Written by Ed Baylon
Title: Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash
Developer: Marvelous Inc.
Publisher: XSEED Games
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Price: $49.99
The Senran Kagura series first debuted on the Nintendo 3DS, a portable game system that had featured a 3D screen that required no glasses, it sought to answer one question: What do people want to see in 3D? Senran Kagura Burst Producer Kenichiro Takaki answered that question and the answer was boobs, and thus, Senran Kagura was born.
The Senran Kagura series has now grown and expanded since it first busted out to the gaming scene and has had many sequels and spinoffs on many platforms and with this latest entry, Peach Beach Splash, trying something a bit different. That new thing is a third person shooter, but with water guns. Senran Kagura has now found another way to showcase its cast of well-endowed female cast by finding a good reason for them to wear even less clothes and be wet.
The story of Peach Beach Splash is not quite related to the series but has some ties into the larger ninja themed story of the series. It all involves the busty female ninjas of the Senran Kagura series engaging in the “Peach Beach Splash”, which is a water gun tournament for whatever reason that isn’t really important because it gets the girls into swimsuits and use water guns to get each other wet.
Despite the look of Peach Beach Slash, it is not quite like a modern third person shooter like a Gears of War or even a Splatoon. It only sometimes require the accuracy in aiming shots with many of the weapons and even offers a automatic lock-on mechanic that makes it more of an action game with shooting mechanics rather than an authentic shooting game.
Movement feels exactly like it taken was from the other Senran Kagura action games, which does not suit the mobility of the characters, especially with the shooting mechanic. I expect to be able to move fast between firing but the movement from the original Senran Kagura games relied heavily on the close melee combat, which added to speed of moving around the map.
Different types of water firing weapons will be available to the player, much like in other shooters, these range from the standard assault rifle to shotguns to rocket launchers as well as everything in between. The design of the water gun based weaponry also slows down the pace of the action, with having to push and hold the reload button very often refill your gun with water. Shooting can be confusing, the graphics of the water burst from the gun is just too big and can get in the way when trying to see the target. The developers know this and added some visual indicators to confirm that something is being hit.
Since this game tries to be a shooter, dodging or avoiding enemy fire should be part of the game but it is not easy. Modern shooters will try to tell you that you are being hit by enemy fire but Peach Beach Splash does a poor job at doing it that stronger enemies can quickly take a chunk out of your HP or knock you out. With the not-so-smooth movement, expect to get destroyed if you’re not extra careful and aware of your surroundings. This is due to the twitchy and mashy quick combat style of the Senran Kagura action games that always has a fast pace that rarely slows down.
PBS never really gives you much time to admire the scenery, it has a fast pace but a bit too fast that lets you know what’s around you once a level begins. Games like Call of Duty or Counter-Strike have a certain rhythm or pace where action is moves along not too fast or too slow but will have moments where it might be hard to know what’s going on.
Players will have to rely on the radar and icons on screen to be able to tell friend from foe and where they are in the environment, which is important since character movement is a bit too fast and can be confusing when multiple characters are running around on screen. The arenas where the combat happens can be spacious but there are plenty of smaller spaces where the clunky movement can get players killed in encounters with the enemy if they’re not extra careful.
While the story battles are rather short and can be completed in around 5 minutes, there is a lot of content to play with some story, including side stories. This will be something familiar to those who have played past Senran Kagura games. The story is presented in the same way as previous Senran Kagura games using either voiced cutscenes with the bouncy CG models or in a much less exciting plain text with background art. These storytelling segments usually happen before and after the missions, and there is a lot of them that they feel longer than the gameplay parts of the game.
Battles happen in large arena maps and with two sides or teams going against each other, with up to 5 characters per team. The player can control one character while the rest of the teammates are under control of the AI. The AI controlled characters are not the best, teammates can dominate the enemy in the easier levels while they get destroyed easily on harder difficulties. The arena maps are used throughout the game in all modes and are not the most balanced or well-thought out. The movement does not suit the arena maps’ multiple levels with the slow boost jump or the poorly controlling boost dash.
As with any modern game these days, there is a random collectible loot system aspect that ties into the gameplay. Completing missions will always reward the player with collectible card packs. These cards tie into the core gameplay, the cards have different 5 levels of rarity. Each card has a function, and can be used in combat to activate offensive and defensive abilities as well as other helpful power ups.
Once a card is already collected, any card that is already collected will become experience cards that can either level up characters or the power up cards. There are ways to purchase these card packs with real money but they are very much optional though there is grinding involved to collect cards and fully power up everything.
Online multiplayer exists but it was quite hard for me to even find an open game. A few months after the release, during the writing of this review, the developers added global multiplayer which allows players to play with other players outside of their region. While this allows for more players, it's the timing of when people are on in their side of the world that makes it harder to play with others online. Due to the distance of players from each other global matchmaking, online connections can fail due to distance and the developers have added bots to substitute dropped players.
Fanservice is at its best in PBS, with the water-based theme enhancing the experience. As always, costumes and other cosmetic customization options are available for all the characters. The costumes of the characters are the white swimsuits by default with plenty of unlockables so players can dress up characters to suit their tastes. There is a diorama mode, which was previously introduced in Estival Versus, where up to 5 characters can be set up in different preset poses to act out a scene but now players can squirt the characters with water for more enjoyment.
Peach Beach Splash can be a fun game but that fun is almost always short and doesn’t match up to modern third person shooters at all. It still feels like a Senran Kagura game with all the features and characters fans would expect but with passable shooting mechanic. It graphically looks better now on a more optimized on an HD capable system. It’s not a bad game, nor it is a good game. Fans of the series can find some enjoyment with the good amount of content and newcomers might find some enjoyment if they stick with the game. There is potential for this direction for Senran Kagura, with a lot of improvements and lessons learned from this first attempt, the developers can have something more than just fanservice game.
SCORE: 6.5 out of 10
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