"Senran Kagura Reflexions" Review - Yes, I went there - part 5

Available for: Nintendo Switch

Reviewed for: Nintendo Switch

The Senran Kagura franchise is, as far as my research suggests, not at all like the subject of today's review. From what I can tell, the franchise is basically an action saga about female ninjas. The switch-exclusive Senran Kagura Reflexions, however, is not. Hello and welcome back to the series in which I play the cringiest looking dating simulators on the market, have a laugh, and tell you whether or not the laugh is worth your money. This is the fifth entry in the series, and I have to admit that I haven't been staying true to the mission. The games I've played for this series haven't really been cringey, and many of them had significant critical acclaim before I started playing. I've never played anything that really made me feel slimy or that I would be embarrassed to be caught with. In that way, I haven't been making the most of this concept. Recently, however, I got a lead on a game with the promise of borderline voyeuristic fan service, and I thought: "What better way to make me feel uncomfortable than to be forced to go against my feminist roots?" With that in mind, I fired up my switch, shelled out the necessary $10, and braced myself to feel like an enormous creep.

That being said, I try to keep my content as family-friendly as possible, but this just isn't a family-friendly game. I'll be covering some mature themes here, so on the off chance I have impressionable young readers, be warned. 

So grab some puffy Cheetos, hold your body pillows close, and join me as I break down this lonely little lonely boy experience. 

Senran Kagura Reflexions (henceforth referred to as SKR) has a simple and relatable premise: It's the end of the school day and our protagonist, a girl named Asuka, has asked you (the silent, unnamed player) to meet her in her classroom. Upon arriving, Asuka tells you that she wants to confess her feelings, but she doesn't know exactly what the feelings are. It's the kind of situation that most of us might remember having back in our hormone-riddled high school days. From there, you help Asuka figure out her feelings with the eternal power of hand-holding. That's where story ends and gameplay begins, and this was where I started feeling uncomfortable. I was expecting this to be your bog-standard visual novel thing, and though the dialogue is presented as such, there's actual gameplay beyond reading. 

Essentially, once the initial bit of dialogue is done, you're presented with a hand-holding minigame. Your hands hold Asuka's as she stares deeply into your eyes, and, using the sticks and the ZR/ZL buttons, you choose a portion of one of Asuka's hands to ever-so-gently caress with your finger. You can caress the palm or any of the fingers on both hands, and, if Asuka blushes, smiles, and tells you it feels good, then your goal is to keep on caressing the spot for a couple of seconds. Can you see why this made me feel a little uncomfortable? Like, there is insane audio focus on the brushing sound the fingers make, and Asuka never once breaks eye contact. I was sitting there thinking "Ohhh geez, playing this makes me feel more like a fat, socially awkward, lonely loser than I already am!" 

But that isn't where gameplay ends, no sir-ee! You see, depending on which part of Asuka's hands you end up caressing, she'll drift into one of seven fantasy scenarios. In these fantasies, Asuka takes on a certain role and contrives a reason for you to give her a massage. From there, two little hand icons come up on the screen (controlled by the sticks on the switch), and you just touch her body until you're intimate enough. There are five types of intimacy, and depending on where you touch Asuka, one of the types will come out on top. The red type is basically straightforward lovey-dovey love, and the part of the body that generates this tends to vary. The orange type is love in the sense of being able to relax around you, and this is usually generated by massaging the face. The green type is sort of the middle ground, not really love but more than friendship, and this tends to be generated by touching the arms or shoulders, sometimes the back (classic massage areas, in other words). The purple type is more or less understated, indirect lust, and this is almost always generated by massaging the thighs, stomach, or back (areas you might tease to spice things up without explicitly crossing boundaries). Finally, there's the blue type, which is outright uncomfortable, direct lust, and it's the type that factors into the question I'm sure you're already asking..."Can you touch her everywhere?" The answer to that question is that there's only one place that you can't touch...with that in mind, this blue intimacy type is generated by fondling her breasts or behind. I'll be touching on this (uuuuuuuuuuuugh no pun intended) more a little later. 

Anywho, once you've built up enough of a certain flavor of intimacy, you trigger what is called "Glorious Reflexology," a final minigame that amounts to a more intense closing massage. At first, glorious reflexology is just you smacking Asuka's thighs with your hands and trying to keep from smacking too frequently or too sparingly to fill up a heart meter, but as the game progresses, you get more tools with different controls. You may end up choosing to deliver this massage with a special roller (which you run up and down the legs) or a brush (which you use on the arms) or...the last tool you get...which I saw and did a double take, mentally exclaiming "w-w-w-w-w-w-wait a minute that's a VIBRATOR!!!!" Okay, fine, maybe there are other vibrating "massagers" on the market that aren't meant for the erotic and maybe I'm just a huge pervert...but look at this game! There's no way, in a game that encourages you to cop a feel, that this thing is anything but a sex toy. Anyway, when using the (totally not a vibrator) vibrating stick with the bulbous head, you bring it down on Asuka's diaphragm, making sure to only keep it on her body in short bursts because it would be too intense to keep it there for too long and she might break...*looks at the camera, mouths "It's a vibrator"*. Regardless of whether you're using your hands or a tool, you have one minute to fill up the heart meter, and if you succeed, you're treated to a look from Asuka that borders on orgasmic followed by a bit of dialogue in the fantasy scenario that corresponds with the type of intimacy you built up. Then, a gem fills up a fifth of the way with the color of the intimacy. As you might guess, this means that your goal is to fill up that gem with a color, and the color you end up with determines what Asuka's true feelings are. So, from a gameplay standpoint, you're going to go through all the steps I've outlined five times in order to help Asuka confess her feelings. 

Before I move on, I'd like to take a minute to touch on the fantasy scenarios themselves, as they'll make up the bulk of your playtime. Firstly, there's the younger volleyball player scenario. In this scenario, you are Asuka's senpai and are tasked with giving her a massage after the day's workout. Then there's the classmate scenario, in which you and Asuka are classmates who are getting cold after taking shelter from the rain together and decide to "warm each other up." Both of those make sense, as you get the sense that the two of you at least go to school together, but apart from those, the fantasies really do resemble fantasies. For starters there's the warrior scenario, in which Asuka is a medieval warrior. This one was the most amusing to me, because the reasons for massaging would amount to "I can't believe those orcs hit me with a poison arrow. Quick, I need you to massage me to keep the poison from spreading!" Then there's the idol scenario, in which Asuka is an idol and you're her doting producer. There's also the present scenario, where Asuka is clothed only in wrapping paper and presents herself as your "present". Then there's my favo...I mean then there's the older, private tutor scenario in which Asuka dons a pair of librarian glasses and a more-or-less professional jacket and tells you she'll teach you all kinds of new things if you keep getting good grades. Yep, these scenarios are all pretty great and amusing and while some are arguably more fetishistic than others, they're at least not completely screwy and gross and...what, I only listed 6 when I said there are 7? I guess there's no pulling one over on you, dear reader...yeah, there's one last scenario. Let me give you the play-by-play from when I first encountered it. I had just finished my first round of the tutor scenario and was thinking "well, there's no topping th I wonder what's next!" (you don't get a list of scenarios until playthrough #2, and I'd only experienced about three of the scenarios I've listed). I went through the motions, caressed a different part of Asuka's hands, and the next segment loaded. In this next fantasy scenario, Asuka was wearing cat pajamas and immediately something felt off. This feeling was confirmed when the first lines of the scenario were: "My school's rules are getting stricter, so my guidance counselor is going to check me from top to bottom. Can you check me all over first, big brother?" So, yes. Scenario #7 is the little sister scenario. This means there are parts of the game where Asuka will fantasize about you being her older brother...and about you feeling her up. Did I mention that this game lets you grab just about everywhere and even gives you the option of using a (totally not a vibrator) "massager"? Like, what the hell, Japan? I mean, obviously you're not actually her brother, it's just her fantasizing, but come one! The word "onee-chan" already kind of makes my skin crawl, and it's so much worse when it's being said in an orgasmic voice as the required thigh-slapping begins. Also, the fact that Asuka is wearing cat pajamas in these segments lends an incredibly infantilizing air to her persona that makes things even more uncomfortable. Thankfully, after playthrough #1, in addition to the list of scenarios, you're told which part of Asuka's hands triggers which scenario. So, I only had to endure the little sister scenario once, but it was enough to make me feel slimier than I've ever felt in a game. 

Having thrown the most twisted part of this game in front of you, dear readers, I think now is a good time to break into the question I always like to address in this series: Is the game sexist? It's no secret that your average dating simulator is a blatant appeal to the male power fantasy of having multiple women wanting to jump his bones, but while 95% of the time it is done in an objectifying, agency-lacking way, it isn't true 100% of the time. In the case of SKR, aspects of it certainly are sexist, but in terms of the concept, at least, I'd say no. I'll address the exceptions in a second, but first let me give you my three reasons for believing that this feel-em-up game isn't inherently sexist from a conceptual standpoint. 

Reason #1: Everything is at Asuka's behest.

Even in the vanilla hand-holding segments, you never grab Asuka's hands. Rather, she grabs yours or asks you to grab hers. Furthermore, in the fantasy scenarios, you don't get to start touching until she asks you for a massage.

Reason #2: Everything you do is a fantasy.

It isn't just that the fantasy scenarios aren't actually happening, it's that literally whatever you do in these segments is Asuka fantasizing about you doing it. If you touch her somewhere inappropriate, then what's actually happening is that, as you caress her hand, she's fantasizing about you touching her butt. It doesn't make me feel any less uncomfortable, and one could argue that having the player conduct the fantasies deprives Asuka of her agency in spite of the implied agency of the concept, but there it is. 

Reason #3 (the most compelling reason, in my mind): You get nothing.

Normally dating simulators are played with the express purpose of receiving a commitment from a character and/or receiving *cough* something else from a character. That's part of what makes the genre so slimy; you spend the game telling your girl of choice exactly what they want to hear so that they'll choose to love you in the end. Not so in SKR. When I say you get nothing, I don't just mean you don't get to use that "massager" for its intended purpose. I mean you literally get nothing from Asuka, nor do you seem to ask for anything. She never holds your hand, she never caresses you back, nothing at all. In fact, upon reflection, there's something really sweet about this game's concept. Without knowing for sure what she plans to confess to you (though, I mean, come on, you can guess), you patiently hold and caress her hand (at her request, I reiterate) so that she can take time to process and get her thoughts out. One of the conclusions she can come to has no romance in it at all, and yet this is still something that you, the player, do for her. In fact, if you think about it, most of this game revolves around making Asuka feel good and allowing her to come into her feeling naturally. Now, don't get me wrong; I don't think that SKR is an earth-shattering work of girl power that'll destroy the patriarchy if everyone plays it. Oooooooooooobviously this was made by men (i.e. I don't think many women fantasize about being groped, so reason #2 is a little weaker than the rest). However, if, for more men, the male power fantasy revolved around making women feel safe and/or good (expecting nothing in return and just being a positive force), then this world would be less screwed up. Wouldn't you agree? 

That being said, I can't give SKR a feminist seal of approval in spite of the fact that I don't believe it, from a high level view, is sexist. As I make a point of saying quite often, I don't remove points when my biases are denied nor grant them when my biases are confirmed unless the confirmation or denial directly impacts the game. There are two items that go directly against my biases in different ways. I'd like to discuss both of them. 

Firstly, though I find the whole breast-groping thing revolting (the umbrella of "it's her fantasy" helps, but not much), it wouldn't be the kind of thing I'd take points off for if it were optional. However, at the end of playthrough #1, a heart-shaped locket appeared on screen, and a fifth of it filled up with a piece of a picture. It was clear to me then that in order to actually beat the game, I would have to reach the end with all 5 types of intimacy maxed out. If you remember, one of the intimacy types is generated exclusively through inappropriate groping. That means that if you want to beat the game, you're going to have to grab away. The umbrella of "it's her fantasy" would still keep points from being taken off (even though I'd feel unbelievably guilty for doing it). However, "it's her fantasy," (while true of absolutely everything that happens here) can't stop my experience from being negatively impacted when Asuka physically recoils from being groped. There are consenting adults in the world who like the idea of trying things like rape fantasy, and with that in mind, one might try to extend "it's her fantasy" to the clear "no" Asuka gives when you touch her where a swimsuit might go. Such an assertion might not necessarily be wrong, as it's all in her head, where she has the power to control where the fantasy goes, and she doesn't make you stop. However, for my purposes, I think it's unacceptable. In order to complete this game, you have no choice but to spend a playthrough continually grabbing Asuka's breasts, waiting for the recoil animation to stop, then continuing to grab. I mean, come on! This could've been prime Tsundere territory! The developers could have easily given Asuka a "well, I guess there's no stopping a pervert like you...b-b-baka!" attitude, and it would've saved them some animation money! But no, instead we get this! At the end of these sequences, Asuka gives a line of dialogue that suggests she liked it but doesn't want to admit it (again, that would've played perfectly into a Tsundere scenario), but that hardly helps in my book. I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record in this paragraph, so let me summarize the issue here: It is her fantasy, but the developers didn't have to make me do it to get to the end. 

The second item is a bit of a weird one...after all, what am I supposed to do when a denial of my biases makes the game more content-rich? What I'm referring to, dear readers, is the "Dress Up" and "Diorama" modes that can be accessed from the menu. Both modes are exactly what they sound like. Diorama mode has you posing Asuka in an environment...for some reason. Dress Up mode has you changing Asuka's hair styles, hair colors, clothes, accessories, and underwear. After each run of the game, you're gifted with several new options for all of those categories. Some are harmless, like other versions of the school uniform. Some are par-for-the-course in the land of the rising sun, such as cat ears and cat tails. Some are...questionable...such as the "leg" customization that puts a pair of underwear hanging loosely off Asuka's knee. It's all very objectifying, especially given the freaking insane amount of lingerie options available, but...what can I say? It's optional, and it adds value to the package as a whole. 

Alright, enough blabbering on about relevant social things, let's talk about the technical stuff! SKR is obviously not an incredibly demanding feat of technology, but that makes it all the more astonishing that it's such a spectacular technical package. All animations run at a consistent, silky-smooth 60 fps, visual/audio and physical (i.e. the use of the switch's vibration feature) feedback is excellent across the board, and the controls are simple but get the job done. The soundtrack features enough variety to keep the 5 or so playthroughs the game requires from getting stale. I never experienced any crashes, glitches, framerate drops, texture pop-in, or shoddy audio mixing in my time with this game. All-in-all, SKR is a far more competent technical package than it needed to be, and that deserves praise. There are small gripes here and there (having to wait to start gameplay until the "Standard Reflexology" logo goes away at every stage, etc), but they don't take away too much.

Folks, the only reason I even wrote a review beyond just stating the concept of the game is so that categories in the end of the year lists have context that can be perused after reading. Chances are good that you already know whether or not you're going to play this game. Whether or not I recommend this game depends exclusively on who you are, and I hardly feel like I need to spell it out. With that in mind, the question remains: Did I enjoy Senran Kagura Reflexions? Well, I have to say I don't regret my time with it. It's very uncomfortable at times and has some prevalent, real sociological problems, but at the end of the day it's cathartic and sometimes amusing. I could've done with less fondling and less bro-con time (that is to say, none at all), but take those out of the equation and SKR isn't bad. If you're a pervert, someone who wants to play a game in which you do something kind for another person, someone looking to learn a thing or two about giving a massage, or someone with a particular *cough* itch they'd like to simulate scratching, SKR should prove a good time. If not, you might just want to steer clear of this one. As I said, you probably already know which camp you're in. The game lasts around 3 hours if you complete it fully, and it currently costs $10 on the Nintendo eShop. For your money, you'll get plenty of content, including several modes beyond the main story. So if you think you'll enjoy this game, go crazy!

Just remember that life is not a fantasy, and if a woman physically recoils from your touch, friggin' stop!

Let us review:

Sexual assault required to win - 1

Onee-chan, Yamate! - 1

Minor tech gripes - 0.2

The final score for Senran Kagura Reflexions is...

7.8/10 - Acceptable

Decent work, Honey Parade Games, decent work...but no means no next time, ok?