PLATFORM: PC, PS4 (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Onee Chanbara Origin is a complete HD remake (new cel-shaded graphics, animations, voiceovers, the lot) of 2004/5’s two Onechanbara games, combining the story that spans both of those games into a single adventure. A scantily-clad young lady called Aya is trying to find her father in a world that’s overrun with the undead, but her sister – and rival – Saki has other ideas. That’s pretty much all you need to know on the story side of things – it’ll all feel fairly familiar if you’ve consumed pretty much any Japanese genre media from the last 20 or 30 years, but Onechanbara was never really known for its narrative strengths. Rather, its appeal lies in its fast-paced blood-soaked hack and slash combat (and probably the semi-nude ladies, if you’re into that sort of thing), and there’s certainly plenty of that sort of thing going on!
In keeping with the game’s mid-2000s origins, combat is on the simple side. Combos are performed with light and heavy attacks, and enemies can be finished off with a special move that also deals damage to anything nearby. Aya’s sword needs to be “reloaded” by wiping it clean of undead blood and gore, which can be done mid-combo to increase your overall score, and there are a few extra mechanics here and there to spice things up a bit. At the end of each chapter, you’re awarded a score based on your performance, along with a handful of experience points which can be used to boost your health, damage and defence, and you’ll automatically learn a few new combos as your overall level increases.
Most of the game’s chapters are fairly short and rarely involve anything more than walking a linear route through a few small rooms or areas, wiping out all of the enemies or bosses, then moving on to do it all over again somewhere else. There are no side quests or collectables or any of the other bits and pieces that we’ve become accustomed to over the years, but slicing through hordes of zombies and seeing their dismembered body parts flying all over the place amongst huge eruptions of bloodshed is enjoyable enough to keep pushing you through. Go into it expecting nothing more than a few straightforward but entertaining hours of zombie-slicing mayhem and you won’t be too disappointed.
