Welcome to the first ever Destructoid Import Spotlight. Every episode of this feature will take a look at games that never quite make the journey to American shelves. What better way to launch said serial than with Oneechanbara vorteX for the Xbox 360. I believe the above video just about sums it up: a Japanese cowgirl, in a bikini, with a samurai sword… fighting zombies.
F***king. Awesome.
Hit the jump for more bikini-clad mayhem and details on why those pervy Japs get all the good games while we’re stuck with crappy hand-me-downs like Zelda, Shadow of the Colossus, and Final Fantasy…
The dare, nani, itsu and nazi:
Oneechanbara vorteX is actually the fifth in a long-running series of Oneechanbara games (mainly for the PS2) where two sisters, each raised by a different parent, battle all kinds of evil and look good doing it. Blah blah blah, no one plays these games for their weak attempt at a storyline. This is basically the Rumble Roses of button-mashing hack-and-slashes, and unfortunately, just like RR, this game falls short in the gameplay department. No matter how cool the trailer actually suggests this game could be, God of War this is not.
Still, it’s worth a play on principal alone for the ridiculously awesome premise. This is like something a bunch of pre-pubescent kids would think up in their room while watching blurry late-night Cinemax. The fact that it exists at all is awesome in and of itself, but of course, it wouldn’t actually play well. That would probably create a shift in the time-space continuum and end existence as we know it.
However, occasionally bad games end up being somewhat addictive, like P.N.03 for the Gamecube. I hated that game so much, but the more I played it the more I got hooked on trying to unlock suits, rack up high scores and survive the harder difficulties without being hit in the Papillion. For other gamers who still play inexcusable shite like Dynasty Warriors 5, if you’re going to slug your way through the same monotonous crap over and over again for hours on end, you might as well do it as a bikini-clad cowgirl or supermodel / police officer.
Chances of coming to the US:
This video shows that there was a decent amount of interest in bringing the series stateside by the developer, but since Oneechanbara barely slides by on sales in Japan and the fact that this video is quite old, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
