Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed is now available on PlayStation 4 in Europe, and follows the increasingly alarming formula of taking an incredibly recent game, collating the DLC and giving it a quick polish. Unfortunately for Akiba’s Trip, It’s been caught with its pants down.
I’d recommend reading Fraser’s review of the PlayStation Vita version for a full dressing down of the game, as this review will mainly focus on the updated PS4 version and what it brings to the table.
We’ll start positive because there is a range of improvements to be had here. Firstly, it now renders in 1080p without the frame rate issues that fudged previous versions, and updated character models and lighting are welcome additions to complement this. There’s a new Toybox mode, which starts you off with one of everything and lets you run riot everywhere, which is a blast to play and you end up feeling a bit like King Thong. From here improvements, well, go downhill – there’s a visual editor which allows you to tweak filters and colour settings. Making the whole game feel like an Instagram feed or a new TRON game but there is little point to this feature other than filling out this title.
The last major addition is Twitch integration, hitting the share button to broadcast online not only allows people to watch, but also influence the game. Through certain text commands posted in the chat, viewers can help or hinder with a wide range of options, such as calling in backup to aid in a fight or turning every citizen against you. There’s also – unsurprisingly – a variety of panty based commands to be used at a whim. I feel pretty embarrassed playing this game by myself, let alone actively inviting my friend’s list to act as voyeuristic overlords, dropping my undercrackers and helping me undress half of Tokyo while they watch hidden from view.
Unfortunately, though, the transition to the PS4 turns out to be a bit of a Nightie-mare. At its heart, it’s a handheld game, and at a base level, the game design reaffirms this. Brief missions and interface designs that are fantastic for the small screen but seem lacklustre here. There’s a loading screen for almost everything and while the times are nothing major, it breaks up gameplay and on a home system, it’s very distracting. NPC pop in hasn’t changed and environment geometry is low, at odds with the improvements to lighting, texture and characters. The difficulty remains unchanged, and the ‘Gamer’ setting leaves me feeling very Bra-ssed off at constant retries.