Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed, for PS3 and Vita, is not a Sega game, but fans of our favorite “love to hate” series, Hyperdimension Neptunia, are the exact target audience for this title. So I figured, why not give this one a swing. At worst, it’s a slapped together mess that only the most dedicated Otaku can enjoy. Well, after spending about 5 hours with the game, I can absolutely say it isn’t a mess. In fact, it might actually be good.
Akiba’s Trip, at its heart, is a beat ’em up. What makes Akiba’s Trip shine; however, is it not only succeeds as a beat ’em up, but it also uses the odd “stripping” mechanic to its advantage. Your enemy is a type of vampire. Kinda. Maybe. I dunno. It’s not important. What is important, is this enemy is sensitive to the sun, but can still walk around in broad daylight. The solution, is to engage them in combat, target individual pieces of clothes (head, body, legs), and damage them. After each article of clothing reaches a breaking point, you can strip them down. Wear down multiple targets clothes, and you can do a chain strip. It’s dumb, it’s weird, but most importantly, it’s fun.
The game sends you on missions, all highlighting different aspects of Akihabara’s culture. It’s worth noting that Akiba’s Trip uses the real life city of Akihabara as the location for all the stripping action. For most people, that means nothing, but hardcore Japanophiles will recognize the location has the hub for otaku culture. For someone who calls them self ‘Pocky X,’ a game like this is a cool way to experience a place they’ve always wanted to go.
But this isn’t a review, and I don’t want to get too deep into this. I just wanted to flag this game as something that absolutely should be in your radar! It’s a little rough around the edges, the controls aren’t great, and if I am to review it, it’s far from perfect, but it’s good fun that knows its audience. If you have Neptunia Rebirth preordered, then this will be a great extra game to have on your Vita in the meantime. Self identifying members of the otaku subculture of geek fandom shouldn’t wait and nab it ASAP. Everyone else should wait for my review!
