I'll assume you already know what a Wonderswan is and what it looks like, if not just look it up...
You know, what first attracted me to the Wonderswan was its sound, it's basically the same kind of sound as the PC engine's PSG, except with only 4 channels instead of 6 and the waveforms are only 4 bit as opposed to 5 bit, but it still sounds fairly close, and I'm just glad to be able to play more 16 bit games that I hadn't played before with a similar sound to the PCE!
The first game I've played on the system was Guilty Gear Petit 2, which if you know me wouldn't be surprising at all, and oh my gosh what a start! My first impression was: "I should have tried this sooner!"
Needless to say I loved it! The controls are very responsive, it's really easy to combo in this game, but it's still fairly challenging, and the CPU will catch on if you spam the same move over and over and act accordingly! I've managed to beat it a few times and I'll definitely be playing this again and again!
The only problems I've had with this game are that the music isn't great, but it's passable, and the backgrounds are kind of ugly with an excessive use of dithering... The sprites are pretty nice though, I think they could be better-animated, but they're pretty cute!
This is an uncommonly good handheld fighter, very much worth playing if you're a fan of the genre!
After that I've played the first Guilty Gear Petit, and let's just say that it's basically the same game as the second, but worse in almost every way, it's not bad at all, but the sound effects are weaker, the controls are stiffer, it's harder to combo, but it's somehow a much easier game than the second because the CPU AI isn't as good... I'll give it this though, the backgrounds in this version are better than in the 2nd game! They've used dithering more sparingly so it looks much cleaner and more pleasing to the eyes, it's still there but its use makes much more sense now... Just stick with the 2nd game...
The next game I tried was Gunpey EX, which is the colour variant of the most famous game on the system, and you know, I'm not a big fan of puzzle games, but this one is pretty fun and very addictive! The concept is so simple, you just have to connect the two sides of the screen with lines by swapping tiles around, but the tiles move up and you have to keep them from reaching the top of the screen, you get extra points by connecting the two sides with multiple lines, this is one of the games that you have to play with the system in portrait mode, nice music too, even if it's all just pulse waves...
I'll try to keep the next few impressions brief for the sake of not bloating this post too much:
Pocket Fighter: Another quality fighter on the system! Shame it's not in colour... This is also one of the better-sounding games on the system, very nice music! (Even if it often relies on square waves) Loved it!
Rainbow Islands: It's played in Portrait mode, and it's not in colour (kind of ironic considering the title)
It's basically what you'd expect gameplay-wise, except you play as an anime girl instead of Eric Cartman, and there's a lot of dialogue that I can't read in between stages... Not bad! But they could have used more waveforms than just Square waves...
Makaimura: It's not a straight port of Ghosts and Goblins, it's its own original game in the series, and it's pretty good! It's only in black and white though, and the music could be better... It has parallax scrolling though! Did I mention the system has 2 BG layers? Yeah, but they often used the 2nd layer for the HUD so you still don't see parallax very often...
Rockman & Forte: Again, not a straight port of the SNES game, it's another original game in the series, and it's fine I guess... I'll certainly pick it over the NES games but I don't see myself returning to this one anytime soon... If you like Megaman though, you might like this one! B&W only, and it has parallax as well...
Star Hearts: A beautiful-looking and very nice-sounding Zelda clone where you control a native-american-looking boy or girl, there's a little too much dialogue for my liking, but I could still find my way to the first dungeon even without reading any of it... I wish the screen scrolled though, yeah it's flip-screen kinda like Zelda 1 and Neutopia, but it's still pretty good!
Mr. Driller: This was my introduction to the series, it's pretty nice! You just drill downwards as much as you can while trying not to run out of air or get crushed by falling blocks...
One Piece Grand Battle Swan Colosseum: It's an one-on-one platforming fighting game with VERY smooth animations! Very well-done graphics, don't remember the sound very well... It's fun enough, I'd rather it be a traditional fighting game, but it's not bad at all...
Beat Mania: No, I'm not kidding, they've ported this to the WonderSwan, and it's actually really damn impressive! They're playing relatively high quality PCM audio on the WonderSwan, and it sounds good! This is another one that's played in portrait mode, B&W only, I sucked at it, but yeah, it's a thing that exists, and I like it!
Final Lap Special: Impressive graphics, amusing for 2 minutes... If you like Final Lap Twin you might get a kick out of this, I don't think there's an RPG mode though... No music during gameplay, what a bummer!
Golden Axe: Sucks... But then again, I've never liked Golden Axe so I might not be the best person to judge this one...
Final Fantasy IV: This is basically the closest we've got to Final Fantasy IV on the PCE, everything you'd expect from a PCE port of that game is in here, it's only in Japanese though so of course, I couldn't go very far, but the music is nice! (Not SNES nice, but then again, what is?)
CardCaptor Sakura: OMG THEY MADE A CHIPTUNE VERSION OF CATCH YOU CATCH ME~♥
Not just that song, a lot of the show's soundtrack was covered, which means I had an unhealthy amount of fangasms, eargasms and nostalgiagasms in quick succession... Can you blame me though? This was my childhood anime! I just LOOOOVE Sakura~♥
Anyway, the game is basically Galaxy Fraulein Yuna but with a (black and white) Cardcaptor Sakura coat of paint, in other words, a text/graphic adventure game with barely any meaningful interactions where you just play to see the characters that you loved from the show doing their thing, except you can't read anything if you don't know Japanese, and you're gonna win anyway because the closest thing to a fail-state is losing a battle, which I haven't yet... I still love it though, but for the same reason why I love the Yuna games, not because it's a good game, but because I get to see more of the characters I was already attached to, and hear awesome music while I'm at it~♥
I've played some more games, but none that are note-worthy as of the time I'm making this post... I'd post some videos with soundtracks as well but there's barely any Wonderswan soundtracks on YouTube...
Oh well, just check these videos if you wanna see the thing in action:
So yeah, I've only just had a couple of days with the WonderSwan, but I feel that I've just found my new favourite non-Nintendo handheld! Not like there was much competition anyways... (No, I'm not counting the Nomad and the TurboExpress, those are a different can of worms)
For the record, I've also played the Game Gear, the Neo Geo Pocket Colour and the PSP, and of those the PSP was far and away the best one, but you know, the Wonderswan has that 16 bit appeal that I love so much~
