The buxom beauties of XSEED and Marvelous’ Senran Kagura series are trading their weapons for water guns in the upcoming release of Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash. Gamers Heroes sat down with series producer Kenichiro Takaki at E3 to talk more about this release, the series’ popularity, and who truly is best girl.
Gamers Heroes: Thank you for your time today. What made you and your team want to explore the third-person shooting genre with Peach Beach Splash?
Kenichiro Takaki: The series has been an action game series so far, but over time it has started to accumulate new fans overseas. He wanted to try something new, and he figured he would do a TPS or an FPS-style game, as he is a fan of those two gameplay styles. That way, it would be a bit more popular overseas and easier to expand the audience. He figured that he would like to try a new genre and that would be a good one to choose.
Gamers Heroes: Were there any games that inspired you?
Kenichiro Takaki: He’s a big fan of Overwatch!
Gamers Heroes: Are there any genres that you’d like to explore? You previously did a different genre with Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit, along with the slashing action of Senran Kagura: Estival Versus.
Kenichiro Takaki: He would like to do pinball. He’s a big pinball fan.
Gamers Heroes: How do you feel about the series’ popularity in the west?
Kenichiro Takaki: Originally he never expected the game to be so big outside of Japan, so to see it do so well overseas and have the fan following that it does really makes him very happy.
Gamers Heroes: You recently opened up a new studio, Honey ∞ Parade Games, for work on Peach Beach Splash. What has it been like working with this new studio?
Kenichiro Takaki: Honey ∞ Parade Games is still within Marvelous, so the work environment is the same, but it gives the whole team the idea of a fresh start, and it’s really exciting to challenge new things under new brand name.
Gamers Heroes: You’re working on a Switch title. How are you utilizing the HD rumble?
Kenichiro Takaki: He would really like to get as close as possible to real life softness [laughs].
Gamers Heroes: Have you ever wanted to revisit older properties like Half-Minute Hero?
Kenichiro Takaki: He always feels like he would like to go back to the older titles. It’s just a matter of how much time there is in the schedule and there hasn’t been any time to revisit them.
Gamers Heroes: Peach Beach Splash is going to have PlayStation VR support. What was it like working for the platform?
Kenichiro Takaki: It was a little more challenging than expected to bring anime-style characters into VR, since they’re not realistic looking, but he thinks they’re doing a good job on it and is very excited to get it out there and give people the chance to see a real anime girl standing in front of them in all her glory.
Gamers Heroes: On that note, which Senran Kagura girl is your favorite?
Kenichiro Takaki: So lately his favorite character is Murasaki. She’s very big [laughs].
Gamers Heroes: Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Kenichiro Takaki: This is a brand new genre and a different type of game for the series, so he’s hoping that people who were not interested in the previous games will pick this one up and give it a shot if they like TPSes.
Gamers Heroes: Thank you for your time.
Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash will launch stateside this summer for the PlayStation 4.
