3D beat-em-ups are very polarizing games. They often get slammed in published reviews, yet have a very loyal group of players. For every reviewer that tells you Dynasty Warriors has worn out its welcome, there’s a diehard fan who will tell you the formula is still great even today. It’s hard to review Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad for this very reason; some people will enjoy this brawler for its mix of fanservice and over the top violence against hordes of zombies, while others will feel it’s a dull button masher.

This game is an obvious winner for its target audience: Let the player control a small group of beautiful women who each have their own fighting style, and turn them loose against packs of undead along with several boss battles. It’s basically Dynasty Warriors thrown into a blender with Dead or Alive, Samurai Western, and Resident Evil, and the result has a lot of potential. On the surface it looks like a game where you just run up to zombies and mash the attack button to kill them all, but there’s more to it than that.

The most interesting part of this is that Onechanbara has a pretty deep combat system. For starters, you have the ability to cartwheel around, make diving slashes out of double jumps, twirl through incoming attacks, and build elaborate combos by switching weapon styles on the fly. The manual doesn’t do a very good job teaching you about this, but some experimentation will show you all kinds of neat stuff you can do. My only complaint is that you don’t need these tricks against most enemies, since you can button mash your way through them. It’s only later on and in some boss battles that you’ll need to really take advantage of these things, and that’s really a shame.