Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson Review

The battle of good vs evil is happening again as the kunoichi of Senran Kagura jiggle their way back to the 3DS for a second outing of fan service ninja fisticuffs.

If you're not familiar with Senran Kagura, the story of the original game revolves around two rival ninja girl schools, the good ninja reside at Hanzo Academy and the bad ninja from Hebijo Academey, with good and evil destined to fight each other to death. In the final battle at the Hebijo Academy, they all realise that good and bad are not so different as they all bond together, however a  giant monster is summoned and both good and evil shinobi unite to defeat it, but the school gets burned to the ground and the evil Shinobi are forced into exile. If this sounds familiar, it's because I covered it in my PS Vita review of Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus which also takes place at the end of the original game, so I'm not to sure how this even fits in story wise.

Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson begins at the end of the first game with you having to fight the giant monster again, which is a bit strange as it throws you in the deep end, but also introduces you to Dogen, the mastermind behind the summoning of the monster, he tries to kill the Hebijo students but they escape. Unlike older Senran Kagura games, there's only one story path to take in Deep Crimson, switching between the two groups and ultimately leading both teams together to battle the Yoma, demon's summoned by Dogen as he attempts to take over Japan.

Boobs...boobs everywhere

Stepping aside from the story details, once you get past the giant monster battle and the giant blue sky lady who's boobs you have to fight, yes that is an actual thing that happens, you are introduced to tag battles. Here you can pair up and have to work together to take down the Yoma. While you control one of the girls in battle, pressing A will let you switch control to your partner character.

The whole game play hook has you fighting your way through hordes of enemies that you can combo into oblivion by mashing the Y button for light attacks and every now and then you throw in a heavy hit with X to end your barrage. Combos are easily chained together just by mixing up button presses. Once you get to the end of a level you usually throw down with a boss or a powered up grunt, here you have to jump around a lot to avoid being hit. The other twist in the game is that you have to strip an opponent down to their panties in order to beat them, taking hits yourself will cause your outfit to shred off as well. This is how most fights end up anyway as it doesn't seem to take much for an opponent to disrobe you.



As well as the standard attacks, you can also press L to change outfit which has you become slightly more powerful and offer up some special attacks. Once changed, you can hold L and press Y for a light special, X for a heavy special, B for your ultimate special, and if in a tag battle you can use L and A for a team up special attack. All this comes at a cost though as you have to fight enough to build up a scroll gauge. One scroll for light, 2 for heavy and so on. As you rank up your characters your gauges will fill quicker and you will have more combos at your disposal.

It's difficult to call what to make of Deep Crimson, while it's a much more solid game than the original 3DS outing, it's lacking something that the PS Vita game had and I can't quite put my finger on what that actually is. This is actually the third Senran Kagura game I've played, and while I like the majority of the characters, it would be nice to see the fighting mechanics fleshed out a bit more rather than just mashing the two attack buttons. Let's be honest though, if you're into big breasted ninja school girl fan service, you can't really go wrong with Deep Crimson.

Agree with our review? What's your opinion on Senran Kagura? Let us know in the comments or hit me up on twitter @ChaosRiotZero

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