Gun Gun Pixies from, PQube, Idea Factory International and Compile Heart is a slight departure from what we’re used to. The developers have gone the lewd route this time around and have created a third person shooter with a strong visual novel component to drive its story forward. Does the game deliver an enjoyable experience though?
In Gun Gun Pixies players will take on the role of Bee-tan or Kame-pon. They are two alien girls from a far away world known as Pandemo. On Pandemo, individualism has taken its toll on society and people cannot form relationships or bonds with each other anymore. Bee-tan and Kame-pon however can still do this. They share a friendship bond that made them the ideal candidates to send on an interstellar journey to find a solution to Pandemo’s problems.
Codenamed “Pixies” by the military, Bee-tan and Kame-pon arrive on planet Earth and invade a girl’s dormitory to do research into human behaviour. This is where things go awry and the game becomes a mashup of genres which is steeped in lewdness.
Playing as either Bee-tan or Kame-pon, players will fire “Happy Bullets” at the human girls in the dormitory as they complete missions. These missions are based on story segments told via visual novel scenes that are quite text heavy to be honest. What this means is that gameplay is broken up between running around firing happy bullets at the girls, while investigating dorm rooms trying to find your mission objective. Oh and there’s the small fact that both Bee-tan and Kame-pon are pint sized compared to human beings.
The girls cannot detect you or else your mission will fail. Thankfully though, Bee-tan and Kame-pon can strike a pose when a girl’s suspicion meter begins to fill and they’ll act as an inanimate object like a figurine or toy. Once the suspicion meter drops, you can carry on with your mission. Some missions involve reaching high up places and require a bit of platforming. Jumping between books, pot plants, tables and chairs is a part of the game and would be lots of fun if it weren’t for one infuriating factor.
The game’s camera control is lacking and often gets hooked or locked into a position which is not favourable at all. It just feels clunky and rigid at times and is a painful endeavour to say the least.
As mentioned above, the game delves into the lewd and this is clearly its main selling point. Shooting happy bullets at the girls leads to them writhing in ecstasy as the happy bullets release endorphins. Some missions ramp up the lewdness completely such as having to pacify a girl doing yoga by shooting happy bullets at different sections of their exposed body. In another, you’re privy to a bathing scene and have to once again, fire happy bullets at the girl. If you’re a fan of fanservice, this is a game for you. If not though, it will seem like just another pointless exercise in driving the plot forward.
Speaking of plot, the game’s story is fairly basic. Some of the writing is enjoyable and there’s a couple of jokes and remarks that will make you laugh but overall, it’s standard visual novel fare with a lot of “girl’s love” or Yuri content throughout. Shooting happy bullets at girls makes them talk and reveal more info needed to complete a mission and the cycle repeats throughout with the addition of enemies and attacks to dodge.
Playing through the game, apart from the infuriating camera, another major gripe is to be had with the loading screens. There’s far too many and given how basic the girl’s dorm rooms are, we’re not sure why there’s so many loading screens in the first place. Having a short visual novel segment and being presented with a load screen only to do literally one thing in the third person shooter segment and then being presented with another load screen makes the game feel like a massive chore. Especially since this happens more often than not.
Graphically, the anime aesthetic of the game is on-point with character designs being great, as expected from Idea Factory International and Compile Heart. However, the same cannot be said regarding the environments themselves. They could use a lot of work as they just seem far too basic. Since you’re playing as a tiny alien girl in a giant human’s dorm room, everything is enlarged and could use a lot more detail.
The soundtrack used in the game is nothing special and doesn’t annoy you at least. Thankfully the voice acting in Japanese is great with some seasoned veteran voice actors lending their vocal cords to the game’s characters. As with most visual novel games though, not everything is voiced and this does take away some of the charm that the story has but I suppose that’s not what gamers would be worried about when playing Gun Gun Pixies.
Overall, if you’re a fan of lewd fanservice games, want a visual novel story filled with some jokes and humour and don’t mind infuriating camera control and weak gameplay that involves third person shooting, Gun Gun Pixies will keep you entertained. Just don’t play it around other people because it is clearly not shy about its blatant lewdness and fanservice.
Gun Gun Pixies is published by PQube and developer Compile Heart and is available on PC and Nintendo Switch
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