Publisher: XSEED Games
Developer: Marvelous AQL
Medium: Digital/Vita Card
Players: 1-4
Online: Yes
ESRB: M
To some extent, Iโve 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 peopleโs 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 Iโve reached my limit, the point where even Iโm looking at a game and saying, โOkay, thatโs a bit much.โ Itโs basically all boobs, panties and dialogue that sounds like it was written by people whoโve never actually interacted with girls before.
To some extent, of course, similar criticisms โ and worse โ couldโve been levelled against Conception II, Akibaโs 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 didnโt rely on such titillating hooks, whereas strip away Senran Kaguraโs T&A, and youโre not left with a whole lot.
Actually, thatโs not completely true. In the gameโs defense, the fighting controls arenโt that bad. Admittedly, this is largely because youโre usually fighting so many enemies, you can afford to just flail around wildly and expect to hit something. But still, Iโd be lying if I didnโt admit that the quality of the action is single-handedly good enough to say that Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus isnโt completely devoid of merit.
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 youโre actually playing through a stage, it becomes pretty difficult to differentiate between them all, since theyโre all so similar. If youโve seen one level where you fight through hordes of murderous henchmen to tear the clothes off your over-endowed rival, youโve really seen them all.
In theory, of course, youโd be able to tell the levels apart by their various characters and dialogues, but letโs be realistic here: the characters are exactly as flat as youโd 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, thereโs a storyline about ninja students and rival schools and whatnot, but thatโs 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 โprogressโ may be overstating things.
Truthfully, though? I feel a little ashamed to admit it, but the rampant objectification on display here isnโt what bugs me the most about Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus. I mean, yes, the constant fanservice is a little grating if youโre the kind of person who doesnโt 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 peopleโs time and money, it should be delivering something in return that canโt be gotten for free on any number of X-rated sites, and Senran Kagura just doesnโt do that.