What happens when a developer puts so much focus onto realizing a concept that they forget to put any polish into the execution? You get Gun Gun Pixies.
The story revolves around a race of aliens who send their best troops to Earth in order to observe Earthlings in their daily interactions. You see, the inhabitants of the planet Pandemo has forgotten how to interact with each other, and is doomed if it continues. As such, it’s up to Privates Bee-tan and Kame-pon to see how Earthlings interact, and save their race in the process.
The two alien girls must not be discovered, but that’s easier said than done, as they need to maneuver their way through the girls’ bedrooms despite their smaller size. Their equipment mainly consists of special weaponry that equips the Happy Bullets, customized bullets that are able to induce euphoria in their targets via releasing endorphins that sends them into a state of bliss. As you might expect, this has some very unintentional lewd-like implications.
The problems start to kick in when you move past the concepts of David vs Goliath, or just the appeal towards size fetishists. Gun Gun Pixies moves and feels quite horrible to control, to the point where this is one of the few games that have managed to give me motion sickness. For example, there is always a delay when you jump, and sometimes it doesn’t respond at all. This makes maneuvering through the room so frustrating, doubly so when you’re trying to jump your way up to the upper bunk bed up overly narrow stairs. There is also no lock-on for the firing, and aiming fire doesn’t help much either. You also get stuck around walls, and the camera will constantly get stuck and sometimes even swing wildly back and forth.
While the game has seen some refinement between the Vita and Switch versions, such as fall damage from great heights being completely omitted (thank goodness), I still ran into a fair share of bugs, such as conttrols not responding, getting stuck inside things, and characters suddenly running backwards and not being able to be controlled. The localization also has a fair amount of spelling mistakes in its localization. I wasn’t expecting this game to be the most polished experience in the world, but it was worse than I expected.
If you’re thinking, “Well, the story and characters might be generic outside of the concept, but at least the cheesecake will be glorious!”, I’m afraid that you’d be better off with games like Senran Kagura Peach Ball, Omega Labyrinth Life, or Gal Gun 2. What’s seen in Gun Gun Pixies is pretty tame, considering the potential of the original concept, but it does have gratuitous panty shots, as well as shower scenes, if that’s your kind of thing.
In the end, I’m not sure how this game appeals to anyone who doesn’t already have an interest in size difference fetishes. Maneuvering around human giantesses to sneak around and accomplish objectives in a Thumbelina-esque manner is an interesting concept that I wish was complemented by better gameplay.
Gun Gun Pixies is available on Nintendo Switch. The game also released on PlayStation Vita in Japan.
