WTF?! scores another point for the PS Minis. It's a shoot'em up unlike any that I've played.
I'm to do something different in this review...start with an explaination of the game's plot which is vital to understanding the gameplay. So, the Guardian of Earth is on trial with Intergalactic Council of Guardians (of course headed by Jupiter) for allowing the invasion of Earth by Doom Beasts. This is due to his reputation on the Council as being a publicity whore and caring more about being noticed than actually doing his job. The actual game is actually the Council's recorded account of the past incident. Successfully defending a city from the Doom Beasts will continue the legal proceedings, a Game Over will result in Earth's Guardian being found guilty. Most of the game's plot unfolds in the court room where the trial is being held. Its mostly filled with humor...nothing ground breaking but still pretty funny at times. There is a bit of a twist ending but you could actually kind of seen it coming throughout the game's story.
What makes WTF different from any other shoot'em up that I've played is that, the idea isn't to prevent your own death (because actually your character can't die) but rather to kill as many of the enemies off a possible. Instead of giving your character a life meter, each stage (3 stages per 5 cities) will allow up to 50 enemies to get pass you before it's game over. The bigger Doom Beast serve more as obstacles that come in many forms where the smaller ones are the actual enemies who you have to prevent from passing. IMO, the most annoying of the bigger enemies are bull doom beast...not only do these guys stun you for an insane amount of time when ramming you but the game's controls also become inverted while you're stunned. This can become especially annoying when facing these guys during boss battles (which you do!). Speaking the game's bosses, time works more against you in these battles than allowing the small doom beast they produce to get by. The goal usually is to aim for their weak spot while making sure that no small doom beast escape. Though the game lacks any real power ups to assist in taking out the often time large grooves of enemies faced at once, you do have a super move meter. This meter periodically fills with the more enemies you kill and is segmented into 3 different parts...each part representing a higher power level. You can release your special beam by pressing [ ] which power of course depends on what power level the meter is currently filled to. This doesn't mean that firing off a special attack empties the meter though...in fact, the only time the meter empties is when its completely filled and that's only half way. Which means, you can fire off each special type and then some without the meter ever completely emptying. However, there is a catch! Any one...just one doom beast gets pass you, your meter will immediately drop down to zero. So this is even more of an incentive not to let any enemies pass. The special attacks also help with softing up the larger enemies and mid stage bosses which are always finished off with a button sequence of pressing R and repeated tapping X. The explosion of one of these guys kills every near by small doom beast and fills your special meter up even more. This same method of killing is also used to finish off bosses (which are always faced on the last stage of every city). Besides the story mode, the game also has a challenge mode and an infinate run mode.
My Breakdown:
What's Good:
- Great artistic design
- Fun and addictive to play
- ^ High replay value
- Uniquely rendered plot
- Humorous
- Innovative approach to gameplay
- In-game achievements
What's Not-So-Good:
- Inverting the controls when being stunned was a bit much
- No power ups!
- What's with MediaTonic and not having any voice acting in their games? Just gibberish.
What's Bad:
- Other enemies to face other than the Doom Beast would have been nice
- **SPOILER** Not facing the game's actual villian one-on-one. I think it would have been pretty epic! **END SPOILER**
In all, this is another great Mini and MediaTonic release that PSP/PS3 owners everywhere should check out. It provides hours of unquie side-scrolling fun!