Combo

The Combo system in The Wonderful 101 is a gameplay mechanic that tracks every attack you use against enemies in combat.

Any time you damage an enemy in any way (or when performing certain other combat-related actions) you'll earn Combo points, which are displayed on a counter on the left side of the screen, and next to your Combo counter is a multiplier that increases every time a Unite Morph is used to attack enemies.
After a few seconds of inactivity, or after completing a Mission, your Combo will end, applying your multiplier to your points to create a final total, which is then both added to the current Mission's or Operation's final Combo score and directly converted into O-Parts.

Your Combo score, together with your Time and Damage scores, are the three metrics by which the game measures (and rewards) your skill at playing the game, as these three metrics are what the game uses to decide what level of Medal or Award you receive at the end of every Mission and Operation.

Terminology

On this Wiki and in the context of The Wonderful 101, the term "combo" generally refers to...

• Active Combos, as indicated by the presence of the Combo counter on the left side of the screen.
• The Combo points and the Combo multiplier that are increased during gameplay, as indicated by the counter.
• The final total of an active Combo after it ends, when your points and multiplier are combined to produce a final score, which is also converted into O-Parts.
• A Mission's or Operation's final Combo score, as indicated by the Combo score on the Mission/Operation Results screen, which is the sum of all Combos completed during the Mission/Operation, and contributes to your Medal or Award. These Combo scores can be viewed on the Final Result screen after it has been unlocked by completing the game for the first time.
• A Mission's or Operation's Combo requirement, which is the final Combo score required to achieve a certain level of Medal or Award.

However, in the context of the action game genre as a whole or the related fighting game genre, "combo" can also refer to a combination of multiple attacks used together in sequence to achieve a specific result in gameplay. For action games in particular, terms like "aerial combo" may be used to describe the act of performing multiple attacks against an enemy that has been launched into the air without giving them a chance to react or recover.

This second (perhaps more widespread) definition of combo is also used in context of The Wonderful 101, and it would be correct to say that, for example, an attack sequence such as stunning an enemy using Unite Gun, launching them into the air using Unite Hand's Wonderful Rising Skill, and then attacking them in mid air using Unite Sword, could altogether be considered a combo (an aerial one, at that.)
However, for the majority of purposes, any use of the term "combo" on this Wiki should be assumed to refer to the Combo system discussed on this page, and usage of the term combo to describe a combination of attacks is generally avoided where possible to prevent confusion.

Combo Overview

Unlike other action games, The Wonderful 101's Combo system is very simplistic — repeatedly using the same attack does not incur diminishing returns, there are no mechanics that force you to use certain abilities, and there are no conditional modifiers — your points and your multiplier increase by the same amounts every time you perform the same action, and that's it.

However, despite its simplicity, there are still some finer details and mechanics going on in the game's Combo system that are important to make note of, as well as various strategies to keep in mind if you want to play the game to the best of your ability.

Starting, Maintaining, and Ending a Combo

Any time a Combo point is earned, either by dealing damage to an enemy in any way or by earning a Combo bonus, the Combo counter will appear on the left side of the screen: the Combo counter's presence indicates that a Combo is currently active.

6 seconds!

Any time a Combo is active, a hidden 6-second timer starts counting down until it reaches 0: if you don't damage an enemy in this time, the countdown timer will eventually reach 0 seconds, and when this happens the Combo ends, and your multiplier is applied to your points to produce a final total, which is saved for the Mission/Operation's final score and also converted into O-Parts.
You can prevent this by attacking enemies: any time an enemy is damaged in any way that earns points (Unite Morph attacks, idle team member attacks, Climb Attacks, etc,) this countdown timer is reset back to 6 seconds, extending your Combo.

A bonus starts a Combo with the timer at 0, but it can't end until every bonus is applied!

Additionally, this 6-second timer can be artificially extended: earned Combo bonuses are displayed for a moment before they're actually added to your point total, and a Combo will not end until every bonus gets applied first, even if the timer reaches 0. This makes it possible to extend a Combo indefinitely if you can repeatedly perform any action that earns a Combo bonus, such as repeatedly dodging an enemy attack or using a Skill.
Also note that if a Combo is started by earning a Combo bonus instead of damaging an enemy, then the countdown timer starts at 0 seconds, and the Combo will end as soon as the bonus is applied unless you attack an enemy in this time to set it to 6 seconds.

The goal of maintaining your Combo is essentially to build up as many points and the highest multiplier possible: these two values inevitably increase higher and higher the longer a Combo lasts for, and the higher they are when your Combo ends, the higher your final Combo total will be.

Finally, note that it's not possible to start a new Combo in the short moment where the game processes your previous Combo: any Combo-earning actions performed during this time are ignored.

Tips for Maintaining Combo

Maintaining a Combo should be as self explanatory as starting or ending it: keep attacking enemies! As long as you never go for longer than 6 seconds without attacking an enemy, your Combo won't end unless you complete a Mission (which is when you want it to end anyway.) However, this can be easier said than done in certain situations, so here are a few tips:

• If you think your Combo is about to end and you can't find the enemy, quickly use a max size Unite Morph that can blindly cover a wide area: throw a Size 100 Unite Bomb or use a Size 100 Unite Sword's Wonderful Cyclone to try and hit something. If you don't even have time to draw, then try using Unite Tombstone: it'll quickly produce a shock wave that, at Size 100, will hit anything nearby.
• If you're fighting an enemy that's far away, or capable of breaking your Unite Morphs by blocking, shoot at them using Unite Gun: even if they're blocking, Unite Gun will safely deal chip damage and reset the timer, maintaining your combo until you can attack them properly.
• If attacking an enemy does not earn points, such as attacking a Hoedown's shield or attacking a Dahkarts during its spawning animation or dodges, the timer will not be reset by your attacks. In this situation, you can try to artificially extend the Combo timer by earning Combo bonuses: repeatedly attack the enemy using a Skill to earn the + 50PTS.+ 50PTS. Bonus until you're able to damage them properly. As long as there's always a bonus being displayed, the Combo cannot end.
• If you need to go for a few seconds without attacking an enemy, but want to maintain your Combo, then you can either use a long-lasting Multi-Unite attack such as a Multi-United Unite Sword to have a team member attack the enemy for you, or, you can apply Climb Attacks to the enemy using either Team Attacks or Unite Gun: Climb Attacks deal small amounts of damage over time, and this damage resets the timer. If you use Climb Attacks, just make sure to not hold the Dash/Join Up button, as holding it will recall all team members performing Climb Attacks.
• If your entire team is stunned after an attack gone wrong, and you find yourself unable to Unite Morph, then run up to the enemy by yourself and tickle them with a backup attack: backup attacks deal pathetic amounts of damage, but pathetic amounts of damage do indeed still reset the timer.

If ever you need to end a Combo manually, simply hold the Dash/Join Up button to prevent your team from attacking and avoid any nearby enemy: after 6 seconds of waiting the Combo will end.

Earning Points

Any damaging attack against an enemy will earn Combo points, but of course, some ways of attacking enemies are better than others if your goal is to earn points:

When it comes to earning raw Combo points, the "bigger is better" rule still applies: a Size 100 Unite Hand earns more points in a single powerful attack than a Size 10 Unite Hand would in however many attacks it needs to do to deal the same amount of damage. In battles where the Combo requirement isn't too high, simply attacking enemies with the overwhelming force of max size Unite Morphs should earn enough points to get a Platinum Combo Score.
However, you must keep in mind that even though a bigger Unite Morph will earn more points in a single attack, a smaller Unite Morph will earn more multiplier over the course of many attacks: this means that you need to find a balance between using powerful attacks to earn points, and peppering in variety of weaker attacks to build your multiplier up, if you want to get the highest Combo possible.

While attacking the enemy using the overwhelming force of a max size Unite Morph can earn a lot of points (but potentially not a lot of multiplier,) there's an even better way of earning points that can be used in any battle in the game: earning Combo bonuses.
A wide variety of actions can be performed in combat to earn point bonuses, and some of them can be easily exploited to earn a ton of combo points. Among these bonuses, the two best ones are the + 200PTS.+ 200PTS. bonus for blocking an attack using Unite Guts, and the + 100PTS.+ 100PTS. bonus for attacking stunned enemies... such as the enemy you just stunned using Unite Guts!
In any battle where you to want to earn a lot of combo points very easily, do the following:

The Combos of Calamity

• Wait for a blockable attack from an enemy.
• Use Unite Guts to block the attack, earning the + 200PTS.+ 200PTS. bonus, and stunning the enemy.
• Once the enemy is stunned, lay into them with any Unite Morph to earn + 100PTS.+ 100PTS. bonuses until they recover. If you launch the enemy into the air using a Wonderful Rising Skill, the enemy will stay stunned until they land back on the ground.
• Repeat until your combo is high enough.

Any melee damage from any Unite Morph will earn the stun bonus per each attack (meaning ranged attacks such as Unite Gun shots do not earn this bonus,) however, by far the most effective Unite Morph for earning the stun bonus is Unite Claw: Unite Claw's basic attacks constantly earn the stun bonus, making it one of the fastest ways of earning any bonus in combat.
Additionally, it's not required to use Unite Guts to stun the enemy: enemies can also be stunned using Climb Attacks, and enemies stunned in this way will also give you the bonus when attacked.

Using Unite Whip Wonderful Cyclone on invincible Dahkarts to earn bonuses

However, when it's not possible to stun an enemy, you can also earn a large amount of bonuses by spamming Skills: any time you use a Unite Morph Skill and it hits an enemy, you earn a small + 50PTS.+ 50PTS. bonus. As Skills can be used at any time, they can be used to earn bonuses at any time in any battle for extra points.
Additionally, using a Skill can earn a bonus even if hitting the enemy does not actually deal damage: not only can this be exploited to earn points when it would otherwise be impossible, you can also use this to artificially extend your Combo during an enemy's invulnerability phase, as your Combo won't end until every bonus being displayed is applied first.

Just let 'em go at it!

Apart from using max Size Unite Morphs or earning Combo bonuses, there are a few other good tricks for earning Combo points:
If there's a large amount of enemies on screen, such as when fighting a group of Dough-Goos, or Prince Vorkken's Guyzoch Space Pirates, hitting as many enemies at once as possible using weak attacks will quickly rack up combo points. "Weak attacks" that are good for this include standing inside the group of enemies (without holding the Dash/Join Up button) so that all your idle team members automatically attack anything nearby, or using a small size Unite Goggles or a Raydown's Enemy Weapon to pierce as many enemies at once using their laser attacks.

A red hot Combo

Finally, any Enemy Weapon can be effective for earning points thanks to their unique bonus and high damage, but there's one Enemy Weapon worth going out of your way to get any time it's available: the Hah-Gonay Enemy Weapon's fire breath attack earns enormous amounts points in a single attack — anywhere from 2000 to 3000 on average — and doesn't deal so much damage that you can't use a Unite Morph to build up a decent multiplier afterwards.

Combo Bonuses

Though the aforementioned Unite Guts and stun bonuses are the two best bonuses for increasing your Combo points, there are several other bonuses that can be earned. The following is a list of every possible Combo bonus:

• + 200PTS.+ 200PTS. for each attack blocked using Unite Guts.
• + 100PTS.+ 100PTS. for using melee attacks against a stunned enemy. Ranged attacks, such as Unite Gun shots, Unite Bowgun darts, or even a thrown Unite Claw or Unify Boomerang do not earn this bonus.
• + 200PTS.+ 200PTS. for dodging an attack at the last moment using Unite Spring.
• + 50PTS.+ 50PTS. any time a Unite Morph Skill is used and it hits an enemy (even if it doesn't deal damage!)
• + 100PTS.+ 100PTS. or + 200PTS.+ 200PTS. for using an Enemy Weapon to attack an enemy. The amount varies depending on the weapon used and how many enemies its attack hits.
• + 100PTS.+ 100PTS. for activating the Hero Counter Custom Block's effect.
• + 150PTS.+ 150PTS. for throwing a stunned enemy by circling them using the Wonder-Liner.

Finally, there's also the special Combo bonus: this is a generic bonus used for any action that does not fall into any of the above categories, and it can award you a varying number of points. Some special Combo bonuses are a regular occurrence, such as the + 200PTS.+ 200PTS. bonus for using Unite Hand, Unite Sword, and Unite Hammer to defend against fire, laser, and overhead attacks (respectively,) however, there's also a variety of situational actions that give you a special bonus, sometimes awarding you as much as + 5000PTS.+ 5000PTS..

Increasing your Multiplier

The multiplier that appears next to your Combo counter can be increased by using any Unite Morph weapon in combat: each of the 7 Main and 5 Secret Unite Morphs all increase the multiplier by a set amount each time they're used to damage an enemy. Additionally, for Combo purposes, the damage dealt by certain items and several Special Unite Morphs may also be considered a form of a Unite Morph weapon's attack, and such can also be used to increase the multiplier.

Also, it's important to note that the Combo multiplier maxes out at ×9.99, and that using a Unite Morph after this point does not increase your multiplier any further: it does not keep "invisibly" counting up beyond this, it stays at ×9.99.

The following is a table of every Unite Morph weapon, the amount by which they increase the multiplier when used, and any other attack that is considered to be a form of that Unite Morph:

Unite Morph	Multiplier Increase	Attacks Counting as this Unite Morph
Unite Hand	×0.04	Unite Rocket
Unite Sword	×0.04	Unite Blade Glider
Unite Gun	×0.10	Justice Missile, Thunder Victory Torpedo, Fire Victory Torpedo
Unite Whip	×0.05	None
Unite Hammer	×0.10	Unite Tombstone
Unite Claw	×0.01	None
Unite Bomb	×0.10	None
Unite Drill	×0.01	Unite Drill Spring, Unite Spike Ball
Unite Bowgun	×0.05	Platinum Forever
Unify Naginata	×0.01	None
Unify Boomerang	×0.01	None
Unite Goggles	×0.01	Wonderful Forever

Looking at the above table, and considering the general abilities of each Unite Morph, there are a few obvious conclusions you can make:

• Unite Gun earns ×0.10 per hit, and its attack speed and long range makes it easy to gradually increase your multiplier simply by keeping your distance and shooting enemies using its pistol form. Unite Gun is generally the best weapon for increasing your multiplier in any situation. Unite Gun also has the effect of being able to stun enemies by applying Climb Attacks, opening up the opportunity to earn + 100PTS.+ 100PTS. bonuses
• Unite Hammer earns ×0.10 per hit, making it potentially as good as Unite Gun if you don't mind having to be in melee range. A smaller size Unite Hammers attack faster, however, larger sizes of Unite Hammer tend to increase the multiplier multiple times per attack, giving you two options for using the weapon.
• Unite Bomb earns ×0.10 per hit, however, Unite Bomb's long "cooldown" between attacks makes it very ineffective for increasing your multiplier.
• Unite Bowgun earns ×0.05 per hit, however, unless you intend to exploit the weapon's charming effect on enemies, Unite Gun is better for increasing your multiplier and for Combos in general.
• Weapons that earn ×0.04 per hit can build up an adequate multiplier over time.
• Weapons that only earn ×0.01 per hit essentially force you to use another weapon to build up anything resembling a decent multiplier. However, these weapons are generally very good for earning points to make up for this.
• The other attacks that count as Unite Morphs are a nice detail, but aren't particularly useful for increasing your multiplier.

A final, major way of increasing your multiplier is the Enemy-Unite ability introduced in The Prince Vorkken (DLC) exclusive to The Wonderful 101: Remastered:
Enemy-Unites are an extremely powerful form of Multi-Unite Morph taking the form of various GEATHJERK aliens to attack for you. On top of dealing enormous amounts of damage, each time an Enemy-Unite hits something, a whopping ×0.50 is added to your multiplier, trivializing the process of increasing your multiplier.
However, despite the ease with which they can be used to reach a ×9.99 multiplier, Enemy-Unites earn very little combo points relative to the massive amounts of damage they can deal, meaning it can become even more difficult to balance earning points with building up a multiplier.

For more information on how to use Enemy-Unites, see The Prince Vorkken (DLC).

Summary

• Combos last for 6 seconds. Attacking enemies resets this timer. A bonus being displayed prevents a Combo from ending.
• Max-size Unite Morphs earn more points per attack, small size Unite Morphs can earn more multiplier through multiple attacks.
• The best way to earn points is to stun enemies (Unite Guts, Climb Attacks) and to attack them while stunned for the + 100PTS.+ 100PTS. bonus. Unite Claw is the best weapon to use for this.
• The best way to earn multiplier is to use Unite Gun's pistol form.

Glitches

I could have sworn that the guidebook says...
Diplomacy has failed, this article is a stub! You can help The Wonderful 101 Wiki by expanding it. Issues: This glitch section needs a list of every Mission where it is likely to occur. Dukerdude (talk)

There's a notable glitch in the Combo system where, if a cutscene interrupts gameplay while you have an active Combo, and the Mission Results screen is displayed immediately after the cutscene ends, the game may fail to calculate your Combo for the Mission Results screen. When this happens, your Combo is essentially lost, as its not added to the Mission's Combo score or your O-Parts.

This glitch can be easily observed in Mission 001 of Operation 004-B (the second Prince Vorkken battle): if you maintain only one Combo for the entire duration of the fight, a cutscene will interrupt the gameplay after Vorkken's health is fully depleted, and once the cutscene finishes, the Mission Results screen may display a Combo score of 0, which would be impossible if not for this glitch.

This glitch can occur in any Mission that interrupts gameplay with a cutscene immediately before displaying the Mission Results screen. The only way to avoid this glitch is to preemptively know when it can occur, and to intentionally end any Combo before completing whatever Mission objective triggers the cutscene: this ensures that your biggest Combos will be calculated properly.