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Evil crawls the night, and only a super-hot vixen in a string bikini and a cowboy hat can slaughter the undead to save us all! Take on the role of Aya or her little sister Saki, both of whom will need to put their legendary samurai skills to the test in order to battle legions of zombies terrorizing their city. Armed with only their swords and their beauty, these deadly sisters will stop at nothing to rid their home of the zombie threat. Every person they meet and enemy they battle gets them closer to understanding who or what is behind this zombie outbreak and putting an end to it. Babes, bikinis, zombies and swords … who could ask for more!

Genre: Action

Publisher: D3 Publisher

Developer: Tamsoft

Online Play:

Local Play: 2 Co-op

February 17, 2009 –
Over two years passed from the time Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad was released in Japan to its arrival on US store shelves. It wasn’t a good game when it came out in Japan and time has not been kind. With essentially no work done in dusting the code off, D3 Publisher has delivered a game that will make most everybody turn away in disgust. There is very little to like in this hack-and-slash action title so don’t worry about missing out on anything special if you decide to pass on Onechanbara.

This is one of those games that hopes to sell itself to gamers based solely on the premise. In this case, the premise is girls in skimpy outfits fighting zombies with swords and guns which results in a lot of blood pouring this way and that. There is little in the way of substance or compelling gameplay to back up this concept.

In fact, Onechanbara is about as exploitative of the female form as console games get these days. Like most everything about this title, though, it can’t even get that right. The game opens with a cutscene of a girl in a shower, teasing her private parts through camera cuts and steam. This pre-rendered cutscene is wrought with screen tearing and things only go downhill from here. The developers tried to add physics to the girls’ breasts to give them some jiggle in their skimpy outfits but only ended up making them look creepy. There’s also a dress-up mode where you can change the girls’ looks and a view mode that unlocks after beating the game. There you can simply put a girl through any of her animations repeatedly and watch. Unfortunately, the animations here are downright bad.

Click the image to see Onechanbara in motion.But really, if near-naked girls are what has you excited about Onechanbara, I’d like to introduce you to Google. It’s free.

I would describe Onechanbara as a traditional hack-and-slash game, but in general I view the word ‘traditional’ as having somewhat positive connotations. There is very little here that could be construed as positive. Run down the list of what makes up a shoddy game and you’ll essentially describe Onechanbara. Muddy controls, an annoying camera, ugly graphics, repetitive level design, little variation from one stage to the next, and an awful story are just the beginnings of the problems found here. Compared to today’s sophisticated games, Onechanbara feels — and looks — like a dinosaur.

The game follows two sisters who carry the Baneful Blood, a curse/power that gives them great strength and makes them go into a rage mode when covered in too much blood. It’s up to these girls, Aya and Saki, and their friend Annna (that is not a typo) to kill zombies and take down the evil Organization. In general, this involves slicing, dicing, and shooting your way through hordes of goofy looking zombies that oftentimes materialize out of thin air, followed by a boss fight. Sometimes the levels just end abruptly, but you’ll come to expect such oddities after a short time with this game.

Riveting.The gameplay follows the blood theme quite closely. With Aya and Saki, you’ll have to monitor the amount of blood on the swords and the girls. Too much hemoglobin on the blades and they’ll dull or get stuck inside a zombie. If the girls become covered in blood they’ll go into rage mode, a state where they’ll deal extra damage at the cost of taking more and suffering a constant slow life drain.

Most stages in Onechanbara can be played cooperatively locally (there is no online play here). With a frustrating camera, the more limited view that split-screen offers makes the game a bit more aggravating, but the game is significantly more fun with a friend. Nobody likes to suffer alone.

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