As much as the 3DS has been a bit of a disappointment compared to its predecessor, we have it to thank for the existence of the Senran Kagura games.  You can have your pokeymans and your plumbers, I will enjoy my bouncy ninjas, my Life AND my Hometown.

The series has broken out of its original platform and spread to the PS4 and Vita, with an upcoming PC release as well, and it has adapted itself to new genres along the way.

Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit! is one of those games that knows every weak spot I have, and ruthlessly exploits them.  It’s a rhythm game about cooking, featuring the aforementioned bouncy ninjas as they compete in a cooking competition where the ultimate prize is of a Secret Ninja Arts Scroll that will grant them one (1) wish; their heart’s desire if you will.

Some ninjas want power, others just want to keep the scroll from the hands of those who would use it for evil.  One ninja wants a refrigerator so she can keep take-out leftovers from spoiling.  Another ninja wants to BECOME tempura.

…

It’s not exactly a serious affair.

It’s pretty catchy, though.  The songs aren’t up to the standards of a Project Diva title, but you really can’t expect TOO much from a $15 downloadable.  The rhythm gameplay is VERY easy on the “Easy” setting, fairly challenging on “Normal”, and flat-out insane on “Hard”, and people who have played a lot of Project Diva will probably need some adjusting from the idea that directional buttons and face buttons are interchangeable.

It also marks something of a milestone for me.

I’ve had a PS3 since very shortly after launch, so I’ve had it since they started adding trophies to games.  I’ve played through quite a few games.

I’ve never been driven to get a “Platinum” trophy, except in the case of Assassin’s Creed II, and I’m still a little bitter that it has a trophy that can be missed and never gone back for without buying DLC chapters.

This particular game has a very straightforward platinum, and almost all the trophies that make up the platinum can be earned actually playing the rhythm portion of the game, rather than messing around in “Diva rooms” for hours on end.  Get x number of points, hit y number of notes, complete all the story modes… it’s all very simple.

There’s just one trophy that’s a little bit tricky.  It involves getting your score multiplier up to, well, let’s not worry about the details of the trophy itself.  Let’s instead talk about the mechanics:

You need to get a combo of notes that includes 405 “perfect” or “great” notes with no dropped notes.  You can have “fine” notes, which are near misses, but you need to keep the string going  for the entire time.  You can’t do this on Easy, doing it on Hard is insane, and there aren’t many songs on Normal that have enough notes to pull it off.

It took 47 tries on the song that is generally considered the easiest song to accomplish this on.

47 times.  I still hear it when I close my eyes.

After that, it was just a matter of getting 200 songs played, which took my total played time to 21 hours 4 minutes and change, and I get to sport the following piece of bling for eternal bragging rights:

Completing the DLC chapters also got me one final piece of fan service:

Good food, good times indeed.

This is probably where I should admit that I’ve never actually finished any of the “mainline” Senran Kagura games.  I should get on that at some point.