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Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit - Full Course
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Graphics & Sound:
Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit - Full Course is a game starring your favorite scantily dressed maidens from the Senran Kagura games. If you have ever played any of these games, you know that they are not for kids!
While I have not played any of the other games, based on images online, the characters in Bon Appétit - Full Course look very much as they have throughout the series. Why they have decided to take on cooking rather than being ninjas, I have no clue. But I can tell you that you have a variety of characters that have wildly different styles. Some prefer to start completely clothed, while others barely wear anything. They must also live in a world with a very different gravity. The majority of them have extremely large boobs, ranging in size from large to unbelievably large to ginormous, all of which defy gravity and seem to continually bounce, as if they are a separate entity just clinging onto the chest. As my roommate just said, it’s the perfect game for men who like boobs. We have nicknamed it the "bouncing boobies game."
Since this is a rhythm game, you would expect the songs to be important. They are decent songs for a rhythm game and the beat is easy to get the hang of. None of them are really popular songs that I recognized, other than some borrowed classical parts. The game is entirely in Japanese with English subtitles. For the most part, this isn’t a problem, but it would be nice to know what the girls are saying to each other while they are cooking.
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Gameplay:
When you start up Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit - Full Course, you are given a few options to play and some things to explore. Your game playing selections are Story Mode, Arcade Mode, and Free Mode. You play them all the same way, but they differ on how many boards you play. In Story Mode, you will choose a character and play through her story. There are 22 characters in all, each of them with different reasons for wanting to win the Super Dish Gourmet Cook-Off. The prize for winning is a Secret Ninja Art Scroll that will grant you any wish you desire. These gals have some very different and some very extreme wishes. Some are simple, like just wanting to eat the leftovers. Some are a bit weirder, like the desire to become tempura. Yes, to be fried up as a tempura. I’ll let you discover the rest of these for yourself. They are definitely creative! You have to beat several opponents and then you will win the prize and get your desire. Each opponent has 3 rounds and at the end of each round, the loser has some of her clothing ripped off. If you win all three rounds, your opponent is stripped naked and turned into a sundae covered in chocolate and whipped cream. Yes, you did just read that right. Trust me when I say this game is not suitable for work or for playing when your kids are around.
In Arcade Mode, you will cook against six opponents. Your goal is simply to get the highest score possible. You can choose to upload your score to the Honor Roll and see how you stack up to others online and you can check the Honor Roll from the Main Menu.
Free Mode lets you choose which two opponents to put against each other and play. You will still get to unlock items here just like you do in Story Mode and you can play with those items in the Dressing Room. You can spend a whole lot of time in the Dressing Room, if you want. The game starts you off with a large number of items to dress up the gals in, plus you unlock more as you beat opponents. You’ll also unlock images that you can view in the Library. |
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Difficulty:
Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit - Full Course provides three difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, and Hard. While this might sound straightforward, it’s not as easy as you think. I play a lot of rhythm games and I’m usually pretty darned good at them. Bon Appétit - Full Course is apparently not my cup of tea. Easy isn’t too bad. It’s really rather easy and you should be able to get the hang of the game quickly. Unfortunately, there is a huge gap in difficulty level between Easy and Normal. Maybe it is because I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the concept of the two lines, but that all six (eight in Hard) symbols could be on either line, but I found it quite difficult to get past the Normal difficulty setting. Forget getting the hang of Hard! I had to accept that I will not be beating Bon Appétit - Full Course on the hardest level.
In Story Mode on all difficulty levels, the first round is going to be your easiest (in general) and they will get harder as you go. You would expect this to be the case, since it is a competition. Arcade Mode will get more challenging with each new opponent. In Free Mode, you are only playing against one opponent each time, but just like the other modes, the first round will be easiest and it gets harder as it goes.
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Game Mechanics:
I think the mechanics of Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit - Full Course are where I had the most difficulty with the game. First off, I had to reconfigure the controller settings to match my controller. That’s really not that difficult to do as you can set it all up in Setting, but it did take some time. After I just couldn’t get the hang with the controller, I decided maybe the keyboard would work better. I also had to reconfigure the keyboard as the arrow keys didn’t work on my laptop like they were supposed to in the game. I tried reconfiguring it for the num pad, but those wouldn’t work either, so I ended up using all letter keys. I must admit it is nice in that when you reconfigure it to use letters (or numbers) on a keyboard, those are what show up on-screen. This means that you don’t have to remember that you set L to be the left arrow or anything like that.
Bon Appétit - Full Course is set up so that you have two lines that buttons you need to press can appear on. The "notes" will scroll across those lines from right to left and you have to press the right button when it hits the target on the right. You will also have hold notes that you have to hold down the button for the full duration. Make sure to remember that you have to let it go right on time as well or it won’t count. You’ll also have some notes that require you to mash the button a certain number of times before the note is over. It is important to note that you are not penalized for extra button presses, nor will they kill your streak. Just make sure that you hit the right ones on time. If you hit it at exactly the right time, you will get a Perfect. Almost right will get you a Great. Less close will get you a Fine, but will at least still count. The game is pretty forgiving on timing.
My final thoughts are that this definitely isn’t my favorite rhythm game out there. The two lines on top of each other scrolling from right to left are just opposite from what I’m used to and I really never got the hang of it. I guess my brain just doesn’t want to reorganize like that. I personally was not distracted by the bouncing boobs in the background, but I can say that my guy friends love watching Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit - Full Course. Is it a game for you? Maybe. That’s something you’ll have to just play for yourself to figure out. |
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-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl |
Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows 7, CPU: Intel Core i5 @2.90 GHz+, RAM: 2 GB, Graphics: Intel HD3000+, Hard Drive: 4 GB |
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Test System:
OS: Windows 10, CPU: Intel Core i7-3630QM 2.4 GHz, RAM: 16 GB, Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 730M, Hard Drive: 400 GB free |
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Related Links:
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