Best Games - Waku Waku 7
Waku Waku 7 walks a fine line. Everything about the game is a send up of the fighting genre. Still it manages to be a competent fighter. The characters are thoroughly ridiculous, but not more so than the rosters they are making fun of. The settings and story are knowingly composed entirely of anime tropes.This game would be easy to dismiss if it weren’t so surefooted in making fun of itself and all of it’s genre baggage.
Where a game like DarkStalkers can play off it’s silly nature with a classic monster theme, Waku Waku 7 pulls from all the embarrassing nonsense in both anime and fighting games. Let’s just run down the character list and you’ll see what I mean.
You have your plucky high school fist fighter.
The anime girl who points her butt at the screen as her winning pose who might also be an anthropomorphised rabbit.
The child robot nurse.
The Hayao Miyazaki styled walking robot tank.
The brooding swordfighter elf guy.
A kid riding a purple Totoro.
The rugged adventurer. Really it’s just Guile with a beard and a hat.
The cast rounds out with a Mario chainchomp and a sour faced punching bag.
It’s like they pulled the character traits out of a hat and mushed them together. This is what you would make if you wanted to simultaneously poke fun at a genre, while never letting on that you are poking fun. It is what it what it is a parody of. Subtlety is not usually the calling card of anime or fighting games, so it really refreshing when it works.
So is it better tuned than say, Street Fighter Alpha, or does it feel more precise than King of Fighters. No. Waku Waku 7 never attempts to ascend to those heights. What is though is both very good and very clever. I have one more very to add. Waku Waku 7 is very fun, and that earns it a spot as one of the best games.
Waku Waku 7 walks a fine line. Everything about the game is a send up of the fighting genre. Still it manages to be a competent fighter. The characters are thoroughly ridiculous, but not more so than the rosters they are making fun of. The settings and story are knowingly composed entirely of anime tropes.This game would be easy to dismiss if it weren’t so surefooted in making fun of itself and all of it’s genre baggage.
Where a game like DarkStalkers can play off it’s silly nature with a classic monster theme, Waku Waku 7 pulls from all the embarrassing nonsense in both anime and fighting games. Let’s just run down the character list and you’ll see what I mean.
You have your plucky high school fist fighter.
The anime girl who points her butt at the screen as her winning pose who might also be an anthropomorphised rabbit.
The child robot nurse.
The Hayao Miyazaki styled walking robot tank.
The brooding swordfighter elf guy.
A kid riding a purple Totoro.
The rugged adventurer. Really it’s just Guile with a beard and a hat.
The cast rounds out with a Mario chainchomp and a sour faced punching bag.
It’s like they pulled the character traits out of a hat and mushed them together. This is what you would make if you wanted to simultaneously poke fun at a genre, while never letting on that you are poking fun. It is what it what it is a parody of. Subtlety is not usually the calling card of anime or fighting games, so it really refreshing when it works.
So is it better tuned than say, Street Fighter Alpha, or does it feel more precise than King of Fighters. No. Waku Waku 7 never attempts to ascend to those heights. What is though is both very good and very clever. I have one more very to add. Waku Waku 7 is very fun, and that earns it a spot as one of the best games.