Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad

"How on earth is this game bad?"

There are many great things in the world. Pizza, alcohol, swords, zombies, hot almost naked chicks... So logic would say that when you combine great things, its even greater, right? It works for pizza and booze, so pairing hordes of zombies with half naked chicks wielding swords should be amazing too, right? Oh how wrong you would be.

Onechanbara takes this concept, and somehow, someway, manages to screw it up. The problems with this title are apparent from the very first CG shown. We are teased by seeing Aya in the shower, with steam conveniently covering up the fun parts, and right away we are treated to screen tearing. The problems definitely don't stop there.

After running through the first level, you will most likely have killed around 60 or so zombies and gotten used to the weird blood meters (one which is on your sword, which makes it duller, and the other on your character, which makes them rage out and deal more damage at the cost of taking it), and you will find yourself wondering why this game is panned. When you come to the conclusion of the game, you will be around 6000 or so zombie kills. I cannot believe these words came out of my mouth, but I was actually sick of killing zombies. And this is where the games worst trait comes out, the sheer repetitiveness of the adventure. By the end of the game, you may need to replace your controller because the X button will most likely be mashed in from the amount of times you are forced to mash it. Because the only thing you are going to be doing the entire adventure is slashing zombies with one (on some occasions, two) button, over, and over, and over again. Prepare to spend 10 or so hours doing that exact same thing.

Visually, this game is shameful. The areas are very ugly, and repeat often, the zombies are ugly (which you will fight the same models often), and the characters are just passing. This looks like an early PS2 title, and unfortunately, has the camera system of one too. The camera, while not fundamentally broken, does have a lot of problems if you are trying to move it in one direction while moving your girl in the other, which, unfortunately, occurs a lot.

To go along with the repetitiveness of the art direction and game play, you have the bosses. Did you like fighting the boss of the first level? Well good, because your going to fight him again, except this time he will have a twin. Not so fun this time? Well too bad, you're going to do it again. If that sounds bad, at the risk of dropping spoilers about a story you won't give a damn about, let me give you a brief example of another boss fight. In an early level, you fight a dude in a suit who only melees you. Fair enough. Then, you fight him and his buddy at the same time. Sound familiar? THEN you fight a stronger version of him solo. Sound repetitive yet? Well hold on, because then you will fight THREE of them at the same time, followed immediately by ANOTHER DAMN GUY! So while there may be a good number of boss fights in the game, your really just fighting the same boss over and over again.

Speaking of the story, the game doesn't really have one. The girls have some kind of cursed blood, and that's what makes them get all raged out when covered by other blood, and they kill zombies because...well, it's never really explained. They meet up with another girl who also has the blood, and they go on a zombie killing rampage together. The 'story' plays out in either a few CGs, or for the most part, cut scenes where static character models converse with one another. The odd thing about these cut scenes is the lip syncing just...stops. Let me explain, and keep in mind that this game isn't dubbed in English so there is absolutely no excuse for this. Let's say Aya is talking. Her static model becomes slightly animated, with her head bobbing and lips moving as she talks. This will last for about five seconds...when she will have twenty seconds of dialogue. So during her dialogue, she stops moving, becomes completely static again, but keeps talking. How this happened is absolutely beyond any logical thinking.

Besides these hic-ups, there is a lot of DLC already out for the game, multiple unlockable difficulties (if you can stand to play the game more then once), and a pretty varied character 'dress up' option (which is pointless because your just going to strip them down to their bra and panties anyway), so the game has a few redeeming values. Besides the fact that it is repetitive and ugly as hell, and has a weak story, there isn't anything really wrong with this game. It's just a mediocre hack and slash title, nothing more, and nothing less.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/18/09

Game Release: Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad (US, 02/10/09)