¿What is a Waku Waku?
Waku Waku 7 is an obscure, hidden gem of a fighting game, developed by Sunsoft. Originally released on November 21st, 1996, later being ported to the Sega Saturn, and a bevy of other systems in recent years. The game is not a sequel of any kind; rather, its name is derived from the 7 main characters and 7 Waku balls those characters seek in the game's story.
The game has a lot of common features found in SNK games, like the 4 buttons scheme, the screen Zoom, etc... Waku offers a lot of unique mechanics such as the ability to launch your opponent to the side of the screen, being able to jump from the wall for certain characters and rebounding when being thrown to the wall.
¿How does this game even plays?
Waku is a fairly simple game with a lot to uncover, is a more Footsies neutral heavy game, punishing in this game usually lead to big damage, jump ins are high risk high reward options, making it a really fun experience.
Example of a High Level Match
¿How do people play Waku?
Besides the Neo Geo MVS/AES, Waku Waku 7 was ported to the Sega Saturn and Playstation 2. The saturn port suffers from in-game slow down when certain moves are used, and the final stage has really bad slow down which takes away from enjoying the game. The Playstation 2 version is great and even has a training mode. This version comes bundled with Sunsoft's other fighter, Galaxy Fight: Universal Warrior.
The home console version of Waku was also ported to the Wii Virtual Console, while both the Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4 received arcade ports of the game (find them in each platform’s digital store ). These do not have online multiplayer, Fightcade 2 would be the best platform to use to play with others online. Use the following link to download Fightcade 2.
Ok, i want to try this game where do i even start?
We have a lot of resources at the time, the best ones to start in order are definitely:
¿Does this game have an active community?
Yes! the game has got a huge resurgence thanks to the community efforts of creating better resources and constant tournament play, one of the last Waku Waku 7 tournaments was featured in Vortex Gallery getting around 35 people participating. If you want to join the Community Discord you can find it here:
Miscellaneous.
And that's it for now! Hope to see more people playing this awesome game, i want this to serve as the general Waku Waku 7 thread but also as sort of Primer for Newcommers, if i missed something or you want to just talk about this game go ahead 💕
