Neatly arranged under bright sun umbrellas are pretty café tables sat in perfectly manicured gardens that surround a rainbow coloured Ferris wheel. There’s a bold, cartoon-CGI aesthetic to ‘mass-hero’ action game The Wonderful 101 that has echoes of other titles in Nintendo’s library whilst simultaneously looking fresh, as developers Platinum Games are at the reigns. Any pre-conceived familiarity that might accompany such an aesthetic is quickly usurped by some quirky ideas that may be tricky to execute but pack in the fun.

Stampeding through the town, double jumping and riding giant air vents in formation or cascading across pleasure parks as Wonder Red with my gang of 100 black eye-masked superheroes, we swarmed through the city as aliens attacked. Though the aliens initially looked easy fodder and predictable, taking them down actually took some serious ambidextrous skills. With special abilities and equally special outfits, my unlikely posse of heroes including Bonzai Man, Vending Machine Man and Toilet Bowl Man, had to join forces as the only way to defeat the extra-terrestrial enemies and protect the planet was en masse. Working together, the heroes morphed into giant, powerful weapons which were created by either drawing a simple shape on the Wii U GamePad touchscreen or by using the right analogue stick; fiddly to get right in the heat of battle. An ‘L’ shape resulted in a giant green gun appearing which was ideal for picking off hovering aliens that nipped, darted and buzzed around like flies in their UFOs. An ‘S’ shape created a giant pink whip which was perfect for picking off a giant robot alien’s spiky armour until nothing but his LEGO-type building block body was exposed. Team 101 could also morph into huge Iron-Man-inspired fists which could either punch or crush enemies or be used to twist and unscrew bolts and pull levers. Am told they could also become giant lumps of gelatin to guard themselves against enemy attacks or form chains, gliders or giant swords to cut the enemy down to size or unlock keyholes to progress. Each encounter required a different approach and working out which morphed power to use in what situation was critical.

This constant decision making was balanced with watching the enemy carefully and timing attacks. One of the biggest blobs to ever be dumped unceremoniously from a spaceship landed in our path and immediately sucked up half of my collected heroes into its deadly red core. The aliens are just too powerful for the heroes to fight individually and when disbanded by an attack, the special morph power I was using became drastically reduced as my comrades lay stunned around the battle area. I sped around gathering up my team whilst dodging attacks in frenzy. The whole ethos of The wonderful 101 is that there is strength in numbers. Exploring each stage to find helpless citizens and recruiting them to join the army of heroes is an equally important part of the game, which also supports a local 5 player cooperative mode.

Visual indicators guided me though as the team glow in colour when a shape was drawn correctly, or burned rainbow bright when protect and recruiting citizens. Like with other games on the Wii U, my muscle memory has yet to be set and much of my time is still spent looking at the GamePad, away from the TV screen. Speedy decision making and well executing symbols whilst in frantic combat may have been a tricky exercise but was a wonderful use of the Wii U’s GamePad technology and the feeling of accomplishment at the end of the level was welcomed the more for it. Players can also use the GamePad to explore areas unseen on the TV screen and solve puzzle elements. How this seemingly relentless pace and visual overload will affect players over the course of the whole game will be interesting to see, but The Wonderful 101 is looking to be 101% exciting, challenging and fun.

The Wonderful 101 is due out on 23rd August for the Nintendo Wii U. PEGI 12