Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed Review – A Light Stripping Adventure

Developer: Acquire
Platform: PC, PS3, PS4, PS4 Pro & PSVita
Rating: M

Few games have intrigued me the way that Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed has. Though I’m not talking about how it has won me over, rather it’s the way it so simply makes itself a cliché and therefore knows how silly it is, which in turn makes it that more entertaining to play.

So, what is this game I’m talking about? Well Akiba’s Trip is a game made by Acquire Corp. in the Unity engine nonetheless, that I believe is a good engine from which many games and animation movies have been made from. (I tried my hands on this for making an app and animation once, wasn’t the prettiest to say the least but fun to have mad)
The narrative of the game is fairly simple if you’ve watched a ton of anime series before, but I will keep it short to not spoil too much of what happens further as the game unfolds before your eyes.

You as the main character wake up in a cellar of some sort surrounded by mysterious men, where one is telling you that you are a successful experiment and soon will be ready for their plan. Suddenly a beautiful purple-silver-ish haired girl busts in and save you, but not before you take damage and from there must uncover what is going on in the city of Akiba…or by its full name Akihabara. You and your merry band of freedom fighters are trying to keep the city safe by the now supernatural phenomenon happening around you, and the only way you can defeat these miscreants…is by ripping their clothes off (hence the game is called Undead and Undressed).

Decent art style and I must say auch to the attack

By a simple look, this game is shown as a JRPG, but is more of a action brawler game with light RPG elements. It has a mixture of many things, the game plays out as a 3^rd person action game, but the story is being presented as a visual novel when characters are talking with each other during main story quest, yet it stays with its 3^rd person view when during side quests. Which in turn implements the fact that your character can get together with one of your fellow freedom fighters (though it is only with the women I’m afraid, if you were hoping for something with a male…it’s only something that can be dreamed off like other NPCs does). By choosing the correct response to the characters at hand and for this I mean at the certain character in the main story quest you are doing, will net you “points” towards their affection.

This allows you to experience the game with different endings and it then can make you enjoy the companion of your choice (I managed to do it with all but one girl that wasn’t possible to “romance”). Though you can use guides as to see how to get each of the girls so you can get all endings of the game, there is a mechanic in the game that allows you to see how much you are faring with each of the girls. This can be done by talking with one of your compatriots of the freedom fighters named Yuto Tachibana, he then tells you who likes you the most.
It’s not the most incredible mechanic, but more of a omage to older games where it wasn’t made abundantly clear how well you are doing with each character, so for me it was alright at best but could have been done better instead of him talking in vague answers.

By tapping the right button you are in a tag of war to rip of clothes!

The one thing that is pretty clear is that you are going to fight…a lot in this game and in the beginning, even for me up to the sixth time I played through the game on the two hardest difficulty. Though that might be because the fighting mechanics can be a bit…finicky to best put into words. There were many a times where I was trying to guard a simple attack and the guarding didn’t register, when going in for a grap against specific clothing and it targeted the opponent next to my target or even just that some weapons was able to make its attack hit even when I had hit them.
Does that mean that the fighting in the game is boring? Not at all actually, since you have a multitude of different weapons to soothe your otaku self that suits your own playstyle. I tried all weapons that was available in the game and settled in the end for the water guns, since not only were they fast and had a decent reach. It’s the only weapon in which you can really bait your opponents into an attack that can hit all in the vicinity. Yet it also suffered from framerate issues whenever you went into a stripping combo, that made it near impossible to get over 20 in a combo when fighting huge mobs of enemies.

You can also from the many weapons that you either buy or get from stripping your opponent be upgraded (or synthesize according to the game). By selecting the different clothes or weapons when talking to the main character’s sister Nana, you can upgrade the things that you enjoy the most and have them become even more powerful.
However, I found that it quickly became apparent the more you get stronger with each upgrade you do, the less the materials gathered are worth spending money on upgrading your weapons and clothes. Which in turn made it clear that it’s just easier whenever you have the money to go buy it at stores around different districts in Akiba.

Some funny animations happens when doing your supermove with a partner

Another few mechanics I quickly will touch upon was that not only you could get better at stripping your enemies by buying magazines from stores, but the partner you are patrolling with can help you perform special moves that functions as a super attack which if you are against a boss or a mob of enemies, can be very helpful as it does a ton of damage and stuns the target(s) as well. Yet I must point out that it doesn’t always function the way it’s supposed to and given that you will have to upgrade your partners weapons plus clothes, it can get tedious farming the necessary money and materials. Otherwise they will get their clothes destroyed before they even can do a dent against an opponent for you in battles.
Personally I gave up on making my partners equipment better, as I became stronger and therefore it was easier to deal with the threats on my own. Instead they became dummies for the opponents to focus on while I baited the others around, taking my time with each fight.

 

While some might call this a mindless brawler, I instead call a game not too serious or too boring, but an average game at best that has its fun moments from time to time. The combat can be repetitive but that is for you to change with different weapons and trying out their individual combos, however I can say it just becomes something you do and only a few will be hard to conquer.
Now, the music in the game is nothing major to speak of, it does what must but doesn’t bring anything new or great to the table (still there was one I kept enjoying by visiting a certain shop in the game).

Voice acting is actually pretty good in both English and Japanese, this made me enjoy the story of the game as well as the banter between the different characters in the game besides the mute protagonist. Here it is up to what you enjoy the most but give both a try and see that it’s not so bad like other anime movies or series have done in the past.

 

This game with all its flaws and points it gets right, I’m willing to give Akiba’s Trip the final score of:

So if you enjoy a light snack of a decent game that I implore to get on a sale or if you can borrow from a friend then it can be an enjoyable experience. However, if you aren’t into brawler games with a very cliché story and characters to boot. Then this might not be for you, for the rest I can only say I enjoyed myself from start ‘til finish and will serve as a good appetizer before diving headlong into a giant RPG next.

 

Nevertheless, do tell me what you guys think of this game. Write it down in the comments as I would love to hear your thoughts on this, what made this game good or bad for you and exactly why.
Stay Cozy and have a nice day!