Shameful PS Vita Game Reviews - Senran Kagura Estival Versus

I got a lot of free time on my hands, so instead of doing anything that could be considered healthy or productive I've chosen to dive head first into the world of video games I should be real embarrassed to own/play. Thankfully for me I didn't have to try that hard, because I am one of like 69 people that owns a PlayStation Vita, and that thing is bursting at the seams with games you wouldn't want to play in the same room as your mom. Unless you have a really weird relationship with your mom, but hey, I ain't here to kink shame anyone, so you do you.

Anyways.

Senran Kagura Estival Versus (2016)

Published by Marvelous Entertainment

Developed by Tamsoft

Ok, so I played probably too much of the predecessor, Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus, another game with a pretty dumb name that kinda doesn't really mean anything but is so close to making sense. It's like they got it to the 5 yard line, and then they looked at the clock and decided to have lunch instead of finishing the localization for the game/scoring a touchdown. What the hell is an Estival? I'm 99% sure it's not a real word and I'm kinda frustrated by this. I dunno, life can be tough sometimes. Anyways, the Versus series on the Vita play essentially like a musou game (such as Dynasty Warriors), where you fight giant hordes of anonymous enemies in third person, and occasionally you'll deal with a boss fight at the end of a stage that might require something resembling strategy or skill. Which I think is different than the core series of Senran Kagura games on the 3DS, which I know nothing about because I feel gross playing a boobs game in 3D. I'm sad and lonely, I'm not a monster. I think they might me sidescrolling beat-em-ups?

Where SKEV primarily differs from Dynasty Warriors and the like is in that all the protagonists are absurdly proportioned women that beat the clothes off of other women, instead of like, I dunno, whatever Lu Bu did. I've never really payed attention to the story in Dynasty Warriors in the handful of times I've played one of them. Don't ask me which one I played because I have no idea. My gripe here is not that you're beating the clothes off of other women, but rather that for the most part the playable character models all share essentially the same body type, with minor variations in their height, with the exception of a couple of characters that have the bodies of 12 year olds, and that shit super sucks. I have no problem with a little bit of cheesecake in my games, or indeed cheesecake in my life, because I am a man who loves eating cheesecakes, but I do with they would expand into different shaped women, maybe have some that aren't in constant fear of back problems because their chest is bigger than the rest of their body. You know? My boner/heart? needs more than that.

I guess I should at least talk about the gameplay at least a little bit. It's fun enough to plow through giant groups of enemies, and the combos can feel kinda satisfying, but like all games of this genre it'll probably get old sooner than later. Boss fights offer a bit of a change up, but to be honest, aside from the last few in the story mode, they didn't require too much change in style from what I do when I'm clearing out minions. You control different girls through the story mode, I think maybe all the girls, I'm not sure, I'm not an actual journalist so whatever. They do generally all feel different from each other, with some being a downright drag to use, so it becomes an annoyance at times. It would be nice to have the option of taking one girl through the story mode, but for that there are individual stories, but more on that later. Don't ask me anything about the story because it is flimsy at best and downright inscrutable basically all the time. Thankfully you can skip the story scenes, most of which don't offer much to look at anyways. There are a few fully animated scenes which I guess are good, they're certainly better than static images with writing imposed over them, which is a lot of the story. I can't be expected to read this nonsense, we both know why I'm playing this, and it's basically the opposite of reading.

Aside from the technically existent story mode there are also individual stories for each of the playable girls, as I mentioned earlier. They can be unlocked by destroying platforms that appear throughout the story mode. Is it worth it? Yeah, sure. I dunno, there are 34 playable girls, each with different styles of fighting, so it certainly extends your playtime if this is a world you want to spend more time in, or if you want to sharpen your abilities with a certain girl. The stories here are much shorter and easier to follow than the main story, they generally involve someone losing something and having to find it by beating the clothes off her friends. Just like in real life.

Other modes include an online mode that I couldn't play because nobody plays this game with other people, it's a secret shame game for sure. Ain't nobody need to see what you're beating it to. There is also the ability to customise the girls' outfits and hairstyles, through the use of in game currency earned after every mission. You can then take your creepy fantasies into what can only be described as beat off mode. In essence up to three girls (in the vita version, I believe PS4 might let you do as many as five) can be posed and arranged, to what one can only assume are dark ends.