『 THE お姉チャンポン～THE姉チャン２特別編～ 』

Ah, The OneeChanbara. What's more appealing than half naked, computer generated women, with big katana swords, slashing through the hordes of undead, half-dead and zombiefied foes? Nothing. OneeChanbara is just one of these series that you have to get to know before you can really appriciate how much fun it actually is. But let's start from the beginning.


The OneeChanbara is a series of hack and slash titles developed by Tamsoft Corporation [株式会社タムソフト] for D3, a publisher responsible for the Simple 2000 idea. "Simple" is a series of budget priced titles developed mostly by smaller companies for various platforms including PlayStation [Simple 1500], PlayStation 2 [Simple 2000] and Simple Wii.


"Simple" titles do not have the same production values as big, commercial titles, but they can be enjoyable nonetheless. One could say that the Simple series is the equivalent of Xbox Live Arcade or Wii Ware, offering titles developed by smaller companies, for reasonable cash. But back on the subject of The OneeChanbara ...


The developer behind The OneeChanbara is the previously mentioned Tamsoft. If the name doesn't ring a bell, try thinking of Battle Arena Toshinden or Choro Q. That's right. The guys didn't make it on the big market, so they decided to conquer the budget price world and to a degree, they succeeded.


Before I stant telling you about the gameplay, I'll explain the title. The OneeChanbara is actually a wordplay, combining two words: oneechan [older sister] and chanbara [sword fighting, a term commonly used to describe samurai themed movies]. So there it is. Sword fighting older sister. Different parts of the series can have slightly different titles and they usually are a pun of some kind aswell. The game you can see on the photos for example, The OneeChanpon: The Oneechan 2 Tokubetsuhen. Chanpon is a noodle dish originating from Korea consisting of fried pork, seaweed, vegetables and chicken soup as a base. The name itself means "a mix".


OneeChanbara games are often compared to Devil May Cry, and while both games are a hack and slash type titles, the way our character is controlled is completly different in Tamsoft's title. Controls are a bit crude, but there's not that much to complain about and all the flaws of the camera and steering are compensated by the auto aim funtion.


The game mechanics are simple. You can slash, you can kick and you can jump. While you're killing off your enemies, your sword starts dripping of blood, your attacks become slower and if the sword is too dirty, it will get stuck in the bodies of your enemies. You can easily clean it by shaking off the blood and that's pretty much it. You level, you have special moves, but the moves you'll be using will be short sword and kick combos.


The only upgrades that can be made to your character and that are worth mentioning are the costumes. You have to dress your babes for killing and you can dress them pretty nicely too. You can tell that most of the processing power is poured into how the main character looks.


If you think only Tecmo can make a game full of bouncy breasts and violence, think again. The OneeChanbara series is the number one with a bullet when it comes to babes and gore. There are six games out [seven, if you count the mobile phone title, but you can't get it aoutside of Japan, and without a phone registered with a japanese network] and I'll be reviewing them shortly, so be on the lookout and pick up this title now.