(12+) Waifu Fight: Dango Style (PC) ~ Featuring Priom

Official website

Some time ago, the developers from Waifu Fight Dango Style asked me to take a look at their game. So, today we are going to take a look at it. But, I wanted to do something special. I asked my friend Priom to also take a look at this game. He wrote his review over at Arpegi forum. I advise you to read his review first before you continue to read my article. So, in my article, I’m going to quote his opinion and then write mine. So, we are having a “fight” of our own. Before I try to force out a joke too much, let’s get right into the review of this game. Note, that I have put “12+” in the title. Since some visual elements aren’t for younger audiences. But, hey. Enough stalling. Let’s go reviewing. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of the article. One thing, I have to stress that this review isn’t a paid review!

Note: This game is still under development. So, the things said in this review might have been changed if an update gets released. We both played Alpha v2.18 for this review. 

Do you want to meet the developers of this game? They are going to be attending these cons: Corpus Christi Comic Con in Texas on 22nd – 23th July and San Japan X in Texas on 1st, 2nd and 3rd September.

Music & sound

Priom: The music in this game is good. It fits the game very well and every stage has it’s own theme. I was actually worried that the game might only have one theme for all stages, that would have been a nightmare. So I’m thankful that the good people of Enso

Entertainment didn’t do that. Although, it shouldn’t come as a surprise I suppose. But on the other hand, none of the music in the game really stand out as being greater than all the others. All of them are good, none of them are exceptionally great.

I have to agree with Priom, the music in this game is good but nothing special. It’s honestly what you would expect from a game like this.

But I have found a very annoying issue with the music. When you mute the music and sound during gameplay, there is no easy way to un-mute it when you are in the main menu. Even when you change the music and sound sliders in the options menu. Little side note, in the main menu, I think it’s a better idea to rename “menu” to “options”. Since that menu contains the options.

Something I would change is that when you minimize the game, the game shouldn’t continue to play the music. Since it’s distracting when you are reading something or writing an article.

Visuals

Priom: And now we come to the category that Jonezy thought I’d be best at. Because clearly according to jonezy, I am some sort of genius when it comes to ecchi or somewhat perverted drawings and have no other interests or critical skills in particular. BUT, I digress and I kid 😛 . Thankfully, the fine folks at Enso Entertainment also excel in this category.

Being a game made by three people I obviously didn’t and shouldn’t expect the art-style to be in the quality of games made by big Japanese development companies who all have more man power and budget. For the most part, the game’s art is actually really good. The game’s mascot “slime creatures” which are called “Dango” in the game are really cute. All of the members of our all-female roster are really cute and attractive too.

This part of Priom’s review made me laugh. But my opinion on the visuals. Well, while I agree with Priom that the art is well drawn and beautiful, in my honest opinion, it’s a bit too perverted. It’s one of three major issues I have with the game. In my opinion, there is just too much nude in the game.

A system like in HoniePop would work wonders here. The more you play with a girl, the more mature her portrait gets. Thinking out loud here, a sort of rival mechanic would be amazing. For example, when you mostly play with Iromi and you play once with Kasumi, Iromi might get jealous and goes a step or two back in your relationship since you fought with another Waifu. It would be a nice fit for the title as well.

Something Priom talked about in different parts of his review is the UI. I have to say personally, there is still some work that needs to be done here. Like I mentioned it before, in the main menu, there should be somethings renamed.

I would also rename “My collections” to “Collection” since that fits nicer on the button. Since now it’s overflowing and it sticks out a bit. Also, I think it would look nicer if you make the icons in the main menu Dango’s instead of boobs. Or make it an option, so players can choose. Some players wouldn’t mind it, but I honestly think it’s a bit too much.

In the options menu, I would love to see a test paddle to test the speed you set it at. Since you set it how you think would work fine.

Here is a nitpick as well, when you exit a fight, you return to the title screen, I think it would be way better if you returned to the home screen.

The “quit” button didn’t work for me when I wanted to return from the Waifu selection screen. The animation worked, but that is all.

Also, there is a bug with the frame counter when you pause the game. It goes to Infinity FPS. But hey, I think that shouldn’t be such a big deal since I think that this wouldn’t be there when the game is fully released.

Gameplay

Priom: Before I start this part, I just wanted to mention. Jonezy asked me to help with he’s review on this game the day before I started writing this review. It was late at night and I only got a slight glimpse of the game before I went to sleep. And before I downloaded and played the game I was wandering what type of game it was since Jonezy only asked me to review the game only because of the aesthetic side of things.

At first I thought it was a fighting game. But I remembered it being described being a puzzle game. So using my deductive reasoning I came to the conclusion that it was a Pong/Breakout hybrid and felt generally good about myself only to find out the gamejolt description of the game says the exact same thing.

I have to agree with Priom here. At first, I honestly thought it was a fighting game as well. But, it’s indeed a hybrid between Pong and Breakout.

Priom: Both you and your opponent has two layers of Shield Dangoes. Regular, Gray and Bomb Dangoes spawn at the center of the screen. You have use your paddle (the sushi with eyes and the sandcastle with eyes) to hit the Dangoes to the enemies side. The Shield Dangoes have 3 health. When they run out of health they disappear. When a row of shield Dangoes disappear, it creates an opening if you shoot the Dangoes that spawn at the center into the opening the opponent’s life bar depletes (represented by a pocky stick at the top of the screen).When your enemies life bar completely depleted, you win the fight.

You can also buy potions from the shop and use potions by clicking the bag icon at the bottom of the screen to heal yourself. The Bomb Dangoes do area of effect damage to Shield Dangoes after sometime and the gray Dangoes give you rack up combo points by hitting your enemies shield Dangoes or the by hitting the character on the center’s rack (pun intended).

The gameplay is rather interesting, as you can read. Priom goes a bit more in-depth on this, but there are few issues with the gameplay in my opinion. First of all, the controls are a bit fiddly. You can control your bat with your mouse, but I highly recommend that you use the keyboard controls to move your bat since it’s way more accurate.

Speaking of controls, I would love to see in future versions some hotkeys to open your bag and such. I also think that a change of a pause button would be great. I think it would be better to change it from the left mouse button to the “ESC” key.

Secondly, I think the “hitting the rack” mechanic can be implemented in a different way. I honestly got turned off by it. But, that might be just me. Something I think that would be more interesting is some variety. For example, if you battle Kagami, a bartender, it would be amazing if you get combo points for hitting the plate she carries instead of her chest. Another example can be Haruka, a fox-lady, that you get your combo points when you hit the tip of her tail. I think there is more that can be done with this mechanic.

Thirdly, I think the tutorial isn’t good. While it explains the basic mechanics of the game, I think it would be better if you have a playable tutorial where you get the basic mechanics explained.

And the last issue I have is that in some cases the Dango’s movement is too unpredictable. What I mean here is that in some occasions, I saw one coming towards me but it hit the chest and moved up in a straight line and did so once or twice before it moved towards me again. This confused me a lot.

Something I really loved is are the blurbs the Waifus say when you fight another Waifu. They fit the characters so much and some made me laugh.

Problems with the game.

So, Priom talked about some issues of the game. I have to agree mostly with this point:

Priom: General lack of output and satisfaction.

When it comes to the main gameplay a bit more output would be nice. When either the player or opponent takes damage the health bar should glow or the screen should shake a bit, when the special attack fills up a ring should form around the chibi avatar and gradually get smaller. These small things do wonders for fast paced games like these. I’d suggest the developers to look up PACAPONG to get an idea on how the game should feel like.

I couldn’t have said it myself in any better way. Besides the problems he mentioned, I don’t have to mention anything additional. Except for one minor thing, what’s the point of being able to go into the red in the shop? This makes the microtransactions you have in this game useless. But, most likely, this is a bug and will be fixed in a future version.

Something I hope that this game won’t focus too much on the microtransactions and will make it fun and possible to buy points with playing the game. I hope that microtransactions will be a quick and easy way to buy potions when you don’t want to grind for it.

Conclusion

So, I think I might have been a bit too critical of this game here and there. This game is still in alpha so, it will change a whole lot when this game is fully finished. I have a lot of respect for the small team that’s working on this game. Making games is hard and requires a lot of time and effort.

The game shows that the charm of this game shows that the team behind this game loves what they do and what the game is becoming. I hope that this feedback helps them to further develop their game.

While this game style isn’t 100% my cup of tea, you can’t deny that this game has potential. But, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done before this game can fully release.

Something I would advise the developers is to first polish up the existing features before you introduce new ones. It’s always better to have a solid base before you continue to build on it. Improve each part of the game, step by step before introducing new things. But, hey, I think that the game developers know that already.

Writing this co-op was so much fun to do. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as Priom and I enjoyed writing this. When the game fully releases, we might take another look at this game and give it a full review. Thank you for reading our article and I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on this blog, but until then… take care and have a great rest of your day.