They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, whether its steak, burgers or a freshly-baked batch of cookies. Add some boobs to the mix, and it won't just be his stomach that's happy to see you - or such is Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit's philosophy anyway. A spin off from the main nubile ninja brawler series, Bon Appetit sees the girls donning aprons and getting their cooking on instead. And losing their clothes, obviously.
The girls of Senran Kagura, with their wibbly wobbly frontages, have swapped their swords and staffs for spatulas and spoons, each entering the local Super Dish Gourmet Cook Off. The brainchild of Sensei Hanzo, who seemingly just fancies some good food courtesy of his ninja denizens, with a side order of eye candy, there's a Secret Ninja Art Scroll on offer to the winner of this bodacious hyper cooking battle - a scroll which apparently has power to grant a single wish to its owner - and each girl falls for the bait hook, line and sinker.
We bet you do.
Hanzo's grandaughter Asuka enters the tournament to "show everyone the beauty of colossal size and girth" as she can only "feel true satisfaction" through something "big and thick" - Futomaki rolls, of course. Meanwhile, boobs-for-brains Katsuragi simply wants to claim all the breasts in the world for herself and become the "harem queen of hooters", whereas Hibari just wants to guzzle all the sweets she can manage. Each of the ten girls has their own reasons for entering the contest, some silly, some more serious - although, story details largely take a back seat in this cookery strip-a-thon.
At it's core, Bon Appetit is a rhythm action game, and involves pressing buttons in time to music. Button symbols move across the screen from right to left, and by pressing the corresponding button you can string together chains of hits, to win the cook off, and, er, stand a better chance of getting to see your opponent's undies. In each stage, two ninjas face off against each other across three rounds punctuated by taste tests from Sensei Hanzo, with whoever has the worst dish having a portion of their clothes blasted off as punishment. As you do. Do especially well across all three rounds and you'll have a surprise waiting for you...
If you like your women like you like your coffee - with chocolate and cream on top... Or, as a Shinboi sundae.
Senran Kagura isn't shy in the slightest - known in the biz as 'fan service', it's more than happy to put its well-endowed protagonists into sexually compromising situations. With breast physics that would make even Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball blush, even some simple vegetable chopping becomes strangely hypnotic, as the two gravity-defying orbs bounce in front of your face. In fact, we'd like to know who designs their bras - because most of the girls do wear them, surprisingly - so we could get some. Trying to find anything in a 30E that doesn't tend towards a full coverage over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder can be a challenge - whereas these Senran wenches can keep their chests in place with little more than a pair of plasters.
As you complete songs, you unlock all sorts of skimpy outfits, lingerie and accessories to dress up your women. Whether you prefer something that simply reveals a lot of flesh or, er, prefer the girls to dress as pets - with ears and a tail - Bon Appetit has everything you (or any teenage boy) could wish for. You can even paw at the protagonists in the dressing room via the touchscreen to elicit little squeaks and blushes from your current shinobi (although at least one seems to quite enjoy the attention).
Seriously... who stirs with two hands?!
But once you get past the rather overt fan service, you find a rather hardcore rhythm action game underneath. You get a choice of three different difficulties to play on, but despite being a veteran of many an Expert Rock Band and Guitar Hero session over the years, we found the normal difficulty was pretty tough going, while hard had us pretty much mashing the buttons in the vain hope one was right. Thankfully, easy does do pretty much what it says on the tin, offering a much less challenging array of notes (to the point where we rarely missed one), whilst having plenty of time to enjoy the view too...
In fact, perhaps the biggest problem here is that, despite being a music game, the selection of tunes aren't actually all that catchy or memorable, which is a bit of a disappointment. A few stand out, such as Askua's Fukotami stage, but the majority tend to blur into one, and sound more like background music than anything else, albeit a little J-pop-ed up. And with only ten songs to play through, things start to feel rather repetitive rather quickly.
Of course, that's the other big issue here, as what you're buying is technically only actually half a game. Bon Appetit is essentially split into two 'packs' of Senran Kagura characters - the first, main part of the game, comes with the ten shinobis of the Hanzo and Homura squads. A few weeks after launch, the second 'half' of the game will then be up for download, for the same price as the original game, this time covering the Gessen and Habijo shinobi teams. The game makes it blatantly obvious you only have half too, with most of the roster greyed out and locked off behind a 'purchase the DLC' wall - which leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth to say the least. That being said, each half is priced at a more budget-friendly $14.99/14.99 Euros (around £12, if our maths is right!), more reflective of the game's shorter length.
Oh dear...
As a rhythm action game, Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit is fairly average - it's fun enough, but the songs aren't really as memorable or catchy enough to make a lasting impression. But if you're looking for ludicrous amounts of breasts and unabashed fan service, it certainly delivers in spades. The silliness we appreciated in the more standard brawler Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus is alive and well in this culinary spin-off too, naked samba dancing potions and all.
Format Reviewed: PS Vita
