"Unknown little gem"

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INTRODUCTION
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”I'm a fighter!
Nothing but a great fighter!” - Bonus Kun

By reading its strange name, many players could infer that Waku Waku 7 is something related to an expendable Japanese puzzle game. Could not be farther from the truth, though. Waku Waku 7 is an interesting 2-D fighting game created by Sunsoft that uses the Neo Geo engine. It is a very solid title that has a unique approach to the genre. Basically, it never takes itself too seriously, and everything in this game is full of humour. And this is exactly its most redeeming quality that makes it stand out from the standard beat-em-ups.

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STORY
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”My wish is....to be heard?” - Dandy-J

Legend tells that there are seven small shiny spheres scattered through the world. They are the Waku Waku balls. Forgotten since immemorial ages, these relics have magical powers. It is said that the person who collects all seven of the powerful Waku Waku balls will have his dearest wish granted. Those who find one of the balls become obsessed with the ruthless desire to obtain the others, and start a quest to defeat the wielders of the remaining balls, so that it will be possible to gather them all _and make his wish come true.

So, this story explains what the unorthodox title stands for. Granted, it made me wonder if the sky would become dark and Sheng Long would come out when all the Waku Waku balls were gathered. Well, the comparison to Dragon Ball is inevitable here. Perhaps, this was just what the developers had in mind, for the game, in most part, is trying to make a parody to something else.

Naturally, your task is to control one of the seven characters who are willing to have a desire fulfilled. One might imagine that the competitors are brawny warriors or martial arts experts. Not really. At your disposal there is a kindergarten little girl piggybacking a bunny-like monster or a floating mechanical maid, just to name a few. Not a very traditional cast of characters. But they are, mostly, really cool and each one of them has a reason for gathering the spheres, and every single storyline fits the main plot very well.

Story: 7/10

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GAMEPLAY
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”Your simplicity has turned out to be harmful to you...” - Slash

As I mentioned earlier, Waku Waku 7 is a 2-D fighting game, in which the battles are one-on-one, and the objective is to defeat the adversary in the best of three rounds, so that you can proceed. Insert a coin, press start, and a brief tutorial appears, explaining the basic commands of the game. Then, you can select your fighter out of the seven available: Rai, an annoying teenager full of “attitude”; Arina, a sexy anime chick; Tesse, the robotic maid; Mauru, the monster with a tiny girl; Slash, an elf holding an energetic sword; Politank-Z, a mech controlled by a goofy dog and Dandy-J, some military guy helped by a bouncy female partner. At first glance, they may seem childish, but this is not true. They are all very funny, and the things that they do, or say, are rather hilarious.

Everything works just like in any good fighting game. The special attacks are activated by doing combinations of directional commands and buttons, in a Street Fighter-esque style. The controls are very simple and effective, and the special attacks are easy to pull off. There are some nice touches to the gameplay as well, like air defense, combos, counter attacks and super moves. These super moves, called Hara Hara, may be activated when a power gauge, located at the bottom of the screen, is full. Each one of the aforementioned fighters has only one power gauge during the first battle, and it corresponds to one Waku Waku ball. Probably, in addition to simply granting wishes, these balls raise the inner strength of the owner. So, starting out you only have capacity to store one power bar, but as you progress, you obtain additional gemstones from the opponents you have beaten and the capacity of your power bar increases ( to a maximum of seven ). This means that you can perform seven super moves in a row. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that those moves are unblockable.

Eventually you will face a special bonus match. Your adversary will be nothing less than Bonus Kun, a character taken from an old game called Galaxy Fighter, who is a... punching bag?! Trust me, this guy is laughable. He can mimic every move that Ken uses in the Street Fighter series. No kidding, Bonus Kun can perform a Hadouken, a Shouryuken, a Senpuu kyaku ( and he yells the name of the moves ). He can even perform the super move Shoryureppa. He may be limbless, but he can surely give you a tough match. Thankfully, it is not necessary to defeat him to proceed.

Verisimilitude was obviously not the goal here, for the last boss is just as unlikely. His name is Fernandez and he is a building-sized black ball with sharp teeth, demon wings and round paws. One of his moves consist in kissing your character to drain his energy. Really weird, and really dangerous, too. He can kill you within five or six seconds if you don’t know what you are doing.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is not as perfect as it may seem. The lack of depth really hurts in some areas. First, seven characters are way too few _ and this affects the replay value. Also, some of the moves are very cheap and hard to defend, making the game a very easy experience when you learn them. Nevertheless, although most of the game is a walk in the park, those two battles I mentioned earlier ( namely: against Bonus Kun and Fernandez ) are insanely hard. These issues are not enough to ruin the great experience that Waku Waku 7 provides, but things would become much more enjoyable if Sunsoft had balanced the difficulty a little bit and added more characters to the cast.

Gameplay: 7/10; Replay: 5/10; Controls: 10/10

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AUDIO & VIDEO
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”Oh, my!
You're so cool, but...
kind of dangerous-looking!” – Arina

In general, the audio and video department of Waku Waku 7 shows where its 259 mega were used. Unlike other Neo Geo based games, the approach is not realistic here: everything is exaggerated on purpose to give the game an anime appearance. Every fighter is a delight to behold, for they are detailed and very well drawn. Even when the camera gives a zoom, whenever the fighters are close to each other, the level of detail is maintained. The animation is incredibly smooth as well and is one of the best points of this game. For example, when Mauru makes his Hara Hara move, an energetic beam that comes out from its mouth, you can see the little girl on its back crying and covering her ears due to the huge noise.

The backgrounds are not masterfully designed ( most of the fights just take place in the middle of streets with passing people looking at you ), but they are very colorful and there are some nice subtleties featured. For instance, whenever you go through further rounds, the time of the day changes, so if you reach round three, the night will have already fallen.

The sound deserves a special attention, too. The voices fit the characters very well and sound effects are on standard levels. But the ambient sound is where this game really shines. The music is always intense and coherent to the action and, also, some of the background songs even have vocals. Actually, the mere existence of music done vocally in a fighting game is something that catches one’s attention, since we do not hear that every day. Good job, Sunsoft.

Graphics: 8/10; Sound: 9/10

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CONCLUSION
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”Excuse me...
But are you illegally copied?” - Tesse

Waku Waku 7 is a solid option for 2-D fighting games connoisseurs, especially because it never tries to be something too serious. It is more like a parody to classic games of the style, and this is exactly the reason why the game has such a good appeal. Unfortunately, it is extremely unlikely that you will find a Waku Waku machine around, for this game is somewhat old already. There are two ports for home consoles: a Neo Geo version ( obviously, a perfect conversion, since the arcade game runs on the Neo Geo MVS engine ) and a Saturn version ( decent port as well, because it makes use of the RAM cartridge ). But not everyone is lucky enough to own those consoles. Thus, the easiest way to play it is to download a ROM, widely available through the Internet ( but, hey, it is not that I am suggesting you to do such a thing ). Anyway, find a way to play it and give it a try if you like 2-D fighting games. I guarantee that you will not get disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/02, Updated 04/14/02