Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad isn’t shy about being an exploitive piece of entertainment that focuses on the joy of scantly clad woman and gamers love for zombies. Draw your sword! It's time to slaying a few hundred zombies.

Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad was developed by Tamsoft who would be most famous for their Playstation/Sega Saturn release of Battle Arena Toshinden. The Toshinden series is an odd exclusion from rival of fight games recently, but Toshinden fans don't have to look far for that "Toshinden touch" because Onechanbara has it. What is the Toshinden touch? Well it is the ability to make a campy exploitive experience by borrowing different influences to make their own “B” styled game. Onechanbara is just that, a "B" styled slasher, but that is obvious before you even load the disc up. Onechanbara that it isn’t going to be a top pick on anyone’s “BEST OF” lists, but I'm sure it will make it to a few “Guilty Pleasure” listings.

Believe it or not, Onechanbara is a popular franchise in Japan. Onechanbara has been made into a film last year and has even been shown in North America at the Asian Film Festival in June. In all honestly the movie doesn’t look that bad given the subject matter, really who doesn’t love Bikini Cowgirls and Zombies! In the game version of Onechanbara the story will print out on the screen like a low budget Star Wars intro while including a few CGI cut-scenes to mix it up. It’s all very old school, 90s production of gaming.

In Bikini Samurai Squad you will control one Bikini clad cowgirl (Aya) and her younger sister, the not-so innocent schoolgirl (Saki). The two sisters embark in an adventure that will send them into the city to slash up and eliminate a zombie outbreak. It’s not Resident Evil and it’s surly not Dead Rising, however for what it is, it is one bloody zombie chopping adventure. Onechanbara works on the slasher mechanic, think Dynasty Warriors with zombies. The gameplay is extremely simple to get into and master which works in Onechanbara's favour. Onechanbara is button mashing at its finest with a few extra points to watch a long the way. This means anyone can pick up and play a little big of the Samurai Squad a feel like a real bad-ass zombie crushing monster.

Once you are in the game it flows naturally. Onechanbara basically pushes you to defeat hordes of zombies in a given area before you can move onto the next. The further you advance in the game the more difficulty the enemies will become. This jumps around from small zombie-dogs to giant zombie monsters that look like a giant boulders of flesh. The design elements are lacking for most of the game and few moments or monsters have a glimmer of interest. All the brainstorming must have gone into the schoolgirl/cowgirl combination. It would have been a little more interesting if Tamsoft could have used the games sexuality in both the heroines and the enemies. Why not Bikini Samurai Cowgirls vs. Zombie Ninja French Maids? Now that's worth talking about.

The combat system is light and never becomes overbearing. Each character has their own set of moves that can be mixed up for various results. Like a fighting game you can also switch up the action between two girls darning the game play. This “Hot Tag” type of feature spices up the action and lets you get maximizes combos when jumping between players. Beyond the combo’s you can also unleash the characters inner power when they are covered in too much blood. This makes the characters ultra-fast and powerful to bring down the biggest enemies in a few shots. The only thing to watch is the draining of your health. Items can be picked up along the way to kick you out of this “RAGE” mode, or to heal your character. To access your inventory you have to hit the ‘back’ button, something that I didn’t realize until after chapter 5. From Aya’s double Katana skills, to Saki’s back suplexes and the vibration of rage red, Onechanbara keeps enough energy pumping to make it through the games 20 levels.

Aside from the main storyline Onechanbara's has a number of other selections that branch off the main menu. Given the are all off shoots of the games button mashing formula, so it's nothing to write home about, but it is a few extra gaming options which is nice. Danger lurks around every corner and you can replay your favourite levels in Survival mode which puts you in the mix until your health runs out, free play which gives you freedom of replaying any level. Again these extra's are nice, however the best added feature to Onechanbara is the ability to play the game with a friend. Partnered up this game because a lot more fun. It’s one of those games you can throw in at anytime and mindlessly blow an hour or two and having a friend around makes it more a lot more tolerable.

Onechanbara falls into sleazy territory, if you can believe it, with their costume editor. This allows you to edit the characters ground up from their underwear to their porn-approved wardrobe. However slutting your characters up can’t be done right off the bat. You are going to have to work at unlocking articles of clothing on the characters with the games “Quest” system and subsequently though level completion. The quest system asks rewards the player from completing hidden requirements in a level. These are directly tied to achievements, so achievement hounds you will have to stick with the game a little while to collect all 27. The games not-so-obvious and tougher quests will keep a lot of gamers coming back to Onechanbara again and again.

Keeping the mojo rising, the girls in the game will be joined by a third playable character that has the equal amount of required cleavage to be a supporting character. All three girls are like the B-Movie, zombie slaying version of Charlie’s Angels, minus all the other facts besides having three hot girls in common. Like the addition to the roster, Onechanbara has a few other surprises added into the mix that keep the gameplay campy fresh.

The spot where Onechanbara gets into trouble isn’t with the slashing mechanics of the gameplay; it’s the poor showing in the graphics. The Xbox 360 version of the game could be mistaken for the Wii, well if you never seen the Onechanbara on the Wii. The graphics are choppy and filled with screen tears that pop up frequently. Suspiciously Onechanbara has a lot of loading to do which is odd given the low resolution details in the game, and that the levels are repeated. To keep your mind off the load times a cartoon version of Aya and cartoonish blue zombies can be hacked up to help pass the time. Depending on the load times you can get a single swing in, or a few dozen. The loading mini-game is charming at first, but it grows old after a while. I’m sure gamers would have opted for quicker loading in place of the mini-stabbing of zombies.

It’s obvious, Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad isn’t for everyone. The low production values, old school button mashing gameplay and exploitive use of half naked woman might turn the majority of gamers off Onechanbara zombie mashing, however these same facts might help the game attract a certain audience. I’m not to sure what category I fall into, however even though Onechanbara isn’t technically adept, I found myself playing through the story campaign and messing around with a few of the extras.

If you can stomach the first hour then your are likely going to be hooked, well for a little while at least. Onechanbara is only a rental though. I would have to be insane to recommend gamers pay full price for this title. Until it hits the discount bins, save your cash... and you know it’s headed in that direction in a few months. If you are not excepting anything more than a low-rent version of Dynasty Warriors with Bikini clad girls and zombies then feed your guilty pleasure and check out the girls of Onechanbara.

Gameplay:6, Graphics:4.5, Sound:4.5, Innovation:5, Mojo:6  Final: 5.2 / 10

Reviewed by Downtown Jimmy | 02.16.09

	A Cowgirl Samurai in a Bikini Not so serious. campy B-level Fun Co-Op mode, plus lots of extra modes Slash em' up action is strangely amusing Three girls are better than one
	The graphics and sound are extremely dated Voice work isn’t in English Framerate and screen tearing issues Brain-dead button mashing with little substance Repetitive enemies, levels, and gameplay