Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed

Akiba's Trip is filled with the things an otaku loves; strange plots, fanservice, Japanese culture/references and a great location. What it doesn't offer however, is a lot of depth, an overly lengthy story line or any shame.

In the end, a few technical shortcomings keeps Akiba’s Trip from reaching true greatness, but not from becoming a very recommended title.

Between a battle system unlike anything I’ve seen before and a story that pushes the boundaries of comedy, Akiba’s Trip has plenty of personality going for it. Expanding on the world of Akihabara itself would have elevated the experience into a truly classic one, but as is, fans of niche experiences still ought to take this trip.

Impressive for the self-proclaimed otaku that dreams about Akihabara and its preposterous shops, but redundant for many other players.

It’s the kind of the game that you can sit back and enjoy with an open mind, and be immersed in a world that seems so alien to western society.

Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed is far from a perfect package, but it’s certainly a charming one. It never takes itself too seriously, which makes its wacky subject matter all the more entertaining.

Your dyslexia serves you well, this should have been called 'Akiba Strip'. Par for the course brawling with lite-rpging, bewbs, but also some man-bulge, too. [September 2014, p75]

A flawed, but enjoyable RPG that pushes the limits of taste in western culture. Over-sensitive gamers of the social justice persuasion will hate it, but for those who are only looking for fun can pick this up and enjoy the humor and setting, and appreciate it for what it is: A piece of otaku fandom.

This magical recreation of Japan’s Akihabara District bolsters a magnitude of content and things to do, while the accessible yet rewarding combat makes traipsing through the cityscape pleasurable, feeling like a blend of a traditional beat’em up and something more like what the Yakuza series has to offer. Unfortunately, an unfathomable amount of fan-service and technical hiccups dampen the experience.

Akiba's Trip is like a summer blockbuster at the movies, it looks like it'll be a ton of fun, and it has its heart in the right place, but it's just missing a little bit of soul. Thanks to a sub-par battle system, and some technical flaws, it winds up wasting a lot of potential.

Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed is much like the real-world electronics district of Tokyo that it attempts to re-create: Sometimes it excites you, sometimes it underwhelms you, and sometimes you just so happen to wander into that particular back-alley shop and get very, very creeped out.

It’s certainly not a joke game, and the writing quality does elevate it for those who have an appreciation of the material that is being targeted, but the whole combat mechanic becomes so tiresome so quickly that you can’t help but wish the game could have been shorter, the story more focused, instead of the more positive elements of the game losing some of their sheen from hiding behind the rest of it.

At the end of the day, the humor alone can’t carry this title away from the chains of its boring, repetitive combat and poorly designed world.

Huge fans of Japan or Japanese games might find more to appreciate in this Akihabara-centered experience than I did, but as someone who looking for a quirky story or interesting combat, I came away feeling quite unsatisfied.

Although there’s a niche that will no doubt revel in the game’s eccentricity, those who cringe at otaku culture will find very little value here. Even looking past its more tasteless tendencies, the game’s combat is average and its design is repetitive. Still, it’s a complete write-off by any means, in part thanks to its vibrant depiction of Akihabara and the surprise inclusion of English voiceover.