At first look, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai seems to have one of the most ridiculous names on the Xbox Live Marketplace…but at least know who the star is. That being said, it still leaves you wondering if Zombie Kitchen Ninja is the same calibre of game as other self-titled hero quests like everything-involving-the-name-Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Super Princess Peach. The short answer…? You’ve probably played worse.

Gameplay:

The Dishwasher is a 2D beat-‘em-up with just a tiny sprinkling of platforming thrown in. Gameplay revolves around hacking, slashing, stabbing, disemboweling, decapitating, and dismembering enemies as you make your way through each level, occasionally (every other level or so) facing off against a big monstrous boss thingy at the end. Bosses can range from a humanoid warrior to a giant undead cyborg, and have tried-and-true attack patterns to memorize if you’re keen on defeating them. Baddies beforehand must be dispatched using attack combos, grabs, and “Dish Magic,” which really just boils down to mashing X, Y, and B a lot.

Admittedly, that might be a little unfair. There are multiple weapons, with each having different combos. By collecting the in-game currency and “Psycho Picks,” every weapon (as well as your health and magic meters) can be powered up as you progress through the game. While your first weapon, the Cleavers, starts out maxed out and you could manage to play through the entire game with just those (for combat, at least), the extra weapons add different style possibilities. Transitioning between weapons will allow you to chain together greater combos, and thus increase your score. The only downside is that this gets pretty repetitive. Quickly. Hack slash hack. Next screen. Hack slash hack. Next screen. Hack slash hack. Next screen. That’s pretty much it. The enemies are fairly diverse (guys with guns, guys with machine guns, zombies, robots, so forth) and have different attack styles, so you have to stay on your toes in a group of mixed bad guys. A bizarre digression in the gameplay is a rhythm-based, mid-level minigame where the Dishwasher will play a guitar. As he plays, you must press A, B, X, and Y in time to score a high percentage, which will reward you with a Psycho Pick if you score 70% or higher.

Graphics:

The Dishwasher has a unique art style that, as is the case with most unique art styles, you’ll either love or hate. All of the models and backgrounds look hand drawn and there is very little color – which emphasizes how gory the game is. For a 2D game that looks like it was doodled by a 6-year-old, there is an astonishing amount of blood. Enemies spray and spew blood everywhere, which leaves you wondering what sort of 6-year-old mind it would take to draw a picture this graphic…then again, I’d rather not know. The background and foreground both can end up covered in red after each encounter, which isn’t really startling to most gamers, but certainly a point of emphasis in an otherwise visually simple game. Between levels, the story is driven by comic book panels that explain the Dishwasher’s quest. Some of them look very nice, but others looked like dark mud piled on top of darker mud and left me wondering what exactly I was looking at. Thank God for the monologue boxes.

Sound:

There really isn’t much substance when it comes to The Dishwasher’s sound. There is no voice acting, and with the exception of the awesome music during the guitar minigames, the background music is mostly an unobtrusive afterthought that won’t grab your attention. Action sequences are given faster paced rock, with exploration sequences enjoying soft, traditional Japanese music. And…well that’s about it. The sound effects are there. They’re hardly bad, but they didn’t really stand out to me or strike me as noteworthy. Sword slashes, squishy blood noises, death rattles…they’re all there.

Longevity:

The Dishwasher could either give you a lot of replay value or very little, depending entirely on how much you like the game and how obsessive you are. If you absolutely love the gameplay and want to finish upgrading all of your weapons, beat every difficulty, get every achievement, play every game mode, and truly master The Dishwasher, then you’re going to get a lot of time out of this game. For everyone else, though, the gameplay gets repetitive fast. I had to take breaks every couple of levels because of how redundant everything felt. Even if you can only play a few levels at a time, a game should make you want to keep playing, not stop.

Overall:

The gameplay is fun enough to make you want to come back, just not fun enough to make you never want to leave. On the bright side, there is co-op play, so if you and a friend are looking to shoot the breeze while you whack away at some bad guys, this just might be your cup of Bancha.