There’s always been a stigma surrounding the Senran Kagura games. I’ve played Estival Versus and Shinovi Versus in the past, not because I was necessarily interested in the games but because I had always been curious what the appeal was, and they turned out to be a lot of fun! For those unfamiliar, the Senran Kagura are brawler games that follow a large group of female ninja that are all buxom women. As players fight, more and more of the girl’s clothes get torn off. It sounds ridiculous on paper, and honestly, it is. Part of the charm around the Senran Kagura games is that they know what audience they are for, they embrace it, and don’t ever shy away from it.
The newest installment in the series, Peach Beach Splash takes a different approach. Instead of a brawler, we have a third person shooter. To spice things up, our leading ladies are already mostly in state of undress, and everyone is wearing swimsuits; and of course, they are mostly two-pieces. All the girls have been invited to what is called Peach Beach Splash what is essentially a water gun fight tournament. Each arc presents it’s story differently, which was refreshing. Part of me was expecting each story to follow along the same lines, and have the story be retold a handful of times from different perspectives.
There are a few storylines to follow, with each one following a different group of girls. Each story arc features a different shinobi house with 5 different playable girls and ten missions in each arc. Each arc has it’s own twist, some are focused on uncovering the mystery of the tournament, while others focus mostly on the storylines of the girls. Most of the missions are pretty generic. All of them start players off on one side of an arena, while the game hurls enemies at you, and you blast them with your water gun. About halfway through each arc the formula changes a little bit, and once those minions are defeated, there might be one girl, or all the girls from another shinobi house sent in to fight you. This is a tournament, after all. Around this point is where I got a little uncomfortable.
It wasn’t the large bouncing breasts, or the reload animation that looks like masturbation while these naked girls are pumping the pressure nozzle on their water gun to reload that made me cringe. When you down an enemy, you can go up to them to perform a finisher. Peach Beach Splash calls them “squirmy finishes.” Your weapon changes into a rubber ducky, and you blast various parts of the enemy with water until their clothes pop off. Luckily, the game doesn’t force you into doing these, and they can be avoided. It’s not something you see a lot in games, so seeing it was a little jarring, but I know there’s a big cultural difference so I tried not to let it affect my opinion too much. The other thing to note on this topic is that there is a completely separate mode that not only lets you take photos and pose the girls, but allows you to grope them and blast them with water outside of the main game.
One thing that Peach Beach Splash does do really well is offer up a lot of different varieties of gameplay. There are a few different modes to choose from. The main one, and the meat of PBS, which I talked about above, is Single Splash. There are a few others here, like Paradise Episodes, which are smaller, contained story lines that don’t have any effect on the main story. V-Road Challenges, which are smaller water gun tournaments. I had a lot of fun with these, and are probably the most challenging part of the single player modes. Lastly, there is the obligatory multiplayer mode. I unfortunately didn’t have a lot of luck connecting to other players, and opted instead to fight against the terrible AI opponents. I’m hoping that once the game officially releases here in the United States, we’ll see an uptick in player count for the online component.
Each mode is unique in it’s own way, and lends to the raunchy humor that Peach Beach Splash has on display from the beginning. Another thing that PBS has going for it, are the vibrant and colorful character models and environments. Peach Beach Splash doesn’t have the best or most detailed looking environments, but all of them are extremely colorful and fun to play in.
For people who aren’t a fan of the Senran Kagura experience, there’s no reason for this to be why players try to come back to the franchise. For those looking for new type of experience with lighthearted humor, and fun, fast paced water gun battles, there seems to be a mode for every different type of player, even if those modes don’t provide much of a challenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm3Pk9ptB50
Senran Kagura Peach Beach Splash is available now for the Playstation 4. This review is based on a copy provided by the publisher for that purpose.
