Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus review for PS Vita

Platform: PS Vita
Publisher: XSEED Games
Developer: Marvelous AQL
Medium: Digital/Vita Card
Players: 1-4
Online: Yes
ESRB: M

To some extent, Iโ€™ve become acclimatized to weird expressions of sexuality in Japanese Vita games. A baby-making simulator? Sure, why not. A game where you run around downtown Tokyo, ripping off peopleโ€™s clothes? One of my favorite games of the year. A game where you basically masturbate your Vita to reveal young girls in revealing clothes and postures? Far better than it has any right to be. With Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus, however, I think Iโ€™ve reached my limit, the point where even Iโ€™m looking at a game and saying, โ€œOkay, thatโ€™s a bit much.โ€ Itโ€™s basically all boobs, panties and dialogue that sounds like it was written by people whoโ€™ve never actually interacted with girls before.

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To some extent, of course, similar criticisms โ€” and worse โ€” couldโ€™ve been levelled against Conception II, Akibaโ€™s Trip and Monster Monpiece. The difference, however, is that all of them featured some pretty solid core gameplay, and would likely be good even if they didnโ€™t rely on such titillating hooks, whereas strip away Senran Kaguraโ€™s T&A, and youโ€™re not left with a whole lot.

Actually, thatโ€™s not completely true. In the gameโ€™s defense, the fighting controls arenโ€™t that bad. Admittedly, this is largely because youโ€™re usually fighting so many enemies, you can afford to just flail around wildly and expect to hit something. But still, Iโ€™d be lying if I didnโ€™t admit that the quality of the action is single-handedly good enough to say that Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus isnโ€™t completely devoid of merit.

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At least at first. After a while, the game starts feeling more than a little repetitive. It may allow you to interact/flirt with the other girls, and change your lingerie, and win lingerie, and generally do lingerie-related things, but once youโ€™re actually playing through a stage, it becomes pretty difficult to differentiate between them all, since theyโ€™re all so similar. If youโ€™ve seen one level where you fight through hordes of murderous henchmen to tear the clothes off your over-endowed rival, youโ€™ve really seen them all.

In theory, of course, youโ€™d be able to tell the levels apart by their various characters and dialogues, but letโ€™s be realistic here: the characters are exactly as flat as youโ€™d expect from a franchise that essentially got its start because a developer wanted 3D boobs (which is kind of ironic, come to think of it). Sure, thereโ€™s a storyline about ninja students and rival schools and whatnot, but thatโ€™s all just window dressing for girls making single-entendre innuendos to each other and, by turns, dreaming of candy and complaining about being fat. On some level, I guess, it counts as progress that we have girls getting nosebleeds over other girls, but in a broader sense โ€” i.e. the sense where otaku guys just want to see lesbian schoolgirls getting it on โ€” using the word โ€œprogressโ€ may be overstating things.

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Truthfully, though? I feel a little ashamed to admit it, but the rampant objectification on display here isnโ€™t what bugs me the most about Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus. I mean, yes, the constant fanservice is a little grating if youโ€™re the kind of person who doesnโ€™t want to get weird looks from anyone who sees you playing the game, but I have to say that the repetition is what really bothers me most. That may be asking a bit too much of a game that, again, was essentially conceived of as a 3D boob-delivery mechanism, but at the same time, titillation only takes you so far. If a game is going to ask for peopleโ€™s time and money, it should be delivering something in return that canโ€™t be gotten for free on any number of X-rated sites, and Senran Kagura just doesnโ€™t do that.

Grade: C-
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