Senran Kagura: Burst Re:Newal - PC Review

Busty ninjas abound (and bounce) in the latest (re)instalment of Senran Kagura. As a 3D remake of the 2D Senran Kagura Burst, there’s a lot that has been updated, some for the better, some not so much. So jump into the world of the shinobi, and let’s see what the improbably female cast of Senran Kagura have to offer in this instalment.

Burst Re:Newal is a Re:furbishment on the Senran Kagura Burst title that came out on the 3DS some time ago. While the general plot remains the same, there have been a few tweaks here and there. In fact, the game somewhat retcons itself at times, depending on which storyline you follow, but the basic principle is still there.

The two storylines you can choose from are: Hanzō academy or Hebijo academy. Each Academy is basically a highschool for shinobi, with Hanzō academy being for “good” shinobi that are government sponsored and do “above board” work. Hebijo on the other hand, is for “evil” shinobi, that take part in subterfuge, assassination and the like. Choosing Hanzō academy will focus on the lives of the main characters of Senran Kagura: Asuka, Ikaruga, Yagyū, and Katsuragi. And Hibari.

These five girls are part of the secret shinobi class, along with a mysterious upperclasswoman, who could, in fact, probably punch out a building with relative ease. Unfortunately, she decides not to help out when the school is attacked by a group of girls from Hebijo, who are insistent on either engaging the Hanzō students in a duel to the death, or to steal the Hanzō super secret ninja…secrets… Unfortunately for Asuka and the rest, the Hebijo girls have plot armor, even if you soundly beat them in battle. So Asuka and the rest must stand up and fight for their friends *cough, Ike, cough*.

If you decide on seeing what Hebijo has to offer, you get to play as the “antagonists” of Asuka’s story: Homura, Mirai, Yomi, Hikage, and Haruka. You get to see Hebijo shinobi life, as there is no “real” highschool with a secret shinobi class, Hebijo is entirely devoted to extreme training of evil shinobi. Regardless of which school you start off with, you can switch back and forth pretty much whenever you want, so don’t feel worried about being locked into one storyline or the other, as you can do both, even at the same time if you want to.

Gameplay in Senran Kagura, in general, is of a more “beat-em-up” style, similar to the “musou” games, or dynasty warriors if you’re more familiar with that. There are generally a multitude of rather weak enemies, and you have to clear them out by beating them unconscious, or dead. The game is a little lax on whether you actually kill your enemies or simply knock them out. Originally this was done in a side-scrolling-type manner, but now you’ve got a “3D arena” to beat people up in. You’ve got the standard light and heavy attacks, a short dash (which does surprisingly less than you’d expect), a jump, and some special moves. You can use a “shinobi transformation” which will turn the character into their “ninja mode”, which fully heals you, changes your moveset up a bit, and gives you some boosts.

My general strategy during tougher levels was to wait until I was almost dead, and then pop the transformation. Or you could use it as soon as it’s available, whatever you enjoy more. In addition, there’s a “frantic” mode, where you quite literally strip at the beginning of the stage. Your defense takes a super huge hit, but you have an infinite combo and do a lot more damage. Seriously though, try not to get hit if you use it. While in either mode, you can use special ninja moves by consuming part of your ninja art gauge, which fills up when hitting or getting hit. After progressing far enough through the game, you unlock a Super Ninja Art, and I am not embarrassed to say it took me a really long time to figure out how to use it first time I played a Senran Kagura title. Thankfully, the method of use hasn’t changed, you hold the transformation button and hit the dash button, but the game isn’t particularly forthcoming about that information.

Unlike past installments of the series, where I was generally able to just mash away and be decently competent at completing the stages, a lot of the “one-on-one” fights against the opposing school’s characters tended to take a bit more skill or strategy. For example, the counter function will be one of your best friends in later fights. When you guard just before an attack hits, not only does it flinch back your opponent, but it also stuns them, allowing you to get full combos in, which is even more useful if you connect with the final hit which sends your opponent flying, who you can then chase to continue your combo. This is repeatable if the enemy tries to attack you while in the air. Your other alternative is the “burst” skill, which gives you a boost in stats until it runs out, at which point you can use a powerful wide-range attack.

The updated visuals, refurbished gameplay, and solid soundtrack really helped the “Re” part of Re:Newal. It was also nice to see a more accurate combo counter, with an actual gauge on it so you could tell how long you had between losing your combo. When you pause in-stage you get a retro style pixelated screen which was pretty cool, and the introduction voices and facial expressions of the characters at the introduction to the missions and between missions in the “hub” area change depending on the story tone, which was a nice little touch. The game isn’t without its issues, however, as there is a problem where the text during the story modes will just blow right past without giving you a chance to read it. Also, who decided on the annoying flashback filter they have? It’s ok as an intro, but having it throughout the scene is actually really annoying. The camera could also use a bit of work, as I found it getting stuck in corners or behind objects way too often.

Overall, I have to say I really enjoyed my time with Senran Kagura: Burst Re:Newal. While it certainly felt “slower” than its predecessors, it also felt like there was a lot more attention drawn to the combat. The “plank hair” is still a prevalent issue, but you probably won’t be focusing on that too often during gameplay. It was definitely interesting to see how they changed up some of the characters, for example Mirai used to be the character I found the easiest to beat in the previous titles, and in Burst Re:Newal she’s turned into the character I go “GRAARGGH” while fighting. I do want to know who’s in charge of the difficulty scaling though, because the game isn’t too hard, and then you hit the last boss and wonder what you’ve done in your past life to deserve such a thorough beat down. Not to mention the one man gauntlet that is the “bonus boss” mission after the main storyline.

While Senran Kagura: Burst Re:Newal probably isn’t winning any “publicly playable” awards, it definitely isn’t something to cross off your list just for that. So why not give it a try, or at least listen to the awesome soundtrack, and sacrifice yourself to the will of the dance.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Tamsoft
Publisher(s):
XSEED Games
Marvelous
Genre(s):
Action
Beat 'Em Up
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 4

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Richard

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Ys SEVEN - PC Review

Back for another installment in the Ys series, we now get Ys Seven for the PC. Join Adol and Dogi once again as they venture into dark dungeons, battle fearsome foes, and lose a statue (maybe) while you roam some old ruins. While the PC version has a few setbacks, Ys Seven is still a vibrant world full of monsters, exciting characters and colorful landscape.

Ys Seven once again follows the adventures of “Adol the Red”, an adventurer who lands on the continent of Altago, rife with large creatures called Titanos that are wreaking havoc on the indigenous peoples, mysterious calamities affecting the various tribes throughout Altago, and a disease called Iskan fever with no known cure. Adol and Dogi, despite just looking for some simple adventure, get wrapped up in the problems of Altago and its peoples.

As Adol and Dogi venture across the land, they’ll come contact with various people who will join their cause, as well as many a monster that must be dealt with. Exploration and combat is done in a 3D movement style, consisting of mostly hack and slash style gameplay with a bunch of available skills, and the ability to switch between up to two other party members in combat. 

Each character has their own weapon and attack type and style, for instance Adol uses a sword, Dogi uses his fists, and Aisha uses a bow. These three attacks are: slash, blunt, and pierce respectively. Different monsters will have different resistances or weaknesses to different attack types. Additionally, the weapons affect how the character attacks. For instance, Dogi has a slow, hard hitting combo, whereas Aisha can rapid fire and move while shooting arrows, but the damage they output is less. Throw in skills that you can learn by equipping different weapons, and you have a plethora of attack methods available to you. 

Combat in Ys Seven is rather fluid, if not difficult at times, as you chain combos and skills, charge power attacks to regain the SP you need to use skills, and swap between your other party members on the fly, especially since the other party members are also in combat with you, they are just controlled by the AI while you aren’t using them, and I have to say that the AI does a stellar job most of the time. 

The AI is exempt from a lot more damage than you would expect, they know when to combat roll away from an attack, and they actually can’t die when you aren’t controlling them, at least that I’ve seen, although they do get reduced to 1 HP. When you use a skill, most of the time your allies will as well, at no extra SP cost, and it counts as exp for the skill mastery progression, which is incredibly useful when you’re trying to learn a bunch of new skills with multiple characters, as you need to get the skill to level 1 before it becomes permanently attached to your skill repertoire, otherwise it’ll disappear when you un-equip the weapon. 

The skill system had me constantly trying to either buy or synthesize new weapons, gathering resources from the field or from monsters, in order to create the next weapon. Most of the time this resulted in me simply buying a weapon instead of creating it, but since the same skills can be attached to multiple weapons, you won’t necessarily lose out. In addition, all those materials you gathered can be used to fulfill sidequest requirements, as there seem to be quite a number of them that require at least ten of some random item. 

You get a decent amount of cash and materials if you fight all the things in your way, which is all but required in some instances, as the boss fights can be really tough. Nothing impossible is asked of you, but I can say with absolute certainty that the “ferocious bird Kava Kelos” can go suck a moldy twinky. That being said, the boss fights were really fun, and the combat was always fast paced and kept me on my toes. 

If there were any complaints about the game itself that I had to voice, it would mostly be about the size of the world. It seems much larger than it actually is, and it starts getting annoying travelling through the low level areas to get back somewhere, although they give you a fast travel option exactly when it starts getting to be an issue. On that note, the pacing of the game was pretty good, although it takes awhile to get into the more exciting parts of the storyline, and you will constantly have characters popping in and out of your party for the first while. 

I did appreciate a lot of the small aspects that really showcased some of the thought that went into the game. For instance, changing equipment changes the on-screen appearance of the weapon, or the fact that all the characters will receive exp even if they aren’t in direct combat. There were other issues though, such as the indicated buttons to perform actions being wrong, but I’ve been told that was in the PSP version as well, although I haven’t confirmed that personally. The biggest issue I had as a PC port however is the fullscreen mode. Basically, it doesn’t work so well, and apart from a bunch of small issues it produces, it shifts the height of all the text in game. Yes all, and no, the shop menu isn’t particularly manageable like that. It’s only for the fullscreen mode however, so the windowed mode works fine. The mouse cursor is also always visible, which is a bit of a nuisance at times.

Overall, despite still having graphics that clearly look like they came out of a PSP, which they basically did, and a few of the port issues, Ys Seven sports some great gameplay, a handful of side quests and extra bosses, a colorful and vivid environment and story, as well as a stellar soundtrack. The fact that you don’t need any knowledge of the other games to play it is also a really big plus. Despite a few of the shortcomings, the pluses more than make up for it. Hopefully they manage to get the fullscreen issue fixed (Editor's note: Fixed with patch prior to release), and I’d definitely like to see more games like this in the future.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Nihon Falcom
Publisher(s):
XSEED Games
Marvelous USA
Genre(s):
Action
Adventure
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation Portable

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Richard

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XSeed plans E3 Debuts of ‘Touhou: Scarlet Curiosity,’ ‘Exile’s End,’ and WayForward’s ‘Shantae: Half-Genie Hero’

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