Samurai Maiden (English)

Samurai Maiden is one of those mid-budget Japanese games that I love. It might not be the most polished experience, but it unabashedly knows what it wants to be and accomplishes just that. The combat is challenging, with a particular emphasis on spacing, situational awareness and avoiding enemy attacks. The environments and enemies might be recycled a bit, but they look pretty good all things considered, and the character designs are colorful and well animated. Story wise, it's typical anime fare with plenty of lighthearted moments and yuri elements, though it never goes too far with it.

You can probably tell whether or not you'll be interested in a game like this just by looking at the cover and the publisher's track record. Personally, I'm happy to have a physical copy for my collection, and I stuck with it for more hours than I thought I would.

I'm a bit relatively new these type of games but so far it's decent. I came mostly for the yuri, characters, and that one of my favorite Japanese VA's is in this game. There's also jiggle physics and different outfits. And what is good is that it has multiple language options.
Though the cutscenes (rather the VN parts of the game) can feel long and drawn out. If you're a trophy hunter, the game is not an easy 100%/platinum (though not necessarily a bad thing). And I also wish the game took more advantage of the PS5 hardware. Though I do guess that is the result of the game being developed on other older hardware platforms.

The game and premise isn't anything to write home about, but overall like the Onechanbara origins, the game redeems itself in character designs that's great to look at and play.