Going with the review FAQ format for this one, folks. I’ve done it for other waifu games and I think it works pretty well. Here are some past examples to get you acclimated to the format. This one’s pretty fun, but also pretty janky.

Hey Zach, a little bird told me you’re playing a new waifu game.

Oh hey, disembodied voice! I’m playing a hack ‘n’ slash game called Samurai Maiden in which 21st century high schooler Tsumugi Tamaori is transported back to the Sengoku period, where she finds out she’s the Princess of Harmony and starts working for Nobunaga Oda and his three multi-dimensional girlfriends to stop the Demon Lord from taking over the multiverse.

That sure sounds like a video game you’d like.

It sure does, and I sure do, despite its technical issues. This is a stage-based hack ‘n’ slash at its core, but I feel like we need to come up with a unique subgenre for games like this.

Games like what?

You know, games where you’re an attractive anime girl teaming up with other cute anime girls, leaning hard into anime tropes, in a hack ‘n’ slash format with some light RPG elements and heavy on character dialogue. Other examples include Senran Kagura, Onechanbara, Neptunia, and Azure Lane (although the latter barely has “game” segments).

How about Waifu Slasher?

That sounds like a horror movie, but you get the idea; we'll workshop it. These are all variations on a theme. In Samurai Maiden, you control Tamaori as she slays her way—

SLAY GIRL, SLAY!

…

Sorry.

…slays her way through undead hordes who put up very little resistance as she goes through an incredibly straightforward, purely decorative environment before running up against much larger miniboss enemies. As the game continues, more of these mini-bosses will be present in any given stage. Every few stages, you’ll fight an actual boss character solo—that is, without an undead entourage.

What about Nobunaga’s girlfriends?

To be fair, they don’t seem to be his actual girlfriends. They’re other maidens from other dimensions who are joining your cause to destroy the Demon Lord, although one of them (Iyo) does know Nobunaga personally. One of the three is always shadowing you, but you can (usually) swap them out at any time. They provide attack support and have some largely superfluous environmental actions. All three conform to deeply ingrained anime stereotypes and are simultaneously charming and exhausting.

Can you describe them?

Sure. Iyo is the spunky, enthusiastic shinobi who never questions her devotion to Nobunaga. Her normal attack involves throwing fireworks at enemies, but she can also carry explosives and healing items onto the battlefield, although it’s rarely helpful. In terms of personality, she’s similar to Asuka from Senran Kagura.

How come she’s rarely helpful?

You have to tell her where to place the bombs, which takes time. A bomb doesn’t just appear out of mid-air, she has to literally carry it over to the spot where you want it placed. Unfortunately, by the time she gets there, the enemy has probably moved somewhere else. Her healing pot is better, but you’ll have to break your focus on not getting killed to run over and take advantage of it before it disappears. Her one truly helpful item is the decoy, which draws mook attention so you can concentrate on the Big Bad.

Okay, so Iyo’s not great.

Then you’ve got Hagane, the older, “mature” girl with a voluptuous figure who doesn’t mind drawing attention to it. She’s got a mechanical arm and, allegedly, other mechanical parts, but her boobs are completely real in case Tamaori was wondering. She can pull enemies towards Tamaori and also electrify her extendable arm to do damage in a straight line in front of her. In the environment, she can use her arm like a grapple and swing Tamaori across gaps. She’s better in a fight than Iyo, but her attacks have very limited range. Her personality is similar to Haruka or Shiki in Senran.

But she has big boobs?

She does, and it’s especially obvious with the swimsuit DLC, where her boobs kind of pillow out of the sides of the suit, something I’ve never seen before with character models.

Never change, Zach.

And then you’ve got Komimi, a young “tough girl” who’s a kitsune character and hates having her ears or tail touched but secretly loves it. She’s all business, but is the most useful character in fights, because she has a big-ass hammer and can throw explosives on the field, which includes bombs dropped off by Iyo. Her Senran counterpart is probably Ikaruga or maybe Imu.

So you rely on Komimi a lot?

Yes, and that can be a problem. One of the core concepts of Samurai Maiden is developing a strong bond with all three of your companions.

Oh…how do you do that?

In theory, it’s pretty simple. The more you spend time with them in fights, and the more you have them help out during fights (you control when they attack), the more your bond increases, as shown by a heart leveling system. Remember the bonding system in Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed?

No.

It’s like that.

Great.

You can replay missions as much as you like to try and build up the bond with all three girls. I tried to keep it fairly even—no playing favorites here, although that’s obviously going to change with the swimsuit DLC (which is out already). For every ten levels of connection, you get a new ability or bonus stage for each girl. The downside here is that Tamaori’s new abilities are standard hack and slash maneuvers like a quick recovery, ground slam, rising slash attack, three-hit combo, and parry. And there’s no indication what you’ll receive at every bond level, so you can’t really plan ahead. That’s why I would recommend replaying levels and keeping all three girls within a level of two of each other.

What are the bonus stages?

These are stages where you can only bring along the subject gal pal, and they’re usually fairly nightmarish platforming challenges with some light puzzle solving. Remember how frustrating the “Retro Stages” were in Super Mario Sunshine?

Having recently suffered through them on the Super Mario 3D All-Stars Collection, yes. Awful.

Well, imagine platforming challenges in a game that is NOT built for platforming! Tamaori’s double-jump is imprecise, so landing on smaller platforms—narrow ones especially—is a problem! You also have to manhandle the camera during these areas, which in some cases means changing your view while also leaping off rapidly-flipping platforms. The puzzles are generally quite easy, though: have Komimi throw bombs at targets, or stand on a switch before directing Iyo to go stand on another switch. Most of Hagane’s bonus areas involve her grapple arm. The prizes for these bonus stages usually involve new gal pal abilities or weapons.

Ooh, you can equip different weapons?

Yes, and you can enhance existing weapons!

RPG stuff!

Indeed! While murderizing monsters, you gain purple orbs, which you’ll pour into enhancing Tamaori’s weapons and the weapons of her friends. Her own weapons upgrade pretty cheaply, and I think they only go up to Level 20. The trio’s weapons, however, cost much more to upgrade, so I found myself farming orbs in early missions to afford their enhancements.

Do the enhancements help?

Sorta? It was hard to tell during actual gameplay. I rarely switched away from their default stuff because those were the weapons I upgraded; each weapon has to be leveled up by itself. Each weapon has abilities which unlock as you upgrade them but, again, it’s not obvious what’s changing during combat.

Hmmm. How IS the combat?

Once you unlock more attack slots for each girl (they all have cooldown periods) and unlock a handful of Tamaori’s standard attacks, the combat is pretty fun…but mindless. Normal undead enemies rarely put up a fight—their attack patterns can be identified by their color—but the minibosses put up a bigger fight. Auto-targeting is essential, but you have to be fairly close to the enemies for your companions’ attacks to be useful. Minibosses also have a nasty habit of breaking away from your auto-target, and YOU will have to break away from it to take advantage of Iyo’s healing pots. However, there’s something very satisfying about locking these minibosses into a stun cycle when you’re spamming helper attacks while slashing them to smithereens with Tamaori.

How about normal bosses?

Normal boss fights require a lot more diligence, but thankfully they lack the lackeys. They hit much harder and you need to pay attention to their windups. Once you figure out their patterns, though, it’s just a matter of keeping the pressure on.

That all sounds great, honestly. What’s the downside?

Oh, there’s a downside.

Ominous!

This is where we talk about the game’s technical performance. While I have to praise the character models (and hair effects) of Samurai Maiden, I’ve seen Waifu Slashers perform much better on other systems, including the PlayStation Vita.

Hey, I remember the Vita.

Right? I powered it up last night just to play some Runner2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien! Man, what a good game. Shame about Runner3.

So what’s the deal with Samurai Maiden?

For a game with bare bones environments, water textures that are literally just a flat texture without any movement or opacity, backgrounds that are functionally empty, and level topography that makes Pokémon Legends: Arceus look like an Xbox Series X game, Samurai Maiden is extremely framey. The framerate drops while Tamaori is just running through the stage. It drops more when enemies show up, even more when she starts attacking those enemies, and it turns into a slideshow when she and her girlfriends are wreaking havoc on the whole group of enemies.

Yikes.

And some battlefields have a lot going on—in addition to more enemies than probably need to exist, you sometimes have environmental obstacles, explosions, shocking effects, somebody swinging a giant ice hammer, and Tamaori doing the kinds of swordplay acrobatics that would make the average Senran girl stand up and take notes. And of course, her sword swipes have particle effects, too. It’s all way too much for the Switch to handle, so while I usually came out the other side of each fight without much trouble, the actual fighting process was almost comical in its brokenness.

To be fair, this has always been an issue on Switch.

Sure, but it’s still annoying.

Anything else? Isn’t there some controversy about the game?

Oh, do you mean the smooching?

Maybe?

So once you accrue enough of a connection with each girl, Tamaori (who’s apparently polyamorous) will be able to active something called “Devotion Heart” during battle, which briefly increases certain stats depending on which of her friends are on the field with her. This activation is preceded by a brief cutscene in which she…KISS de girl (whoa whoa).

Oh my stars and garters!

Right? I think it’s probably meant to be titillating, but here in North America, at least, same-sex smooching is pretty blasé. Now, if Tamaori buried her face in Hagane’s cleavage or something…

Stop picturing that. STOP IT.

Sorry.

So with all that in mind, would you recommend Samurai Maiden?

I actually would recommend it if you’re a fan of Waifu Hack ‘n’ Slashers, but the Switch’s framerate issues keep me from issuing a full-throated endorsement. If you have access to other modern consoles, maybe check out some gameplay videos. If it’s way smoother during combat situations, maybe go for that version. I’m enjoying the game on Switch, and will be buying some of the DLC, but it suffers a lot on the performance side. That and the terrible platforming segments that, thankfully, are pretty rare.

Cool cool cool. Thanks, I’ll check out some videos.

Maybe somebody will make a Hagane figure.

Get help.