Where to begin with Akane? It’s a cyberpunk slasher that is so simple, yet so hard. Set in 2121 Mega-Tokyo, you play the Akane of the title – a girl sporting a katana and eager to carve out her name in the yakuza underworld. By carving into the yakuza underworld’s body parts with her sword.
Super violent and fast-paced, Akane can kill her prey with one hit. This is before you unlock all the upgraded weapons or equipment. You could argue that she is overpowered, and being able to one-hit an enemy is boring. Of course it is. That is, unless she can also be one-hit.
I wouldn’t consider myself a masochist, but I kept replaying Akane over and over again. Like Dark Souls Remastered, Dead Cells or any other rogue-like game that is ever so common, Akane dies a lot. She dies, then you restart the level and all your combos, badassery and kills reset.
This is the bit where you say, “Really? Isn’t this genre overpopulated? I’m sick of dying!”. Yeah, me too. I do grow tired of dying over and over in games. Whether it’s a design mechanic such as Bloodborne or whether it’s an old school NES Online that’s ludicrously difficult, dying isn’t always fun. Not that dying in Akane is a game-changer and fun, but it also doesn’t entirely put you off due to in-game objectives.
None of the challenges in Akane are easy, but they are clearly defined, and that makes it workable. There are often times when you don’t know what you’re supposed to do to unlock a challenge, or perhaps it’s a bit too vague. The task is clear; the doing it is the hard bit. With that in mind, the harder things are, the better the rewards. Apart from the mild euphoria of beating a challenge, unlocking new gear is motivating.
Apart from her handy katana, she also has a gun, which later upgrades to a shotgun, if needed. It’s a nice touch as you can take out the hordes from a distance. Not that you get many opportunities to do so. Enemies frequently appear and swarm you, so it’s advisable to keep running. Bear in mind that gun ammo replenishes over time, but also speeds up with each kill.
The boss isn’t particularly difficult. He does grow stronger with each play, but as long as you get your timing right, it’s doable. Just. Well, after 100 enemies in a row, you start making silly mistakes, and it was quite common for me to get to the boss, then die in the most stupidly irritating ways only a spoon could pull off.
Visually, Akane isn’t the best, but simplicity is suited for the game. It’s all about timing and tempo. Speaking of tempo, the soundtrack is fantastic. I’m not a big cyberpunk or synth fan, despite loving the ’80s, but I could happily listen to this soundtrack as a standalone. You can check out the Soundcloud link to the soundtrack by Cybass at the end of the review. Between deaths (it happened a lot) I would find myself turning the volume up to thundering bass hooks and future beats. I’m not trying to be clever.
You can argue until we reach the year 2121 on how long it takes to complete Akane. It’s a short game, fundamentally, but to unlock everything and to be good takes as much time as it takes to get graded in Iaido. There is a tutorial that speeds up the process and shows how to kill multiple enemies via the dragon slash and the more powerful dragon slayer. On paper, these are invaluable. If you can find a safe spot and time it right, these moves will wipe out a lot of the enemies. I just kept getting killed, so I seldom used it unless safe. Go seek it out if you want a pick-up-and-play bargain for the Switch.
