The Lamer Gamer

Well, I gave myself the rest of the weekend to find something to really hook me in OneChanbara, yet I found myself more interested in playing Team Fortress 2.

A number of reviews are popping up, mostly bad.  There was one counterpoint to the reviews that caught my eye.  Larry Sonntag makes a case for looking past the surface of the game and its presentation, which he acknowledges is sub-par, and trying to appreciate the visceral fun you can get out of it, namely in the combat area.

It isn’t that the game doesn’t have its moments, but even for a cheap hack and slash game, to me it’s not implemented well enough, developed, whatever you want to call it.  The combat system is okay, there are nifty combos to be had, and from what I hear better things I haven’t seen from finding items, resulting in more crazy combos and effects.  Truth is though, I had a way better time with Too Human which was nearly as repetitive, but had a light years better combat system.  TH’s Air Combat / Juggling to me is way more satisfying than what OneChan offers.  Not to start making too many comparisons between the two games but the enemy diversity also felt better in TH.

I think the ultimate indictment of OneChanbara is that it feels like if I want the game to be fun, I have to work hard at it.  Unlocking some items to make combat more interesting isn’t anything new, but the game to me is getting old and if I had to stick to hack an slash, I’d rather go back and play TH (which I really overplayed at the time), rather than plug away at OneChan any longer. 

So Sayonara OneChanbara, you’re heading back to GameFly.

OneChanbara arrived in the mail from GameFly yesterday, and within seconds I was having a strong reaction.  That reaction was NOT favorable.  

I already knew that the game was a 3 year old title that was simply being released in the US with an English translation.  Still, I’m surprised at how much it feels like a old game, largely based on the graphics, rough controls and terrible camera.

OneChanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad is a  is descended from a number of PS2 titles that had enough of a following in Japan to have a feature film produced.  This incarnation sort of feels like a early PS2 vintage game.  I didn’t really have high hopes to begin with, but when the opening video tears several times, as do most of the rendered cut scenes, It starts feeling cheap.  I would have figured in the last few years since the JP version came out they might have fixed it up a bit.

I really wonder if all they did to produce the 360 version of this game was to port code from the older PS2 versions.  The gameplay feels pretty old school as well, the graphics and movement are rough as I mentioned and the character gets stuck on hard edges often and there are frequent “Loading” screens.   There isn’t much of a selection of baddies either.

And yet, after the first few minutes of thinking that this was a real bust, I found myself having sat there for almost 2 hours.   Though the gameplay is coarse it’s still pretty simple.  Repeated mashing of random buttons results in losts of sliced up zombies and pleasant sprays of blood.  The boss battles aren’t that interesting, but hacking your way out from the middle of a large group of regular zombies is great.  Combos are a plenty and each chararcter has some unique moves, I think the little sister is the most fun to play, she does this charge, run up the enemy’s chest and attack thing that’s pretty cool.  The sexy angle in the game is a little odd.  I haven’t unlocked more than a handful of costume pieces but I can only imaging how much more stripperesque they become.   I was dead on with the busty cop outift comment in my previous post, it’s Anna’s (or is it Annna?) default getup.   An apparent comic bonus, the breasts of the characters bounce as if rubberized when they move.  

Also of note, after my 2 hours playtime, I hadn’t unlocked any Achievements, which was oddly satisfying.  I’m getting tired of Achievements that don’t mean anything.  Not that these ones are crazy good, but getting 5 pts for starting the Simpsons game was kinda dumb.

So we’ll have to see if this holds up.  I figure I’ll get one play through, but who knows, maybe it’ll be enough of a time sink to keep me busy for a few weeks on and off.

I’m still bummed about missing Afro Samurai on the first go round, but here’s a title being released this week that’s sure to cheer me up.  OneChanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad.  The name is just fun to say.  ONECHANBARA!  I think it’s akin to what the word Guacalmole must be for Japanese people, it just sounds like fun, or possibily what you might yell if on fire.

The game looks like a mash-up of the girls from Dead or Alive playing Left 4 Dead.  This of course fills a great void in the Afro Samurai experience, Zombies.  Sure the combat system won’t be as interesting as Afro’s, but to make up for it your character is a nubile woman clad predominantly in a Bikini, hence the title.  There are apparently other outfits available in the game, no doubt consisting of Japanese schoolgirl outfits, or those of a naughty nurse, or perhaps busty cop.  So the character is Dressed to Kill as it were, and kill you do, lots of zombies, spraying blood everywhere.  When doused with enough blood you enter some sort of berserker mode where you deal more damage and receive more as well.

 It’s probably not as coop oriented as L4D, but it does sport a local coop multiplayer mode.  I’m a big fan of local multiplayer in games, coop especially, so I’m willing to give this a shot and see if it’ll be good for few chuckles and at least a “DAAAAAAAAAAM!” or two.  

I can’t imaging this is much more than a quick rental, but my hack and slash quota is not being filled and I looks to be a while before GameFly ever sends a copy of Afro Samurai my way.