Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash’s cards set the game’s tone

Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash is a new approach for the series. It is a third-person shooter where players choose a ninja, equip her with a deck of cards that determine her attacks and skills, then send her out into water gun wars against other ninjas. But really, it can often play more like a standard Senran Kagura game, making them beat’em ups with flashy skills, occasional physical attacks and tons of enemies. While this might seem weird, the card system helps tie it all together and make it work.

Each Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash character is equipped with a deck of 10 cards. One of these is a weapon. This determines the kind of squirt gun she will be using throughout the match. Three of these cards are Pet cards. This is a companion that can be summoned to help participate in the battle for a limited period of time. The other six cards trigger some sort of special attack. There are of course cooldown periods for pet and special attack cards, to keep people from constantly spamming these abilities, just as characters will need to briefly pause to pump the various water guns to reload. Since there aren’t actual classes, the decks people create can be used to assign roles.

There’s a great sense of balance here with these cards. There are 810 total to acquire, before DLC, and they cover offensive and defensive abilities and provide various buffs and debuffs. Someone who isn’t very good at shooting and wants to stick around to provide backup may want to use a Homura homing shot attack card and combine it with a Murakumo card that temporarily prevents enemies from reloading or a Ryona card that reduces enemies damage per second. Should you want to make yourself stronger, maybe go with a Leo card that fires a blast that goes through walls, a Mirai card that sends off balls that hunt down enemies or a Katsuragi card that shatters defenses. Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash lets you customize your character in such a way that it becomes easier for you to excel and play.

The leveling system is also rather helpful. The cards you collect can be improved to make your deck more powerful. I’ll use the Dual Pistols as an example. If you take the level one version of the card and recycle some duplicate cards to give them more experience and get them to level three, their power will go from five to seven. Leveling up other cards could increase their power, attack range, buff or debuff. Leveling up characters and weapons makes the most sense, since it increases health and attack power. It takes a while to see significant results on other cards, but improving the ones you use the most and like best makes a real difference. And, since you can save favorite sets, it is possible to have a number of presets prepared for any situation.

There is also the collectible element to the Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash cards. The game goes out of its way to simulate trading card game experience. When you buy a pack from the in-game shop, it makes a big deal of opening them in front of you, fanning them out and letting you check each card. There are various levels of rarity, starting at “N” and going all the way up to “UR.” The art gets more elaborate as the rarity goes up. They even reference past games, like Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit. Usability and uniqueness both come into play as someone adds to their collection.

Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash is a goofy game and weird addition to the series’ catalog. People’s thoughts on it may vary, but the card system is a rather handy and helpful feature. It lets people customize characters to their liking, forming the exact moveset they need for situations. It is possible to build up the cards you really like, making them even better. And, for those people who are fans of the characters and their designs, these cards can even become collectibles to view outside of battle. They really come in quite handy and help form Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash‘s identity.