I had heard rumblings about the Senran Kagura series for a while, but never had the chance to play part of the franchise before. The rumblings were always a mixture of praise for the simple yet satisfying gameplay and disapproval for the sheer level of perversion the game reaches. Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus sees the ninja brawler series make its debut on the Playstation Vita and it is hard to know what to make of it at first. It knows what it wants to achieve on a base level, made obvious by the home screen icon being a pair of breasts and the first screen loading page showing a naked woman with some carefully placed weaponry to hide her modesty. The narrative however is fairly straight faced for the most part and doesn’t have anywhere near as much perversion in the dialogue or set pieces as you’d think, although it definitely has its moments and its characters that make you remember it exists.

I was worried at the initial start up that what I had gotten myself into was little more than a titillation piece for teenagers. Luckily there is more to the game than that and the gameplay takes a cue from the delightfully addictive Dynasty Warriors (unfortunately with fewer enemies on screen at once). There are several modes in the game, but the big draw is the main story mode of each school, called Shinovi Girls’ Code and the individual one chapter stories of each character called Shinovi Girl’s Heart. You begin the game with three schools to choose from, each with their own story to tell through various members with five to a school. The story varies for each one, but all participate in some form of Shinovi Battle Royale, which is basically an excuse to go to smash stuff up in a school (kids today).

The story mode is fun but is let down a bit with each schools story being a “what if?”, rather than telling a complete story when combined. This also leads to characters being portrayed differently with them sometimes coming across as more psychotic, ditsier, more perverted, etc. Each group’s story is made up of chapters, which in turn are normally made up of 5 sub-chapters. Most chapters, including cutscenes, will take you 5-10 minutes with some coming in a bit more or, if you’re good, less. This means you’re looking at 30 minutes to an hour to complete a chapter on your first playthrough so, if you are lucky enough to not need to replay any of them. With three starter schools that’s a lot of gameplay in just one part of the game; however is that necessarily a good thing?

The narrative is different for each school, but scenarios are similar. All levels include fighting a boss but there are variants and it’s during these variants that the game shines. The boss fights have a tendency of feeling similar, but it’s the build up to some that will have combo lovers smiling with glee. As you watch the health bars of the general enemies deplete whilst charging at another one to keep your combo going, there is a sense of excitement or frustration. Will you hit the next blow in time? Will they block it? In later levels it gets even more intense with some of the tougher enemies holding vital health items, but delivering quite a punch if you want to get them.

So surely the boss fights against the other ninjas is a brilliant bit of back and forth action? Unfortunately they rarely are. Each character has a Shinobi transformation, which restores your health and opens up a range of limit breaks. Most fights play out the same, whittle down the health bars of your opponent as much as you can, when your health gets low you transform and you can use the heck out of your limit breaks. Nine times out of ten this method works, at least on normal mode. This wouldn’t be a massive issue; we all expect repetitiveness in these games. However boss fights have a tendency to get a bit cutscene crazy, and this isn’t just with the special moves, but also when you knock an item of clothing off your opponent… or they knock an item of clothing off you.

However, the fact that items of clothing get knocked off is a different issue entirely, but as a gameplay mechanic it completely ruins the rhythm of the game. There are several layers to have removed and clothes are reset upon Shinobi transformation which means that roughly every 30 seconds in a boss fight it cues up a cutscene when an item of clothing is lost. The cutscenes are skippable but I couldn’t find a way to turn them off. Skipping the cutscene is possible with a press of the X or start button. The problem with this is that the cutscenes can trigger mid combo, meaning you have to readjust your hand from a combo button to either the jump or pause button. The game also doesn’t stay static during the cutscene and you will often jump back into the game with your enemy much closer to you than you recall. I’m sure even the people who are playing this game for the T&A will be fed up before they’ve hit their 50^th boss fight.

It’s a shame because the combos are satisfying when you can hit them. Luckily the online combat modes do away with the over reliance on the in-game cutscenes, which leads to fast frantic brawls that show how good this game could be if it stopped trying to be so risqué. Some of the online modes may obsess over removing items from your opponents, but the purer combat makes it a hidden gem in this game when I thought it would be little more than a throwaway add on. There is also a dress up mode that boasts loads to choose from and, for those that like to accessorise their characters, this will be a dream come true.

It’s easy to continue to rip Shinovi Versus apart for its perverted nature, which is over the top, sometimes offensive, and often detracts from the enjoyment of actual gameplay, but overall it is still a fun, if flawed, experience. I hope future instalments see sense and dial back the over sexualisation of characters, or at the very least give an option to skip the cutscenes and remove nudity. If they can, then maybe the franchise will open up to a wider audience. Until then Senran Kagura will continue to be a niche gaming series that fails to live up to its full potential.

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