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[PS4] Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal

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    [PS4] Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal

    As the "Re:Newal" tag in the title might have tipped you off, this is a remake of the 2012 Nintendo 3DS game, which in itself was an updated version of the very first Senran Kagura game from 2011.
    Both 3DS games were sidescrolling beat'em'ups, but ever since Shinovi Versus on the Vita the series moved to full 3D roaming with limited success. Or better, the series continued to sell well but for me each new chapter made the formula worse, and the original Senran Kagura Burst is still my favourite of the whole series.

    Re:Newal follows the same plotline, mission number and their objective, and playable characters of the original; it adds a number of new things, like a prologue to Shinovi Versus starring the girls from Gessei Jogakkan and the second Ebijo squad. It also ditches the sidescrolling setup of the original for the same engine of Estival Versus, my least favourite of the series and rather horrid game overall.

    So yeah, you can already see where this is going. With both graphics and fighting engine from Estival Versus, there are very good thing I can say abotu Re:Newal. The camera is still horrid, the combat feels clunky, and fighting other named characters is an exercise in patience as they don't flinch from any of your attacks but you flinch from any of theirs. Compared to Burst on the 3DS gone is the flying special attack, replaced by a level 3 ground special.
    Some maps now have a special normal enemy with expanded moveset (think a red-eyed phantom from Demon's Souls) that drops special items when defeated. The yin/yang system is still here but as with other 3D Senran Kagura games the difference between fighting with or without clothes is much less pronounced than on the 3DS.
    There's a new way to temporarly boost attacks with a gauge that builds up by connecting combos, a taunt, and the same assortment of actions that all previous Senran Kaguras had, including the useless parry maneuvre.

    As with Estival Versus there's no button to automatically turn the camera behind your back, so you either rotate the camera (right stick) or hammer the attack buttons. I alwasy chose the latter and all fights turn into a mess of close-ups with any kind of item detailing the landscapes. The camera itself is awlays a bit too close to the character and to the ground, making difficult to judge distances and so see if something is coming from behind or the sides. You can lock on onto enemies, I don't really know how the game chooses the target but it's almost invariably the one you don't want and not the one right in front of your face that you've already started attacking. Locking is useful for keeping the camera somewhat showing you and your target, and at times the game disengages the lock, requiring to press the lock button once again and reorient the camera.

    All characters play closer to Estival Versus than the original, for example Haruka uses a robot that she didn't have on the 3DS. Specials no longer stop time while you trigger them, so unless they are area-of-effect specials they often go wasted because the target did something to exit the special's hitbox. Specials with multiple hits don't lock a target into their combo and specials don't track targets at all, resulting in even more wasted specials.
    It won't be a real problem if you would be able to hit-confirm first, but all bosses don't really care about your attacks unless you counter their normals with an heavy attack, which doesn't quite give you enough time to cash in to your counter because your attack's recovery time is longer than the enemy's.
    When against normal enemies you just hit the attack button until you launch them, tap the homing button to continue the combo in the air, and do so until everyone is defeated.
    So far I've completed the Ebijo campaign and the last stage features the same enemies with a new repertoire of attacks, and...well, I enjoyed those fights because for some strange reason they were more fair and interesting than any other fight.

    Long story short, if you've like Senran Kagura Estival Versus I'd first ask what's wrong wth you and then say you'll probably have fun with Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal because it's the same game only with different characters; if you didn't like Estival Versus, you won't like Burst Re:Newal. I think that this one is a little better than Estival Versus mostly because there aren't characters that can hit you from behind walls (hello Ryobi) and each school's storyline is more developed, but it's still among the worst Senran Kagura games.

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