Pretty awful
Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad is the sequel to the Wii version Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers. The title is a little misleading, since there isn’t a squad of bikini samurais, only one character wears a bikini. Also what the title doesn’t tell you is that the game is terrible.
Onechanbara would have been better off with no story, that way there would have been fewer load screens (which there are plenty). The story is completely nonsensical, contrived garbage which is lazily used to paste together each chapter. It will be told either by narration, horrible looking stationary RPG style dialogues or CG cut scenes. They didn’t even bother dubbing over the original Japanese dialogue (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), so you’ll have to read if you want to follow the story, but I’ll suggest just skipping everything.
The gameplay is limited bare bones hack and slash with RPG elements. There isn’t much of a combo system in place, aside from timing your attacks. However, all that does is increase the damage to the same looking attack. You have a sword attack, a melee attack, and a ranged attack. That’s it. The only way to extend your combos is by leveling up your skill, which can take a long time.
Playing through on normal difficulty is quite easy also. So I thought I would try the game on hard, and the difficulty jump is quite dramatic. It’s not particularly because the game is all that hard, it’s just because the game design and controls make it impossible for you to perform the task you want to perform. In order to perform a dodge, you have to have a target selected. The problem arises when the target (this example mostly applies to a boss fight) randomly changes on you and you start rolling towards the boss instead of around the boss. They made the bosses super cheap as well, allowing them to perform attacks that can easily take off half your health without you able to do anything. Also sometimes hitting the dodge button did nothing, and I have no idea why…
A lot of the game’s frustration comes from poor design choices as opposed to real gameplay challenge, like in similar hack and slash games like Ninja Gaiden. The controls are extremely unresponsive. I had trouble reloading my guns a lot; I would have to spam the reload button several times to get it to work sometimes.
Don’t expect anything other than hacking and slashing in this game either, because there is nothing else. There is one brief level where you ride a motorcycle, but you are still expected to hack and slash in that level too. Also, don’t go near a wall. If you get stuck on the wall, getting off is ridiculously difficult. It’s a little shocking how unpolished this game is. The camera bounces around like crazy too, often blinding you from oncoming enemies. There are also these quests in the game, that as you complete them you unlock costume parts for your 3 characters. The funny part about that is you don’t know what the quest conditions are until you complete one level of the quest! You could easily play through the entire game without completing a single quest, unless you check the Internet for the requirements.
The only particularly good quality to this title is its replayability. If you can stand this game at all, there is enough incentive to continue to level up your character and try harder difficulties. Also, once you know what the quests are, some of them provide a reasonable challenge which unlocks costume upgrades. It can be amusing to dress up (or dress down…) your characters with what you have unlocked. There is also a local split screen co-op action if you want to play with (or torture) a friend, but that is limited to the levels that you don’t play alone. There is absolutely no online component here.
The visuals in this game are lazy and look last-gen. The character models look decent, but everything else looks awful. The enemies (with the exception of some bosses) look like clumps of blurred textures mashed together and the environments are bland and uninspired.
If you are a hack and slash addict, you may find value in renting this title, but otherwise I strongly recommend people to stay away from this boring and frustrating game.
