Apparently 2 weeks ago? Stealth release, hadn’t heard anything about it (or any news from Ronimo ever since they ruined Awesomenauts years ago).
But it’s out!
Still 3 factions: Vikings, demons, Persians. So far they seems just like the old factions. Demons = Aztecs, Persians = Chinese
Main differences I’m seeing:
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There are now resource (gold/mana) pickups that periodically drop throughout a level. You can click one to order one of your workers to march over there to pick it up and bring it back. They are worth big time bucks (a single gold drop is worth 125 gold compared to 30 from one mine trip) and add an interesting element of risk/reward as you send vulnerable workers out to get them and compete with your opponent to claim them. They can stack up to 3 drops in one pile, and 375 gold aint nothing to sneeze at.
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Hero units. This one…I’m not sure I’m so hot on. They are a powerful, expensive unit you can only have one of at a time. They’re way more powerful than their cost though (300 compared to 160 for a regular grunt) so they’re always worth rushing.
Main issue I’m seeing:
- All the comments have come to the consensus that the Persians are crazy overpowered in multiplayer. They have a “tiger leap” spell that gives one unit an instant teleport dash that not only send it ahead, but stuns any units in the way. It’s ridiculous for a low mana cost, both as a mobility spell and battle spell. There’s almost nothing the other factions can do if a Persian player rushes their hero then tiger leaps him into your base to slaughter your workers.
Opinion after 2 hours:
Have only tried the campaign so far. It’s fun. The resource drops definitely adds a new dimension to everything. Not much of a fan of the heroes, but they don’t detract too much. Haven’t tried the multiplayer yet, but hopefully they’ll balance it by the time I’m done with single player. The developer has responded to comments that they’ll keep it in mind for a patch.
It’s been out for three and a half years. You’re playing a port of a Wii U game from early 2015. :)
-Tom
What’s a console?
Well, it just came out on steam Nov 4!
(sooo…they haven’t balanced it in 3 years??)
My god, we are playing an old game!
Initial release date: May 21, 2015
Anyway here is the steam link:
Where’s my port of Wonderful 101?
Yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking reading your post. You mentioned that they ruined Awesomenauts. What happened? The usual thing of new characters breaking the power curve?
We live in the worst timeline.
-Tom
Well they responded to recent reviews mentioning the balance issue…
They put in a terrible global change to Awesomenauts, basically “levels” on top of the money. All it did was exasperate the snowballing, to the degree that the team who got first blood would win 90% of the time. The game was essentially over at first blood but you had to play out the forgone conclusion.
It’s a shame because they also made a great change where all upgrade items were available every match (having to choose from a limited number before you even got to see the enemy team was so dumb).
Ugh, after spending more time, giving this one a thumbs down.
The campaign is a mess of over puzzley levels and throwing all 3 faction loadouts together, often forcing you to play with a mishmash.
The AI is hopeless in skirmish. It took me 5 tries to get to the point where I can beat every matchup on hard WHILE giving myself the handicap of not using the hero unit.
And man do the hero units ruin the game. These things almost always fail when they try to put them into traditional RTS games (hi, Dawn of War 3!).
The Persians are ridiculous. Their blink spell is cray when used on their hero, who cannot be stopped by rushing to your workers. On top of that, their flying carpet unit is overpowered, especially against demons who have nothing that can hurt it except their basic ranged unit and even that loses the trade. If all that wasn’t enough, all 3 of those things (carpets, hero, blink) are all in the same tiny tech branch so they don’t have to bother spending gold on anything else to unlock them.
The first game had all the factions sharing the same basic outline for a lot of units (melee, ranged, siege), but there was enough of a difference between them to give each a unique approach. In this sequel, they tried to make them TOO different (demons don’t get a basic melee unit, but a suicide bomber instead and no melee unit until tier 2 or 3, only Persians get a flying unit, etc.). The finesse required for each is beyond the AI.
A gimmicky mess campaign, pushover skirmish, Persian cheese multiplayer. There’s nothing to recommend here.
My kids couldn’t wait for Super Mario Maker on Switch (if it’s ever coming) so they just bought themselves a Wii U. Which I took as an opportunity to pick up Wonderful 101! Looking forward to giving it a try if the kids ever let their grubby hands off the tablet controller.
