Also available on Windows Valkyrie Drive -Bhikkhuni- is another of the plethora of "titty anime" games on Vita. Those games usually fall in one of two categories - JRPG or beat 'em up. This one is the latter. It's made by Marvelous, the studio responsible for the Senran Kagura series, and that shared pedigree is very apparent as the game plays a lot like most of the Senran Kagura series. As such, it can feel a bit boring and repetitive at times, but it's a fun albeit mindless game nonetheless. The basic premise of the game is that there's a virus that has started to spread throughout the world - the V-Virus - that only affects young women and gives them the ability to form a mental "link" with one another called a Valkyrie Drive in which one maintains her form - the Liberator - and the other turns into a weapon - the Extar. A small number of girls have a mutated form of the virus called the VR-Virus that gives them the normal abilities of the V-Virus but with significantly more above-average physical strength. There have been five artificial islands created - one of which is Bhikkhuni - to house treatment programs for those infected by the virus. You play as a group of girls infected with the VR-Virus and undergoing treatment on the island of Bhikkhuni. With regards to gameplay, it plays almost exactly like Senran Kagura. It's a 3D beat 'em up (except for one level which is bizarrely 2D), and each chapter has two or three stages. There are also three difficulty levels - Easy, Normal, and Hard - but the difficulty has zero impact on either trophies or on the game's ending (and there are multiple endings), so you're safe to pick whatever difficulty is appropriate for your skill level and desired amount of challenge. Throughout the level, there are extra challenges that can net you some bonus experience as well as three emblem pieces to find in every level and some floating robot that will literally grab your character's breasts and measure them if they have the right "bust level." It's these optional things that will determine what ending you get. I ignored almost all of them, so I got whatever the default ending is. By this point in the system's lifespan, folks typically know what to expect from the Vita in terms of visuals, and this game is no exception. It looks good but not mind-blowing. What was impressive, however, was that the performance stayed pretty consistent. There were a few frame rate drops here and there, but for the most part, it performed much better than a lot of Vita games with comparable visuals. The music was rather uneventful - good but meh - and the voice acting is all in Japanese, so I usually just turned off the Vita's volume and listened to Rob Zombie or Slipknot instead. Overall, Valkyrie Drive -Bhikkhuni- is a competent beat 'em up, but it's also a very niche game. It's pure fan service, but if you're into the anime style fanservicey games, this is a good one. The gameplay is competent but pretty standard; it's the ecchi fanservice that sets the game apart, although within the context of ecchi fanservice games, it's fairly standard. In the end, though, if you're into that type of game and you have a Vita, I definitely recommend this one. It's fun, and the characters are likeable even if a couple of them have some rough-around-the-edges character development. My Rating - C |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
March 2024
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