The game features the titular Champs, a race of duck-like creatures, whose daily life is threatened by the Boss, a large demonic Champ who desires to cause anything and everything that spins to malfunction. However, his reign of terror won’t go unopposed—a duo of heroic Champ brothers show up, and plan to set right what the Boss has set wrong.
The gameplay is a variant of Sokoban. The player must shoot blocks from the bottom of the screen and set them thoughtfully along the board's obstacles until all the target spaces are filled. The board can be rotated and gimmicks such as holes, rubber and pushable blocks are introduced later on to spice things up.
The game is said to have never seen a release in America due to internal troubles with localization, but its 2010 DSiWare sequel called Guruguru Logic did get localized as Snapdots; both versions forgo the Champ characters and opt for a more laid-back and generic setting.
This game features the following tropes:
- 100% Completion: To unlock the final puzzle of Rescue EX, you need to have cleared all the other 334.
- Anti-Frustration Features: You only need to clear 266 puzzles out of 315 to play the final stage of Rescue 12.
- Big Bad: The Boss, a big green Champ with devil horns, wings, and spiked pants. He’s constantly scheming new ways to cause havoc and ruin the world’s infrastructure.
- Bittersweet Ending: The day is saved at the end, but both the Boss and the older Champ brother sacrifice themselves in the process.
- Bookends: The game closes on a shot of the faucet that was the subject of Rescue 1.
- Boss Battle: The fifth and final stage in Champ's Bodyguard features a single enemy that runs from one mark to the next while throwing shuriken at a random mark. The more damage he takes, the faster he becomes on top of tossing two shurikens at once.
- Brick Joke:
- When the Moon is chained with the Earth, you see characters from previous stages reacting in distress.
- Played for Drama: The stage clear screen has some people giving you a teary-eyed salute at the background. At the very end, everyone salutes the Boss' sacrifice.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The Champ brothers' unexpected failures to help people are Played for Laughs for most of the game. Then comes the ending...
- Classic Cheat Code: At the file select screen, if you create a new file and name it か♥す♥み, said file will have all levels and bonuses unlocked.
- Dead Hat Shot: After the Boss detonates himself into the Moon, his pants fall down from the sky. The bittersweet final shot of the game shows a plant growing beneath it.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: The older brother over the younger brother's arms at the end.
- Drama Bomb Finale: This cutesy game about two ducks undoing the schemes of a mischievous devil has a dead-serious yet comical ending where both the Boss and the older brother sacrifice themselves to prevent the end of the world.
- Eat the Bomb: Invoked in Rescue 7. The Champ brothers, in order to incapacitate the avaricious sumo wrestlers gobbling down all the sushi, place bombs on some plates, and the trope occurs, complete with Ash Face.
- Epic Fail: The Champ brothers completely fail to solve the incoming disaster at the end of the story with just the tools they've acquired. The "Champs Rescued!" message even shows up a second time only to fall to pieces in response to this.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Hakasenote and the Boss.
- Evil Is Petty: The reason the Boss wants to eliminate everything that spins? They make him motion sick.
- Expy: The Boss is likely an expy of Satan/Dark Prince from Puyo Puyo (whom Compile created). They share a general demonic appearance (horns, wings, green hair/feathers), and are comical antagonists in their respective games.
- Extended Gameplay:
- After the player completes the final rescue and watches the ending, a stage called Rescue EX appears (represented by a stone Champ statue) that hosts 25 extra puzzles. Its sheer difficulty makes it a Brutal Bonus Level, as you’ll need all your knowledge of the game mechanics and lots of patience to beat it.
- 100% Completion unlocks Champ's Bodyguard, a reflex-based minigame with multiple levels that's effectively the final title in Compile's Champ series.
- Fat Bastard: The Boss, with his girth and status as the game’s antagonist, naturally is this.
- The voracious sumos who greedily gobble up the conveyor belt sushi (to the displeasure of a hungry family) in Rescue 7 also fit the bill.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: In Rescue 6 (which takes place at an amusement park), a giant blob-like creature called Space Slug randomly shows up and starts to scratch its itch on the Ferris wheel.
- This isn't even the first time it's appeared, either. In Bucket Relay Champ, it posed a threat to the city, and went under the name "Giant Slug."
- Heroic Sacrifice: The older brother turns himself into a cannon to launch the also self-sacrificing Boss into the Moon and dies from the injuries.
- Hope Spot: The Champ brothers are unable to unchain the Moon from the Earth with the tools they've obtained. The Boss decides to sacrifice himself by getting launched into the Moon, but the brothers' cannon breaks and the older brother is forced to sacrifice himself as well to launch the Boss into space.
- Logo Joke: The Compile logo screen shows the brothers completing the logo with their cannon, instantly teaching you what the game is about.
- Idle Animation: If you don't press anything for a couple seconds while playing, the brothers either hop on the spot with a "boing" sound effect or give a mocking chuckle towards you. How annoying.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The Boss' final scheme is to chain the Moon with the Earth to prevent the passage of day. He's horrified to learn that the Moon will soon crash into the planet instead.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Played for Laughs. Several Rescues go bad for some reason or other despite the brothers' efforts.
- Non-Malicious Monster: All Space Slug wants is to scratch its itch (as it lacks any limbs). Too bad it had to use the Ferris wheel in order to do that.
- Potty Emergency: Rescue 2 revolves around this, as some henchmen have stolen the doorknob to a restroom, to the discomfort of a Champ really needing to go.
- Press X to Not Die: The Champ's Bodyguard subgame requires players to press the arrow keys or A to slay enemies on the associated marks. To confuse players, sometimes it will be instead a guy on a given spot pointing the actual location of the invisible enemy.
- Redemption Equals Death: The Boss sacrifices himself to save the world after a scheme gone horribly wrong. All the citizens salute in tears after the deed is done.
- Salt Solution: The last puzzle in Rescue 9 is shaped like a salt shaker. Fittingly, the main adversary in said rescue is a giant slug.
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: The brothers shout "Guru!", the Japanese onomatopoeia for turning, every time you turn the board.
- Sequel Escalation: The game's premise takes after Bucket Relay Champ, but it's a fully fledged puzzle game with hundreds of levels instead of a short reflex-based minigame. The scenarios are more absurd and the final one, while clearly based on the falling meteor crisis from the original game, is played for much more drama and involves two people dying from sacrificing themselves instead of just one getting himself killed by accident.
- Skyward Scream: The younger Champ brother screams in anguish when his older brother dies at the end.
- The Smart Guy: Hakase, complete with the grad cap and glasses. He’s said to be the most knowledgeable person in the city, and helps to explain the potential crisis on the news in the last rescue. He’s also seemingly responsible for setting up the brain-bending challenges in Rescue EX.
- Something Person: A good portion of the named characters (revealed by Rescue EX) have a name ending in “Man”:
- The thirsty jogger in the first rescue is called Jogging Man.
- Battle Man, the host of the Battle Mode.
- Hirejyaku Man (lit. “Weak Fin Man”), the father struggling to open a jam jar in Rescue.
- Hamster Man, the pet hamster of the jerkass kid in Rescue 5.
- Sabi Man (lit. “Rust Man”) and Dam Man, two of the Boss’ henchmen.
- Kokkoo Man, one of the costumed mascots of an amusement park in Rescue
- Utchari Man (named after "utchari", a sumo technique), one of the greedy sumos in Rescue 7.
- Spikes of Villainy: This is the main motif of the Boss and his henchmen. They show up on everything from their airship, their outfits, and even the Boss' favorite mug!
- Stars Are Souls: After his sacrifice, the Boss fades over the sky with angel wings as a crowd stargazes and salutes him.
- This Is a Drill: One Rescue involves unfreezing the massive drill of a giant mech. Turns out it is a dentist's tool for use on common people...
- Toothy Bird: The Champs are ostensibly bird-like animals, but they have teeth (the older brother often bears his after a job well done).
- Translation Trainwreck: The excuse for the American release getting canceled.
- We Can Rebuild Him: After the older champ brother dies at the end, a robot takes his place near the younger brother in the ending salute. This robot also shows up should you continue playing after watching the ending, helping the younger brother shoot the block jar like the older brother did.
- A Winner Is You: Champ's Bodyguard has No Ending aside from a faded version of the title screen with "The End" written on it and your final score.
