Developer: Acquire
Publisher: Acquire, NISA, XSeed
Platform: Playstation 3, Playstation 4,Playstation Vita
Tested on: Playstation 3
Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed – Review
Akihabara (Akiba for short) is a city in Japan that lies in Tokyo and functions as the electronic shopping part in Japan. Nowadays it is commonly known for its amount of shops that involve hobbies like anime, manga and games. But has there ever been a game that places you in that kind of world? Akiba’s Trip is a game that might be the very first title that revolves around that city, and might even be one of the more unique types of games that allow players to have simple fun with a nice touch of humor to top it off.
Story
As mentioned before, the game is set in the city of Akihabara, which lies in the suburbs of Tokyo and is a very popular place for fans of anime, games, manga and all kinds of nerdy stuff. Therefore the city is full of fans of the nerdy, and is the place to be. You will play as the main character, which name you can choose yourself and you awaken chained down on a table after falling unconscious during a job interview. You wake up to see a suspicious person watch over you as he starts telling you that you have been transformed into a man-made vampire like creature. These are called Synthisters, and posses power that exceed that of normal humans by a large margin. The man tells you that you have become one of them, and expects you to do his bidding. Obviously you refuse, and when you do a strange mysterious girl barges in and helps you get out of that strange place. The girl reveals that her name is Tokikazu Shizuku, and she herself is also some kind of Synthisters, but a little bit different from the usual. The next day you are told that you have indeed become a monster, but still have your conscious thanks to Shizuku, who makes a contract with you allowing you to keep your cool.
You lead Shizuku to your hideout, meeting up with your fellow nerdy friends and tell them about what has transpired. Your friends offer you help, and will try to find a solution. You’ll discover that the city is full of those so called Synthisters, who have been kidnapping nerds all over the city, turning them into Synthisters just like them. Thankfully, the fact that you yourself have amazing powers helps you combat them and fend them off by letting sunlight hit their (almost) whole body. You do this by stripping those monsters from their clothes, by using force. Along the way you’ll learn more about the organization that has started all this, meeting new people and friends.
Graphics
Just like most games that is made by NIS, this game offers you an anime-styled 3D game that looks pretty nice. The characters might seem rather bland sometimes, but that might just be some kind of realistic aspect to the game (since typical nerds don’t usually stand out). The character portraits are drawn really well, there have been made with care.
Sadly, the environments and the random people that you find out on the streets are a little lacking on the design part. Most of them look the same and don’t really seem very interesting. The various shops also look much the same, only with a different name, so it might be difficult to orient yourself around the map. Another small issue is the fact that you’ll see a bit of frame rate issues when walking or moving around the camera, but it won’t be too much of an annoyance.
Sound
The soundtrack is pretty good, there are tons of song that have something catchy about them. The voice acting can be set in either Japanese or English, which is definitely a nice option to have. These voices are also well done and don’t feel out of place.
However, in some areas there is no music present, making you listen to street noises or commercials. While this does make the city more realistic, the lack of background music doesn’t really brighten up walking and adventuring around the city.
Gameplay
Akiba’s Trip is a free-roam, beat’em type of adventure. You play in a party of two, where you can choose which partner you are with when venturing through the city of Akiba. You have two types of missions that you can fulfill: Main Missions and Side Missions. The Main Missions allow you to progress through the story, where there is no deadline before competing time. The Side missions are mission that do have a deadline before expiring, and are missions that are not mandatory as they do not progress the story in any way neither affecting it. The game offers tons of missions to do, so you’ll be busy enough before completing the game.
Combat is done in a beat’em up style. You have 3 types of normal attacks: High, Mid and Low. When fighting, the objective you have is stripping the opponent naked so that they burn in the sunlight. To do this you have to tear apart their clothes before you can strip them. You’ll need to strip all their clothes, but there are actually only 3 part you can strip: Headwear, Upper Body and Lower Body. When stripping you sometimes have the opportunity to do a link combo, instantly stripping another parts of the opponents clothes.
Be wary though, as battles can get pretty intense. Enemies will also try to strip you down, so try not to get hit to much because your clothes will also get destroyed. You have a defense option, so try to defend as much as possible in order to not lose your clothes. When a piece of your clothes is destroyed, it is ruined and you’ll not be able to reuse it, so you’ll need to equip other clothes that you can pick up as reward from defeating enemies or by buying it in the various shops.
There are all kinds of equipment that you can find. You can pretty much equip anything that you find, varying from computer monitors, to baseball bats or even party items (which are really annoying to fight with, still funny though).
Conclusion
After a couple of hours, you’ll probably feel that the game is pretty repetitive in its gameplay and sometimes lacking in the graphics part. However, that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of fun can be had with Akiba’s Trip as it certainly offers a special type of experience. The humor and the characters are fun, the tons of equipments make you customize your character and the amount of missions that are available will take up enough of your time. If you are interested, it is a game that is recommended for you to try out.
Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed - Review,
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