It is borderline impossible to play this game the way it wants you to, but it's so stylish and charming that I think it's worth your time anyway, even if you have to brute force your way through it. It's easy to see why The Maid Fuku to Kikanjuu didn't take off the way its Simple Series peers like The OneeChanbara or The Chikyu Boeigun (now Earth Defense Force) did because it just blatantly doesn't function on any level. It wants to be a Devil May Cry-style spectacle fighter (I refuse to call them Character Action games) but you only have one "combo" and it's so difficult to pull off, let alone chain, that if you aren't incredibly stubborn in getting it to work you might not even realize it exists. Even if you can get it to work consistently (I never did) most of the game you'll be fighting weak, slow enemies that rarely attack, and you need to be attacked to start your combo, so it's incredibly inefficient to use it outside of the fact that you have to if you want a good score, and you need a good score to get money, and you need money to unlock anything that might add more variety to the game (again, I never did). Outside of that, you have a sword and a machine gun (and a useless sniper rifle). The machine gun ruins your score but it's also the only efficient weapon in the game. The sword is kind of fun and the only thing outside of the combos that make this game feel anything like the more intense, fast-paced spectacle fighter it desperately wants to be, but you can only attack with it if you aren't moving so the gameplay always screeches to a halt when you try to use it. It probably sounds like I don't like this game very much, but there's a lot to love here outside of the monotonous gameplay. The presentation is great, the graphics are really charming, and the story is simple but fun. I like the chapter screens with a little monologue from the main character and a title that's always just an anime movie with one word replaced with "maid" (and I'm pretty sure the title of the game itself is a reference to the 1981 film "Sailor Suit and Machine Gun"). I like the robot maid enemies you fight for most of the game even if they kinda give up on that visual theme in the later levels. I love that you can press a button that just makes your character do a little animation of some maid-related activity like fixing tea or sweeping the floor, they're all incredibly cute (I dont like that you need to do a certain amount in each level with a certain amount of enemies on screen to get a good score, but oh well). It's a Simple series game, so you probably aren't expecting something mechanically complex and detailed anyway. Just looking at the presentation and tone, The Maid Fuku to Kikanjuu is incredible. You can beat it in about an hour and it's got an English patch, so it's absolutely worth checking out.

I WANT TO LIKE THIS SOOOO BAD. SHE'S A MAID. WITH A MACHINEGUN. THIS SHOULD AT LEAST BE FUN TO LOOK AT

its so needlessly mean to look at a simple series game and be like "i don't like this". like obviously it's going to be jank and undercooked. it's made to be a quick bit of fun for a ps2 owners on a budget. these controls are going to make my hand disintegrate and die though. they seem fine until you try to a-rank a level and realize the important buttons are absolutely not where they should be. maybe i'll pick this up again and just remap the controls and see if i can set the circle button as a turbo. on a positive note the idea is cute and if you don't care about rankings or 100%-ing the game then it'll be at least a little bit of fun. it does nothing for me.

Really really on that Deadly Premonition shit, where it's fundamentally broken & extremely jank but dammit I couldn't help but love this stupid little game.

For one thing, this is specifically a budget title, and if compared to some of the other entries in the Simple Series on the PS2 this is essentially like Citizen Kane, relatively Lawrence of Arabia in scope. The controls are weird and kind of awkward but it's still way too easy for how short it is, it doesn't look particularly good (but again for a budget title it's alright?) and like the name it's super simple...

but it's just so cute and charming. As everyone said, it's basically just the most anime version of Terminator 2 possible, with a KAWAII maid protecting a little fancy lad and fighting off little evil dolls. Love the little face portraits & the animated cutscenes; for how brief this is that's the stuff that really shines. If you get the fan translated rom, give it a go, it's so short even if you hate it it'll be over and done with like nothing.