Akiba’s Trip: Undead And Undressed has jumped over to the portable Playstation Vita console with its beat-em-up action gameplay presented in a third-person perspective. There’s an interesting and somewhat unique twist attached to this game: your objective is to strip people’s clothes off! But for good intentions, of course…well, sort of. You see, you need to do this act in order to determine who the blood-sucking super-human is.
Set in Tokyo, the story begins when someone has attempted to turn you into a complete vampire when suddenly a woman named Shizuku interrupts and rescues you. Considering that you have not been completely changed over, you learn how to use your newly acquired powers to hunt down these awful beings.
Akiba’s Trip: Undead And Undressed is pretty much standard when it comes to the graphics. The characters are designed adequately with enough detail attached while the buildings are somewhat realistic since they actually represent those in real life in Japan. With 10 areas to visit, you get some diversity in scenery. However, the number of loading screens during the travel in between can be irritating. As for the audio, it’s best to make use of the Japanese option as the voice acting is a lot better in this case than the English dubbing. The music is also as entertaining and memorable throughout the game. Overall, the presentation is a mixed bag, but it does the job in the end of it all.
While Akiba’s Trip: Undead And Undressed attempts to stand out with its premise, the idea behind it quickly becomes a novelty. The characters presented are pretty much regular and ordinary, even though there are some varieties nonetheless. Still, it seems that there is no motivation to get to know the characters at a deeper level. This is apparent when there really is no complete distinction besides the fact that there are “bad humans†versus the innocent regular ones.
In terms of the controls, Akiba’s Trip: Undead And Undressed is easy to figure out. You have the face buttons assigned to attack a specific body part of your target. After which, you will simply repeatedly press the corresponding button until that part wears down enough for you to grab it and take off the clothing on it. In practice, you will be coming up to a group of people to wear them down to the point where their clothing disappears, and then the combat begins. When there are multiple enemies involved, you can perform chain stripping and even end up with a strip finisher! On top of that, a number of different weapons are available to acquire and use in the game, including computers and baseball bats.
Part of the gameplay and combat is not just the attacks, but also avoiding damage given by your enemies. That said, you will need to dodge their attacks accordingly if you want to be able to progress in this game effectively. With that in mind, the whole dodging system feels unresponsive and sloppy. Further to that, with the camera angles being awkward at times, it makes this task even more difficult and unsmooth to pull off.
Luckily, there are things in this game that may keep the attention span in players and retain its replay value. Besides the main story, you can also perform mission on the side whenever you feel fit. In this case, you’ll need to journey to Akihabara where you’ll be given tasks which could include collecting pictures and purchasing a certain item as per request from a character. And of course, you can also beat up certain individuals who, let’s say, have not been exactly friendly and courteous, and therefore deserve the treatment. Whatever missions you engage in, there will be time limits attached. They can be challenging at times, but ultimately easy to get through.
Possibly adding to the game’s longevity is the variety of shops that afford you the chance to purchase weapons, items, and armor for you to use during combat. Furthermore, there is about 7 hours required to complete the story. But after that, you have new options included, such as choosing a new playable character.  Beyond that though, the replay value diminishes.  Therefore, certain players may end up disappointed with such limited content.
Akiba’s Trip: Undead And Undressed has an interesting idea, even though it may seem ridiculous and even sexist for some players. There are some shortcomings in terms of imperfect controls and ordinary presentation. Hence, whether or not you should consider this game for your Playstation Vita really depends on how much you enjoy the beat-em-up genre coupled with the stripping factor. If this is your ideal concept of a game, then you can’t go wrong with Akiba’s Trip: Undead And Undressed.
