Wonder Flick | An Empty Promise & A Missed Opportunity
Shortly after completing Level 5's JRPG masterpiece Ni No Kuni, I was left awestruck by how a company could deliver such massive scale, beautifully rendered, gripping tales so consistently. In Dark Cloud and it's sequel Dark Chronicle, they seamlessly melded action RPG combat with tactical city building and time travel. They took Enix's popular series Dragon Quest and pushed it, possibly to its limit, to create one of the biggest scale open world RPG's in history. Then, they did what Nintendo fans have been asking for forever, they created a fully 3D, console quality Pokemon game, only better!Ni No Kuni had one of the most heart-string tugging storylines in video game history. Then came the announcement for 'Wonder Flick' and the subsequent trailer. In all honesty, the trailer wasn't anything spectacular but seeing the words 'Level 5' 'Playstation 4' and most importantly 'Nobuo Uematsu' just got me tingling all over. The game looked stylistically unique, the combat looked like a nice blend of Dragon Quest VIII and Ni No Kuni and the music I heard from Nobuo Uematsu was the best I'd heard from him since Blue Dragon. What could go wrong...?
Well...Everything! First off, Level 5 decided Wonder Flick would be better off on mobile devices rather than PS4 and only in Japan. Secondly, the soundtrack simply does not exist, to stream, to buy, not even on Dog Ear Records' shop. (Uematsu's record label) I'm guessing there are very few tracks in the game which suggests it's a very small game as it is. If Nobuo Uematsu has new music, I need it on my computer, why are you doing this to me Level 5?
Thirdly, Wonder Flick is an online game, requiring a connection to play but it has just been announced that servers will be shut down on September 14th this year, barely a year since it was released. Plagued with bugs and setbacks, the company decided to re-release a new version on mobile 'Wonder Flick R' (a similar idea to the re-release of Final Fantasy XIV under A Realm Reborn) Wonder flick was supposed to be a multi platform game and Level 5's next big console RPG.
With all that in mind, what have Level 5 been working on after abandoning Wonder Flick? Well, there have been a total of 7 Yo-Kai-Watch games for the Nintendo 3DS, a series which looks pretty much exactly like Pokemon. Note the (not)pokeball in the trailer above! Those of you who haven't heard of this series, that's probably because, once again, it's only available in Japan, only recently have Level 5 decided it was time to localise the series.
Then there's an upcoming 3DS game The Snack World, what does this trailer remind you of? It reminds me of Adventure Time, a lot! Too much in fact. Yeah, it's visually striking, pretty much what Wonder Flick would/could have been. If and when I play these games, my complaints will probably cease to matter because I'll probably absolutely adore them. I just feel disappointed that one of the most creative Japanese game companies has decided to stoop to blatant plagiarism of Pokemon and dive right in to the downward spiral that is the current Japanese gaming industry, with its obsession with mobile devices that you can attach thousands of Yo-Kai-Watch themed key rings to....
(Disclosure: This article was originally created for Gamesnosh.com)