akiba's beat vs akiba's trip

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Akiba's Beat

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Akiba's Beat ( アキバズビート , Akibazubīto , AKIBA'S BEAT )  is an action role-playing video game for the  PlayStation Vita  and  PlayStation 4  video game consoles. It is the third game of the  Akiba's series, after the Japan-only  Akiba's Trip  for  PlayStation Portable  and the worldwide released Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed ; though it is the first entry that plays as a Japanese role-playing game. The game was originally scheduled to release on October 13, 2016 in Japan and Winter 2016 for the west but was delayed and pushed back to later dates, eventually releasing in Japan on December 15, in North America on May 16, 2017 and in Europe three days later, on May 19. It was published by  Marvelous USA and PQube.

• 1.1 Setting
• 2 Characters
• 3.1 Battle Basics
• 3.2 Hit Points (HP), Skill Points (SP), Action Points (AP)
• 3.3 Imagine Gauge
• 3.4 Other Features
• 6 Website Links

Setting [ ]

The game takes place in the city  Akihabara after the events of the second game, and stars lead protagonist, Asahi Tachibana, a "NEET" living a regular life after deciding to drop out of college. Other main characters include: Saki Hoshino, a student who recently moved to the area and runs into Asahi; Riyu Momose, a young Japanese idol; Yamato Hongo, a cool-looking young man who has an obsessive interest with Japanese animations, manga and cosplay; Kotomi Sanada, a rich-girl who stopped attending school; Mizuki Aihara, a college student who is a childhood friend of Asahi's, and the eldest of the seven in search of someone, Reiji Shinomiya. The game involves the party getting stuck in a world of delusions, trapped in a repeating day long cycle on a repeating Sunday. The party also keeps coming across a strange, unidentifiable man in a pink cape, that always seems to be around when incomprehensible incidents are occurring.

Characters [ ]

Asahi Tachibana ( あさひ たちばな , Tachibana Asahi ) - A textbook NEET who came to Tokyo for college, but quit during summer vacation of his freshman year after deciding there was no real place for him in higher education. He now lives alone in an apartment in the Akihabara district, his rent paid through an allowance provided to him by his parents. He has no desire to find employment or return to school, and generally does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He has a tough time saying no to people, however, so he often gets roped into helping others, whether he likes it or not… assuming he can wake up on time, anyway.

Mizuki Aihara ( みずき あいはら , Aihara Mizuki ) - A childhood friend of Asahi's who, at times, acts almost like his guardian, always keeping close tabs on his health and safety and trying to snap him out of his NEET lifestyle. Mizuki has a knack for hard work and dedication, and shows this through his school life, remaining active on campus while still maintaining good grades and even tutoring on weekends. This has made him a very popular student with a very good reputation, yet he still chooses to spend most of his spare time with Asahi… assuming Asahi can ever keep to Mizuki's schedule.

Saki Hoshino ( さき ほしの , Hoshino Saki ) - A native of Sendai in northeastern Japan, Saki recently moved to Akihabara to attend classes at a fashion design institute. Though generally cheerful and energetic, she's made it her life's mission to destroy people's manifested delusions together with her familiar, Pinkun, since long before meeting Asahi at the start of this story. As a result of spending so much of her time on such seemingly supernatural work, she considers herself a "chosen one," and tends to get rather obstinate with those who question her motivations. She regards anyone else she meets who can perceive delusions as either a fellow chosen one… or as one of those responsible for the spread of delusion, who needs to be stopped.

Pinkun ( pink UN , Pinkun ) - A mysterious flying creature who's always with Saki. He claims himself to be a "familiar bound to her family line, with a storied and honorable history" – though he has no idea what that storied and honorable history might be, as he's not even really sure what he is or where he came from. He does think (know?) he's cute, though, and believes he'd make for an innately salable mascot. His favorite thing in the world is delicious food, unless you count his love of pretty girls (particularly when they're wearing maid outfits). He constantly refers to Asahi as "dingus" and makes fun of him for being a NEET.

Riyu Momose ( りゆ ももせ , Momose Riyu ) - An up-and-coming junior idol singer who's suddenly gained near instantaneous popularity in Akihabara. Goes by the stage name "Mippity Mop," as a reference to her bunny rabbit-themed outfit and her catch phrase: "Let's hippity-hop straight to your hearts!" Though she's only in junior high, she comes across as extremely mature and well-spoken for her age, likely due to the lessons in public speaking and public relations she's learned from her attempts to make it big as an idol. Always polite and courteous, Riyu serves as a voice of reason for the party and is generally both well-liked by everyone, and accepting of everyone… sometimes to a fault.

Yamato Hongo ( やまと ほんご , Hongo Yamato ) - A "too cool for school"-style teenaged brat who's very self-conscious about how others perceive him. As with most kids his age, he's really into anime and collectible card games, with a specific fondness for those with dark, edgy themes. He'd prefer others not know about these "childish" preferences of his, however – nor about his family life, which sees him at his most caring and nurturing – so he tries his best to hide his true feelings behind a mask of unenthused disinterest. When push comes to shove, however, he always lets his inner nerd show… whether he wants to or not.

Kotomi Sanada ( ことみ さなだ , Sanada Kotomi ) - A well-to-do high school-aged girl who dresses in typical "Gothic lolita" style and has a decidedly abrasive personality. Her parents work overseas, only returning home once per year at best, leaving her to be raised by her live-in housemaid. As a result, Kotomi endures a somewhat lonely existence, befriending paper dolls before other people and utterly refusing to go to school. This has given her something of a complex, ensuring that the majority of her public interactions end up with whoever dared address her getting chewed up and spit out. Deep down, however, all Kotomi really wants are flesh-and-blood friends… though she'll never admit it.

Reiji Shinomiya ( れいじ しのみや , Shinomya Reiji ) - A tall "old" man with a mysterious past. Though he's still in his 20s, he's often the oldest person in the room, and definitely has the "get off my lawn" mentality to match that status. He's returned to Akihabara after a lengthy absence in search of answers to questions only he can ask, though he's not particularly forthcoming on the details of that search. He seems to understand better than anyone else what's going on with the delusions, though he'd rather not get anyone else involved with them out of concern for their safety – and perhaps, a bit, out of fear that he might actually find the answers he seeks… and he won't like them.

Gameplay [ ]

The game is considered a sequel, although not in the exact same continuity as the first. Akiba's Trip  games, but does not share any of its gameplay mechanics, instead focusing more on JRPG-related features and structure. The game will play as an action role-playing video game, with battles initiated once the player moves the playable character into an enemy character, sending involved characters into a separate battle screen.

Battle Basics [ ]

In battle, the player can have a maximum of four party members. The player will not battle by entering commands, instead they will fight using the cursor keys in combination with the attack buttons to unleash a variety of actions.

Hit Points (HP), Skill Points (SP), Action Points (AP) [ ]

When HP becomes zero, the player can no longer take any action. Other party members may use skills or items to revive the fallen character. When a character's SP becomes zero, they can no longer use skills (physical or magical). They can recover SP through standard attacks, skill, or items. Skill points are needed in order to execute combination attacks and therefore are crucial to battle. When a character's AP becomes zero, they can no longer take actions such as attacking. Their AP will automatically recover as the battle progresses and therefore will need to take strategic actions in order to use AP wisely.

Imagine Gauge [ ]

The Imagine Gauge moves between five stages with the Pasopon Parts required to trigger Imagine Mode. The Imagine Gauge is powered by attacking enemies and can be used at interval points but is even more powerful when used complete.

Imagine Mode

By successfully attacking enemies and unlocking the Imagine Gauge, the player can trigger “Imagine Mode,” which lets a character perform actions without consuming AP or getting knocked back. During Imagine Mode, the user’s performance is greatly enhanced. Additionally, when triggered in a certain state, a headphone cut-in unique to  Akiba’s Beat  will be displayed. Imagine Mode's properties can be enhanced throughout the game and is also the route of unleashing a character's special technique. Throughout the game, characters can unlock enhancements to their Imagine Mode and further unlock a battle feature called "Imagine Field".

Imagine Field

Imagine Field is unlocked throughout points in the game. It is a feature which allows a boost in a character's abilities, damage reduction to the character and a custom character song which plays in the background. The character song which plays in the background can later be changed to an in-game song of the player's choice.

Other Features [ ]

Trading Card System

• In Akihabara, you can buy equippable “Trading Cards,” which when equipped allow you to use that card’s “Two Title Skills.” The Trading Cards are part of the in-game work “Vanishing Fantasy” and in total there are over 100 kinds plus alpha cards. Examples of Two Title Skills are:
• "Pure Blooded", a title which halves SP consumption.
• "Spirit King", a title which doubles the effect of magic recovery.

Maid System

The “Maid System” is used both in and out of battle as a system where the game’s maid characters support the playable characters as a fifth ally. On the field, they will support the player through navigation of city facilities and dungeon conditions, and in battle by telling the player about enemies and alerting them when their allies are in a pinch. Additionally, in certain conditions they can trigger effects that will help the user out in battle.

Pinkun , a familiar who befriends Saki, functions as a maid character.

Development [ ]

The official album cover for the opening theme song, featuring designs of Clara and Karen.

The game was first announced on May 30, 2016, as developer Acquire's first action role-playing video game. First information on the title, such as it being a game for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4, were first revealed in an issue of  Famitsu . The game was 75% complete as of the time of the announcement. On June 7, 2016, XSeed Games announced they would be releasing the game in English on both of the platforms. The game will be the second of three  Akiba  games to be translated to English; the original Akiba's Trip  for PlayStation Portable was never translated or released in English, but the second game,  Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed , was translated and published by XSeed Games. The game's story was announced to be more serious in theme than the prior two games in the series. Despite this, similar to the prior games, it will still take place in a realistic recreation of Japan's Akihabara, coupled with surreal dungeon areas.. Key staff for the game include director Kohta Takano of  Divine Gate , character designs by UCMM, and a theme song sung by ClariS. The game was scheduled for release in December 2016 in Japan and 2017 for Europe and North America.

The original release date for Japan was October 13, 2016. After being delayed, the director and staff posted a message on the game's official website hosting the information with the reasoning for the postponing of the game's first release date. The reason for the said delay was to give the developers enough time for further development features, enhanced gameplay and to ensure the game meets everyone's expectations. It was later revealed at Tokyo Game Show 2016 that the western versions original Winter 2016 release date had been delayed to Q1 2017 due to the extra content being added to the Japanese version to be translated.

The opening theme song is「again」by ClariS.

Gallery [ ]

Website Links [ ]

• Akiba's Beat Official website  (Japanese)
• 1 Akiba's Trip
• 2 Akiba's Trip 2
• 3 Arisa Ahokainen

Akiba's Beat - PlayStation Vita Review

• System: PS Vita, PS4
• Publisher: XSEED, PQube
• Developer: Acquire
• Release Date: May 16th 2017
• Price: 49.99
• Rating: T for Teen
• Genre: JRPG
• Official Website: http://akibas.jp/

Who it Caters to

What to Expect

Learning from Saki, Asahi is told of a threat that could damage Akihabara called Delusions. If a person’s desires grow too large, they begin to influence Akihabara creating odd dungeon like areas named Delusionscapes and causing shifts in Akihabara. Then shortly after learning about Delusions, Asahi and Saki learn that they are stuck in an endless loop where Sunday continues to restart after midnight. Asahi and Saki must now find a way to stop the loop and defeat the Delusions that constantly pop up.

Speaking of bosses, let us delve into the combat and fights that take place in Akiba’s Beat. In Delusionscapes, players will fight enemies and eventually bosses upon contact. These battles take players into a separate arena where the player has the ability to move around fully in the small arena to use various skills and attacks on the enemy. We’re happy to say why this gameplay isn’t anything new to the genre it works perfectly fine and feels solid enough. The only interesting ability in combat comes from Imagine Mode, where after filling a circular bar players can empower a character altering their appearance and some of their stats. You’ll come to rely on this when in some of the boss fights as a quicker means to doing heavy damage.

The main issues with combat, though, comes in the form of repetition and difficulty. Akiba’s Beat is extremely repetitive and that’s after only a few hours of battles with lesser enemies. Even bosses boil down to using all of your special abilities just to do mass amounts of damage. If you want a little more difficulty out of Akiba’s Beat, you’ll want to ramp up the difficulty to hard or higher. Though maybe you would rather just breeze through the game to be honest.

Honestly, the weakest concept of Akiba’s Beat is just wandering around the lifeless Akihabara. Despite the amount of references in terms of real life locals of Akihabara, none can be engaged with unless story specific, and unlike Akiba’s Trip Undead and Undressed, you won’t find any movies or anime shorts playing on giant monitors. Even odder is the fact that all NPCs are either colored silhouettes when not story specific or just forgettable. It’s a shame that we have to keep comparing Akiba’s Beat to Akiba’s Trip Undead and Undressed, but the latter felt more alive thanks to having characters with design and reason roaming around.

Sound wise, Akiba’s Beat is definitely hit and miss. In game music works for the most part, especially during Imagine Mode, but otherwise is forgettable. Voice acting for both English and Japanese is very strong for Akiba’s Beat, boasting voice actors such as Chris Patton and Erica Mendez or Seiyuu such as Toshiki Masuda and Azusa Tadokoro who voice Asahi and Saki respectably. Both casts do full dialogue for Akiba’s Beat and luckily it’s handled by such great voice actors and actresses. Though hearing any of the cast saying to save or there is treasure nearby gets incredibly old very fast.

Finally let us discuss the visuals of Akiba’s Trip. While the main characters such as Asahi and Saki, or even the later few that join, look impressive, the overall designs of the Delusionscapes, enemies ,and environments in general are bland and feel uninspired. Akihabara in real life is a visual beauty and in comparison, Akiba’s Trip version feels lackluster and lifeless. The animations though during the dialogue is nice and pleasant giving them a real feel. Overall Akiba’s Trip isn’t unpleasant to look at, but it won’t be winning any awards in the graphics department.

Honey’s Gameplay Consensus

Honey's Pros:

• Sometimes Fun and Comedic Banter
• Unique Character Design
• Solid Voice acting

Honey's Cons:

• Boring Story
• Very Repetitive Gameplay
• Bland Graphics
• Weak Characters
• Akihabara is very lifeless

Honey’s Final Verdict

Author: Aaron

Hey everyone I’m Aaron Curbelo or Blade as I’m called by my YouTube Subscribers. I’ve been an anime/manga fan since I was a young kid. In terms of anime I have watched nearly a thousand shows and have read hundreds of manga series. I love writing and honestly was so happy to join Honey’s Anime to get a shot to write articles for such a wonderful site. I’m a firm believer in respect in the anime community being the most important embodiment we should all have. We all love anime and we have varying opinions of series but we should respect one another for those differences! Life is too precious to spend it making needless arguments in a community that should be the shining example of loving an amazing medium. I hope as a writer for Honey’s Anime I can bring you folks some amazing articles to read and enjoy!

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Akiba's Trip

Akiba's Trip is a series of Beat 'em Up Action RPGs developed by Acquire Corp, known for its three-way combination between geek culture, Urban Fantasy , and brawlers. Set in the tech and hobby capital Akihabara, the basic plot follows humans as they fight off dangers to the town, including store riots, ornery thugs, energy consuming vampires, the city's dark unconsious...

Your player character, a run-of-the-mill otaku caught in the middle of supernatural happenings, is imbued with power and must fight off the enemies of the game before they wreak havoc on the entire town. And you typically do this by stripping them of the will to fight. Literally. Without the clothes on their backs, they're exposed to enough energy to turn them into dust, but since you've got the same powers as them, you're just as toast as they are if you show enough skin.

Titles in the series include:

• Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed (2011, PlayStation Portable)
• Akiba's Trip Plus (2012, PlayStation Portable; remake of Hellbound & Debriefed )
• Akiba's Trip for Gree (2012, Android/iOS; port of Hellbound & Debriefed )
• Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed (2013, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, PC, and PlayStation 4)
• Akiba's Beat (2016, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4)
• Akiba's Trip 2+A (2017, PlayStation 4; a rerelease of Undead & Undressed with content from The Animation )
• Akiba's Trip (2012, written by Kenji Mizuta)
• Akiba's Trip 2 (2014, written by Rei Kusakabe)
• Akiba's Beat! (2016, written by Choboraunyopomi; yonkoma spinoff)
• Akiba's Trip the Animation (2017, GONZO )

Tropes present throughout the series:

• Bland-Name Product : Twitter appears in Strip as "Pitter" and Beat as "Quipper", though the latter seems to also have some resemblances to Instagram or TikTok.
• Combat Pragmatist : Sure, stripping their clothes off is useful when fighting vampires, but the player character also does it to normal humans in order to humiliate them enough into running away . Just don't attempt this on non vampire females... Just. Don't.
• Double-Meaning Title : Obviously; a trip through Akiba + stripping down enemies to defeat them. Beat is a little harder to figure out without knowing the mechanics: "walking a beat" as you're investigating delusions + a rhythmic beat as your primary weapons are basically music players and you get in-universe Theme Song Power Up music for fights.
• Delusions in Beat only exist as long as the deluser still believes in them. Only once a deluser is about to experience anxiety or a mental break does a way to dispel the delusion become apparent.
• Fanservice : What did you expect from a game about stripping? Most of it comes from the Male Gaze when girls get stripped to their underwear, but there are a few bones thrown for the ladies in Undead & Undressed .
• Intentionally Awkward Title : An invocation of The Problem with Pen Island in the logo and the series' spelling in Katakana (アキバズトリップ) is pretty much guaranteed to make you say "Akiba Strip" .
• Otaku : All kinds of otaku are represented in the series, befitting a franchise taking place in Tokyo's geek culture mecca.
• Our Vampires Are Different : Sensitive to light they may be, but the vampires of Akiba's Trip need most of their body exposed to the sun before they can turn to ash.
• Later-Installment Weirdness : Unlike the other entries, Beat involves taking down demon-like entities with no strip combat present at all.
• Lighter and Softer : Played with. Beat has an underlying plot that's as dark as the rest of the series, but doesn't have any of the strip mechanics and tends to poke a little more fun at itself and its primary protagonists.
• Product Placement : The games and brands represented in the game are all real, often including ads for franchises that really were advertised in Akihabara at the time. The game also has legit flyers from that time for business in Akihabara
• Beat is about fighting literal manifestations of the dark side of otakudom.
• Takes One to Kill One : The only way the protagonists stand a chance against the vampires is by getting turned into one, since normal humans can't fight on equal footing.
• Thematic Series : While the games are disconnected from each other, they all follow the basic premise of Akihabara culture clashing with paranormal trouble.
• Urban Fantasy : Classic demon slaying and vampire hunting action meshes with contemporary pop culture and the youth that consumes it.
• Creator/XSEED Games
• Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed
• The Adventures of Bayou Billy
• Beat 'em Up
• Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed
• An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs
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• Alba: A Wildlife Adventure

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Review: Akiba’s Beat

My honeymoon period for reviewing games just ended. After two short games, one great and the other average, I now know the horror of slogging through a soulless role-playing game. While constantly longing to play other games like Breath of the Wild  or Persona 5 , I had to slave away at Akiba’s Beat  the last couple of weeks.

Successor to Akiba’s Trip , but officially unrelated, Akiba’s Beat is shallow due to an obviously tight budget and lack of self-identity. Gone are the elements of stripping, dressing up, fighting in the streets, romancing, advanced techniques, and even weapons.  Akiba’s Beat  is basically Akiba’s Trip  with all the things that made the previous game addicting replaced with blander alternatives. It also kept the bland bits of Trip , unfortunately.

Akiba’s Beat  (PS4 [reviewed], Vita) Developer: Acquire Publisher: XSEED (NA), PQube (EU), Acquire (JP) Released: May 16, 2017 (NA), May 19, 2017 (EU), December 15, 2016 (JP-PS4), April 27, 2017 (JP-Vita) MSRP: $49.99 (PS4), $39.99 (Vita)

As the name implies, Akiba’s Beat  takes place in Tokyo, Japan’s Akihabara (Akiba for short), a mecca of otaku culture including anime, manga, video games, idols, maids, and electronics. Recreating Akihabara as genuinely as possible has been a selling point for the series, but this is the worst version of it.

The things you can interact with in this game’s Akiba are scarce. Having narrow areas to move in with many invisible walls is nothing new, but there are fewer areas than in Undead and Undressed . The bigger issue, however, is the lack of people and interaction therewith. Instead of entering stores and seeing a unique shop owner, you just open a lifeless menu. Instead of NPCs walking about, waiting to run or fight at your provocation, here they are replaced with inanimate silhouettes.

Rarely, you’ll see one of these colored ghosts shaking his hand, but the vast majority of them are completely frozen and faceless. When you run by them they will utter a single line of dialogue, but they are wholly non-interactable: you cannot engage in conversation nor fisticuffs with them. In fact, you do not participate in dialogue at all. Even in the main story and sub-events, there is no dialogue nor any sort of romance options.

Not that a game must have romance, but people tend to expect it in titles like this, especially when the main story and characters are uninteresting. There are optional sub-events where you follow a quest-line with both main and ancillary characters. These sub-events are divided into chapters per character (eight for party members, three for side-characters) that unlock as the game progresses.

In these sub-events you learn more about the characters and develop platonic bonds with them, but without any dialogue options, it feels tedious. The character writing isn’t awful, but it’s not exactly Persona . Even the designs are for the most part sub-par. With an attentive eye, one can see that, yes, these characters are given certain traits no more cliché than other titles and they complete arcs. However, they just don’t stitch together to form any sort of emotional connection. 

Thanks to dual-audio, we don’t have to suffer through the English voice acting. Still, I’m not a fan of the liberties taken with the translation. Often times fluff — typically obnoxious memes or lame jokes — is added where no such Japanese was used. Where the character may just say something like “I like anime” in Japanese, the translation might be “Yo I’m da anime king boi, I got tons of DVDs. DVDS FOR DAYS!” The translation is error-free, but the extra flavoring is distasteful. Sorry, XSEED. 

The story’s premise revolves around people who have unattainable dreams that become delusions and manifest. Those people become stuck in their delusion as the same Sunday repeats over and over. Similar to how you help characters overcome their shadows in Persona 4 , Asahi and the gang help people with their delusions. Though rather than having a focused moment of coming to terms with reality to overcome the delusion, you just beat up some monsters and literally kill it.

This premise and the overall story are slightly better than that of Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed , but the interesting angle of delusions isn’t explored enough. Worse yet, scenes seem to drag on forever without much being said. Stripping vampires in the streets is so ridiculous it’s easy to forgive the overall weak story. Akiba’s Beat plays it a little too straight-faced, too safe.

Ultimately, the story isn’t intriguing on its own, but where Akiba’s Trip  had fun gameplay to make up for its lackluster tale, Akiba’s Beat  complements the bland story with bland play.

The phrase “game feel” makes me shudder with its vagueness, but if someone said Akiba’s Beat had “bad game feel,” I would understand. Everything feels stilted, stiff, and slow. You can walk or run, but nothing in between. The jump is at a set hang-time, with no ability to control its height. You can’t make it over small objects due to invisible walls. NPC dialogue locks to the side of the screen where it is quite hard to read in the half-second it’s there. Of course Pinkun, the little mascot bear thing, is this game’s Navi, constantly repeating the same things whenever you pass something. He can be replaced by a maid early on, but they’ll all ask you to save every time you’re within 10 feet of a save point (incidentally where you spawn when you fast travel, if you ever need to in this small map). Even minor things like the map — which cannot be zoomed in or out — are tedious.

Combat doesn’t feel much better. Unlike Akiba’s Trip where you fought people on the Akiba streets actively, Akiba’s Beat sends you through Persona -like dungeon areas with uninspired monsters in separate battle zones. Attacking either on the field to get an advantage or in battle feels slow and inhibiting; you’re locked into the animation and the couple-second paralysis your controlled character suffers afterwards once you attack. But fear not, for mashing square (standard attack) and sometimes X (skill) until your foe is dead is about all you can do. There’s a special “Imagine” mode you can activate, but not much changes: you’re still just spamming square like Kratos.

The themed delusionscapes are interesting, but it just feels like every other JRPG, especially Persona . This game is not meant to be Akiba’s Strip , but it could have learned something from Strip ‘s originality and “I don’t care what anyone thinks, this is what I’m doing” attitude. I don’t understand why’d they stop something unique to make such a cookie-cutter RPG. Perhaps some were put off by the sexual themes. Is something dull yet safe really the better alternative? No. A game made for everyone is a game made for no one.

Likely due to the budget, there’s just not many things to do in Akiba’s Beat . There are no weapons, no poses or walking animations, no camera, no mini-games, no dialogue options or romance. There is armor in the form of clothing, but there isn’t any cosmetic change (only in DLC), and every store of a certain type (clothing, items, etc.) sells the same stuff. This game easily could have just been a visual novel and not change much.

Every now and then there will be an enjoyable moment; a small gag that makes you grin or the moment when you step back and notice what’s happening on screen — J-pop playing and hearts flashing as idols and maids fight an Optimus Prime-looking robot while a little puffy dog cheers you on — and you think “this is the most Japanese thing since the end of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker .” Most of the time, however, you will be bored and looking at your phone.

Even if Akiba’s Beat  had a higher budget and more time, it lacks any unique features, mimicking what other games do, but worse. For 40 hours you’ll mash X through slow dialogue, then run around a dead environment, and then do more dialogue until you get to mash square against sponges. If Akiba’s Trip is the shirtless jock who kicks the door in with beers in hand, Akiba’s Beat is the timid cocktail-drinker standing in the corner with one hand in his pocket. Technically functional, but spiritually dead.

[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]

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Key features, mature content description.

The developers describe the content like this:

This game uses a stripping mechanic that leaves enemies in their underwear after combat. One game mode allows players to dress a female character in a revealing outfit (e.g., lingerie/underwear) and follow the camera as it moves around her figure. The game text and dialogue also contain sexual references. The words “f**k” and “sh*t” appear in dialogue. In one fighting mini-game, players use knives and cleavers to slash at each other, resulting in brief splashes of blood.

System Requirements

• OS *: Windows 8.1 or later
• Processor: Intel Core i5-750
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 560
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 2 GB available space
• Processor: Intel Core i7-4770
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950

© 2011-2021 ACQUIRE Corp. Licensed to and published by XSEED Games / Marvelous USA, Inc.

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