Compile Heart’s quirky Vita shooter contains more platforming than you’d expect and despite some rough elements, shines thanks to its bonkers premise.

World-building & Story

In Gun Gun Pixies you play as two tiny aliens named Kameriel and Usamael who are sent from their home planet of Pandemo to Earth, with a mission to investigate and report back on human interactions in order to stop declining marriage rates that could ultimately lead to the extinction of their race. They land in a girl’s dormitory and decide to set up camp to examine these new found specimens going about their everyday lives.

It’s a typical Compile Heart silly story – it soon transpires that there’s an invading species of tiny squids causing changes in the behaviour of the girls as well as a plotline about a Mysterious Thief that ties the two worlds together, but it’s nothing particularly exciting that will keep you engaged (it also means you won’t be missing out on much if you can’t read Japanese).

Instead, the game focuses on character interactions which thankfully works much better – there were plenty of funny moments here, including a whole chapter where Neptune and Noire from Hyperdimension Neptunia come to stay in the dorm which plays out as farcically as you would imagine (and is an absolute highlight). Even without these cameos I grew pretty attached to Amayo, Minami and the rest of the cast just chatting about food and their problems, which made me want to see it through to the end – it’s a slice of life simple story, but one that works.

So the setup is at least interesting, but you don’t get to see much of its world – you’re limited to three dormitory rooms, despite VN scenes taking place in other areas such as shopping malls or sidewalks. There’s a lot of missing potential to build a bigger universe to explore here, but that likely comes down to the title’s shoestring budget.

Presentation & Sound

Despite presenting nothing special in terms of tech or graphics, developer Shade has managed to make Gun Gun Pixies an extremely impressive Vita game thanks to good image quality and rock solid performance. It elevates the game beyond its individual elements, making for a memorable experience.

Character designs are your standard Compile Heart fare – to the point that Amayo and Rika are pretty much wearing the same outfits as Compa and Neptune from Hyperdimension Neptunia, just slightly recoloured. You can expect the titular pixies to have intricate clothes full of bezel-ed edges and everyone has un-naturally bright hair colours, but this just adds to the vibrant aesthetic.

Speaking of vibrancy, the world of Gun Gun Pixies is extremely lively and bright. Each of the rooms you’ll run through is awash with colour and filled with objects you’ll want to inspect – pink laptops, stacks of anime dvds and picture frames showing the girls together are just some of the items you’ll come across. It’s all on the backdrop of a normal dorm room meaning you’ll be climbing up bookcases and computer desks, which helps create a memorable world that feels a little bit like you’re taking part in an R-rated version of Toy Story.

The in-game 3D models are pretty nice – they don’t have any visible jaggies and move fairly smoothly, although things like jumping can look slightly janky. The giant girls walking around the rooms are always a sight to behold and pull off fairly amusing animations – Neptune will crawl on her hands and knees looking for a memory card while Noire will clumsily fall off a pole while attempting to pole dance. There’s plenty of fanservice here (as is to be expected) but it all fell on the humorous side for me (particularly Kira riding the humidifier) – although I wasn’t a fan of the now-compulsory clothes ripping screens that distracted from the action.

It’s a shame then that enemies are far less impressive – you’ll only ever fight squids which are basically recolours of each other and even though I rolled my eyes that they’re wearing condoms on their heads, they don’t do anything to stand out aside from being ridiculous. At least the visual novel conversation scenes are a bit better, with each girl moving and animating well thanks to the Live2D effects.

Sound is pretty solid across the board – the pixies shout out various things while running around and the girls say amusing things too (special mention to Nep chanting her own name when playing on a PC). Music is as bright and cheery as the graphics – the main exploration theme reminded me a bit of The Sims, but there’s plenty of other catchy pieces here too.

Soundtrack highlight – Next Sacred Wings

Gameplay & Content

Feeling like a skeevy version of experimental PS2 games like Mr Mosquito, Gun Gun Pixies is far more fun than it has any right to be considering a lot of its individual elements aren’t fantastic. It really hooked me while I was playing and I had the drive to see it through which is always the sign of an enjoyable title.

You’ll start off in a series of tutorials which teach you the basics. You play through a variety of missions for which you can pick a different pixie depending on your preference (Kameriel uses a rifle while Usamael uses a handgun) and move around the 3D levels completing objectives. Movement and aiming/camera is done by the analogue sticks plus you can shoot with the triggers, jump with x and crawl with the down arrow.

Despite being billed as a shooter you’ll quickly discover that the game is as much – if not more – of a 3D platformer. Each level is filled with objects to jump and climb and you’re going to need to master this to get around. The mechanics aren’t fantastic – the camera gets in the way a lot and if you fall from too great a height you die (leading to some frustrating deaths) but it will click eventually and can feel pretty rewarding to make it through in one piece (later levels award a hookshot to get around which helps massively with movement, although it can only be latched onto certain things).

Just as with the platforming, the shooting is a bit stiff and clunky. There’s no alternate weapons meaning you’re stuck with your pistol or rifle (although you can stand on sniper spots to power up your shots), but generally the mechanics here are just serviceable at best – thankfully the squid enemies you’ll come across don’t pose any real challenge, merely occasionally smacking you for clothing damage which you can heal at sniper spots. It makes the combat a bit of a cakewalk which is disappointing, yet thankfully Gun Gun Pixies makes up for it in other ways.

See, shooting at squids isn’t really a major part of the package – each level has different objectives which tie into the story. One mission might task you with examining certain spots (highlighted by pressing triangle to enter scope mode and looking for sparkles) to find out information about why the girls are feeling gloomy, while another might want you to climb a cabinet to smash a photo in order to bring it to their attention. They’re fairly mundane, but actually pretty fun to be pulling off in the mini sandboxes the game gives you, plus the way they tie-in to the plot at that point are pretty smart (having to defuse a bug bomb that threatens to kill you by opening the window made me smile).

Another major thing you’ll need to do is pacify the girls – usually for some plot-related point such stopping them from chanting a bizarre ritual. This is done by shooting their various body parts as they pace around the room but you’ll need to be careful as if they spot you it’ll be mission over – this made for an interesting mechanic as you avoid their cone of vision and stop making noise when nearby, but never really became a challenge as you can simply press the left button to pose as a figurine meaning they won’t notice or hear you (although I did fall fowl of overdoing it a couple of times).

The pacifications culminate in special missions where the girls will be doing something unique (such as Minami casting a ritual or Noire pole-dancing) and you’ll need to shoot them while dodging a variety of projectiles that head your way in a sort of bullet-hell mini-game – these were actually pretty fun, despite getting repetitive towards the end as there was a lot of hiding behind objects and waiting for the right moment to strike. Your reward for completion is to get to see the girls during a bath which is pure fanservice I didn’t really care for, but it’ll net you a lot of coins to spend on upgraded guns and outfits.

It’s the fact these objectives are constantly mixed up that keeps Gun Gun Pixies feeling fresh enough until the end – one minute you’ll be climbing a chest of drawers Toy Story-style, the next you’ll be pacifying a particularly angry Kira with happy bullets. With that said, the final two chapters contain a bit too much squid fighting which becomes rather tedious, taking the wind out of the finale.

It’ll take about 8 hours to make your way through the game, although you can go back in new game plus with your weapons and upgrades in tact and get new endings (these won’t mean much unless you speak Japanese). It feels a good length, not overstaying it’s welcome but providing enough content to keep you occupied for a weekend.

This definitely won’t be a game for everyone – the fanservice will be too much for some and I’d imagine plenty of people will find the platforming and shooting too janky, but if you can look past this there’s one of the Vita’s most unique titles underneath that’s a surprising amount of fun to play around with.

Ease of Understanding

There’s plenty of story scenes included here that will be lost on you unless you use Google Translate, but otherwise Gun Gun Pixies is a surprisingly gameplay-heavy import that should be easy enough for people to pick up and learn no matter how solid your grasp of Japanese is.

The one thing you may struggle with is that certain objectives require you to inspect certain items (remember to always use your scope), but thankfully this guide provided by the brilliant Reviews2go provides more than enough help to get you through anything the game throws at you.

Conclusion

Despite its 3D platforming being clunky and its third-person shooting being janky, there’s a large amount of fun to be had with Gun Gun Pixies. It’s a light-hearted (and fanservice-heavy) adventure through a college dormitory that doesn’t feature a tonne of content, but if you’re willing to look past its flaws what is here is enough to keep you entertained and smiling right through to the conclusion.

7.0/10