Zombie killing chicks in bikinis brandishing katanas? What's not to like?
Onechanbara – Bikini Samurai Squad
After listening to Dsmooth’s and Codemonkey’s last episode of 2old2type I found myself wondering about this new release from Tamsoft Studios. Hot chicks in bikinis, “real-life” physics, swords, buckets of blood and zombies - what more could a male gamer want in a title? So being an employee at a “major video game retailer” with the ability to “preview” games without purchasing them, I figured I might as well check this one out. Worse case scenario, I would burn a few hours of my weekend in exchange for some cheap digital thrills and a little achievement whoring. But oh how wrong was I. How very wrong indeed.The obscure title “Onechanbara” is a portmanteau (don’t worry, I had to look it up, too -- it means to blend two or more words together to create a combined meaning) of two Japanese words; one-chan (meaning “big sister,” and often used to refer to a young adult female) and chanbara (“sword fighting”). The “Bikini Samurai” part I pretty much figured out on my own. Armed with this knowledge, I opened up the game case.
The first thing I noticed as I took out the disk was that the game manual was printed mostly in Japanese and French (French? Really?), with only four paltry pages of English to give me some idea of the game play. A quick review of the sparse instructions introduced me to one key plot point: These female samurai wore bikinis for a reason, not just because the developers spent too much time coding and not enough time interacting with actual women.
Our heroines, the sisters Aya & Saki (and later a third character known as Anna) have something called the “Baneful Blood” coursing through their veins. This supernatural elixir reacts to zombie blood and the blood of anyone who falls under the blades (and in Anna’s case, guns) of our protagonists.
Basically, as our “bikini samurai” hack and slash their way through throngs of the undead, the blood of their opponents is absorbed through their skin, combining with the “Baneful Blood” to give them special fighting skills called Ecstasy Powers (I am not making this up). Once covered in enough blood, our heroines go into a killing frenzy, increasing the damage they can dole out. However these powers come at a cost, rapidly draining the life out of the sisters. Immediately making the obvious connection to a certain sub-genre of the Asian porn industry, my first thought was, “Where was this game when I was a kid?”
Aya & Saki - Sisters With Attitude
After stumbling my way through the menus to set up my controls (I play with an inverted x-axis) and checking out the various options, it was time to start hacking up some zombies and working my way to a little Ecstasy Powers of my own. You can play a variety of game modes including story, survival, challenge and even a “dress-up” mode that allows you to add (or take off) clothing, and accessories such as hats, shoes and even make-up to your characters. Options for this mode are woefully sparse at the beginning of the game, but you unlock new items as you play through the story. At least that was the impression I had starting out. After playing through several levels and seeing messages like “cowboy hat earned” pop up on my screen, I returned to the “dress-up” mode menu to find no obvious way to change my character models. I chalked this up to one of many glitches I would encounter while playing the game.I chose “Story Mode” in the main menus and proceeded to start the game. While I waited for the game to load, I was greeted by a mini-game screen that reminded me a bit of Castle Crashers where the player gets to hack down an ever-increasing onslaught of cartoonish zombies with an equally cartoonish bikini samurai. This was a nice little diversion to pass the time during loading screens. As is the case with many Japanese titles, Onechanbara relies on a heavy amount of cut-scenes to set up the plot, giving the player ample time to enjoy this mini-game. Sadly, this became my favorite part of the title.
The first cut-scene was the stuff of schoolboy wet dreams. The camera does a slow pan revealing one of our sisters, Aya, taking a shower. Displayed in vivid detail that left little to the imagination, this intro made the DOA series seem G-rated. This scene faded into some footage of a TV news report about the impending zombie apocalypse, but to be honest, I really didn’t catch much of what was said. One thing I noticed was considerable horizontal tearing of the picture during the cut scenes, reminding me of my youth when my friend and I would try to unscramble his parents cable box to get access to the “adult” channels (boys will be boys).
Opening Cut Scene
What about the actual game play? When I was finally able to take control of Aya and Saki (you can switch from one character to the other on the fly by pressing the right trigger), I was met with the bane of many a third-person hack & slasher -- a mind-numbingly bad camera. Why is it that so many game developers cannot get this one aspect right? It should be easy. Keep the camera behind your character and point it in the direction she's facing, right? Wrong.Much like the early Resident Evil games (ok like all the Resident Evil games), the camera and controls made me feel like an epileptic child with vertigo. No matter how I tried, I always seemed to end up facing a wall or the ground with the zombie I was trying to kill behind me wailing away like Alfie in the fight scene from A Christmas Story. And just like Alfie, I was unconsciously cursing up a storm and bashing the controller with my hands in a fit of rage. And this was only the first level.
Determined to at least garner a few achievement points for my troubles, I soldiered on, even as invites to play a much more enjoyable zombie-fest (Left 4 Dead) came in via XBL. The game play is basic hack & slash fair. You mow through a cookie-cutter collection of zombies using the Y-button to kick, the X-button for your swords (or guns in the case of Anna, who shows up in the fourth chapter – I did make it that far) and the A-button for jumping.
As you kill more monsters, your screen & sword both become covered in blood. In a bow to classic martial art sword techniques, you must clear the blood off your sword off with an occasional “suburi,” or cleansing cut. If you do not, your blade will become stuck in zombie flesh, leaving you open to attack as you attempt to remove it. The B-button allows you to switch up weapons and, in the case of Aya, pressing both bumper buttons simultaneously results in dual wielding two swords (a fact that I stumbled across in Chapter 3 purely by mistake). Dispatching zombies occasionally results in the appearance of power-ups, including a “Maiden Statue Head,” which when used, brings your character's “ecstasy” rampage to an end, saving her from bleeding to death.
Aya With Zombies in Tow
At the end of Chapter 1, I received an in-game notice announcing its completion. Excellent, I thought, at least I will get some achievement points for my troubles. But I was not even granted this small consolation for the utter un-playability I had endured. Apparently, the achievements in Onechanbara are as broken as the game play itself. I was left with no tangible reward.I played through Chapter 4 and got far enough into the story to learn that a band of villains were out to drain the Bikini Samurai of their “Baneful Blood” and use it for some nefarious purpose. But by the time I got to this point, I could care less about the story or anything else. Even the potential promise of more au-natural cut scenes could not persuade me to carry on (and remember, I am a big, dumb guy here).
Though I cannot honestly say that I expected much from Onchanbara – Bikini Samurai Squad, I at least held out hope for some cheap thrills and maybe a few achievement points. Sadly, as is the case with most wet dreams, I was left feeling less than satisfied, disoriented and a little dirty. As Austin Powers might say “I was spent.”
Avoid this game and its inevitable sequel “Twochanbara – One Zombie” like you would the online video of similar nomenclature. You have been warned.
Don't Follow Her - You Will Regret It
