Senran Kagura

[briareos_kerensky]

First impressions? I'm puzzled, not much by the game itself, but by the use of the 3D feature chosen by the developers: large portions of the game have it completely turned off, with only dialogues and certain cutscenes using it. Where the 3D is used, is used to good effect, although switching back and forth between 2 and 3 dimensions display can be tiring, especially when some cutscenes have an incredibly near foreground, which can make focusing difficult. During dialogues the depth of field is great, I can't really understand why Marvelous chose to ignore 3D effects during battles and when navigating the main hub.
Even more puzzling is why there's no 3D in the girls' dressing room. Yes, there's a dressing room where you can choose each girl's standard outfit, her underwear (or a swimsuit resembling underwear) and her shinobi costume; it's also possible to switch colors for every outfit and if I have understood correctly, different outfits can influence the girls' stats and special attacks.

Moving to the game, Senran Kagura is a mission-driven beat'em'up. The five girls at your disposal are shinobi is training and the main seeting is in their school; between mission they hang around a classroom that act as a hub; here it's possible to switch girls, view stats, collected gallery images, enter the sound test, set game options and chose which mission you want to tackle. Yes, the wardrobe is here too.

Each girl has her own set of moves and different stats, though they aren't that different in the field. Yubei has a ranged attack and hits hard, the two sword-wielding girls are on the fast side; the blond babe trades speed for attack power while the pink haired girl seems the speed type, though basic mechanics don't change much between them, with the biggest difference being the special attack, either line- or area- based.

Y and X are for light and heavy attacks; when used as a fourth attack in a combo X launches the enemy into the air. A is used for dashing and when there's an airborne target it can be used to "home in" on it and continue the combo. B is for jumps.
Movement is slaved to the circle pad, L and R are for special actions. R unleash an area attack, L makes a girl change into her shinobi clothes and in this mode L and Y perform the special attack.
The system is very basic, but moves are flashy and the generous hit boxes do not bog down combat, though the first missions have been nothing more than button mashing.

[Cornflakes]

I know it is highly unlikely, but can you try throwing it in on a pal machine and see if it work?

[briareos_kerensky]

Haven't got one, but it doesn't work on a US 3DS.

Anyway, more impressions.
The five girls you can chose from are:
Asuka (the cover girl): twin katanas, all around character.
Ikaruga: uses a no-dachi (a two handed katana...swung around with one arm) and thanks to her weapon she has a good reach. Still an all-rounder, though her special move has a somewhat limited range.
Katsuragi: kicks everything and everyone, she's the second slowest and hardes hitting character; her combos are easy to pull off and quite long, so she can deliver a good pounding. Area-based special attack.
Yagyu: the hardest hitter and the only character with a range attack; she's also the slowest, but I've found out she's the easiest character to string combos with. An other character with an area-based special attack. She uses an umbrella as her weapon.
Hibari: the fastest girl, low hitting power but a lot of air juggles, plus her standard heavy attack protects her from rear attacks and hits multiple times multiple enemies. Her special attack hits in a straight line and has the longest reach. Opposed to Katsuragi, she punches everything.

That said, I still think that the girls don't feel different enough and playing a mission multiple times with every girl is only for leveling purposes; at the end of each mission the chosen girl is awarded a rank on I think the longest combo string performed, but it doesn't seem ranks are linked to anything except, again, experience.

Missions are as plain as you'd expect: chose one and beat everything until completion: some might have a time limit, some might require to collect something (like a USB dongle with some sorts of ninja secrets on it) or to defeat a certain number of enemies, but there's not much more than mashing Y and X. The dash (A) is useful to string combos, but so far B has been left untouched.
Enemies don't show much variety; crash dummies, female high scoolers and shinobi all employ the same tactic: standing around waiting for the player and occasionally run toward the selected character. The are two more enemy types, wooden snakes and a ball thing that resembles the love child of Haro (the green ball from Gundam) and Mr. Saturn (Mother/Earthbound), but they still stand around doing absolutely nothing.
Of course I only played the first "chapter", but senseless button mashing gets boring fast.
The only enemy that retaliated was a story-relevant character, but beating her didn't involve high degrees of strategy. Sure, with one of her special attacks she destroyed part of my avatar's clothes, but other than that there's nothing much to add.

Above I used the term "chapter" but the best definition would be missions groups. The first group is composed by 15 missions, which are unlocked after completing some of the available tasks; some missions are character-specific but can then be re-played with the remaining girls; beating the first "boss" unlocked the second set of missions and it's possible to chose freely between between the two groups. Progression seems entirely player-driven, with no time constraints.

3D implementation aside, graphics are nice. The girls take the spotlight and their models and textures are lovely, though they might be a little too bouncy. Enemies aren't much detailed or sport different animations but it's easy to understand what you're against. Backgrounds are shallow and, reall, I can't understand why Marvelous chose not to have so many areas with 3D turned off enterily; on the plus side, the game doesn't have a slowdown even when juggling multiple enemies in the air and quickly switching to ground targets.
Haven't plaid too much attention to the music but voices are good.

[Johnny]

Surprised by the amount of depth to the combat system. Shame most people won't get a chance to play this though. Playing through it and will be reviewing it for the site too so hopefully more people will become aware of it.

[kryss]

I'm just not keen on the price right now tbh.

[Cornflakes]

Really want to play this game, but I cannot find a good place to get a jpn 3DS. Most of the import shops have still the old ?25000 tag...

[Neon Ignition]

Figured given Burst is a collection it's best using this thread. After the awkwardness of buying this at the till I've just had time to do the first couple of missions. So far it seems a light but fun brawler, seems like it could get a tad repetitive but will have to see how the enemies get mixed up if at all.

[speedlolita]

Repetitive is the word I would use for how the gameplay is. That said I've only give it about an hour so far.

[briareos_kerensky]

Figured given Burst is a collection it's best using this thread.

Or this one. Or a new one, as it's no longer an import title. Or the mods can move the thread from imports to general discussion.

Repetitive is the word I would use for how the gameplay is. That said I've only give it about an hour so far.

It won't change, but the way combo builds up and that you can play in two modes in each stage gives SKB some lifespan. Plus, the combat flows very nicely and it's fun to play.
Does the EU version suffer from the same text bug of the US one? In some text-heavy cutscenes (the ones with a static background and text all over it) the cursor might end on the wrong line.