Wonderful 101 had longest dev time for a Platinum game

Oh God, I want this game YESTERDAY!

The whole non-American world will be getting their hands on The Wonderful 101 later this month, while US citizens must sit tightly until Sep𒆙tember 15. The wait has been especially difficult for myself, considering this has been my most anticipated Wii U title since it was first revealed at E3 2012. Seems like this game has been in production forever.

As it turns out, The Wonderful 101 has had both a larger team and longer dev cycle than any previous PlatinumGames title. Director Hideki Kamiya mentioned as much during a recent interview with Famitsu magazine, graciously interpreted by . Both he and producer Atsushi Inaba shared nuggets of the development process, such as how the idea of controlling a throng of characters came before the Japanese sentai theme was settled upon, or how the visuals originally looked far closer to Viewtiful Joe than they do currently.

Both men have stated that the game is a lot deeper than we realize. “It’s easy enough to just finish the game,” Kamiya said, “but if you try to work out better strategies and play a better, more stylish game, then it just gets deeper and deeper. I’d like people to just play the way they want, and hopefully they’ll get addicted once they see all the things they’re able to do. In that way, the entire first playthrough is something like a tutorial. I think the real game begins the second time through.”

Inaba added, “Kamiya really has no idea when to rein in the volume. This is a weird way of putting it, but with a lot of regular action games, if you try hard enough, oftentimes you can beat them the same day you purchase them, right? That’s not happening with this game. There are a lot of features that we haven’t revealed yet, but even if you ignore those features and push through the game, we’re still talking the same level of volume.”

You aren’t making the wait any easier, fellas.

[Polygon via ]