Grinding cash is both necessary and completely unnecessary in The Wonderful 101. If you’re aiming to unlock everything, you’ll probably have to complete the game three times on various difficulties — doing that, you’ll eventually earn enough to buy just about anything you need from the shop. But some of use want to earn more Wonder Cash faster, and there are ways to go about it. There are two basic methods — using techniques to boost your score so you earn tons of cash from completing missions, or by collecting crafting items and combining them into credit cards.
Below, I’ll cover everything you need to know about earning big money in The Wonderful 101. Really, the only reason you’ll need tons of cash is to unlock the different sets of special, secret character. You can unlock Bayonetta, Wonder-Gramps, and even an entire team of villains. They’re all worth getting, but they’re ridiculously expensive. Check out our secret characters unlockables guide for more info.
To earn the most Wonder Cash and unlock anything in the shop, you’ll need to follow two basic methods. One doesn’t really require any explanation, and another requires a whole lot of explanation.
- Collect 30 of all types of crafting material and combine them to craft a credit card that allows you to purchase any item in the shop for free. Save this for the most expensive stuff!
- To earn lots of money per mission, you’ll need to master the scoring system. That means building your combo meter and keeping it going for as long as possible.
The scoring system is how you’ll make most of your cash in the game. Once you initiate a combo by applying damage to an enemy, you’ll have six seconds before the combo ends and you’re given a score value. If you do damage at any point before that six second timer is up, you’ll extend the combo timer. To earn the most points possible, you’ll want to keep your combos going, building more and larger combo multiplier.
Using regular attacks is (mostly) worthless for gaining more combo points. Instead, you’ll want to use special attacks like Wonder Cyclone. You’ll also earn extra points for deflecting enemy attacks with Wonder Guts (incredibly important!) or attacking a stunned enemy. Your goal in every battle is to stun your opponents and rack up the largest combo possible.
How To Keep Combos Extended As Long As Possible
Unite Guts is one of the most important skills in the game. Using Unite Guts will deflect any non-sharp incoming attack. Stunning isn’t enough though — you keep the stun duration extended as long as possible, you’ll need to initiate an air-juggle.
Use Wonderful Rising on a stunned enemy to launch them in the air, then use whatever abilities you can to keep them floating! Multiple Wonderful Rising, then Wonder Tombstone and Wonder Rocket can keep your enemies in the air for a long time.
Unlock Hero Time for your Wonder Spring ability to add a slow-down timer whenever you pull-off a just-evade. That means you’ll need to evade right as an enemy attack is about to land. If you successfully pull it off, you’ll earn 200 Combo points for the evade, and you’ll slow down time for a short period, allowing you to counterattack slowed enemies with everything you’ve got.
It also helps to unlock Unite Ball so you can move more quickly to each enemy encounter — especially if you’ve equipped a Dethjerk weapon that they’ve dropped.
Every enemy has a different weakness, and learning them is up to you. The trick is using these advanced combo techniques to keep your combo timer running as long as possible — all those points are converted to cash at the end of a mission, and if you earn good ranks, you’ll be swimming in cash! It takes a whole lot of practice, so I don’t recommend doing any of this until you’ve completed the game at least once.
