This game definitely has the best overall story out of the senran kagura series, with things taking a much more serious and dramatic turn with higher stakes than just the funny wacky ninja shenangians of the other titles, so if you want a game to prove to your friends that senran kagura isn't just the game about boobs this one would be your best candidate. The plot is definitely this games most memorable aspect. However, what I can't really say is so great about this game is the actual gameplay. It tries to be a sort of mixture of the straight-up 2D beat-em-up style of the first game on 3DS and the more musou-leaning 3D beat-em-up style of the vita games and just ends up being a 2D beat-em-up with a lot of inwards depth. It works decently enough on 3DS where you can see that depth with the 3D slider, but the combat is just absolutely braindead in this game. You can very easily exploit almost any enemy encounter by stun-locking them through consecutive downwards jump attacks, which is kinda lame. Can't really give this one a rec since the gameplay is toast, but if you already played the other senran kagura games this one is worth playing for the story.

The kino of Senran Kagura.

Remember when the series had cool openings, and not just girls dancing in swimsuits or around food? And on that note why is Beyond Light and Darkness such a fucking good song.

Anyways, take everything that Burst did with its characters, and put them on a super satisfying journey of their relationship development between the Hanzo and Hebijo students, fighting the only enemy mobs with decent design in the series, the yoma. Honestly there is nothing more satisfying for me, than rivals going from disdain with each other, to a middle ground/understanding or outright becoming friendly rivals, so Deep Crimson is absolute kino about that.

Presentation wise, visually is much improved, I don't know how much of a hot take it is to say that this is the best looking game in the series, models are great, the environments more polished, animations are cool, specially the pair up intros, outros, and special attacks, and I like the sort of darker shading the entire game has, like the illumination is more subdued, which puts it above the rest, that goes for a far brighter lighting to the models, for me.

Gameplay is also better, everything feels snappier, get a more stable framerate, and thematically, adding the pair mechanic is great, you can swap characters at the press of a button and continue a combo, special shinobi artes for each pair, and continue to grow their affinity for each other grants new animations and dialogue between them. Also there are actual boss fights this time around, which is cool, tad janky with the camera but is cool. Overall it retains the fast paced feel of Burst, but polishes up what it needs to polish up to deliver a much better mechanical and technical experience.

Is a good enough game that when I play it, makes me forget for a while about the fact that the series doesn't have anything worthwhile besides the 2 main entries, between the Versus games that don't have as good of a feel to them, bunch of spin-offs that feel like lazy cash grabs looking at the rhythm, pinball and reflection games, and I'll definitely never forgive them for turning Kiriya-sensei into a pervert in the spin-offs.

The best game in the series with no competition. Latter entries may have the benefit of being on more powerful hardware with proper 3D arenas, but this one is so batshit crazy with the characters going Kaioken fighting actual Godzilla demons.

The simplistic Dynasty Warriors-esque combat can make your hand cramp like a motherfucker while playing on the 3DS, but it's such an easy to pick up and play game that you could probably do a whole chapter before that starts. Characters are once again a strong point (go ahead laff) and game leans more into the relationships within their own clan members and the equivalent rival clan members.

Hikage best girl. Mirai cool as hell. Wish I was Kat. Fuck Yumi simps.