Senran Kagura Burst Hands On: Yes, We Played The English Version

Xseed announced Senran Kagura Burst yesterday, but Siliconera has known about the news for a while. I actually played the English version, too, and got to experience a portion of the game’s localized text.

Senran Kagura Burst’s localization looks fairly complete and one thing that may surprise you is the game has a lot of story scenes—it was, after all, the producer’s intent to make the game story-focused. The ninjas from Hanzo Academy have playful conversations before missions and the game retains the original Japanese voiceovers.

There are also visual novel-esque story scenes in between missions, which are presented similarly to the short stories in Lost Odyssey. Senran Kagura Burst is considerably more lighthearted, though, and these are like slice of life stories. I read through a story scene that focused on Asuka (she’s the girl on the right wearing a bandanna as a scarf) after a boy that she didn’t know confessed his feelings for her.

The core of Senran Kagura Burst is its beat ’em up missions and each ninja has their own set of moves. I started out with Asuka who uses swords to attack.

Once locked into a combo, you can launch enemies and trap them in an aerial rave. Enemies don’t disappear until they touch the ground, so it’s possible to set up ridiculous juggles. Stages in Senran Kagura Burst take place in something like a box. You can run to left and right a bit since each area is a little bigger than the 3DS’ screen, but the game isn’t like Double Dragon or side scrolling beat ’em ups. Fights can get to be pretty one-sided because your characters gain experience points and level up through missions. Asuka was maxed out in the build I played with powerful moves unlocked and available for use.

Afterwards, I played Katsuragi and fought Yagyu, who uses an umbrella to attack. The small arenas are suited to these boss battles in particular, and as you probably know, Senran Kagura Burst has costume damage as one of its main features.

You can also do a Shinobi Transformation, which shows, as the ESRB would probably mention, deep cleavage. What may surprise you is that there isn’t as much T&A in this particular Senran Kagura game as you might expect. The game is actually rated T for teen. In fact, Senran Kagura Burst and even the Japan-only Vita sequel, Shinovi Versus, aren’t as sexualized as another Marvelous AQL game I played.

Senran Kagura Burst was an expanded release in Japan that contained the original Senran Kagura and a new story with rival characters from Hebijo Academy. Both games have been included in full in the North American release as well, so you’ll be getting the full story here.

Xseed has Senran Kagura Burst slated for release this fall as an eShop download for Nintendo 3DS.