Capsule Review: Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed
An action-RPG with dating sim elements and extensive customization options set in modern Akihabara. The premise is that a group of evil vampires who feed off of life force rather than blood have infiltrated the area, and you must fight to expose them - literally, by stripping their clothes off to inflict direct sunlight upon them. The combat is clunky, which is unfortunate since you’ll be doing a lot of it and the novelty of defeating the enemy by tearing off their outfits can only carry it so far. But the faithfulness of the game’s recreation of Akiba, along with the extensive variety in equippable weapons and clothing and the likable cast who are broadly painted but feature surprising emotional depth carry things much farther. If you like the idea of playing dress-up with your friends and stripping down your enemies in the otaku mecca, you’ll have a good time here.
The PS4 port bundles together all the DLC from the PS3/Vita version (though weirdly there’s also one piece of free DLC for it) and adds a few streaming-friendly features, though it doesn’t clean up the NPC pop-in and occasional frame rate bumps and there’s not much of a graphical improvement.
I Stopped Playing When: I finished the game, saw all endings, and earned all trophies. First on Vita, and then again a couple years later on PlayStation 4.
Five Stars: Favorite. This is one of my all-time favorite games that made a significant impact on me or that I've returned to time and again.