Senran Kagura: Estival Versus (PC) Review

First of all, let's finish off with the obvious: yes, this is one of "those" games that very few want to be caught playing by their parents or partners, and, yes, it has a lot of focus on very guilty pleasures. If that is a problem, there is probably nothing that can be said about this title that can redeem it, as it is something that is really hard coded into it on a fundamental level in both its gameplay and story.

While this is true, Senran Kagura: Estival Versus offers more than this, as it has two good selling points even for people who care little about the fanservice - the characters and the gameplay. It is very easy to judge a product such as this right of the bat as nothing but one of those that aim towards selling huge and juicy numbers on fanservice alone. While it is certainly one of its biggest marketing tools, it does not show laziness on the other important aspects of a game.

The thing that might come as a big shock to those who haven't experienced earlier entries of the franchise is that the characters are not just a couple of walking paper cut-outs, but are actually fully fledged tropes. Normally using the word trope to describe a character is a bad thing, but it works surprisingly well in here, thanks to the big number of characters in the game, and that they often interact with each other in groups during different circumstances. Having too complex and deep characters in a game like this where story segments are often very short, but widely spread out over the game, would have been both confusing and a waste, as there wouldn't really be enough screen-time to focus enough on each character to show more complex personalities.

With that said, not all characters are created equally, and some are better written than others. What is really important in a game about fanservice, though, is that the character's personality itself isn't solely made up of fan service material. Few want to have a handful of shells to project love and affection towards, but do rather enjoy more fulfilling personalities. The situations and interactions between the characters is what should provide the fanservice.

Most of them are really made with this in mind, having some just deep enough conflicting desires and personality traits to make them feel alive, while not being heavy enough to slow down the story or darken the mood too much, then there are some characters that are just that obviously pure fanservice. When a character's greatest personality trait is her unending love for sexually harassing the other characters something has really gone wrong, especially in a fanservice focused game.

Its fighting gameplay, focusing on hitting the opponent so much that their clothes tears apart and exposing their bodies to their opponent as well as the player, also follows the same magical formula for a title like this. The gameplay is heavy enough to deviate enough from the fact that this is a fanservice game, and managed to make it an enjoyable experience even for people who are not there solely for the sexiness, or not just feeling frisky at the moment, but not deep enough to make it more than it is. It is not fully without problems, though.

One of the biggest problems in Senran Kagura: Estival Versus is that the difficulty of the story mode sometimes feels all over the place. The fighting encounters do not always feel balanced towards the point they are relatively close to each other, and some stages are going to be "that one stage" as it has a really nasty combo of opponents, such as a freezer and a ranged character, which means that any hit has a huge shot at draining a lot of the player's health for just one silly mistake by stunlocking and freezing the player, while the next encounter after this only has three normal melee range characters, having the player do a midrange combo locker or 'nuker.'

Beside some duds of various scale, this is a very solid gameplay experience. The story is pleasant, especially if into fanservice involving yuri of various kinds, and the gameplay has a very solid, yet shallow, foundation. While some characters are more crude and over the top than they really need to be in a game with a story that already allows and highlights perverted interactions between the characters, the variety of character means that there are going to be enough other content to just ignore that and move on to whatever sort of display of affection the player enjoys more. While those who look for a really lewd experience get their fair share of the cake, even someone who isn't too much into in-your-face sexual content, can find something to enjoy in here, as long as they can stand the existence of such content.

…Oh, and boobs. There, the B word! Happy now?