Senran Kagura Bon Appétit!

I thought we kind of topped out on the sleazy game chart with Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. A little over a decade later, XSeed felt it was a worthwile endeavor to drop Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit! on unsuspecting Vita owners. Given that Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus was recently released I supposed we shouldn't be surprised by the release of this title that's one part Iron Chef, one part Taiko no Tatsujin, and all parts creepy voyeur fodder that really straddles that Adults Only ESRB distinction, along with a few other things. This may be a moderately entertaining title, but it is one you really won't ever cop to owning.

XSeed does a bang-up job when it comes to localizations, but honestly they should have just left this game in straight Japanese if it weren't for Sony's pesky standards. The Hanzo and the Hebijo schools are embroiled in a cooking battle that started when the great master Hanzo decided to be a creepy pervert and lured the girls of each academy in to a cooking battle with a Ninja Arts scroll that would grant any wish as a prize. Let's be clear, you're not getting in to this one for the plot. Even though each girl has a wish they'd like to have granted, from Katsuragi's wish to have a harem, to Yomi's desire to cover the world in bean sprouts, there's nothing beyond that cursory plot element. Honestly the only thing redeeming here is the gameplay, which is surprisingly solid.

Choose your shinobi, then choose your opponent. With the initial purchase you get ten songs, one for each character. Then the cook-off begins. The game is simply a matter of timing button presses to when the notes reach a specific spot in one of the two lanes on screen. There are some hold notes, and some mash notes which require a certain number of button presses before the note ends. Overall this game shares a lot between Sega's Hatsune Miku: Project Diva, and Namco's Taiko no Tatsujin, and it manages to do a good job of balancing difficulty to each of the songs, the two lanes make things look a lot more hectic than they really are, and honestly with just one lane this game wouldn't have been much of a step away from Parappa the Rapper. Each stage is made up of three sections. The first two portions of the song are of little consequence and serve to remove the clothing of whoever happens to be losing the battle. The final section of each track will determine the winner. If you happen to utterly dominate the song, and win all three sections then you'll be treated to a rather humiliating post-song shot of the loser, who is covered with little more than a somewhat careful use of food. People who are looking for their 'Citizen Kane' of gaming need to go look somewhere else.

There are some ancillary features which include a dressing room for all the clothes you'll be unlocking as you play. There's also a library which contains a lot of artwork and music that can be unlocked as well. You've got online leaderboards for the basic Arcade mode, for when you really don't want to experience the story. It feels like this game is really lacking by not having some online versus play. You're never really competing with the computer, it's just a matter of not messing up and that doesn't really instill a sense of urgency or even victory when you win.

Visually this game is one of the best stylistic and looking games on the Vita, but it feels like it's all there specifically to titillate (which it feels like I've played in to XSeed's hands by using that word). The character design is what really pushes it over the edge though, characters are comically disproportionate and maybe that's why someone can give this a pass, because of how ridiculous it is. The songs themselves all feel like some cast-off J-pop, and some are vocal character tracks, but a majority are instrumental tracks. You'll be hearing the same songs pretty frequently too, which is kind of a bummer, but for the starting price it's actually better than most games. There will be a DLC pack shortly after release that will double the number of songs available as it also unlocks the Gessen school that was introduced in Shinovi Versus. For the initial release though this game feels a little sparse and is definitely lacking from a musical variety standpoint.

The biggest problem I have with Bon Appetit! is that once you've played through two or three characters you've seen the entire song list. I get that this is released as a budget title, but even then I know of iOS games that have more songs available for free at launch. Maybe my expectations are dulled from this style of game, but at the very least it would have been nice to get some variation in the style of tracks. It's unfortunate that beyond playing through the story and unlocking new clothes for the girls there isn't much else to do. There is some carry-over from the Shinovi Versus DLC, but otherwise, this game shows its hand almost as quickly as it reveals its other *ahem* assets.

Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit! is a curious title that I have a hard time recommending just because it gets boring way too quickly. This may have been a game that is better served by having been a full-priced title that contains all of its content rather than its split-in-half debut. If you like this franchise, it's an interesting direction to take things, but there are better titles out there for when you need a music game fix. Even a dedicated music game fan like myself found this title to be lacking, and I also feel a certain degree of shame just by having this game installed on my Vita. I get that it's a fan service title, but this is one of those times where going whole hog has just resulted in a product that has very few redeeming qualities.