Guilty Gear Petit

My latest bundle of joy direct from Nipon came tumbling through the letterbox today. A copy of Guilty Gear Petit, which I got for about £11 on eBay.



For those that don't know, Guilty Gear is a popular beat 'em up series published by Sammy. It started life in the arcades in the late 90s and has made appearances on many formats, although the Wonderswan and GBA being the only portable to have it, as far as I know - but versions are in development for DS and PSP.



Set in 2180, the story is roughly that a group of Gears - warriors equipped with a super energy called magic - plan to wipe out the human race and so a tournament is held to find best fighter who can take on and destroy the gears.

In Guilty Gear Petit, you get six characters from the start, although hidden characters are available.

• * Sol-Badguy
• * Ky Kisk
• * Potemkin
• * May
• * Millia Rage
• * Fanny

The game is easy to play as the menu screens are in English. When you start you can choose between Story Mode, Vs Mode (requires two players and a link cable) and Training mode which just lets you beat up an opponent for as long as you want. Your opponent puts up no resistance and just absorbs the blows, giving you time to develop your skills. I couldn't help but think this is how it must be to fight with Gandhi.

The game itself is great to look at - the graphics are bright and details. The soundtrack is fine too, although there seemed to be a curious lack of sound effects. Most beat em ups accompany each blow with some kind of sound, but not here (unless there's some FX option I need to change) which kind of gave the game play a detached feel.





The characters all have a selection of whacky moves, which are details in the instruction manual. I particularly taken with Fanny the nurse and her hyperdermic needle, which also turns into a pair of scissors.

Playing this kind of game isn't that easy using the Wonderswan controls, as many of the moves require diagonal movements, and as you know, the Wonderswan doesn't have a standard D-pad, but instead had 4 directional buttons. Sammy overcame that by supplying the game with a Wondercoin - a small plastic D-Pad you can attach to your controller.

All in all, its a cool game, and it's great to get a chance to finally do some proper Wonderswan gaming, following my previous purchases which were interesting novelties but offered no gaming satisfaction.