Please note. This review will contain NSFW (Not-Suitable-For-Work) material, such as nudity – This is literally a game about busty anime chicks getting each other wet and ripping off each other’s clothes. You have been warned.
Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash is a titular action brawler game developed by Tamsoft and published by Marvelous Entertainment. The game was originally released in the west on Playstation 4 on September 22nd and was originally released in Japan way back on 16th March 2017
Story
This line, I have said this to so many people this week. This is the best line, in any video game. (Don’t judge me.)
The girls of various shinobi schools find themselves involved in a mysterious tournament which has existed since ancient times. The difference is this is a water gun tournament and the winner can have whatever they desire!
If you’re anything like me and this is your first Senran Kagura game, then you’re going to be slightly out of luck as there is no character development and synapses as to what has happened throughout the previous games.
The narrative is displayed through a number of in-game cutscenes, visual novel style segments all with the original Japanese voice-overs.
Gameplay
Senran Kagura Peace Beach Splash is an action shooter but it is still a musou game at heart, you are able to pick from a large roster of characters and will be fighting against hordes of bikini-clad enemies in the arena.
The enemy design for human characters is hilarious with girls stuck in rubber ring tubes running after you or ninjas chasing you with inflatable tubes.
When you’re not fighting against waves of enemies, you will find yourself in 5 v 5 situations. This is your shinobi school squaring off against one of the other and this is where the combat begins to heat up with characters jumping all over the place and will be using similar abilities to yourself.
Executions have never been so, good. <3
During this type of match, you are given the opportunity to humiliate your combatants. Once you have finally downed an enemy are given the option to go off and finish them off – think of it like an execution.
You run over to your opponent and you summon a small duck water gun, the perspective switches to the first person and you can attempt to shoot off their bikini top or bottom and are rewarded additional points for doing so.
This time around you’re going to be using water guns, moving away from traditional shinobi arts, and there are a lot of weapons on offer here. You can equip your characters with anything from a traditional water gun (with pump action) and dual pistols to a water minigun or water balloon rocket launcher.
After each match, you’re rewarded with cards. These are used to boost levels of your character and weapons. They also grant abilities you can use during your match!
Working my way through the story content, I kept the characters using their default equipment.
To power these weapons you’re going to need a large amount of water, and at the bottom of your screen, you’re going to notice a water gauge. When your water gauge runs out, you will need to pump your gun to fill the gauge back up. All of the girls are carrying a type of backpack which is filled with water but this also acts as a boost. This enables you to boost into the air or perform dashes which depletes your water gauge.
Appearance and Music
Pewpew!
Senren Kagura has always been able to create amazing anime style characters regardless of the platform the franchise has found itself on, this includes being able to have the characters show a range of emotions.
I would go as far to say that a lot of the character models are from Senran Kagura Estival Versus. I still find the aesthetic style to be easily one of the prettiest anime games out on the market. If your ecchi anime dreams consist of getting a horde of anime girl wet, then you’re going to be getting exactly what you want here and won’t be questioning the quality.
(As I write the above, I can’t help but facepalm these games really get me to word things in the most awkward way… )
The music throughout the game is fitting to the type genre of the game and works well with the arena style combat with some light catchy music throughout cutscenes. I would point out that while the music is fitting there isn’t anything memorable on offer.
Best Waifu
There is a selection of 42 waifus to pick from, from various shinobi schools from the games universe. There are also collaboration characters, which in the original version of the game were presented as DLC: this also includes Ayane from Dead or Alive and Super Sonico.
Each character comes with their own personalities and outfits. However with Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash, you are given the opportunity to dress up characters in a way that you wish, this means you can dress them in other characters outfits and you can provide accessories and even customise the lingerie that they wear.
Once you have dressed your waifu in a way which meets your tastes, you can then take them into a diorama mode, you can pose your character and take screenshots. You can modify your characters pose and facial expressions. Also, what’s better than one waifu, multiple. You can bring all your favorite characters into one posed picture.
A trophy, I have never felt so accomplished.
Finally a recurring feature in the series, a mode which I don’t quite understand the meaning of as it has no effect on gameplay at all. You can remove all UI elements and grope your character, there’s a heart meter which fills up the more you grope and once you’ve filled the meter your character blushes and gives you a line of dialogue.
There is also an option here to shoot your chosen waifu with a water gun and you can unlock different colors for the streams, in the Japanese version there was DLC which would change the stream to white and yellow… Oh, Japan.
Final Thoughts / Opinion
This is a really strange game. I’ll admit that I am not a social justice warrior and I do enjoy the human form. However, I just found playing this game incredibly strange. The game clearly has a niche and it is meeting the expectations of that audience to a tee.
While this game has several narratives based on the different schools of characters and does a
brilliant job of bringing together characters from all of the games to further character development and what’s on offer is, interesting. There are five major stories available here with other major story content which was released in Japan as DLC.
Each story took me a couple hours to go through each so, at face value, you’re going to get between ten and twenty hours of gameplay. While Peace Beach Splash is an action shooter, it is still very much a musou game and with that comes the expectation of collectibles and there are plenty, including outfits, accessories, videos, artwork, and music; everything that you would expect from an anime game.
There is also a massive multiplayer section to this title which includes a 3v3 and 5v5 modes. However during my time reviewing the title I was unable to find a match.
If you’re looking for a title which offers a lot of variety, original Japanese voiceover, a decent combat system once you have invested time into your favorite character. Then you will find this title to be an adequate timesink.
Oh, there’s a lot of fanservice too.
7/10