Skirting Shadows only allowed the player to enjoy the story as the Hanzou girls Asuka, Yagyuu, Hibari, Ikaruga and Katsuragi, with the Hebijo girls Homura, Mirai, Haruka, Yomi and Hikage acting as antagonists. Those complementary character traits become the basis for these characters to learn a great deal from one another opposites attract and all that. Both sides in the conflict between Hanzou and Hebijo gradually come to understand this, and end up building solid, deep friendships with those who are supposed to be their most bitter of enemies. One of the most interesting concepts that Senran Kagura introduces right from the start in this regard is the idea that there is typically a barrier to entry in order to be considered “good”, yet “evil” will accept anyone and everyone. It’s not a simple story of good versus evil, mind you a key part of Senran Kagura right from the very beginning has been the fact that such terms are very much relative and that “evil” doesn’t necessarily equate to “bad”, as anyone who has ever played classic Dungeons & Dragons will be able to tell you rather, “evil” is a matter of self-interest rather than altruism. As these things tend to go, there are also five young female shinobi students there, and throughout Skirting Shadows (as we shall refer to it hereafter) each of Hanzou’s girls “pairs off” with a rival from Hebijo who complements their personality traits in some way. The game initially introduces us to a cast of five young female shinobi students as they continue their training and find themselves coming into conflict with the local “evil” shinobi training institution: Hebijo Clandestine Girls’ Academy. Specifically, it trains “good” shinobi the ones who do things because it’s the right thing to do, rather than those who carry out the will of the highest bidder. The game introduces Hanzou National Academy, a prestigious high school with a secret: it also trains the best of the best to become shinobi. Senran Kagura originated on the Nintendo 3DS in 2011 with Senran Kagura: Shoujo-tachi no Shin’ei (literally Senran Kagura: The Shadows of Girls, more commonly translated as Portrait of Girls or Skirting Shadows).
#GAME SENRAN KAGURA SERIES#
I won’t reiterate the historical perspective of how the series is an evolution of the classic beat ’em up formula, because I already did that back when we explored Estival Versus I invite you to check that article out at your leisure, because it was a ton of fun to write.īut it does pay to take a look at the history of the series itself - and how it’s managed to find success, seemingly despite a fair amount of resistance. So with that in mind, I thought we’d spend today talking a bit about where the series has come from and how it has got to where it is today. It’s entirely possible that you’re coming to this article with no idea what Senran Kagura is, where it came from, why it’s interesting and why it’s important to me personally.
![game senran kagura game senran kagura](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/01/a2/df/01a2dfc86afb850010ba395c856b50b7.jpg)
This leaves me with a fair amount of work to do, but I’m looking forward to it I hope you enjoy it too. And, with the exception of Reflexions and a bit of Bon Appetit, I haven’t played (or covered) any of these yet. Since Estival Versuswas the first ever Cover Game feature here on MoeGamer back in April of 2016, we’ve had Peach Beach Splash, Burst Re Newal, Reflexionsand Peach Ball, plus a lovely Limited Run Games packaged release of Bon Appetit, a former digital-only title. This Cover Game feature is, as much as anything, me fulfilling a promise to myself I absolutely love the Senran Kagura series, yet I’ve been falling very behind with it, so I’ve been promising myself for… probably a couple of years now that I’d get caught up! With the recent release of Peach Ball at the time of writing, I thought it was about time we fixed that. Now there’s a series we’re no strangers to here on MoeGamer, but it’s been a long time since it graced the Cover Game feature.
![game senran kagura game senran kagura](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hbB7Z2K3nBw/maxresdefault.jpg)
This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!