Senran Kagura Peach Ball Review

The Senran Kagura series is infamous enough that you should know what you’re getting into when you start the game. It’s going to involve busty ninjas who will likely be naked by the end of your activity posing in suggestively lewd poses while never actually seeing anything (P.S. The Anime does not follow this rule). Despite this, the games are actually well done, whether its the over-the-top brawlers or the Splatoon inspired Peach Beach Splash.

This brings us to Peach Ball, a pinball game featuring some of the girls from the series who have been put in a new suggestive issue that requires you to rescue them by playing a friendly game of pinball.

While there isn’t much more to the game than that, there is a story mode that comes along with it. The story focuses on Hakura who is working part time at the local arcade where this weekend is holding a fighting game tournament. After one of the Shinobi’s goes to the bathroom and washes her hands with a mysterious goo that was mistaken for soap, she starts to turn into a dog with fur covering the necessary parts, and starts infecting the others with the same curse, turning them into a rabbit, cat, bear and raccoon.

While it’s cute at first, Hakura advises that they’ll start to lose their memories and give into their animal like characteristics. To reverse this, she pulls out the Peach Ball and modifies a Pinball Machine, recruiting you for the task of turning the shinobi’s back to their human form.

So yes, the story is 100% ridiculous.

There is five stories that can be done based on each shinobi in the game, which tells what’s happening from their point of view. Of course, with the characters giving in to their animal characteristics, you’re in for some cringy and perverted moments which at times can be hilarious but overall doesn’t do much to keep you motivated to complete the game.

That honour however goes to the gameplay as Senran Kagura Peach Ball is easily one of the best pinball games available. For the most part, the game is basic pinball, you hit your ball with flipper into objects and ramps to rank up points, but with Peach Ball, we’re given the chosen ninja a spot in the center of the table – think of her as a big bumper that racks up a huge amount of points.

Each table has its own set of challenges as well, this includes moving targets called fairies, special fever times which boosts points and gives multiball bonuses, and various tricks to stun the girl in order to successfully “boop” her with the Peach Ball. These Challenges fill up a special meter that when full, creates a “Sexy Challenge”, a special mini-game that start when you hit the girl with the Peach Ball in which you rack up more points and attempt to break the curse on the selected girl.

After two successful Sexy Challenges, you’re given a final challenge which during my playthroughs involved knocking the Peach Ball into the selected girl’s boobs or butt, followed by a rhythmic paddling with the flippers until the curse is broken and they’re left suggestively naked.

If you’re playing the story mode, that is the basis of what you need to do to win, Free play however will start the map overagain without in an attempt to get more points. Playing both modes gives you coins to spend in the game’s shop – which offers new features for the Free Play mode including new outfits, ball variations, movies and more – giving you plenty of reason to go back to unlock more gear.

Despite the pervertedness to it all with the Sexy Challenges and the various sexualized moments with “booping” the girls, let alone some of the sounds that you’ll likely hear, Senran Kagura Peach Ball doesn’t take itself seriously and is pretty much played out for awkward laughs than sexy.

Thanks to that tone, the game can just focus on being unadulterated fun with challenges that never feel overly difficult and allow you to rack up points like it was going out of style. For a pinball game, it plays great and hits all the right notes, while providing a sense of progression that you normally get in the genre thanks to the Sexy Challenges.

I guess, it you have to take anything away from this review, is that Senran Kagura Peach Ball is a great game but only if you ignore the ecchi – or if you’re into that sort of thing (we’re not here to judge).