Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus is the third game of the Senran Kagura series and the first to be released on the Vita. They were a series of 2D beat em ups previously on the Nintendo 3DS but with the greater horsepower of the Vita it has now gone full 3D in this release. This is personally my first game in the series so for those expecting a comparison of what is new to the series I unfortunately don’t know and will approach this review focusing on this game alone. With that being said you starting off you can choose from one of three schools to play as each containing 5 characters each. Whichever one you start off with doesn’t really matter as you can choose to change schools at anytime and they all tread on the same story with no continuity between them. You will then be thrown into the hub-world that is unique for each school where you can chat with characters, buy different clothing and much more.
What you will no doubt notice right off the bat is that all the characters have ridiculously huge breasts and there is a metric ton of fanservice. I went into this half thinking that it’s the type of game where they blew the most of the budget on breast physics and no real substance but I was pleasantly surprised by the huge amount of content on offer here. Aside from being able to dress any of the 20 characters to your liking with a substantial amount of options there are three decently lengthy campaigns to go through and one unlocked after completing those three. The story for the Hanzo and Gessin campaigns are about waging a battle where the victors can burn down the others school but they are pretty identical and the plot isn’t that interesting to begin with. It felt like more of a way to introduce all of these characters instead of a meaningful plot which no one expects in a beat em up but here they really go hard on the text with tons of dialogue before and after every battle. The plot itself is not interesting but the character interactions are great and constantly will make you hold back a chuckle.
Those first two schools are known as “good shinobi schools” while the third that goes by the name of Hebijo Academy is an “evil shinobi school”. Hebijo is the one with an actually decent plot with betrayal, redemption and meaningful character growth. There is nothing really evil about them they just seem more proud than the naive good schools which made the whole good vs evil thing feel unnecessary as they are simply different factions with different goals but in the fourth unlockable chapter they have a really good explanation for this. It’s still weird that the more psychotic characters don’t kill anyone however. Why would a character kill someone in a game about hilariously big breasted ninjas you may ask. Well once again this game is more than meets the eye and is occasionally pretty dark especially with the backgrounds for each character. I’d argue a bit too dark as it can get a bit annoying with every single character having a dark and tragic story.
The characters themselves are quite memorable even if some are complete cliches like the innocent girl, the mary sue and tsundere. You will play as each one of them over the course of the campaigns so none get left without screen time and you will learn enough about them to make them feel like fully fleshed out characters, not just secondary characters. The cast of characters are all very odd featuring extreme masochists, some with no emotions and others with too much emotions to the point of being too shy and never taking off their masks. This lovable cast of nutjobs really make it interesting to see how one psychopath interacts with another. Nearly all of the dialogue is voiced in Japanese with English subtitles yet even if I don’t understand a word they say there reactions are pretty funny nonetheless. One of this game’s creepier features is that it puts the Vita’s touch screen to “good” use and you can touch any part of any character in the dressing room. You can play with her breasts, jab her butt and more to get a reaction out of her.
Each character has their own mini story to go through which involves finding good jokes, collecting ingredients for sushi and other whatever weird things the characters happen to be out for. All this content is well and good but it would all be for nothing if the gameplay falls on it’s face. Luckily for us it is pretty fun with one major flaw. The camera. The camera is terrible and will occasionally cause you to take a hit you couldn’t see coming or to start attacking at random since you don’t know where the enemy is. You can lock on to a target by pressing up on the dpad but it will occasionally lose track of your foe and when there are multiple enemies it becomes a pain to choose the correct one. It is also possible to lock on by touching on the enemy you want but to do so you either have to take your finger off of the left movement stick or the right camera stick. By the time you try to tap on said character it will likely be out of your view since this is not a slow paced game by any means.
Your character has access to two attacks, light and heavy. Each character levels up and the higher the level the more you can combine both attacks to create new abilities. You have a button to dash across the screen to avoid attacks and it is invaluable when you get tossed into the air and have a brief movement to dash out of the way before being combo’d into oblivion. Each character can double jump allowing for combat in the air where the rules are slightly changed and it becomes an all or nothing type of ordeal. You can either mash the light attack to combo your helpless opponent or use the heavy attack to knock her straight back into the ground. Each character is different in the way they attack and how fast they move so certain characters can be better suited for different forms of combat. Breakable items occasionally scatter the battlefield so if you are on the closing end of a fight you can dask towards them, break it and receive either a energy scroll or a health item which can change the tide. The AI never goes for them so it does feel slightly unfair until you remember that you usually have to fight a bunch of trash mobs just to get a shot at a main character.
Trash mobs come in various forms and are usually not much of a threat unless you are on hard mode which can be accessed by pressing right on the dpad while selecting a mission. They are mostly there to make you look cool as you take out tons of people but they can very easily witter you down and leave you at a disadvantage against the boss of the level. All bosses are just one of the 20 playable characters with no unique ones so you will always be evenly matched in power considering you haven’t grinded to much on previous levels. One thing that quickly gets annoying while fighting bosses is that both of your clothes can tear after enough damage and every time it does the game goes into a short cut-scene to show that event with a very close view of her. The problem is that it happens very often and causes the gameplay to stop only for it to suddenly start back up again with no idea of what you were previously doing which can very easily lead to you getting punched several feet through the air by the unphased AI. You can skip it by pressing a button but it still seriously harms the fast paced action and there is no option to turn that feature off.
You will also have access to three special moves called “ninja arts” fuled by your energy scrolls shown at the bottom left of the screen which also activates a cut-scene whenever you use them. Yes they look awesome but some option to turn off all of this flashy pace ruining nonsense would have done wonders. You can’t immediately use the ninja arts even if you have full energy. You start off in your basic form but can choose to others that will unlock your true power and allow you to both hit harder and use ninja arts. One of these forms is your shinobi form which requires one scroll to activate and will transform your clothes into your ninja uniform of your choosing as well as fully recovering your health. It is a usually a good idea to active it until you are low on health but waiting too long can easily get you killed. The other form is called “Frantic” that can be activate at any time by holding R and pressing triangle then ripping off your characters clothes with the touchscreen or by pressing triangle again. This form will leave your character in nothing but her undergarments and greatly increase her attack while lowering her defense.
You must be very careful while fighting in your frantic mode as there is no way to revert back and the terrible camera can very easily get you injured. Each of these forms actually give your character different ways of fighting so if you are terrible at using a certain character trying out one of her other forms can be very beneficial. All of the characters fight differently using umbrellas, candy, guns and whatever else these psychopaths are fond of using in battle. None of them play too differently from one another so you can get the hang of any character in no time but they play differently enough to be noticeably unique and with three different fighting styles for each of the 20 characters you have quite a bit to choose from. This game has cartoon like violence with no blood, enemies disappearing in a puff of smoke when defeated and the enemies are pretty cutesy.
With the sexual content and dark back-stories of the characters I wouldn’t exactly suggest this for a kid however. The movement takes a surprising amount of skill to be effective at that makes it pretty important to know when to dash or fight, when to guard or try to strike first and most importantly how to recover when you are unbalanced. A rather powerful attack can send you off your feet and you must press the jump button to recover or be completely defenseless. This combination of recovering and dashing across the place really help to keep it from becoming a repetitive button masher as well as looking awesome. If worst comes to worst you can always push an enemy back with a sudden burst of energy by pressing down on the dpad. It will get the enemy to be flung away from you even if they are mid-combo but will cost you 10% of your health in return. There is a surprising amount to take into consideration when fighting and keeps the game fun without being too complex for on the go play. One minor annoyance I have to mention is that you have a super ninja art that can be activated when you are below 20% health and have 5 energy scrolls but they are not unlocked until very late into that faction’s campaign.
Missions themselves take at most 10 minutes making it perfect for a hand held console and about half of that time will be spent reading text. It is very fun to read when it is being goofy but when they try to be serious it usually falls flat on it’s face. Graphics have this colorful cartoon like look that really makes it look great on the Vita and very rarely has frame-rate issues. Music is no slouch either and features blood pumping metal as well as more calming traditional Japanese music. After completing a characters personal mini-story you can then purchase their theme song and listen to it whenever you want from the library section of the hub-world. You can buy items like cat ears, participate in the lingerie lottery when you gamble with some money in hopes of new undergarments for your characters, buy pictures and lots more to keep you playing. There is a dojo where you can either practice your moves or challenge someone over the internet or AD-HOC but I was unable to find an opponent to test this feature out. Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus is a prime example never to judge a (perverted looking) book by it’s cover as it is obvious the developers put quite a lot of love and labor into this title and it’s not just some shallow fanservice game. The amount of content is staggering, the characters memorable and the gameplay fun. If it wasn’t for the camera and the unnecessary cutscenes while fighting it would truly be a must play game for the Vita. Even with these crippling flaws I would still wholeheartedly recommend you’d give this game a chance if you have the slightest interest in beat em ups or a title that will keep you playing for many hours even if you really should stop playing and review another game.
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