My copy of Senran Kagura Estival Versus arrived the other day. I haven’t booted it up yet, because I realised that I was yet to play through its predecessor, the 3DS-based Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson. Since the Senran Kagura series is heavily narrative-based and subsequent installments often make reference to events in their predecessors — even between the “main” series on 3DS and the Versus subseries on Sony platforms — I didn’t want to jump into Estival Versus until I had, at the very least, beaten the main story of Deep Crimson.

I find the contrast between the 3DS and Sony incarnations of Senran Kagura to be quite interesting. The 3DS games, being the “canonical” storylines, for want of a better word, play like modernisations of 2.5D brawlers such as Streets of Rage, while the Sony games unfold with more of a sense of “3D”, feeling more like a blend between Dissidia Final Fantasy and Omega Force’s Warriors/Musou series. I’m torn as to which I prefer, to be honest; I’ve always had a major soft spot for 2.5D brawlers, and, upon firing up Senran Kagura Burst for the first time and discovering it was essentially a new Streets of Rage game, I was delighted. That said, the Versus series seems to be the one that tends to be more well-received, and I like the larger, extended cast that they incorporate.

I don’t have to pick a favourite, do I? No? Then I won’t. I love them all.

All right, Deep Crimson then. I’m coming up on the last missions of the game having blasted through the previous four chapters, and I’ve been really enjoying it so far. One thing that has developed considerably from Burst is the fact that each character feels very different to the others now. A lot of Burst could be got through by mashing the attack button and occasionally avoiding enemy attacks, though naturally you’d get more out of it — particularly in boss fights — if you learned some of the combos and when the characters’ special moves are especially effective. Deep Crimson, meanwhile, roundly punishes button-mashing, since there appears to be some sort of attack priority system going on, where hurling yourself at the front of an enemy while flailing wildly is a sure-fire way to get yourself defeated swiftly. Instead, mixing up light and strong attacks with air attacks, launches and special moves is essential; it feels much more like a “fighting game” than a button-mashing brawler, which is both enjoyable and rewarding. (Not that there’s anything wrong with a button-mashing brawler, of course; I still love me some Streets of Rage.)

Of particular note is the increased emphasis on special moves’ usefulness. I got through a lot of Burst and Shinovi Versus without making heavy use of these impressive, powerful moves, but Deep Crimson makes effective use of them a necessity. In a nice nod to series narrative continuity, all the girls start with their powered-up moves that they learned in the previous games, too, providing three distinct, situational moves to unleash at the appropriate time — and if you’ve wailed on your opponent enough to charge up your ninja scroll meter too, of course. There’s a nice mix between area-effect nukes, frontal cones, charge attacks and some outright bizarre abilities (Hibari’s “now I’m a giant and I’ma stomp on you!” move is particularly peculiar) that means learning how each character plays is essential; you can’t go in hitting buttons randomly and hope for the best, particularly in the tougher fights against stronger individual opponents or duos.

Narrative-wise, Deep Crimson raises the stakes significantly from Burst and even Shinovi Versus. Burst was, up until its final moments, heavily slice-of-life in nature, albeit slice-of-life with shinobi battles. There was a big, ridiculous final boss battle in its final chapter that teased where the series might go in the future, but then it ended. Shinovi Versus, meanwhile, again concentrated on the daily lives and backstories of the characters, but ended with an even bigger tease about the truth behind shinobi in the modern world: their mission to reveal and battle youma, hugely destructive evil creatures who demand blood sacrifices and generally fuck shit up.

After two games of us only ever seeing one youma though — Burst’s final boss Orochi, whom you fight both on the inside and the outside depending on which of the two main narrative paths you follow — I was beginning to wonder if youma were going to be one of those threats that was always mentioned in hushed whispers but never actually seen. I thought it would be disappointing if we didn’t get to fight some big slobbering monsters, though, because although it’s fun to see some shinobi-on-shinobi action, some big slobbering monsters would mix things up nicely.

Deep Crimson is well aware that I probably wasn’t the only person feeling like this, and opens with a retelling of Burst’s final moments, and then only continues to escalate from there. It tells an interesting tale that delves further into the overall series mythology — particularly the role of the high-ranking ninjas and of Kagura, a mysterious young girl who shows up and appears to be destined to fight youma.

The particularly interesting thing about the narrative is how it plays with the concepts of good and evil. This is always something that Senran Kagura has been particularly good at, with the majority of both Burst and Shinovi Versus exploring the nature of what “good” and “evil” shinobi really mean, and how people can find ways to build bridges across the frothing waters of conflicting ideologies. With Deep Crimson, though, the Hanzou girls — canonically the “good guys” — find themselves confronted with an order that they’re not sure is really the right thing to do. Meanwhile, Homura’s Crimson Squad, the former Hebijo Academy students and the characters originally positioned as the “bad guys”, are placed in the position of doing what you’d traditionally expect the heroes of the piece to be doing.

The other thing that’s interesting — and the thing I love the most about Senran Kagura as a whole — is how it juxtaposes the heavy, violent and often philosophical shinobi drama with the breezy silliness of a bunch of teenage girls trying to figure out who they are and what their place in the world is. Every single character in Senran Kagura is a well-defined, interesting person with a unique and worthwhile backstory, and they all get their own time in the limelight. Some characters — Homura is a particularly good example — undergo a huge amount of personal growth and development over the course of the series, and it’s been a real pleasure so far to watch these girls grow up, learn about themselves and their place in shinobi society.

This latter aspect in particular is what makes me so infuriated when people dismiss the series as “just boobs”. There’s some truly remarkable character and plot development going on in this series. Yes, there are big jiggly boobs; yes there are panty shots; yes, combat usually concludes with all the participants stripped down to their undies, but none of this takes away from the well-written, extremely well-characterised drama (and comedy!) that provides the context for the action. It truly is a series deserving of more credit than it gets, and as I close in on the end of Deep Crimson I find myself enormously excited to jump in to Estival Versus, whose core concept promises to tug at the heartstrings particularly strongly. But that’s a story for another day, of course.

“Just boobs” my arse.