1889: My Dear Ninjas

Having finished Criminal Girls, I was all set to make a start on Hyperdevotion Noire, a game that I’ve been very excited to play for quite some time. But I didn’t; I decided I should try and clear out some of the games I’ve left half-finished first, the main one being Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus.

Shinovi Versus is an underappreciated little diamond in the Vita library. It’s an enjoyably over-the-top 3D action game vaguely in the vein of Dynasty Warriors (in that in a number of levels you hack and slash your way through hundreds of enemies, and your combo count frequently reaches the thousands) but also providing a fun take on fighting in 3D.

There are two… well, maybe three core appeal elements when we’re talking about Senran Kagura, and Shinovi Versus in particular. The first is, of course, the fanservice element; let’s not beat around the bush here, it’s the reason the series exists in the first place. The girls are pretty, their boobs are jiggly, the costumes are sexy and as you fight, they get ripped. Despite the girls technically being ninjas and using a variety of rather painful-looking implements to battle one another, no-one ever seems to really get hurt or killed; the main damage anyone suffers is to their pride, since a well-timed Ninja Art at the conclusion of a bout can cheerfully whip off the underwear of your opponent, leaving them in no doubt as to who is the winner.

But anyway. The two main things I wanted to talk about were the narrative and the mechanics. The narrative I’ve already talked about in past posts: considering the game is regarded by outsiders as little more than gratuitous fanservice, if you’re unfamiliar with it you may be surprised to note that the series features some excellent characterisation, including characters with genuine development and growth over the course of their stories. It’s a game that’s not afraid to juxtapose the serious and the absurd, either; while the main storylines for each of the four “schools” involved in the overall plot are fairly serious in tone, the girls’ individual stories are more light-hearted in nature, leading to some ridiculous situations. It effectively allows us to see the cast “at work” and “at play”, and it gives us a pretty good picture of who they all are as people.

Mechanically, the game is a delight. The control scheme is simple to understand, but the depth comes from the wide variety of characters and how very differently from one another they all handle. Some are friendly to simple button-mashing — Asuka is a good example, particularly once she unlocks her spinny death tornado move — while others demand mobility, observation, timing and sometimes unconventional tactics. By the end of your time with the game, you’ll have at least one “favourite” character, both in narrative terms and mechanically, too.

It’s a game bursting with content. There are four separate “episodes” to the story, each focusing on a different main cast, and each has a different tone. The scenes involving characters returning from Senran Kagura Burst on the 3DS are heartwarming, while the scenes involving new characters give us a good idea of what makes the newcomers tick. Depending on which order you choose to play the stories, you’ll meet all the characters from several different perspectives, and between all these angles — and side missions like the girls’ individual stories — you’ll get a solid understanding of who everyone is and how they all relate to one another.

Not bad for a fanservice-heavy hack and slash. I’m pleased to be rediscovering it now that Criminal Girls is done and dusted, and looking forward to spending some time with the characters I don’t know all that well yet.