PS VIta port – Wise Cafe (International)

You know what, i miss Senran Kagura.

There, i said it, for all its issues the Tamsoft ninja boobular spectacular beat em up series was fun, silly, fanservice extraordinaire, retro fun, and it actually got better as it went on, but then Sony basically becoming more prudish and pushing against these weird niche japanese games that made their console offerings more varied and unique, so the series mostly dabbled in ports and spin-offs, as the discussed new mainline Senran Kagura game, Senran Kagura Seven, become even more vaporware with the producer of the series, Kenichiro Takaki, moving out to a new company, and even moving out to the curiously “permissive” Nintendo of the Switch era didn’t help much.

Yes, technically the last notable entry (there are some mobile title never released out of Japan, one called Senran Kagura Run released last year) is not that old, being the 2021/2022 released Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars, but i think it exists and was released internationally mostly because of it being a crossover with the Neptunia series, itself not doing too hot, as they dabble in lots of spin-offs like the very recent Neptunia Riders VS Dogoos, but also have been struggling with rereleases and not a mainline entry in… a decade, as of now.

So it’s with bosomed heart i finally decided to dig into the Senran Kagura spin-offs, starting off with the cooking/rhythm game that is Senran Kagura: Bon Apetit!, originally released on PS Vita, but since it was digital only even in Europe, i decided to just get it on Steam this time around, expecially since its sold as the “Full Course” edition, meaning has all the content and DLC in one package for 20 bucks MSRP, which is actually reasonable.

Gotta love how they were willing to basically try anything with Senran Kagura, do not ever underestimate the power of horny, as it resulted in them having their own Splatoon-esque clone (which is technically a mainline game for story reasons) alongside a pinball game, a ecchi dating sim that’s also a reflexology simulator, but before all those, they did try their hand at a rhyth/cooking game hybrid, because sure, we can be horny AND hungry at the same time!

I mean, Food Wars exist already, so to add the Senran Kagura cast to the mix of battle shounen cooking bouts and horny fanservice was as simple as one-two-three, and you have a variety of ninja anime girls in often skimpy costumes (and now aprons), voilà!

Continua a leggere

To kick off the Summer Of EDF, we continue in chronological order, after having reviewed the original Earth Defence Force on its PS2 debut, more specifically the PAL version that was released by Agetec as “Monster Attack” and now it’s rare to get, so much it’s cheaper to import the japanese PS2 version instead, also because it never came out in America.

And to be clear, while i do have the PAL release of EDF 2 (since it was once again not published in US back then), handled by D3 via their own label, Essential Games, made specifically for export to Europe their Simple series low budget releases) titled Global Defence Force (yes “Defence”, i’m fairly sure they never fixed the typo because i doubt they bothered to issue a reprinting just to fix the title), and i’m also aware of the japanese-only PSP port that also added extra classes.

Buy i’m choosing instead to review the PS Vita enhanced port-update-remake, Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders From Planet Space, not only for the hilarious title (or the fact it was the first time the game was released in US markets), but because it’s basically the definitive EDF 2 experience, and – alongside pretty much every mainline EDF game – also the version ported to Switch, only in Japan even on the digital storefronts at the time of writing.

Continua a leggere

Tag: PS VIta port

Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit! (Full Course) STEAM [REVIEW] | Ninja Food Porn Wars

Earth Defense Force 2: Invaders From Planet Space PS VITA [REVIEW] | #summerofedf