfunding campaign, so don’t be surprised if there are delays along the way. This was the first of four announcements planned as part of the Platinum 4, a cool-though-unsubtle nod to the Capcom 5 from the GameCube days. Ideally, we won’t have to wait long to find out the identities of the others.