When something becomes popular enough, it is bound to attract imitators. Sometimes those imitators will smash as many different genres together to try to capitalise on multiple other games' popularity. In the case of Waifu Impact, the developers took the principles that have made Fortnite a bewildering success and combined them with a healthy dose of fan service to attract players, plus a lick of Genshin Impact-style presentation. There's nothing wrong with taking what has been popular in the past and serving it up in a new way; players sometimes need a little familiarity to help them settle into a new game. However, a high level of polish is required, and with Waifu Impact that polish just isn’t there. Even worse than awkward and clunky gameplay, it simply isn’t fun.
Waifu Impact sees players dropped onto glorious 'Waifu Island', a place visited nightly in the dreams of many; a tropical paradise hosting cute girls running around shooting each other with water guns. It is the basic premise that we saw in Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash, but with stripped-back features. Instead of different teams vying for control of the arena, it is a free-for-all against the AI-controlled enemies who all look and play the exact same. Instead of the barely contained chaos, with action coming at you from every angle — the things that make other arena shooters fun to play — this feels like a slog.
The Joy-Con doesn’t naturally lend itself to precision shooting, so each blast from your water gun takes a painful amount of time to line up. Even more so when you are running around avoiding the shockingly accurate AI enemies. Every character feels like they are moving through a vat of pudding, slowly trudging around to find the best angle to attack. This is clearly a game that was designed for a mouse and keyboard and hasn't made the transition to controllers well. The only saving grace enemy hitboxes so ludicrously big that accuracy isn’t really necessary to survive.
There are a total of eight different characters to choose from, each wielding a different type of a water gun. Some have higher fire rates or deal more damage. There is some good variety here and players will find one character that fits their play style. However, all of them have the same sluggish movement speed that makes travelling around and exploring the island dull. Characters themselves can’t be upgraded, but each kill unlocks new art of the girls, giving players a reason to play with every character.
For a game designed to be titillating, these images are pretty tame, offering a simple shot of the girl in a bikini once they get 50 kills (the 'Nudity Mode' from the Steam version seems to have been excised completely on Switch, unsurprisingly). The only other collectables in the game are the 25 stars that litter the island. For every five of these that the player finds, a new character is unlocked.
Two extra characters can be unlocked by completing late-game challenges, but just getting the 25 stars is more of a chore than anything. Exploring the island is tedious, with platforming sections that feel clunky and untested. Every jump feels like a challenge, but not in the way that the developers intended, to say nothing of the frame rate issues we ran into on our playthrough.
Waifu Impact makes the mistake of assuming that the promise of fan service is enough to carry a game through its runtime, however short. This game takes the Fortnite formula, dips the character controls in digital treacle, strips it of the multiplayer aspect that makes that game fun, and doesn’t add anything worthwhile. It feels more like a proof of concept, with no story or characterisation to speak of. Most importantly, it just isn’t fun to play. Even for the low price from the eShop, the joke here wears thin within half an hour
Comments (79)
I am severely uncomfortable with games like this being so prevalent. Nintendo should be above this stuff in my opinion. Idk maybe I'm just getting old and cranky.
I'm so sorry for the reviewer who spent the money and time for this game
I wasn't exactly interested in this to start with, but games where you can jump but the jumping feels horrible pretty much ruins a game for me.
However, It would be amusing if there were an actual official genshin-related game like this with all the real characters at the beach with water guns. It would be like those dumb fan-service beach episodes they stick in anime. I bet that game if it existed would be popular. 🤪
I’m surprised this one got reviewed. I don’t mind these types of games but this one just looked awful.
Imagine being an indie dev with a new and exciting game, which doesn’t earn a review. But this does.
@AndyC_MK111 yeah I don’t get it, like if you’re going to do that you can probably find fully naked anime people for free on the internet
Removed - unconstructive
@OnlyItsMeReid I don't understand that either. one could find photo/video of actual human people on the internet as well.
Also, you mean to tell me a game whose sole selling point is the half naked women on the cover isn’t quality!?! Speechless…but you know what they say about playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes and all that
@shonenjump86 The reason cheap lewd games like this always get reviewed by NL is because it always amounts to the comments section bickering back and forth about how Nintendo either needs to remove/censor lewd games like these or that Nintendo needs to add more lewd games like these.
More comments = more traffic.
The NL staff are so backed up with game reviews they can hardly make the time to play games they actually like, but lewd games are always a priority to review - likely because they only play them for an hour or two before giving them a low score.
It's never enough 😂. Always leaves one craving morrre lol.
Game of the year! Nah xx
I used to like games like this for a bit of a giggle when I was young but not anymore. This game going by the screenshots just looks terrible anyway and I know my own taste in games too.
I caved and bought this since it was so cheap and silly. Also, wanna add, you can’t unlock the last character until they patch the game. The one you get by getting a 69 combo on the main island. Lol. And, if you use Yukina, or unlock her right at first, her gun one shots. If you keep her on the edges of the island in the arena, the waifus that drop won’t notice you, making all the waves a breeze. The “bosses” are easy given you keep your distance and strafe. I got off work yesterday at 5 p.m., and pretty much beat this game in 5 hours or less. It was a fun little distraction.
@CharlieGirl Yeah it's an odd niche, but one that seems to be really popular for some reason. It seems like 2 of these games release on the eshop every week. Someone must be buying them.
I just don't understand the market, why pay for a bad game with some softcore smut.
@nessisonett While I understand the general sentiment, the huge number of games releasing each week makes it impossible to cover everything we'd like to. We do our best to review as many games as we can across all genres, taking into account as wide a range of tastes and interests as possible. In the first 117 days of 2022 we've reviewed nearly 100 games, far more than most other outlets, I'd wager.
@Astral-Grain As we've explained before, a high volume of comments rarely means high traffic — it typically means the same small group bickering and bumping the comment count into three figures.
As for the number of "cheap lewd" games we review and apparently prioritise, the number of 'fan service' games on eShop far outweighs the tiny percentage we've reviewed. I'm honestly not sure what we've done to deserve your insinuation that we're giving them low scores on a whim, either.
Have a good weekend all.
This was no way going to be good, I like fanservice games but come on, this is just bad in every way.
This is the perfect example of shovelware, save yourself the money and get senran kagura peach beach splash instead
I'm open to fanservice games being good (because some definitely are), but I pretty much automatically disregard anything with waifu in the title.
@UltimateOtaku91 Peach Beach Splash isn't on Switch.
I'll never cease to be amused at how people get offended by trash like this TBH
Got a game that's core is built around predatory gambling, luring the player into a spiral of spending far more than any single game is worth, let alone one that will shut down and cease to exist the second it stops making money? E for everyone!
Dare to show some low poly skin? E for everyone loses their mind!
Crap like this isn't the problem here.
Will probably still check out the game! Shame about the frame rate thought.
@CharlieGirl You can probably find gay novels on the internet as well, yet Dream daddy seems to be popular 🤷♂️ Some people like fanservice in their games. And devs are free to add fanservice if they wish to, just like they can write gay VNs if they wish to do that.
@nessisonett Some of us did find this new game exciting. And it do deserve the review.
@dartmonkey All quite fair, I'm only commenting that many indie games are features/mentioned by NL but a lot of them don't actually get reviews while cheap lewd games get features, reviews, opinion pieces, etc.
For example, Nintendo Life wrote a feature article for the game Grow: Song of the Evertree back on 06/08/21 but none of the staff had the time to play and cover the game in a review. I even asked Kate if she played the game a few months back and she, quite understandably, told me she was far too busy playing other games to review for NL.
There's nothing inherently wrong with spicy topics, they get attention and attention is good for business. But compared to other gaming news outlets, it's hard to ignore NL's frequency for covering the majority of lewd games available on Switch and the chaos that ensues in the comments each time it happens.
Lastly, I did not mean to insinuate NL gives lewd games low scores on a whim - I think the majority of the low scores are fair because lewd games often prioritize fan service over quality gameplay and that you only need to play some of them for an hour or two to see all there is to see. I think Moero Chronicles and even Trails of Cold Steel are good examples of how to balance solid gameplay with fanservice, but those are unfortunately rare cases in the world of fanservice games.
Have a good weekend also!
@OnlyItsMeReid @Gravitron
Yeah personally I don't understand FPS games. If you want to kill people with guns and then get shot in the head and die you can just go to the Ukraine right now. Why would anyone chose a low key simulation over the real thing???? Or at least go to gore websites and watch snuff films if you enjoy violence like that, why just look at computer generated graphics?
It's not like I'm in intelligent enough to understand how the safety of detachment is extremely valuable in handling desires that could be dangerous left unchecked, so I guess I'll just go though life completely oblivious.
@ClamDown Games with scantily clad women on the cover usually are usually have quality cover art (if they have releases with covers that is) and the games are often good too.
@Wargoose Because the market for ecchi games does not think they are actually bad?
@Astral-Grain Its a good thing NL covers ecchi games, they deserves to get covered on more mainstream gaming sites like this and not just on smaller niche sites
EDIT: edited to avoid doubleposting
Tbf when I tried Fortnite it was one of the most unfun games I'd ever played
@Tobiaku I'm happy NL covers lewd/fanservice games also!
NL is probably the reason I discovered several fanservice games on Switch that I really enjoy, and I think it makes them stand out compared to other news outlets.
@Sebazy yeah I don't get it if your against games like this that have no actual nudity & only a minority of people will ever play anyway then why arent you against the dozens of games aimed at kids with guns & stuff in them lol
@Uska Eh, don't worry. They got a review copy for free
@Sebazy In all honesty I don’t really get it ether, I said it was bad because it was, well bad, it’s shovelware, if it wasn’t and actually good I wouldn’t care less.
You guys don’t have to look at read or watch anything about the game you know
I didn't realize this was a review, I thought it was talking about a game that is still being made.
I'm all for titillating artwork...I personally fancied myself a 'pinup artist' once upon a time and I enjoy such artwork when it's done well. But why can't some effort be made to put an actual good game under all the so-called fanservice? Many complaints about "fanservice games" would crumble if the game were actually good, if some effort were made to make the game entertaining, fun, deep, challenging instead of assuming that digital boobs are all it takes to make sales.
But who knows...maybe that is all it takes...
No one's really talking about those graphics, huh? Those graphics, though...
Those character drawing models are so bad. I wouldn't really buy a game like this anyway, but still....
There are a few too many silly "Benny Hill" video games on the Switch. But the eShop is a veritable sea so maybe it's just these seem to scream loud due to the imagery, lol.
Ugh, all these damn fanservice games...most of them are just terrible...just give me Senran Kagura Burst or one of the Versus games, please...at least those games are actually good.
Eh, it's just another bargin bin fanservice game. Nothing special at all really. Worst thing it's done for me is reminded me that Genshin still hasn't been ported yet..
@dartmonkey I have that Astral Grain guy on ignore and block. Everytime something like this was posted he would moan and he quickly became very overbearing.
You guys are all wondering why your favorite obscure indie didn't get a review? You're looking right at it. People can't help but get all moany whenever the scary Booba games get talked about, resulting in free clicks for NL. A lot more free clicks your good but obscure indie review would get. Stop engaging in these articles if you don't want NL to keep talking about them. Naturally they'll tell you this isn't the reason...but why would NL want to ruin something as easy as this. People that like the big boobs will check it out. People that hate it will check it out. It'll naturally generate more attention than an article about a generic robot with gun or something like that. To argue otherwise...is just incorrect.
Oh and I'm not even defending this game. Even as fan service it's not even good. You'd get more out of a Fortnite skin.
Edit: I just looked back at the last 3 mini reviews and this one easily got triple the comments, triple the engagement than Demon Turf. Demon Turf is excellent! Go check that out instead of giving this unnecessary attention!
Man we need some more, good Senran Kagura games on Switch.
As long as fanservice is popular, there's going to be games that are very clearly pandering to lovers of fanservice.
Exploiting people's desires to get money isn't a new thing.
"Fortnite minus fun"
So fortnite?
This does look pretty lazy in all honesty though.
Is no one going to mention the title of the game? It's blatantly ripping off Genshin Impact's title. So much for originality.
Wow. I got instantly reminded of DS graphics when looking at the images 😂
I'll never understand people who play/develop pornographic video games.
@TexanBanjo Its pretty obvious why.
So many prudes in the comments, also I imagine if it was dudes instead of girls they wouldn't care as much.
Game does look rubbish though.
to the people whining about lewd games. I definitely ain't one that plays games like this but lets try and look at this objectively.
It's like movies. If the contents offends you simply don't touch it. Don't try to force it off the market. It's not harming anyone.
Let's look at some example scenarios
Ex: Meat eaters. How would you like it if all the vegans and vegetarians succeeded in removing all foods that came from an animal from all grocery stores? and Vegetarians? What if one day it was against the law to not have meat for every meal? Will either scenario ever happen? Probably not.
But the point of this is this: Stop trying to force your views on others. There are a bunch of us that think zombie games/movies/tv show are disgusting but we aren't trying to stop you from being able to enjoy your zombie game, vids. Just another example
@DaruniaJones1988 "Stop trying to force your views on others."
that's the rule of life
Trent Cannon is a madlad for surviving through this
If you like games like this, good for you. If you don't like them, good for you too, but don't try to patronize people who like stuff like this.
@TexanBanjo The same reason you do anything you like.
"the 'Nudity Mode' from the Steam version seems to have been excised completely on Switch, unsurprisingly"
why unsurprisingly?
Hentai VS Evil and co are all fully uncensored on switch.
in fact, waifu impact is the first censored steam port.
@Austrian I’m pretty sure it’s because Nintendo has gotten rid of all NSFW version in games in the past.
@Snatcher
I mean, that was like 30 years ago. (afair) since mortal kombat 2 Nintendo basicely stopped mandatory censorship from their side.
i.e. You got topless (real) strippers in Bmx XXX on gamecube, dancing for "you" in countless video scenes. in fact, the gamecube version was the only version which was completely uncensored.
It saddens me that the first comments on things like this are from folks who don't even like the idea of it, and would never have considered playing it even if it was good.
I for one would like to see good games that aren't scared to use this kind of content, or pressured to change by people who aren't even interested.
Ratings boards exist for a reason, let them do their jobs. No one is making you buy them, it'd be nice if people didn't try to pressure people into such ideas. If you don't like people forcing their views on you, then perhaps don't do that to other people.
@Austrian That’s very true, I know not all games do it, but I do know there are a few that do.
There are hundreds of games exactly like this on Steam. I think they're hilarious! As in, hilarious to see while browsing the store and marvelling at how low the bar to entry is for "releasing" a "game" in this day and age.
@N64-ROX So there are 100 bikini shooting games on steam? Cool!
Of course the bar is low, remember that "game" that was just a black screen? It might have been taken down from Steam now, but yeah that was a "game".
I would rather see devs do atleast something I can't get by just turning the console / computer off.
@Would_you_kindly I remember I was having a lot of fun with PUBG way back in the day, but my laptop could barely run it.
Then fortnight showed up, and I thought it would basically be a less graphically demanding version of PUBG that my computer could actually run...
Yea, it was not fun. The building mechanic is incredibly stupid and poorly done too. I don't know how that game ever blew up like it did.
Maybe they should have had some male characters in the game to even things up a bit, but each to their own I say, it would be a very boring place if we all liked the same thing. I also have noticed it's always the same people that comment negatively on these types of posts. Lighten up people, you wasn't going to be buying the game anyway!
Removed - offensive remarks
@HeeHo Defending godawful asset flip shovelware to own the prudes.
Every day, we stray further and further from god
@Threebcisum Its better to defend all games with sexy female characters, including the few that are actually shovelware, than to give in to hypocritical prudes who operates on a "rule for thee but not for me" basis.
@tyranny_life when I tried it I tried it on the switch & the graphics were just terribly bad there was no tutorial to show you how to play it & the world was really empty & lifeless in fact I only saw 2 other players & they were right at the other side of the map 😂
@Marioman2022 wasn't noticing our own mortality and vulnerabilities, and thus donning clothes, the rsult of our first straying from God?
Therefore, a game like this actually brings us back toward the divine.
@Threebcisum I said it looked rubbish if you could read more than one line.
Just because I call out the prudes that are scared of a little cleavage doesn't mean I'm defending the game bruh.
@Gravitron good
Removed - inappropriate
@Tobiaku Hell no. In this case I'll side with the "prudes" then.
@tyranny_life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Deg7VrpHbM
Look at all the prudes here being upset at fanservice but will watch porn every night.
Don't like fanservice? Then just don't look at it, simple.
They should've kept this on Steam
To anybody who cares. Waifu Impact had an update. You can now unlock Rika by splashing 30 waifus. I noticed a few other slight improvements, especially with enemy AI, and the homing on Kagura’s weapon. The enemies in the arena seem more active too. You used to also be able to glitch the art gallery and see certain Rika art, but that has now been fixed it seems.
Not that it would've saved this game, but the Joy-Cons would naturally lend themselves to precision shooting if the Switch actually had a sensor bar!
@sonicmeerkat @Would_you_kindly What was your problem with Fortnite?
Having fun with this game. Almost unlocked all of the content now apart from one waifu I think. Just started the arena. Hopefully the devs will work on the obvious issues like frame rate. Maybe bring us an online mode? Happy with my collection of waifu games. The wife even joins in on waifu uncovered & waifu discovered 2.
@VR32X thanks for the info!
@MadJay1664 Fist bump no prob!
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