Developer: Tamsoft
Publisher: D3 Publisher
Platform: PC, PS4
Tested on: PS4
Onee Chanbara Origin – Review
Killing zombies with a sexy lady in a bikini sounds like the ultimate zombie movie enthusiast’s dream. Getting to play through this bloody nightmare might even seem like a bigger adventure and a lot of fun for said fans of the genre. While this series has been around for a while, now warranting a remake of the first two games, the series doesn’t know what it wants to do or become. When we noticed approximately four different ways of how the title of this game was spelled, on official sources from the developer and publisher, and even the home screen of our PlayStation 4, we weren’t surprised with the eventual shortcomings of this remake.
Story
The story is a bit weird in this remake of the original two titles. You basically get to play as a perky, skimpy clothed zombie slayer who is looking for her sister. This is basically all you have to make do with at the beginning of the game, and it doesn’t really go much deeper than that. Some cheesy one-liners get thrown around and from there on out, you get tiny bits of story content after clearing every short chapter. It’s not really an engaging plot but it is there to basically keep you going. Don’t expect too much story value diving into this one.
Graphics
Graphically, Origin looks quite nice, with the character models being quite impressively handled, the bosses you battle each having a unique look and the terrains being nicely textured, albeit sometimes very empty. Sadly, when you keep seeing the same zombie models over and over again and then add on top the limited variety of different types of zombies, things get stale quite quickly. The game looks nice, and the occasional fan service will please many fans of the series, but it’s nothing more than ‘nice’.
Sound
The sound design of this neatly packed collection is quite nice, with proper voice acting and upbeat music to keep you going. While the music may loop a bit fast for our taste, it’s still decent and gets you in the mood. The limited story content being conveyed by the voice acting is fun to listen to and has a proper anime-like vibe.
Gameplay
Onee Chanbara Origin (fingers crossed at least one source is writing the name correctly) is a traditional hack and slash game in which you kill zombies with a perky lady that wears nothing more than a skimpy bikini. This game pits you against zombies and other ghoulish critters but sadly you can’t go around mashing buttons, as you will be stuck quite early in the game if you do. The game requires you to perform certain moves, fill gauges for finishing blows and so on, and this will get very tedious and annoying for casual players just wanting to kill some zombies with a sexy protagonist. Well, you’d be doing this if you get past the introduction screen, which actually freezes when wanting to play the game. If this happened, we had to turn off our console first before we could eventually get the game to work. This is apparently a common issue, even with the PC version of the game.
As mentioned above, the game looks like a normal hack and slash title, but you’ll be forced to cross hurdles in no time. You will be able to dispose of the general riffraff with your basic combos, but after a while, you can only kill certain enemies by countering, blocking, stunning them, or by filling up a special gauge that allows you to perform a finishing blow. The latter is especially annoying as it depletes quickly when not striking the enemy that requires the killing blow, often forcing you to go through the entire ordeal again. Combine this with shoddy camera controls and a poor lock-on mechanism and you’ll be annoyed quite quickly.
Conclusion
Onee Chanbara Origin is a decent project, but it doesn’t feel finished at all, and becomes tedious and tricky rather quick. The game wants to be fast-paced but becomes hampered when having to perform very specific commands or fill gauges to actually perform certain moves. The nicely animated jacket and voice acting don’t save this one from becoming a bland mess, if you even get past the introduction screen that is. Fun if you can score this one when heavily discounted, otherwise only decent for fans of the original.
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