XSEED Games

Man. Have we really not written any localization blogs for Onechanbara Z2: Chaos yet? Seems hard to believe, but I guess when you have almost as many games in production as people in your company, you can’t really hope to cover everything with only a single blog entry per week!

It is about time this game got its due, though. And there really is a lot to say about it – more than you might think, especially if you haven’t been paying much attention to this release and have only a passing knowledge of the Onechanbara series.

For those not in the know, Onechanbara has always been about one thing: sexy ladies with huge weapons and even bigger personalities (among other things) killing zombies by the truckload. To play an Onechanbara game is to cover your screen with the blood of the undead and to quicken your pulse with nonstop action and just a touch of titillation. There is a story, and it’s actually quite good, but most of it serves as an excuse to introduce new set-pieces and new enemies, keeping things varied without ever slowing them down.

Onechanbara Z2: Chaos is the latest game in the series, and the overwhelming popular opinion is that it’s the best game in the series as well, by leaps and bounds. I haven’t personally played any of the others, but I can’t deny that Chaos is a pretty sweet experience – it has a surprising amount of depth and complexity to its combat that ensures you can’t just go in and button-mash your way to success (especially on higher difficulty levels), instead necessitating spot-on timing, intimate familiarity with all the girls’ weapons and skills, and a little bit of resource management for good measure.

The real draw of this game, though, lies with its characters. Boasting a nearly all-female cast (with the main four led by a badass female military commander who’s kind of like the Charlie to their Angels), the dialogue is fast, furious, and over-the-top fun from beginning to end. Of special note is Kagura (who can sort of be considered the lead) for her occasional use of hilariously butchered English phrases mixed in with her usual Japanese lines… or is that hilariously butchered Japanese phrases mixed in with her usual English lines…?

…See, we recorded an English dub for this game, but we also kept the original Japanese voices. We’re proud to count this among our dual voice titles (we always try, I swear!), and what a great thing that turned out to be! Not only did we have a blast localizing the game, but the director and all the actors had a blast recording it too. For Kagura’s butchered English, we actually wrote up simple Japanese lines and had the actor pronounce them in as ‘murrican an accent as possible, to create a perfect parallel with the Japanese-language experience. Where she says “Hey, mole! Time to revenge!” in the Japanese, for example, she says “Oi, mogra! Koroshte yah-roo!” in the English. It’s… downright magical.

Bottom line is, everybody involved had a blast working on this game, and I think you guys will have just as big a blast playing it. If you’re worried about it being “just another boob game,” I urge you to put those preconceptions aside and give it a chance – particularly if you like Musou-style titles or beat-em-ups with gameplay depth and complexity well beyond the norm.

Or if you like zombie B-movies. Or sexy women with chainsaws.

Whatever your tastes may be, Onechanbara Z2: Chaos will be available for purchase on PS4 throughout North America this July 21st, and we’ve got an awesome collector’s edition in the wings that includes 80 minutes of kickass music, a super-sweet art book (I’ve seen it, and it really is something special!), and some exclusive DLC (appropriately titled “Strawberries & Banana” – and do note the pluralization there, as it’s important!).

Just don’t leave these ladies hangin’! Because trust me, they sure aren’t going to wait around for you. They’ve got places to be, things to do, parties to attend, and wave after wave of undead soldiers to kill.

- Tom