The entire time I was playing The Tempura of the Dead, it felt as though there was some big joke that I wasn’t in on. Don’t get me wrong – the retro look and feel is great, and for the most part the action is good solid fun.

Yet the lack of any explanation about what you’re actually doing is baffling. Why am I juggling zombie heads? Why am I collecting hundreds of lives? What is ‘Tempura Feaver’? Some of the questions are eventually answered, but there’s still a sense that some underlying joke is being missed. Treat TOTD as an all-out blaster/slasher however, and you’ll have far more fun.

GAMEPLAY

Over 24 platforming levels, you are tasked with killing zombies and destroying huge germ slimeball creatures. Destroying every germ completes the level, and you partake in the killing via a machine gun (carried by the President of the United States, naturally) or a samurai sword.

There are two characters to choose from – the president and a samurai – and each has their own special abilities. The president has his long-range weapon, while the samurai must get closer to the enemy and slash, but is must stronger and can jump higher to reach out-of-reach areas. The two characters can be swapped with a press of the right bumper.

Initial impressions revolve around feeling very confused and just a little frustrated. Killing a zombie will make its head fly off, and if you shoot or slash the head enough times before it falls to the ground, you’ll enter ‘Tempura Feaver’ (sic).

At no point does the game explain why you are juggling heads, or what the hell Tempura Feaver is. Eventually you’ll discover through trial and error that during the Feaver, you can shoot a zombie head a single time to finish it off, but even then the question remains: Why am I doing this? What is the purpose?

Then there is the lives collection issue. Killing zombies will give you 1UP, killing germs yields a 5UP and other baddies even give 10UP. For a while it’s not at all obvious what is going on or why you’re being given all these lives, but again the answer finally becomes clear – lives can be used as currency to buy better weapons and extra health at shops. Why is this not explained anywhere?

Stick with it though, as there’s a knack to enjoying TOTD – simply ignore all this OTT weirdness, and you’ll find an entertaining blast’n'slasher underneath, with plenty of content to play through. Switching between characters and using their abilities in the best situations is good fun.

Along with featuring tons of levels, there are bosses to defeat too, and these generally have a great retro feel to them – difficult, but not impossible, with plenty of dodging around bullets and enemies involved.

Unfortunately, even the gameplay itself is let down by some shoddy mechanics. The jumping can feel very sticky, especially if you try jumping straight after landing. Many times I found myself pressing jump, then walking straight off a ledge after my character decided they didn’t want to follow orders.

Colliding with enemies is awful too. Touch an enemy, and the protagonist will spin on the spot for a second – but there is no moment of invincibility, so if he keeps walking towards you, he’ll hit you again instantly. Numerous times I ended up losing all of my hit points from a single bad guy. Since it’s just not worth getting close to an enemy, I eventually opted to stick with the President so I wouldn’t have to use the samurai’s close-range attacks.

STYLE

What The Tempura of the Dead lacks in gameplay, it makes up for in style. The visuals are pure bliss, with a real authentic ‘this game was made in the 80′s, honest’ look to them. The cutscenes too are very lovely indeed, splashed with only a few different colours, yet giving off a far more enjoyable radiance than the majority of games on XBLIG.

It’s actually quite insane that these old-school visuals can provide such atmosphere. The backdrops of cityscapes and stormy nights are really stunning, and give the game’s personality a real dark edge.

The music is also fantastically retro, and fits the game perfectly. If only there were more tracks, we’d be in 8-bit heaven.

STORY

As you’d expect (given the rest of the game’s content), the story is proper mental. There’s a zombie outbreak in the US, and the President is escaping in his chopper when he spots a samurai on the ground below fighting the zombies. He decides to jump down and join forces with him to eliminate the zombies for good.

The samurai teaches the President his special ways of killing – first he kills the zombies, then he juggles its head with his sword, before finally deep-frying it. When the President remarks that he doesn’t have a sword, the samurai tells him that it doesn’t matter what weapon you use, as long as you complete the kill using this special method.

Yikes indeed. The cutscenes are really enjoyable to watch and made me laugh numerous times, while following the story as it progresses is entertaining enough. Perhaps the craziest storyline in the Xbox Marketplace?

OTHER

The Tempura of the Dead is going to sell lots of copies off those screenshots and that trailer alone – it looks perfect, and you can’t help but want a go. It’s worth downloading the trial before you do so, however, as you may well find that it’s a little too awkward for your likings.

If you can work through the dodgy control mechanics and see past the elements of the game that really don’t make any sense whatsoever, TOTD is charming retro fun with several hours worth of zombie-killing for your enjoyment.

BUY/TRY