After a successful Kickstarter, The Wonderful 101: Remastered has now been made available to backers.

So how does the remastered version hold up? According to the experts at Digital Foundry, performance on console disappoints. The original Wii U release ran at a native 720p and apparently "had issues" targeting 60fps at times, and this is still apparently a problem for the Switch and base PS4 version of the remaster.

Here's how Digital Foundry's Thomas Morgan explains it:

There's no getting away from it: performance is disappointing even in this remaster. 60fps remains the target on every console, but in 2013 this game just couldn't do it on Nintendo's last-gen spec. 30fps to 60fps was the general range, and so often through those first few missions frame-rates languish at 40fps for long stretches, with cutscenes dipping to the 30 mark. Much later on in the game, performance drops lower still. Remarkably, the Switch version shows little actual improvement while docked, and in cutscenes, performance is actually lower than the original Wii U game by 10fps to 12fps. There's the indication that 1080p is too high a target for Switch, and that complex areas with lots of draw calls are CPU-limited.

The gap between Wii U and Switch closes in gameplay at least, but the fact that performance is still an issue at all is disappointing. Meanwhile, the results in portable play at least improve on docked play by a margin of up to 5fps. The native output is a less demanding 720p, which helps boost the frame-rate in action with lots of transparencies - despite the huge drop in GPU core clock and memory bandwidth. It's telling that the game still hits the same 23fps low point as docked play during the top-down view of the city, which suggests that processing so much geometry triggers a CPU bottleneck - rather than GPU. Portable play is broadly in the same space performance-wise then, but expect moments to run a touch faster.

The Wonderful 101 Remaster
Image: Digital Foundry

The key takeaway for Switch players is that the Nintendo iteration of the remaster shows "little actual improvement while docked" and in cutscenes, performance is lower than the original Wii U game by 10-12fps. It's all tied to the higher resolution (1080p), which matches the display of the PS4 and PS4 Pro. There's a slight performance improvement in portable mode (720p) as well.

On a more positive note, the visuals translate "wonderfully" to the Switch, and higher resolution in docked mode provides additional clarity. For the full analysis, check out Digital Foundry's video above.

Have you had the chance to play Switch version of the remaster yet? What do you think of the game's performance so far? Leave a comment down below.

[source eurogamer.net]