Product Info

Platform

Switch, PC

Publisher

eastasiasoft

Developer

One-Hand-Free-Studios

Genre

Action, Arcade, Shoot-'em-up

Players

1-2

File Size (Minimum)

257 MB

Release Date (NA)

Jul 16, 2020

Purchase From

eShop

Steam

Waifu Uncovered is a game you wouldn’t expect to see on the Nintendo eShop. While some of its visuals are plastered with meme-like art and lewdness, the game itself offers some solid action for those who enjoy shoot ’em ups, even if it only takes a couple hours to play through.

The Weirdest Protagonist

You, the protagonist, named Master K. Vaio, are a horse ninja. Let that sink in—a horse dressed as a ninja. If you’re thinking of those horse mask memes, you’re spot on. You’re not even using ninja skills like throwing weapons or masking presence. Instead, you’ll get to choose between a set of spacecraft for use in battle. The idea of a ninja horse seems pretty far-fetched, but there’s one thing that makes it work: you’ll never get this visual out of your head.

Save the Maidens!

K. Vaio is tasked with saving eight beautiful maidens before they’re taken over by dangerous, virus-infected clothing that will turn them into not-so-desirable aliens. To prevent that catastrophe, you’ll head into each maiden’s stage and take on flying alien obstacles. Defeating them and racking up a high score will tear off the virus-infected clothing. If there was any doubt, this is one of those games where you’ll want to be cautious when playing it outside your home.

Each stage is plastered with good-looking, anime-style females, also known as waifus. They’re not directly part of the action, though. Instead, they show up as the background visual in each stage, while you destroy aliens in the foreground. In the first playthrough, the waifus are censored by objects that cover parts of their bodies. You can unlock each maiden’s uncensored stage, and yes, no obstacles will block their bodies. You can expect multiple playthroughs if you’re aiming to unlock all the lewd graphics.

Enemy Attack!

When starting Waifu Uncovered, you can choose a spacecraft. Your choices are limited at first, but you can unlock more spacecraft the more you play, earning up to five in all. Additionally, local co-op is available, so you and your buddy can take on the stage together. You cannot have online buddies join, unfortunately, and that’s a missed opportunity.

The design of the interface throughout the setup is lacking. It’s too simplistic and needs to be refreshed with a new coat of paint. Moreover, fonts are too generic for not only the menu screens but for the in-stage text as well. The user score section and the stage name located at the top-center of the screen could also use more refinement.

In each round, you choose between two girls, each one representing a stage. One will be harder than the other. Thankfully, the game points that out to you before choosing. That’s kind of them to do that. From the moment you start the stage, enemies spawn on the screen and begin attacking your spacecraft. Maneuver around their attacks and blast them away with your own. The beginning segment (with a dimmed background) gives you a chance to unlock the uncensored version of the stage if you defeat all the enemies. After that, you move onto the stage proper. Just be careful to not get hit, as your health won’t replenish when that initial part ends.

Enemy visuals, compared to the drawn maidens in the background, feel lacking. A few enemies closely resemble rage face memes, Hello Kitty cat heads, and alien heads from the movie Mars Attacks! This “borrowing” of ideas certainly raises an eyebrow. Anyway, aside from lawsuit-skirting designs, enemy models that have thin detail lines look distorted when playing on larger televisions. They look fine in handheld mode, however. Thankfully, the maiden images are fine in both modes and of better quality.

As you fight to rescue said maidens, purple shurikens (ninja stars) come flying towards you and down to the bottom of the screen. At first glance, they look like enemy attacks, but they are actually points that help destroy the maiden’s clothing. The bigger they are, the more points gained. The large stars have weird hitboxes, though. You have to grab them closer to the center instead of the outer edge.

Additionally, power-up orbs drop to give your ship additional shooting weapons, improve its speed, or provide bombs. Bombs are very limited and can take out many enemies on screen. It’s best to save these for when you’re in a pinch or for the boss battle.

Once enough clothing has been removed, the stage’s boss appears. The boss’s name and design are usually bizarre and crude, such as the savaged rabbit boss called “Pussy Rabbit.” Their attacks can also be equally grotesque. The boss “Deep Sh#t” attacks with poop and smears it on the screen to block your view (annoying, actually). Bosses have a life gauge and depleting it completes the battle and the stage. If your life gauge is depleted, it’s over, and you’ll have to restart the campaign from the beginning. The majority of the boss battles are fairly simple, as long as you’re aware of their movements and attack patterns.

Upon finishing the stage, you can unlock an uncensored mode for it (if you killed all the enemies in the first part), and a new spacecraft. Each spacecraft has different attributes, such as speed, power, bomb carries, and defense. The further you play, the better ships are available, improving your chances for victory.

Other Ways to Save Maidens

There are other modes available, such as arcade mode and one-finger mode. Arcade mode is just like the normal campaign mode, except that it’s more challenging and players have access to an additional waifu stage (the waifu from the menu screen/cover). The one-finger mode lets you play with just one finger on the touch screen and the spacecraft resembles a sausage. (In case you haven’t noticed yet, this game is weird.)

There’s also a gallery mode that contains visuals of all the maidens, including their uncensored versions. The simplest way to unlock the uncensored illustrations is to clear at least one bonus stage before the stage starts and then clear the game in the normal mode.

Finally, there are leaderboards where players can compete with others online, but there isn’t much to play as all the modes are very similar to one another. Adding timed attacks or speed run challenges to earn new visuals and/or better spacecraft could have added more variety to the game. Having additional images for different difficulty modes also could have also brought players back for more. Still, for a $7 USD game, you can’t complain too much about what’s offered.  

The Final Takeoff

Putting aside the quirky visuals, weird enemies, and the saucy maidens, Waifu Uncovered actually offers some solid shoot ‘em up gameplay, making it a fun, short diversion to play between other games in your library. It’s unfortunate that it doesn’t have more to offer outside its normal gameplay, but you get what you pay for. Just be sure to enjoy the waifus at home!

A review code provided by the publisher for this review and gameplay footage. The game available on the Nintendo eShop and PC (Steam).