Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash is yet another entry in the fanservice-laden Senran Kagura series, one that knows how to mix up awesome gameplay with fanservice. This time around Peach Beach Splash goes from its usual genre of Beat ‘Em Up to a frantic 3rd Person Shooter, ditching weapons & ninja arts, for water guns, cards & bikinis. Pick from your choice of 30+ kickass ladies & duke it out in 3v3 or 5v5 matches all themed around the beach & summer fun.
How is the gameplay? Well besides the simple 3rd Person Shooting mechanics of running, gunning, aiming & reloading, you’ll be using weapons like a gatling gun, assault rifle, grenade launcher or a water hose to name a few weapons. ‘Jet Jump’ & ‘Jet Dash’ are two things that increase the girls already top-notch mobility. Jump, of course, lets you take to the sky for higher vantage points scattered throughout the arenas. Dash on the other hand, lets you evade or better yet, cross large sections of the map quickly to provide support or get a flank on the enemy. You can’t freely do those things however, these actions use your reservoir of water, which is shared with your gun making you think on how best to deal with certain situations. Weapons have alternate fire modes, some like the Gatling gun’s ‘Extra Ammo’ helps in the conservation of ammo, others like the Shotgun’s ‘Long Range’ shot extend the range & add some homing to the “bullets”. All weapons have different an alternate mode, ammo consumption & even affect how you Jet Jump & Jet Dash meaning they play differently so experiment away to find a favorite.
Of course, all is not lost if you run out of “ammo” at the wrong time as you’ve got your handy card deck to back you up. These cards range from anything like a reload buff to utilities like temporary shields or pets to provide support. In combat, you have only 3 to choose from at any given time & they are random as to what pops up, but given that your max deck size is 9, you will have no problem seeing them all in play. The cards are all rewarded through themed booster packs given out by doing the various modes the game has to offer, each mode giving a specific pack. Alternatively, you can buy them from the in-game shop, with more unlocking as you play more of each mode. Customization has long been a part of the series & here is no different, both in the effects & in the art. While often cards of the same type in the same tier have the same effects, their artwork might not be the same, so that level of detail was something I found pleasant. It’s a good idea to intently read their text, as some do have subtle differences nonetheless, like making you invulnerable (something I abused when reviving the AI teammates) during the animation but being slightly weaker. Also, something I learned way too late was that you can customize the AI’s deck, so do pay attention to that, especially in the higher difficulties. Perhaps I spent too much time focusing on the best girl Yomi & left the others ignored which lead to some painful loses.
On your quest to become the very best, you will receive a ton of repeat cards, but have no fear as those all have a use which can be leveling up your other cards, the girls’ levels or weapons. Leveling up increases your chosen weapon & cards’ stats or in the case of the girls, increases their health. Personally, I didn’t focus too much on the lower tiered cards as I often replaced those with different cards or higher tiered ones of the same type, opting to use the repeats on my best gear at the time. Have no worries though about sorting through repeats cards as the game automatically collects them & puts them in a “dump” pile sorted through rarity (each tier giving different amount of EXP).
As mentioned before combat is 5v5, 3v3, or 1vs many, all depending on the chosen mode of play. Story mode will have you go through 5 different arcs, 1 for each primary team (Hebijo, Hanzo, etc.) 10 missions each with the final one bumping it to 14. Paradise Episodes also have a story of their own, but these are side stories that are generally wacky. One example being Hikage’s descent into madness due to heat stroke & having her fight her teammates 1v5 all because she thinks they are all out to stop her from dancing the samba. Crazy stuff. V-Road Challenge is the last piece of single player content, this one is more tournament focused, having you going 5v5 versus various teams in a single sitting, with each ‘Rank’ getting progressively harder. On the multiplayer side of things, which I couldn’t test out with human opponents (a small write up will be added at the end of this review once full launch) there is standard versus modes both ranked & unranked & a Survival mode. All of these can be played solo & will reward you with prizes. Going at it solo is viable as the game features bots for the Versus modes. On the plus side, it features bots to fill the game & can be played solo, but this brings out the glaring flaw that the bots don’t do anything but run, shoot & use skills. This isn’t much of an issue in single player as there are no objectives but ‘Wipe out the mobs’ or ‘Wipe out the enemy team,’ but when it comes an objective comes into play, they will do nothing to help in that regard. In any case, online play features standard stuff yet appropriately named like ‘Queen of the Hills’ a domination type game, having you duke it out for control points with ‘Capture the Bra’ or ‘Squirmy Showdown’ which awards points for doing ‘Squirmy Finishers’, a mechanic that besides letting you splash the girls in highly suggestive poses with water till their undergarments pops off, rewards you with a cooldown reduction on your cards. Win-win.
Now then, this wouldn’t be a Senran Kagura game without being able to customize your chosen waifu & what better place than the dressing room of course. As always the series features plenty of clothing to choose from, ranging from more “appropriate” attire to bikinis & such. Some clothing does tear when enough damage is applied as per usual, revealing what’s underneath. Others become transparent because of course this is a beach paradise & wet clothing is to be expected. You can forgo regular clothing & go for the bikinis which there are plenty of them to choose from, either bought from the store or rewarded. Adding to the ensemble are accessories, like plush toys, badges, etc., these can be tweaked, so as to make them smaller or larger or putting them in unconventional places like the arms legs or boobs ( 😛 ). The sky is the limit when it comes to making each girl unique so have at it & when you are done with that, drop by the Diorama mode to model them in various poses & take screenshots. Or you can take them backstage for the Intimate mode, touch & feel & mayhaps get a kiss from your waifu. Go wild.
The plot isn’t amazing & while yes, the series doesn’t have Shakespearean writing, PBS felt more lackluster in that regard. The girls are dropped into this paradise for reasons uknown & only discover why on the 8th or so mission in their respective story modes. The game kind of expects you to know who each girl & their respective schools are, so if you are like me and have not played any versions on the Vita or the 3DS, then there might be some disconnect to the character. Some spoilers also happen so beware of that I guess, but might fly over one’s head. To confuse matters more is the inclusion of some of the smartphone-only cast. They are sometimes thrown into story missions for no rhyme or reason but must fight them to move on. Odd but I can’t complain, the more kickass ladies to play as, the merrier. The anime cutscenes used during the opening & ending are top notch as always, the drawn art used during some story scenes make excellent PC wallpaper material & the 3D models are not half bad, jiggling in all the right places. The game supports up to 4K resolution & 60 FPS which is nice. For those inclined, the option to turn off the 3D models’ outline is there. Music is pretty good, I’ve always found the series’ OSTs to have good variation. There was an issue with part of the audio cutting out when the transition of having the girls’ clothing tearing or doing their thing, it was slightly uncommon & possibly fixed by release date nonetheless.
All in all Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash once again delivers the awesome mix of fanservice with fun gameplay. The story is serviceable, the 30+ cast is huge in more ways that one… well some of them, sorry Mirai, music is top & art is no slouch. AI is questionable at times but a non issue ultimately. Unlocking all the cards & building stronger & better decks will keep one occupied. It has plenty of content both singleplayer & multiplayer wise, though I feel that the focus was more on the multiplayer side of things. Hopefully come release the game will culture a possibly small & niche but dedicated community. I for one will take some time to log on a couple nights a week to duke it out & I don’t doubt a Discord community is hard at work prepping for PC release.
In conclusion, Yomi is the best girl. Top tier waifu.
[REVIEW COPY WAS PROVIDED]
- NISA To Raises Prices On Select PC Games Come July 19th. - July 1, 2021
- void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium review - July 30, 2020
- The Alliance Alive HD Remaster review - October 4, 2019