This is the story of the hatred between two sisters in Tokyo in the year 20XX. Aya grew up as an only child with her father, who gave her a strict training in the art of the sword. But now he has been killed and she is seeking revenge. Saki was brought up an only child by her mother, but saw her die of illness and poverty and swore vengeance on the father who abandoned them to follow the way of the sword. Saki then discovered an ancient art to bring her mother back to life, but to do this she must have the heart of her half-sister Aya. In a tumult of love, hate and rage the battle between the sisters has commenced. Progress through the game as you literally cut an army of undead to pieces!

What do you get when you mix Devil May Cry with Resident Evil and DOA Beach Volleyball?? The Onechanbara!!!! This game is Volume 61 in the Simple 2000 Series. The game was meant to retail at about twenty bucks, so don't expect a full out 20 hour adventure, but this game does pack more for your buck than you would expect. Onechanbara is a pun, which translates closely to “elder sister sword fight”. In the game, you play as Aya, a hot girl wearing a cowgirl hat and boots, while sporting a cute lil bikini and scarf, all while wielding a katana. And to make the game even odder, you slice up herds of zombies rising from the ground.

The graphics in this game are surprisingly well, especially for a blue back disc. Aya is very smooth and for the most part, moves smoothly. The backgrounds, while not many and very similar to each other, are also pretty well looking, and feature a good amount of detail. The enemies, which also don't have a wide variety of, aren't so great. They tend to be a bit choppy, and have a low polygon count, but they still look decent. More variety of monsters attack as the game goes on, and even the zombies get updates as the game progresses. Some of the bosses are huge, and look great on screen. The gore looks great also. Gallons of blood spew from enemies, and body parts fly in every direction. Even your sword gets blood and guts on it, and if you don't clean it, it will get stuck in enemies when you impale them.

The music is decent, not so good you would go out and buy a soundtrack, but not so horrible you put the volume on mute. Some of the tunes, like the title screen track, are actually quite good, and tend to grow on you. The music is a mix of rock and techno, and fits in with the quirkiness of the game. Zombies moan like usual, and Aya has a cute voice, and she talks before levels, and yells and screams when attacking or being attacked. She also pants when she's tired or hurt, and it all sounds great.

The game play is also decent. Not as good as Devil May Cry, but a lot better than other finished and polished fifty dollar games to be released stateside. Combat at times can get a bit choppy, but mainly because of the large amount of enemies on screen at once. Sometimes more than fifteen enemies can be surrounding you at a time. Aya can go into blood overdrive mode and slice and dice in every which way, which even sends blood splatter on the TV screen itself. Gameplay itself is very addicting and fun. Just running around killing zombies and collecting keys to move on the next area is awesome. Aya just looks so hot doing her business. The difficulty can be changed from easy to hard. While I'm not to sure what the game was about or what some of the items did, because I don't speak Japanese, it was still easy to beat and you get the hang of it quickly.

With more costumes and even a secret character to open up, the game has a high replay value. Aya also sports an RPG like leveling up system, where you reward her with points earned after every stage to increase her health, vitality, and so on. The game itself is only about six hours in length, and has six stages, which is really the same three stages repeated twice, with you being able to explore more of the area the second time through. Survival mode is simple, yet fun. You stay in an enclosed graveyard and kill herds of enemies, and then fight a boss. You keep doing this until you die. Simple, but its still fun to see how far you can get before dieing.

I'm torn between an 8 and a 9. I feel that the game is better than an 8, but not quite good enough for a 9. While not a game for everyone, It's still better than plenty of more expensive and bigger games released. If you're a fan of quirky or different games, gory action games, or even hot girls in bikini's, then this is definitely a title to pick up. And for about Twenty bucks, how can you go wrong? Just make sure your system can play import games.