Originally released as OneeChanbara Vortex in Japan way back in 2006, Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Squad was one of those games we didn’t hold out much hope of seeing on our shores. Despite our proclivities towards zombies, samurai swords and bikinis, we weren’t too upset about that either. We had ‘enjoyed’ Zombie Zone (the original OneeChanbara on PS2) last generation, and while it was passed around from friend to friend so that everyone could experience its unique gameplay, it was largely for laughs. Sitting down with Onechanbara now after such a long wait, it was comforting to find that the game hadn’t lost anything in the generation jump.

It felt dated in the last generation and it certainly hasn’t evolved much in the intervening years. The one interesting and clever thing about the first game in the series remains the most interesting thing, and that’s the sword meter, which fills up as you kill zombies. This meter indicates the sharpness of your blade and how much blood it’s covered in. Too much blood and it will stick in the zombies rather than slicing straight through them. A periodic tap of l swipes the sword through the air, discarding the blood on the ground.