Life’s a beach, than you Senran.
I’m no stranger to the way these Senran Kagura games work, or better said the style they go for. I’ll admit its eye opening ad makes me question who these games are being actually targeted for. As I get older each entry only seems feel more ridiculous, or perhaps I’m just getting more cynical in my age. That’s not to say the combat in these games usually were just fun enough distractions to get through the cringe to a certain point. So I was actually thinking this game might continue down that path…but I was totally wrong.
Arm your water cannons
So get this, the premise of PBS is that all the warriors of past games, currently living or not, are called to an ancient ritual of water splashing and beach games due to some ancient passage. All the girls get summoned suddenly, much like in some of the other games, and the rules are introduced. No fighting allowed, only official water guns can be used. There is so more details here, but basically the whole thing is streaming for viewers on a program called “new tube” and the games begin. Honestly I couldn’t make up this story if I tried. Its super odd, and the two hosts make a wide assortment of “hard” and “wet” sexual jokes right from the get go. I couldn’t believe how fast and heavy the innuendos were flying at the screen already.
MSRP: $59.99
Price I’d Pay: $0.00
Multiplayer: Online
How long to beat: 6+ hours
The game is broken down into a few different modes, a main campaign split into various chapters, each for a different groups of girls. Side missions with more story and behind the scenes of the main story. Last but not least, the multiplayer that takes everything learned from the other two modes gameplay wise and applies it to online shenanigans. After selecting a mode, players will then choose from a multitude of various women in short trimmed bikinis and bustling chests, bouncy physics and all.
Once selected, the game begins and it turns into this objective based water gun shooting game. Ok, I’m a bit intrigued, but does it have any depth or needed variation. Sadly no. During my time, I always felt like the game was just pushing this chaotic wave of enemies in my face. Some with inner tubes on, others with huge grope hands, and these enemies just make a mad dash for the player from the opposite end of the map. The game shows red arrows to indicate where the enemies are at, which in essence takes away any sense of exploration or discovery to find the enemy at all.
Once getting to them it becomes just a battle of attrition in seeing who can dodge and attack the best, dealing the most damage as they can. There is little to no skill involved as far as I’m concerned, and upping the difficulty just makes it take all the longer to down a character. Speaking of that, once a main girl character on the opposing team is down, places can do a finisher to squirt them with water blasting either their face, butt, or chest in order to blow away their clothes and embarrass them. Yep, that totally happens. Some boss battles do occur, and occasionally the main objective to the mission might be to put out fires, but really, it’s about as shallow as it could be in every sense of the word.
After battles players earn money and cards that can be used to change the starting deck for whichever characters are picked. This adds a slight sense of configuration when it comes to combat and move set, as the guns do control differently, from dual pistols, rocket launchers, and bouncing balls of water. The special move cards range from dealing attacks to protection, so using the right card could be a saving grace at the right time. Yet regardless of what is picked, there is a constant recharge/reload the ladies will have to do to gain more water for their gun, and their water jet packs used for dashing and high jumps/hovering. The animation for the reload is of course them pumping the guns up ridiculously fast.
Multiplayer mode is available, and sadly I couldn’t even get a game to load with reviewers, full disclosure, the net code could be bad, good, but regardless, if the only difference is that now players are online with other players or friends, doesn’t change the fact that the game feels unfocused and too fast to really come up with any valid strategies. Splatoon this game is not.
Time’s up
I pretty much dreaded returning to this game for review after the first go, but I still persisted. The theme of wet t-shirts, water guns, and silly antics is something that I could overlook regardless of how much it just made me uncomfortable at times, but the core gameplay mechanics here just didn’t do it for me. Who could I recommend this game to then? Players that are fans of the storyline and banter between the girls, and the overall visual design of the game might be pleased, but anyone looking for anything past the busting babes or wet shirts are bound to be disappointed.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
