Senran Kagura: Estival Versus Review – Naked Is Sacred

Some games resonate with you in just the right way. They deliver such an immensely satisfying experience that you kinda want to shout their praises from the rooftops, yet when it’s a game that only targets a niche (I really hate that word) audience, you wonder if your endorsement may fall on deaf ears.

And so, we wait, keeping our ‘guilty pleasure’ game to ourselves until, after many years of cautious silence, we’re suddenly hit with that spark of inspiration to put our experience into words. The subject of today’s review is one such hidden treasure.

Senran Kagura: Estival Versus is a special game, not just because of its anarchic ninja action and enough naked girls to satisfy even the most dedicated harem enthusiast, but because it’s a beautiful story of many individual arcs, themes and perspectives.

Introduction

Senran Kagura: Estival Versus is a hack-and-slash ecchi game developed by Tamsoft and published by Xseed Games. It’s part of the long-running Senran Kagura series and was released for PlayStation Vita and the first in the series to be enhanced for PlayStation 4, with both versions releasing in March 2016.

Multiple games exist within the Senran Kagura series, many on the Vita, including main entry Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus. Estival Versus is set after Shinovi Versus, when more rival groups have already entered the fray and friendships are beginning to grow and blossom.

I suppose we’d better talk about the fan-service before we go on, since it’s a pretty visible factor we’ll need to make our peace with. The Senran Kagura series features constant nudity in all of the games which is very much the primary selling point here. During the battles, clothing will rip and fly off, again and again, until there’s nothing left.

The nudity is always there. So, if the image of an exhausted busty naked Japanese highschool girl panting on the floor with her legs akimbo and only a few (in)conveniently placed light particles covering her naughty places offends you, then you’re not going to have a happy-bouncy time with this one. Consider yourselves warned. Now that’s out of the way, we have a lot of backstory to get through.

Story

Estival Versus is set a little later in the saga of Senran Kagura, a tale of rival trainee shinobi students competing to graduate their respective kunoichi schools and master the ultimate fighting techniques to attain the rank of ‘Kagura’, the best of the best, but with great power comes great responsibility.

The Kagura is considered a hero, a hero who will defeat the Yōma; an extradimensional demon which is born from the very bloodshed caused by the same shinobi who fight to stop it. Battling a Yōma is usually a one-way trip, and so the young shinobi students try to enjoy life’s simple pleasures outside of training, knowing, one day, it will all come to an end.

The five Elite girls of Hanzō National Academy study martial arts and shinobi history, in order to preserve peace and happiness for all. Their foremost student, the legendary Hanzō’s upbeat granddaughter Asuka, spars constantly alongside the samurai Ikaruga and handsy kick-boxer Katsuragi to make everyone stronger, and continually makes more friends wherever she goes.

Hebijo Clandestine Girls’ Academy stands as a symbol of hope for lost souls, yet also a dark, foreboding lair for unorthodox shinobis who are often unfairly labelled ‘evil’, submitting themselves to a life of discipline, subterfuge and violence. The school’s five Elite students carry its banner with pride, ready to fight for its honour as a legitimate school worthy of respect. The gender-dysphoric Miyabi leads the new class who seek to replace the former squad of deserters, alongside the newly-recruited quirky sisters, Ryōbi and Ryōna.

Homura and her four closest friends once served as the Elites of Hebijo Academy. When Dōgen, Hebijo’s chief financier, tried to twist the school into a demonic ritual ground, Homura killed him, then fled with her friends into hiding. For months, they lived a life of desperation together, working menial jobs by day, then training in their cave-hideout by night. Although Hebijo has since pardoned the group, Homura and her friends have started to grow accustomed to the renegade vigilante lifestyle since it allows them to be shinobi on their own terms. They are now known as the Crimson Squad.

Fronted by the beautiful ice-powered shinobi Yumi, five Elite students of the Gessen Girls’ Academy all studied under the infamous renegade shinobi Kurokage, who once fought to purge all evil from the world. Old age and love for his students eventually calmed his righteous fury, but that didn’t stop his students from picking up where he’d left off. In time, the girls’ experiences with the other factions broadened their views of right and wrong, and today they struggle to reconcile their teachings and beliefs with the ambiguities of the modern world.

The tireless dedication of Japan’s shinobi students does occasionally bring rewards. Once every thousand years, a convergence of mystical forces brings about the Kagura Millennium Festival, whose Overseers take on the task of laying departed shinobi souls to rest. This millennium, Hanzō’s wife Sayuri has taken charge of the Festival, bringing together three shrine maidens and a particularly radiant soul to assist in the proceedings on a warm yet otherworldly summer island.

Unbeknownst to all but Sayuri, the Festival is more than it appears to be. Deeper secrets lie beneath its friendly battles, lights and festivities, and if the up-and-coming shinobi students can prove they’re ready to learn, those secrets just might change their fates. For the next week, the spirits of the dead are coming back to test their skills against the living, including a familiar girl named Ryōki.

Gameplay

From the Beach Menu, you can start a mission or prepare for one by getting changed. Adventure scenes advance the story by presenting character dialogues and visual novel sequences. The heart of the game, as you might expect, is where you take control and battle through stages of varying shapes, sizes and themes. Play through various story missions or take on character-specific missions; either way, you’ll be beating up enemies with the beautifully buxom ninja of your choice.

Each girl has her own style of martial arts to utilise. All can make use of both strong and weaker attacks to perform powerful combinations. A Combo Meter keeps track of how many attacks you chain on enemies, and the higher your combo score, the more XP you gain. Large combos also unlock new moves to deal even more damage. When you send your enemies flying, you can follow them into the air to perform an Aerial Rave, dealing further combo damage even while airborne. If your mission includes an NPC partner, you can even pair up with them to take airborne enemies down with a Fusion Aerial Rave.

Though the girls are masters at dealing out pain, they will inevitably take damage now and again. Each hit the girls take reduces both their health gauge and their costume’s durability. Their outfits slowly tear off bit by bit until all durability is lost and they’re left in nothing but their underwear. To add insult to injury, the fewer clothes they have the more damage they take, and even your girl’s underwear is removable when finished off with a special attack.

Each girl has a Ninja Art gauge which, when filled, lets that girl perform a ‘Shinobi Transformation’. This unlocks each girl’s true shinobi form and allows for powerful special attacks called ‘Secret Ninja Arts’. These special attacks deal massive damage and have a wider range than normal attacks. Returning from Shinovi Versus, the Flower of Balance allows the girls to attain special passive abilities through mastery of the three modes related to certain moves. These are known as Yin, Yang, and Flash.

Each character’s costume has three parts: Uniform, Shinobi Outfit, and Lingerie, and yes, you can dress your favourite girl up in her best sexy outfit. Beat missions and earn grades to unlock hidden clothes, including the shinobi outfits of the opposing factions. From bikinis to sailor suits to nurse uniforms, there are outfits to please everyone, and with an equally wide variety of accessories, each girl will have her own unique look.

Graphics/Sound

Seeing the franchise move to the PS4 brings with it a smoother, mostly consistent frame-rate and the super-colourful look now enhanced for the big screen, not that it wasn’t colourful before, it’s just the most beautiful-looking version in the franchise. Eyes sparkle and shimmer, combat strikes are delivered with firework-infused flashes, and environments are diverse, multi-tiered and realistic in scope. The soundtrack is also solid, catchy, and keeps the momentum going.

The girls interact and challenge each other in the scripted cinematic scenes that introduce each stage. It’s fully voiced but only with the original Japanese voice-overs and English subtitles, to see how training is performed and conflicts are born, while finding hidden depths to each girl by learning about their stories, friendships, and dreams. The short stories, or visual novel-style segments, add even more depth to the world, revealing the history, customs, and conflicts of the shinobi realm via a solid translation. The inner thoughts and daily trials of the girls also come into play, all interspersed with beautiful artwork present during key scenes.

Replayability/Trophies

There’s plenty to keep you busy here, and it’s all part of working your way towards the platinum trophy. First, maybe beat the Kagura Millennium Festival. In this step, we tackle the main story of the game. You will have to beat the 57 missions that are spread out over eight days. During this step, you should attempt to destroy as many Festival Platforms as possible so you don’t have to backtrack later. These are semi-hidden breakable bonus objects located in certain stages.

Do note that you can play the game on any difficulty without penalty, so the time it takes to complete your playthrough will vary depending on your chosen difficulty level. Later, it’s side-quest time. Complete all of the Shinobi Girl’s Hearts Missions, including those of two bonus characters. Both of their stories are unlocked after you have destroyed all 80 Festival Platforms. This step is comprised of 135 missions spread out over 27 girls’ stories.

Conclusion

Estival Versus tells a big, beautiful chapter of an underappreciated and often misunderstood series. The girls share an optimistic and almost hedonistic view here, to live each day as if it’s your last, strive to be the best that you can be and enjoy life’s simple pleasures. The girls juggle busy lifestyles daily; At times, it feels like training never ends, but during those few breaks, their friendships shine through, enjoying meals together and savouring their favourite treats. Sometimes those relationships evolve into something more, with little crushes manifesting here and there. Despite hints of fantasy in the setting, there’s a lot of realism in the characters.

It’s these moments of joy that help provide much needed breaks from the tension. Facing death on a daily basis can make for a particularly harrowing story, especially with such a young cast. There are advantages to this twisted version of reality in the form of a refreshing in-game culture which has little interest in something as mundane as shame. There’s a liberating empowerment shown in the characters as they frequently shed their clothing down to nothing, sometimes even voluntarily when necessary. Such body confidence is admirable.

For all of its boobs, butts and sometimes comical style of violence, Senran Kagura is actually a tragic story beneath all the spectacle. The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and so it is with the lives of the young shinobi. Death comes swiftly for the lucky ones, and for those still living, grief and strife are constant companions. Ryōbi and Ryōna of the Hebijo Clandestine Girls’ Academy know this truth all too well, and they mourn their beloved older sister every day. For them, and many of their friends, this is a stunning tale of grieving, acceptance, friendship and duty, all wrapped up in a sexy package. Wow.