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Valkyrie Drive Bhikkhuni is a third-person character action game developed originally for the PS4 and now ported over to PC. Lead by the same people behind the Senran Kagura series, we all know what’s coming. A story focused around well-endowed girls filled with references to other media and plentiful ways to check out the absurd amount of T&A featured inside, mixed with some fairly standard gameplay for the genre. It’s a formula proven to work for many series, but it still warrants a further look, if only to spend some more time looking up skirts.
Valkyrie Drive Bhikkhuni is available on Steam for $29.99
gameplay
Starting with the gameplay, it revolves around pairs of characters that use preset combos to attack groups of enemies akin to a musou title, albeit without throwing so many targets at one that it becomes pointless. A dodge exists to slide through attacks but the timing is odd on it resulting in limited usefulness, but more importantly there’s a mechanic called “Drive” that builds up as damage is dealt. Once full, pop it to switch into a different form, dealing increased damage and altering the moveset. As one progresses, better Drives are unlocked with much more fun to watch transformations tied to them.
While fairly simple and similar to the Senran Kagura titles, it’s still somewhat fun to run around mowing down enemies that actually fight back to some extent, unlike the musou titles that these games tend to lean towards in design. Unfortunately there’s nothing particularly special going on either, while fans of this series are naturally going to be attracted to seeing their favorite pairings rub up on each other in new ways and get all personal with the character model viewer, there’s not much here in terms of gameplay for those who aren’t attached the source material. Compared to other third person hack and slash or third person character action games, it’s just standard, nothing offensive, but nothing particularly outstanding.
presentation
There’s similarly little to talk about here. The soundtrack is fitting, and that’s about all it is, while the art style can be best described as “bouncy” thanks to the character’s endowment. Graphically there’s much worse out there, it’s competent and runs perfectly well on any kind of rig thanks to being handheld title to begin with. The PC version thankfully includes increased resolution on things like shadows and models as well as anti-aliasing options to reduce jaggies but ultimately there’s nothing to write home about. It’s barebones, but in a functional way. There’s very little to change in terms of graphics, so there’s very little to adjust.
overall
Wrapping up a title like this is a strange endeavor, as we’ve genuinely run out of particularly noticeable things to write about. We could try to drag on for another few paragraphs about how the story is boring to listen to and the dialogue is all skippable, which actually serves to the game’s credit as it’s much more fun to get back into watching these girls bounce around some damage numbers across their various body parts. There might be some extra length to be found in explaining why the combat is so little of a factor and lesser than others, but ultimately there’s no real reason to.
The truth of the matter stands that fans of the source material will enjoy seeing a softcore rendition of their favorite girls slamming each other into the ground regardless of how the game itself is, but it manages to have passable gameplay and every other aspect of the title at the very least keeps in line with that. Nothing particularly brings the experience down, which is a good thing in a title like this. We’ll be honest, if one just wants some good old anime tits and equally lewd drive transformation scenes, then this title is already in their library. If one is looking for anything more than that, just play one of the many, many other titles in the genre. If you’re particularly starved for hot girls beating the snot out of each other and/or were a fan of the Senran Kagura titles, you know what to expect and we hope you enjoy the ride.
| Pros | Cons |
| + The girls are cute and there's plenty of fanservice | – That's kind of all there is |
| + Runs well and the soundtrack is inoffensive | – Story takes itself too seriously and drags on |
