Senran Kagura started life in 2011 as a series of Manga
revolving around groups of female student ninjas, each belonging to one of four
rival ninja academies with their own god or bad agendas whilst all trying to
achieve higher ranks and new skills among their shinobi sisters. The main draw for this series is its fan service, as well as
being skilled and talented ninja, 99% of the girls in the show are very
attractive, usually scantily clad and almost always incredibly well developed
in the region of their chests, not one page goes by without a suggestive pose
or image of a particular character in some state of undress.
An anime based on this was released in 2013 with a mobile
game following very shortly, finally reaching the Playstation Vita in 2014, six
games later the series hits PS4 in its latest iteration Senran Kagura: Estival
Versus. Previously in the Vita title Shinovi Versus the girls were
facing each other in the Shinobi Battle Royale, whilst relaxing after these
events they find themselves whisked to a parallel dimension of seemingly
endless beaches and eternal summer where a mysterious old lady challenges the
girls to a contest of strength and skills. If you’ve ever played any of the Warriors series from Koei
Tecmo, this is a similar affair, pitting you and occasionally a partner against
a massive crowd of enemies until either you’ve defeated them or made your way
to the boss area, that is pretty much it.
Every mission either finds you taking on a large crowd of
nameless female ninjas or some sort of fight against the rivals from another of
the academies, the outcome of these battles always ends with the loser being
stripped of their clothing and dignity, and more often than not finding
themselves humiliated that bit more by being catapulted across the stage and
bouncing off a beach ball into a cage or onto a banana boat out at sea, all whilst
just in their birthday suits of course. The fights are fairly straight forward even with large
amounts of enemies to face and the hardest part can be losing your character in
the crowd when everything is in full flow, the controls are easy enough and
you’ll quickly find a combo to your liking that you’ll probably stick with
depending on the character you’re given or choose. What lets down the battles is the fact that none of the
character movements have any flow to them, after pulling off a combo you can
find yourself almost frozen whilst the animations finish which leaves you open
to easy damage from an enemy, this means that rather than moving between groups
of enemies and keeping up your hit-streak it can get very stilted and
frustrating with attackers managing to land a cheap shot just because you were
unable to move.
As you defeat more and more people you build up your special
bar, allowing you to unleash devastating special moves or perform your shinobi
transformation which recharges your health and repairs any damage to your
clothing you may have sustained. There is also Frantic mode which when activated strips your
character down to her undies preventing shinobi transformation and halving your
defence but greatly boosting your speed and attack power.
Each clothing mode slightly alters your characters moveset
but this is really the only variety you’ll find in the fights, the chapters
start with a scene and give you the girls reasons for fighting then the battles
ensues, defeat this many people or defeat the boss is the usual drill, then
once complete there’s another short scene and it’s onto the next chapter, play
through the story and you’ll soon tire of doing the same thing over and over
again. I’d be inclined to say that the game lacked depth but that’s
not strictly true, there is an online mode where you can fight others from
around the world, there’s the library for checking out scenes and music you’ve
unlocked, then there’s the Dressing Room, this mode has been in the other
Senran Kagura titles but has been more fleshed out (so to speak) for this latest
version. You’re given the option to choose any of the girls from the
game with up to five of them on the screen at any time, you can then choose
what they do or do not wear, their accessories, their facial expressions, even
the poses you want them in, as you play through the game you can unlock 70 more
items for this particular mode ranging from accessories, costumes and even
hairstyles. Once you have everything setup you can choose to enter photo
mode where you can take a snapshot of your work, not only that you can bring up
a pair of hands on screen which can be used to grope and fondle the girls, not
only that you’re also able to give them a playful slap on either their boobs or
bum, on the PS4 version you could also turn the controller on its side and
shaking it vigorously would start the fingers on the hands to wiggle activating
a combo and eventually tearing away at the girls clothes. This has to have been one of the strangest features I’ve
ever experienced in my entire gaming career, I’ve rescued stray cats in No More
Heroes, enjoyed a threesome in God of War, and even moved blocks to climb a
tower and escape a giant naked mutated torso in Catherine, but never have I
actually jiggled a girls ta tas to the
point that she was willing to give me a kiss or at least not in a game
anyway, Senran Kagura: Estival Versus made me do that. But that’s what this game is, it’s strange, if a little more
polish had gone into the actual fights and controls then it could’ve been a competent
beat ‘em up on its own merits but all the effort seems to have gone into the
visuals and characters. Graphically this title looks stunning, the character models
are crisp and very well realised which considering how much you see of them is
a plus, the locations you fight are all really nice and vary from a tropical
beach to a temple courtyard or poolside in the grounds of a lavish hotel,
everything looks great. Still images pop up during the story which are bright and well-drawn
showing the girls in a scene representing whatever nonsense they’re currently
up to, intermixed with the 3D models of the shinobi chatting to each other
making different gestures and actions. Each character is voiced and you almost find it hard to
believe that someone somewhere has been paid to say the bizarre things these
girls come out with but hey, that’s Japan for you. On the surface this game looks great and sounds great, but
for what polish shines on the outside it’s the core gameplay underneath that is
lacking, no amount of tiny leopard print bikinis barely covering jiggling oversized
breasts will distract from….uh….broken….um…..fighting…..er….what was I saying?
Senran Kagura: Estival Versus is out now on PlayStation 4, & PlayStation Vita Coming soon to PC