1526: Skirting Shadows

I “finished” Senran Kagura Burst last night. Well, more accurately, I finished Senran Kagura: Skirting Shadows, also known as the Hanzou Academy side of the game’s two-part story. On that side of things, there’s still a bunch of bonus levels to complete, plus attempting to A-Rank everything and complete everything in Frantic mode, and then there’s the same for the Hebijo girls, too, so optimistically I should be looking at at least 40 hours of gameplay in total. Not bad at all.

I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve played so far, and I’m a particular fan of how well the package as a whole caters to different play styles. If you have a few minutes, you can pick up and play a level or two without worrying about plot; each level takes no more than a minute or two to play, and is a lot of fun, particularly with how different all the characters play from one another. If you have a longer period of time available, however, you can play through the story levels you haven’t touched (with accompanying, lengthy visual novel sequences), or concentrate on trying to perfect a particular level for an A Rank, or levelling up a favourite character until you have her best moves.

I was impressed with the story, which was enjoyably mundane throughout despite being about two clans of warring ninjas. The most interesting moments were the ones where the characters were just hanging out eating sushi or chatting among themselves; the most meaningful moments as the “good” shinobi of the Hanzou Academy come to realise that their “evil” counterparts from Hebijo perhaps aren’t as different from them as they all once thought.

Perhaps most notable, though, and I’m aware I’ve touched on this before, is the fact that throughout the story, the characters are treated with the utmost respect by the scenario writers. The game may be notorious for its gelatinous breasts and panty shots and it may be true that beating the story allows you to blow into the 3DS microphone in an attempt to peek up the girls’ skirts, but as characters, Asuka, Katsuragi, Ikaruga, Yagyuu and Hibari are well-defined individuals, each in possession of a decent character arc (particularly so in the case of Hibari) and each designed to “feel” very much like a real person. There’s a few recognisable tropes in there — Ikaruga’s class president and Katsuragi’s perverted older sister nature spring immediately to mind — but the game is set up in such a way that they all feel like much more than just eye candy or pure fanservice. I have no doubt that the Hebijo story path will be much the same when I come to it.

I’m looking forward to the possibility of the other games in the series making it to Western territories, and very much hope that they do. There’s a strong cast of loveable characters here, and it would be great to see them explored further. Whether or not that happens will presumably depend on sales of the first, but the fact that Xseed localised it in the first place (and Marvelous AQL Europe brought it to Europe in physical format) gives me a considerable degree of hope. As “niche interest” as games like Senran Kagura Burst are, they fulfil an important role in the industry and give people like me that pleasant feeling of “yes, this is a game for me” rather than the dumbed-down, lowest-common-denominator nature of a lot of mainstream titles.

Now I’m feeling a bit shitty (yes, still) so I’m off to bed to snuggle up with the ample bosoms of Hanzou Academy, and there isn’t a thing you can do to stop me!