Strip those who stand in your way, free Akihabarafrom all evil and become the number 1 otaku. Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed is crazy, but you can’t help but love it.
Akihabara is under attack from vampire-like foes called “Synthisters”, who feed on the energy of Akiba’spopulation and it’s your job to stop them, how? By removing their clothes and exposing them to sunlight of course. Now, now, it’s not as creepy as it sounds thanks to the fact the game is very well-written, often hilarious and is spilling with geeky references.Players are able to explore the otaku playground that is Akihabara, hang out in maid cafés, eat ramen and buy goods, in-between beatingSynthister’s clothes off with laptops, posters, glow sticks, and tons of other random weapons. You’ll be joined in your mission by the Akiba Freedom Fighters, a group of friends who patrol the area and make sure their paradise remains peaceful. The cast are all great, there’s nothing particularly special about them, but they are all charming and funny in their own way.
Players will be spending a lot of time hacking and slashing their way through crowds of enemies. In order to defeat the energy sucking losers, they must be stripped, which can be achieved by weakening their clothes. The battle system is simple, you attack headgear with Triangle, upper body with Circle and lower body with X, when their clothes shine, it’s time to reveal their birthday suit. When facing a large group you can chain together your strip, resulting in a special move which also removes their underwear, for the ultimate embarrassment, allowing you to collect their briefs, lucky you.
You are able to partner up with the members of the Akiba Freedom Fighters, deepening your bonds and gaining the ability to use a special stripping technique. It’s bizarre, its wonderful, it’s fun, and overall it’s an enjoyable system. However, there are issues. When facing a large group of enemies it can be a real pain getting a chance to attack, as they are all teaming up on you. This isn’t a big deal on the easier difficulties, but on one of the harder settings, you’ll find yourself naked and reaching the game over screen pretty quickly. Frustrating! There are frame rate issues and the camera seems to have a life of its own at times, generally, it’s not a problem, but when battling an army of enemies, the last thing you need is to be faced with a wall blocking your view or a delay in your attacks. The other problem is how slow it takes the NPCs to appear when you enter a new area. You can be walking around for a good length of time before they start to pop up, which can make side missions difficult as the person you need to speak to might not appear.
Graphically the game isn’t anything special, but it’s still nice to see real stores and locations featured, if you’ve never visited Japan and want to, or even if you have visited and would love to go back virtually, this game does a fantastic job at bringing Akihabara to life. The loading screens feature real advertisements from the area, and even recent anime and game releases, it’s a nice touch to an already detailed game.
Akiba’s Trip has a lot of content aside from the main story, the game has multiple endings, side quests, mini-games and a great variety of weapons, clothes and accessories to unlock, as well as access to a battle arena. The game can be completed very quickly maybe in 4 or 5 hours if you rush through it on the easiest setting and ignore all of the optional content, but there is so much to see and do in the game that it would be a waste to skip it all. New Game + allows you to keep all of your weapons and gear, and even includes an option to help you on your way to viewing all of the endings. The soundtrack is fine, nothing memorable and the voice acting is strong, there are both English and Japanese voices available so whether you prefer the original Japanese voice-overs or the dub, the game has you covered.
