Costume Destruction (コスチューム破壊, Costume Hakai) is a occurrence and core game mechanic in the Senran Kagura series. It was introduced since the beginning in Senran Kagura Portrait of Girls and has been present in every entry of the series to date.
Overview[]
Clothing Damage occurs when a character takes significant damage in battle, resulting in their outfit taking several layers of damage, eventually getting completely destroyed.
When it occurs, a Costume Destruction Scene is triggered, displaying the character as their outfit is damaged.
This leaves them more vulnerable to attack by lowering their endurance and defenses, increasing the damage received for the rest of the battle in the process, as well as making them easier to stagger.
Clothing Damage only occurs when in either the Normal State or after Shinobi Transformation, and does not occur after going Frantic.
Activating the Shinobi Transformation will remove all Clothing Damage, while putting the character in their Shinobi Outfit. However, they are still susceptible to Clothing Damage afterwards.
In-Game Application[]
Timeline 1 Games[]
Portrait of Girls and Burst[]
In Senran Kagura: Portrait of Girls and Senran Kagura Burst, Clothing Damage is handled via a Costume Durability Meter. When taking damage, the player loses both Health and Costume Durability.
When the Costume Durability Meter hits 0% in the Normal State, the outfit simply falls off, leaving the character in their swimsuit. When in Shinobi Form, characters have 2 stages of Costume Destruction. When the meter reaches 50% after a Shinobi Transformation, a Costume Destruction Scene is triggered. When the meter hits 0%, a more potent Costume Destruction Scene is triggered and the character loses even more clothing, usually leaving them in little more than their lingerie.
Bosses also receive Clothing Damage and Costume Destruction Scenes are triggered after enough damage is dealt to them.
Finishing off an opponent with any Secret Ninja Art will guarantee a Costume Destruction Scene triggers.
Deep Crimson[]
In Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson, Clothing Damage functions similarly to how it works in Shinovi Versus.
There is no longer a durability bar and Secret Ninja Arts guarantee a Clothing Damage scene. Clothing Destruction Scenes occur in both pre- and post transformed states. Unlike Shinovi Versus however, Launching Moves have no bearing on Clothing destruction and Secret Ninja Arts can only break one part of the outfit at a time. Characters can also only be stripped to their lingerie.
Timeline 2 Games[]
Shinovi Versus[]
Clothing Damage is significantly changed in Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus. Costumes will lose durability as a character takes damage, though there is no longer a durability gauge. Additionally, Clothing Damage will also occur when either being launched via a Launching Move,
or when hit with a Secret Ninja Art. Costume Destruction Scenes are now triggered when in both the Normal and Shinobi Transformation State, and are split between the top and bottom parts of the outfit.
Both the Top and Bottom parts of the outfit have 3 layers of clothing damage: Costume Break, Lingerie and Naked.
- Level 1 Secret Ninja Arts will always remove 1 layer of the Bottom half of the outfit.
- Level 2 Secret Ninja Arts will always remove 1 layer of the Top part of the outfit.
- Ultimate Secret Ninja Arts will always remove 1 layer of both the Top and Bottom.
- Launching opponents will also remove 1 layer of both the Top and Bottom.
Note, however, that the only way to get any part of the outfit to reach Naked is by dealing the finishing blow on the target with a Secret Ninja Art. Therefore, the only way to get a target completely stripped is by finishing them with an Ultimate Secret Ninja Art, as Level 1 and 2 Secret Ninja Arts will only reveal the Bottom or Top respectively. When stripped, the character will have lights and face icons obscuring any naughty parts.
Unlike previous games, Clothing Damage has no penalty on defenses.
Estival Versus[]
In Estival Versus, clothing damage works almost the same as Shinovi Versus: Cinematics are triggered when a outfit breaks, and Ninja Arts breaks clothes too, the differences being that the outfit breaks in 3 stages, without being concerned of which part of the outfit is touched. There is some unbreakable outfits and characters like Sayuri aren't affected. There is 4 stage of damage:
0: Intact outfit, no damage;
1: Torn outfit, low damage;
2: Shredded Outfit, important damage;
4: Lingerie/Naked, destroyed outfit. Can be done like in Shinovi versus by a "Finish her! Fatality." (Ultimate Art used as coup de grace), which leads to a "classical" defeat of the target, or an unknown way that leads to the same defeat scene, but with another dialogues. (Tests needed) Of course, censoring lights appears when it happens.
Like Shinovi Versus, Clothing Damage doesn't seem to have any effect on defenses. Note that the most common way to take Clothing Damage is by taking advanced heavy attacks (those which are used in combos) or Ranging attack of the characters who get up.
The mechanics are the same in Burst:Renewal, except that the burst mode leads to a cinematic which leads to the opponent getting naked ("classical" defeat) if it was activated while inflicting the coup de grace. This can by some way be called a Fatality.
Spin-offs[]
Bon Appétit[]
In Senran Kagura: Bon Appétit, clothing destruction occurs between rounds. The loser of the round would suffer 1 layer of Costume Destruction.
Peach Ball[]
In Senran Kagura: Peach Ball, clothing destruction occurs after completing a Sexy Challenge. A whole layer is stripped from the selected character's outfit, going from Intact to Torn to Shredded. Upon completing the Super Sexy Challenge, the character is stripped naked (with censor lights, of course) by the peach ball's mist and the round is over.
Trivia[]
- In Portrait of Girls and Burst, finishing off a boss that has already reached 0% costume durability will simply replay the second costume destruction scene again.
- Since Costume Destruction is dependent on Costume Durability, in some games, it is possible to bring a character to her costume's lowest level with one, powerful attack. As an example, in Shinovi Versus, it is possible to instantly bring a character to her lingerie by hitting her with Daidōji's Breach Art, fully charged.
- Even though Secret Ninja Arts can only damage one part of an outfit in Senran Kagura 2: Deep Crimson, some Secret Ninja Arts last long enough that they can trigger multiple Clothing Destruction Scenes if you manage to properly trap the target.