Fanservice can be a good thing, there’s no doubt about that. The Senran Kagura games are known to be made specifically for the fans of the erotic-themed franchise. Bon Appetit! has already been released for the PS Vita two years ago, but now fans can enjoy the unique boob physics and slapstick comedy in glorious 1080p at 60 fps on the PC.
For those who don’t know, the Senran Kagura games are most famous for their shared gameplay mechanic: undressing your favorite waifu. The difference between each title in the series is the way of doing that. In Bon Appetit! you have to defeat your opponent in a cooking competition. Defeating them will strip them of their clothes and, if you make a perfect dish, get them covered in chocolate and whipped cream while they are lying seductively in a serving of dessert. While it would be easy to discard this game for its soft erotic content, there are some parts that clearly had a lot of effort put into.
Dinner is served
There are three game modes: Story Mode, Arcade Mode and Free Mode. The goal of every game mode is to serve a great meal to Master Hanzo. You do this by playing a rhythm game against your opponent. The more button prompts you successfully hit, the bigger and better your meal becomes. If Master Hanzo likes your meal, then you have won the duel against your opponent. In story mode, every playable character has a little bit of backstory and a unique motive to compete against the other girls. You play against five opponents in total and, if you win each duel, receive a little bit of text that ties up the story of your character. Repeat this until you have finished every story of every character in the game. The story mode doesn’t offer that much and doesn’t justify multiple playthroughs. It’s filled with pretty funny written dialogue, though.
Arcade Mode is an uninterrupted series of six battles against random opponents while Free Mode allows you to pick any character as your opponent. What’s weird to me is that there isn’t a multiplayer mode, since this game would hugely benefit from it. What rhythm game doesn’t offer two players to play against each other? Imagine playing this game with your friends and watching all the ridiculous character poses and comical scenes. Sure, it may look weird, but you’ll quickly start laughing once you see how hilariously silly this game is. No multiplayer is a missed opportunity of the developers.
Forgiving gameplay
Like any other rhythm game, the gameplay consists out of hitting the correct button at the right time. On screen, there are two horizontal lines on which button prompts scroll towards a static icon. When they overlap said icon, you press the specified button. A successful streak fills up a meter that can be activated to multiply your score and give you an advantage over your opponent. Miss one button prompt, though, and the multiplier disappears. What quickly stood out to me was how forgiving the gameplay is. You can practically hit the button prompt after it passed the static icon and it would still register it as a successfully hit prompt. Even earning a ‘perfect’ hit is easy, since its only qualifier is that you press the specified button when the button prompt is somewhere on the static icon. Most other rhythm games give you a ‘perfect’ hit only when you time the button press at the exact moment the prompt overlaps the icon. The only difficulty in Bon Appetit! is the number of buttons you have to press in one duel. This doesn’t make the game bad per se, but it also doesn’t make it very challenging, especially for those who have played multiple rhythm games in the past.
Filled with fanservice
Saying this game has a lot of fanservice would be an understatement. There are the obvious soft erotic character poses and the silly humor, but you can also customize every playable character with different outfits and accessories. These can be unlocked by playing any mode, but the story mode rewards you with the most. Now, let me clarify that there’s A LOT to unlock. Even when you play the game for the first time there are already lots of customization options. If you want to unlock every item there is, then you’re going to be busy for a while. While these are obviously made for the fans, it must be said that the amount of customization in Bon Appetit! is its biggest strength.
Conclusion
Senran Kagura Bon Appetit! is another game made specifically for fans of the Senran Kagura franchise, but can be enjoyed by others. The customization options are impressive but are the only unique thing this game has to offer. If you’ve never played a rhythm game before or simply want to see large breasted girls play around with food, then maybe you could give this one a try.
