Review #265: Senran Kagura - Shinovi Versus

 Well, it ain't trash.

 As someone who dislikes fanservice, I've been pretty vocal on my distaste for the Senran Kagura games and their ilk. But baseless judgment is, well, baseless, so I decided to give it a try.

 The story.... I'm gonna be completely honest, I didn't care about it. I gave it a chance, I gave it several chances, especially after reading about how it was 'surprisingly dark' and characters held 'hidden depth' and.... Nope, sorry. There's this blonde gal who is always trying to grope the other gals, and you want me to take it seriously? Then there's this gun-tooting lass that, for some reason, has a breast cup increase when she transforms, and her whole story mode is filled with breast puns... Yeah, sorry, I just couldn't take it seriously enough for me to care. For what it's worth, people say that the story is surprisingly deep... but you gotta get through the silly first, and I just couldn't.

 As far as gameplay goes, levels either have you fighting a boss, clearing an area full of enemies so that the boss appears and you fight her or fighting enemies, move forward through the stage a bit, fight more enemies, advance a bit further, beat the enemies and beat the boss. It's like a small-scale Dynasty Warriors game, although stages last anywhere between 1 minute to 6, tops. The fighting is similar to Dynasty Warriors as well, you have your basic Weak attack string and a Strong attack that can be used to end your combos... kinda, while DW gives you a different 'finisher' depending on when you press the strong attack, you only have about three different finishers here. Girls also have two super attacks and an extra desperation attack that can only be used when running low on health. Lastly, there's two modes: Yang, which changes your attack strings and gives you small damage boosts, which you engage by pressing L once you fill your energy gauge, and Yin/Frantic, which can be used at any time, and gives you a huge attack boost... and a huge defense drop, plus, your girl is stripped down to her underwear.

 There's a lot to do, each individual girl has 5 exclusive missions to her name, plus, a 25 mission-story for each of the four 'schools', each school having 5 characters, for a total of 100(And a bonus epilogue fight) story missions and 100 'individual' missions. The individual missions can only be played by the respective character, but once you clear a Story Mission, you can then replay them with any of the other 5 girls from the school. I would've liked some kind of 'Free Mode' to replay any stage with any character, instead of having Story Missions locked to each school. Regardless, at the end of the day, it feels like a poor man's Dynasty Warriors game. Is it fan? Yes, at times, but it's very, very repetitive, and grows old faster than any 'Warriors' game.

 If you like fanservice, this is your game. Breasts bounce all over the place, all the time, using special attacks on bosses shreds their clothes, while being on the receiving end of one will damage yours. There's also a decent variety of fetish costumes, like Cheerleader, Chinese Dress, Kinder Gardener, etc. and you can accessorize each girl with pacifiers, animal ears or tails, etc. And over 100 types of underwear. OVER. A. HUNDRED. TYPES. OF. UNDERWEAR. Although many of them are recolors. Oh, and while on the 'Dressing Room' you can tap a girls breasts to fondle them, or tap their privates for flustered reactions.

 And that's that. The game is not absolute trash, but the gameplay lacks soul. Maybe they thought the huge amount of fanservice made up for it, maybe it does, if you are into it, but as far as I'm concerned, this is just an average game. Functional? Yes. Fun? At times. Ridiculous? Completely.
 5.0 out of 10