I finished Senren Banka within 5 days from August 20th to 25th.
I'd like to share some of my thoughts with this game, because I was actually left abit more disappointed despite the positive feedback that this game has received. I found out about Senren Banka through a twitter post, and really liked the novels artstyle, which gave off this adorable nostalgic but modern 2000s moe-anime style I enjoyed.
A little synopsis about this game, the MC is visiting his grandfather, the town is located in a rural village in Japan, where the residents wear traditional japanese clothing as the norm, and the town is known for their hotsprings and landscapes, despite it being the modern age, which I thought was very charming. One of the popular sightseeing spots is the legendary katana Murasamemaru, embedded in stone. No one has been able to pull it out… until the MC somehow broke it in half. Then appears a girl called Murasame that is the spirit that is embedded in the sword through a curse.
The story sounds extremely cool and unique at first, a lot of Japanese folklore inspiration and references were something that I really enjoyed when reading. But sadly the novel fell off for me for a couple reasons, that being the heroine routes. They ended up being disappointing and not memorable for the most part. My favourite character being Murasame, though I didn't really enjoy her route, and some parts of it just didn't work well when it came to the narrative, for example her suddenly having a body that hasn't decayed for centuries didn't make any sense to me! And how did nobody realise that her body was inside the inn........ And now she suddenly is alive, it's kind of like the story threw out the idea that she is a ghost/ or a god like deity which I thought is an amazing idea until how they executed it? I do really love Murasame as a character though, I love her cute but mature personality, and she was the whole reason why I wanted to read Senren Banka in the first place. I could just be expecting a lot from the narrative because she was the character I liked the most, but at the same time I saw flaws within it... so it's hard to be excited..
Despite that I did enjoy the other girls routes such as Yoshino and Mako, everyone else kind of just felt like filler routes in a sense? Like they were just background characters that didn't feel like were necessary to do more than like 3 routes (there were 6 routes in total). Yoshino is most likely to be the main heroine within this series, and the one to make the most sense in term of how the story went! Yoshino is actually quite cute and very memorable.
If you like reading moege or just something cute with a slice of life aspect with abit of interesting folklore and cute girls I do recommend it, it is cute and fun to read, but it doesn't offer much in terms of an amazing story, or memorable characters.. but if youre only interested in reading one character i'd say that's a way better option than wasting your time with pointless side character routes. Does Senren Banka meet my expectations despite how popular it is? No not really. But if it's your thing and you don't mind those slow SOL moments with a lot of side characters then I'd say its decent enough. I still enjoyed my time with it, and it did make me find a love for a few characters that I like a lot!
