Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson Review

As a game collector, I occasionally stumble into titles. Games I have no prior knowledge of. Or very little knowledge of. Like some of you this will begin online, and end in a storefront. Earlier this year, Mark Bussler over at Classic Game Room did an episode on Senran Kagura: Estival Versus for the PlayStation 4. A very bizarre, over the top hack n’ slash action game with an emphasis on endowed characters. I like to think I know a bit about esoteric games. But I had no idea that this was actually a series.

Imagine my surprise one day when I saw this sequel for the 3DS sitting on a store shelf. “They put a sequel out, on Nintendo’s handheld?” I thought. Well yes. Except this ISN’T the sequel to the PlayStation 4 game. After some research I discovered that the series oddly enough, started on the 3DS in Japan. So this game is the sequel to THAT game, and the one Mark reviewed on his show is actually a spin-off.

PROS: Great graphics, responsive controls, a simple combo system that isn’t mundane.

CONS: Some of the content isn’t for everybody. Can get a bit lowbrow.

COLLECTIBLE: Apparently the print run for this game wasn’t very high in the USA.

Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson is an arcade style hack n’ slash game. You’ll go through a variety of stages fighting hordes, and hordes of enemies. There are also, of course, bosses. As you play through the campaign you’ll be introduced to a wide variety of characters. Many of whom you will be able to take control of throughout the game.

The controversial gimmick in this series is where some folks may have some reservations about picking one of these games up. When you’re fighting enemies, you’ll find your attacks will rip their clothes to shreds. When they’re just about dead, they’ll be down to their undergarments. Your characters are subject to these rules as well. Take enough damage from opponents, and your clothes will be ripped to pieces. When you’re completely out of health you’ll be down to your underwear as well.

The game plays the gimmick more for laughs, and less for eroticism. Even if the camera angles during transformations are peculiar. But like an R Rated B movie comedy on Cinemax in 1995, it can come off as kind of crass. Of course humor is subjective. Some are going to laugh at how over the top it is. Others are going to be totally confused. While some may even feel a little offended. The game is absolutely unabashed in its presentation. So again, this game is most certainly not for everyone.

Fortunately, there are enough good things about Senran Kagura 2 that action game fans may want to check it out. The fighting system isn’t the most technical, it’s actually fairly simple. But not so simple that things feel mundane. It feels a bit like the Rocksteady Batman Arkham games. You mix up attacks with a weak, and strong button which result in some really awesome combos. They aren’t deep, but the animations are brisk, and smooth. There’s also a nice variety of moves during these sequences as well.

You can also jump, and do air attacks using the jump button with the attack buttons. There’s also a dash you can use. Finally, there’s a transformation sequence you can perform once you earn enough scrolls while playing. These are reminiscent of the transformation scenes from the old Sailor Moon anime. The off-putting difference being where the characters place their scrolls during these sequences. Once transformed you can then perform a super when you have enough of a meter filled. You use these by pressing the L button along with other buttons which do a variety of crazy animations. These are normally the kinds of things you can see in fighting games like Street Fighter V or Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.  There are even tag team combos you can do in some levels where you’re forced to toggle between multiple characters.

Senran Kagura 2 also has a couple of camera options when playing. By default the camera will stay fixed, and you can target enemies with the D-pad if you feel more comfortable locking on to them. If you’re playing on a 3DS (Sorry 2DS or 3DS XL owners) you can also use the optional Circle Pad Pro. This lets you run the camera freeform like a mouse, or a second thumb stick. The newest 3DS can also do this with its built-in Circle Pad Pro replacement. As I own the 2DS I really couldn’t test this option out, but I was able to play fine with the fixed camera.

All of this makes for a hack n’ slash beat ’em up game that feels really good. Again, everything flows smoothly, and quickly. You quickly find yourself going from enemy to enemy seamlessly, and racking up crazy combos. Whether you come from classics like Double Dragon, Streets Of Rage, and Final Fight or modern games like God Of War, Devil May Cry, or Dynasty Warriors you’ll likely enjoy the fighting system here. Tamsoft were also the developers behind Onechanbara. But where that series can sometimes feel mundane, and repetitive this game doesn’t.

I think a major reason it doesn’t is because there is a wide variety of enemies on display, each with a different set of strategies needed to defeat them. There are various monsters, ninjas, soldiers, other students, and storyline characters to go up against. The vast number of playable characters also helps. Each character plays completely different from the rest of the cast. Some characters are faster, with attacks that do minimal damage, but also stun enemies so you can get in more hits. Others are slower with far more powerful attacks. Then you have others that fall somewhere in between. It can again, feel like a fighting game in that regard. You can try using the entire cast, or you can settle on one character you feel most comfortable with. Of course the campaign will make you play with each character as there are scenes that require particular characters for the storyline.

The game has a fairly extensive campaign where you’ll follow the adventures of several stables. These are good, and evil students of Shinobi who rival one another. But as the story goes on you’ll discover that they also have common enemies. I don’t really want to give anything away, but it’s a halfway decent romp. It isn’t the most original story, and there are a lot of events you’ve seen dozens of times in other games. But I will give it credit for at least attempting to give each of the characters some personality beyond being simple eye candy. There are actual motivations, cares, fears, and some moments of genuinely funny dialogue. It has its share of common archetypes mind you. There’s the super serious personality, the hyperactive personality, the one that second guesses themselves constantly, the brash personality. But there are some original takes on them here.

Don’t get me wrong, you’re not going to hold up the storytelling in Senran Kagura 2 alongside revered tales told in Portal, Half-Life, Deus EX, or System Shock 2. This is still a very silly, over the top game. But it does at least try to be more than a soft core button masher. That said, some of the extras don’t, like the  game’s costume decorator where you can pick the two outfits for any given character. You get to unlock new ones as you play the game. Some of them are actually pretty cool looking, while others are right out of Bikini Car Wash Company. Rounding out the extra features is the AR photo mode. This mode lets you take any of the player models, and super impose them over a photo you take with the 3DS camera.

Senran Kagura 2 also has a Co-Op mode, where you, and a friend can sync up your 3DS systems, and play the campaign together, or replay individual missions together. Back on the single-player  front, you can go back, and play any previous stage with any character to level them up. At the end of every stage you’re also given a rating. The better you do, the higher your score, and the more unlocks you’ll receive. Senran Kagura 2’s difficulty does start to really ramp up around halfway through the game. So going back, and replaying earlier levels with some of the newer characters you unlock isn’t the worst idea.

In between levels you can also go back to a hub level, which changes between chapters. There are 5 chapters, each with several missions. Senran Kagura 2 is a pretty long game all things considered. The hub level lets you communicate with the characters for some back story dialogue. You can also choose to enter one room to go on missions, one for each of the various modes, as well as the options menu. Here you can change audio, and visual settings. You can also turn off the clothes tearing sequences if you want. You can also use the sub-menu on the touch screen to jump to any of these rather than walk around the hub.

All in all, Senran Kagura 2 is actually a pretty fun, and challenging game if you can get past the exploitation B movie vibe of everything. There’s no full frontal nudity or intercourse on display so this doesn’t get into anything overtly pornographic. But it isn’t embarrassed about its suggestive camera angles, or dirty jokes either. Which is why  it still isn’t something for everyone. If, however you can look past the risqué elements you’ll find a pretty good action game, and R rated comedy underneath it all.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

Ys Origin Review

Ys never seems to get into the pantheon of JRPG franchises. Everyone gets their thumbs, and sometimes pitchforks ready with every Final Fantasy. Everyone has at least heard of Dragon Quest aka Dragon Warrior. Look at the aftermarket prices for the Super NES version of Chrono Trigger. Yes, JRPGs are a large subset of the Role Playing genre. They have been since the days of 8-bit console systems.

PROS: Pretty good story. Cool characters. Responsive, and fun combat.

CONS: Short length. Story requires beating the game thrice to see it all.

ADOL: Isn’t in the campaign. This is a prequel folks.

So why hasn’t Ys been more popular here? There are probably a lot of factors. One of the most widely accepted theories involves platforms. Ys started out on the PC-88. A computer only ever released in Japan.  When released stateside, games in the series have appeared on many of the less popular platforms of their time. Ys I made an appearance on the Sega Master System, then Ys I+II would see release on the Turbographx 16 CD add-on. In other parts of the world Ys would be on all sorts of computer, and console formats including the Famicom.

The series doesn’t have turn based combat. It instead takes action game cues. Going for more of a Legend Of Zelda style of combat. It retains plenty of item gathering, and exploration. It builds up a lot of characters, even minor ones. It still feels decidedly JRPG, yet has enough twitch game play for novices, and action fans. So while it’s more accessible, the fact that it’s an action RPG hybrid probably kept some of the purists away. Where am I going with this? To the chronological beginning. Because thanks to XSeed, Ys has been getting a little more attention over the past few years. They’ve been given porting, and translation duties for many of the games in the series. One of those games is Ys Origin.

Ys Origin is a prequel. It takes place 700 years before the original game, and attempts to set up a lot of the back story for the series. Ys is a story about a kingdom in the sky. When evil threatened to doom the kingdom, two super natural beings elevated it into the heavens above. These beings are known as the Goddesses. They, along with a council of priests advise the kingdom on matters. They also have a stable of holy knights that they call upon in times of trouble. Like a lot of great fantasy stories, it involves different family blood lines, mysticism, and interpersonal drama. Some of the stories can be pretty deep, others fairly simple.

Ultimately the game will make you want to beat it three times, because that is the only way to see every aspect of its story.

Without giving too much away, the story in Origin centers around the Goddesses, and their relationships with the three main characters. The two disappear mysteriously from the sacred Solomon Shrine, and head off to the surface land below. Eventually they head into a tower overrun by evil demons, and other monsters. The tower also happens to be the same one featured in the original Ys game.

Worried about the Goddesses, the leaders of Ys send our heroes to find, and return the Goddesses. But of course, a band of evil demons attempt to get to the Goddesses before the heroes can. Along the way you’ll run into many of the JRPG conventions you might expect. From game play conventions, to character archetypes.

In Origin you can take control of one of three characters:

Yunica Tovah is a young woman who is the daughter of one of Ys’ high priests. She is the only one in her lineage who doesn’t have a mastery of magic, and so using her means you’ll be doing a lot of hand to hand combat. She earns an apprenticeship with the Holy Knights of Ys, and embarks on her mission to find the Goddesses.

Hugo Fact is a sorcerer. He has a recklessness in him, and so he follows the trope of the edgy, devil-may-care, anti-hero. Being skilled in magic means that most of your attacks will be ranged. So if you love projectiles in your action RPG you’ll probably choose Hugo.

Beating the game with either one of these characters will open up a third character quest. Toal Fact is the mysterious brother of Hugo Fact, and has a story arc that crosses paths with the other two character storylines. Interestingly, Toal Fact’s storyline is considered canon, while the other two are not. Toal’s storyline also has a unique perspective in that he is actually helping the demons trying to capture the Goddesses, rather than the heroes trying to rescue them.

Ys Origin differs a little bit from Ys I&II. While it follows a similar formula, it has a slightly different combat system. The original games featured something called the Bump System. Running into your enemies  would damage you, while hitting them off-center, would damage them. This game follows the path of other action RPGs, and gives you an attack button. There is also a jump button for use in some light platforming sections. You will also have a button to activate your boost mode, as well as a spell ability attack.

Attacks feel pretty accurate. Hit detection is pretty solid in this game. Battles generally feel not only fair, but satisfying as well. As you level up your character by grinding kills, and finding items, some of these moves can be upgraded. So a mystical force field can be increased in size, or a fire attack made more powerful.  The game also features a checkpoint system similar to Metroid Prime’s Save Rooms. In certain areas you will find statues of the Goddesses. Here you can save your progress, or use the currency picked up from fallen enemies to upgrade your items. There are all sorts of items you can find like better weapons, and armor throughout the game. There are other items that are paramount to solving certain puzzles. For instance, there is a mask that allows you to find hidden paths one couldn’t find otherwise.

Other items are needed to further the storyline you are playing. You may need to find a certain item, and back track it to an NPC you found earlier. All in order to acquire a new item to get further along. Initially, the game will feel a little bit linear. Early on, the game makes things fairly easy to figure out, and you won’t really feel much need to explore or backtrack. Thankfully, after the first segment or so, it really begins to open up in its level design. Once that happens, you’ll find yourself exploring every nook, and cranny for potential items. From there you’ll constantly try to find another statue to buy upgrades, and save your progress.

There is only one major drawback to the level design aside from some early linearity. That is that the entire game takes place in the tower featured at the end of the original Ys. Because of this, it limits some of the environment variety. There aren’t any outdoor environments to really explore. There are certainly a lot more than steel or stone structures mind you. There are areas that have a sandpit theme, volcanic foundries, a flooded section, as well as some fantastical sections. They do fit the themes of the storylines nicely, but one can’t help but miss exploring large swaths of land, and finding towns, or other structures. Still, when the game opens up, again you will do plenty of exploring. So it isn’t a complete deal breaker.

Upgrading your character is also very important in Ys Origin. Because while this game may be more action oriented than many standard RPGs, leveling is still a big deal. Some of the regular enemies will seem impossible until you do, as taking one or two strikes will probably kill you. On that front, enemy variety is quite large. You even have access to a log book that adds entries describing each new type you discover. It will also add entries for NPCs, and even boss characters. There are goblins, orcs, killer turtles, phoenix birds, and countless other monsters.

Bosses in this game are also grand, and amazing. Some of them return from the original Ys games with retooled attacks. Some of them are entirely new. While the game may not be a technical powerhouse, these bosses still come off as imposing. Each of these boss battles will feel like an event. Even after you solve an attack pattern, or find the right item. The enemy variety continues in the run of bosses. You’ll face towering demons, NPC’s, and more.

It goes along with some excellent presentation. Ys Origin combines modelled environments with 2D sprites. Sprites are very detailed, and colorful. As in other Ys games characters have a super deformed look, while the cinema screens, and dialogue HUDs feature a more traditional manga style. Cut scenes vary. Some of them are done in the game’s engine, while others are done in FMVs. The FMVs look right out of an anime, featuring some really nice animation, and colors. Unfortunately the FMVs do have a compressed look to them, with some grain.

The audio in Ys Origin is one of the highlights here. The hard rock chip tunes are really well crafted, and mesh nicely with orchestration. Most of the songs have catchy hooks, and will bounce around in your head hours later. Some of these are remakes of classic Ys games’ songs, while others are new. Sound effects are terrific. Fighting enemies have nice punchy sounds, along with some excellent clings, and clangs during blocks. Enemies growl, scream, and even explode while accompanied with some wonderful cues. Even little details you would find important in other games from other genres are here. Footsteps, Doors opening or closing, you name it, it probably has a nice sound effect to go along with it.

Depending on the difficulty you select, Ys Origin can take anywhere from six to ten hours to finish. It isn’t a terribly long JRPG. However, playing through each of the character quests can get you as many as thirty hours, as the storylines will artificially lengthen the game in doing so. Even though the game is short compared to most RPGs where there are hundreds of hours of side quests, or activities, Origin delivers. It has a large roster of likable characters, the game play is rewarding, and has one of the better storylines in the genre. Even if it isn’t entirely original, it takes a few chances. Some of the swerves you’ll see coming, and others will surprise you.

Ys Origin doesn’t have very high requirements by today’s standards, so almost any modern PC should be able to run it with little trouble. The Steam release also features some achievements, and support for widescreen monitor displays. Ultimately, it is a really cool game. JRPG fans, as well as retro gamers would do well to check out the prequel to this under looked series. Especially those who would like to see more Japanese developers produce games for computers.

Final Score: 8 out of 10