Suggestions for the Series

Huh yoma. Why didn't I think if that?

I think it would be cool to have enviormental hazards, you know, pits, spikes, lava, ice, falling rocks, and the like, and enviormental interactions like explosive barrels or something like that. Or something like using the enviorment to perform special attacks like scaling a wall or tree and performing a backflip thing.

So... a boss who then sends out peons? That either sounds too complicated for this series or like a situation where the villain keeps winning/"losing," because the real villain never gets involved, and I'm not sure if that's something players would enjoy.

I dunno, I think it depends. With how the game is set up, in Versus games, it means you'd have to reintroduce them in every mode every single time, and that would just get repetitive. With established ones, you do it once, and then you can flesh them out and how they interact with other characters. It might be done in different ways, but doing that game after game, more and more times as they add new teams, would probably just get really tiresome. Plus, it's not always a good idea either - we're talking a series that has the same cast each game for the most part - and that's something that won't ever change except for maybe in spinoffs, but I don't see it as likely, realistic, or probable, myself. Having them fighting a constant, ongoing threat would make sense, and chronicling their battle with whatever would make sense.

In general though, and this is just a personal thing, I can't stand stories where they try to "fight the system" instead of just playing within it, especially if the system they set up is an interesting one. That's probably one of my biggest turnoffs in fiction - especially if it's a system that's been established for a really long time in the universe. It's like... why bother with the system at all if you're only introducing it to make a cheap, easy way out and turn it into the villain? Working within the established rules and creating stories within them, now that's something I want to see. Them trying to truly overthrow the shinobi system... That not so much. Stuff like "good" and "evil" shinobi mingling and all the moral stuff, that's fine, but the really big stuff... Ehhh...

I guess I just think it depends on what you do with them/how you do it. Everything can be done well or it can be done terribly.

What if the same villains just do different things each game? Maybe one game they win, and the big battle is just the heroes escaping, while the next game, the heroes win, and the next, it's more of a draw. With demons and even the stuff on the human side, there's all kinds of things you could do with a recurring group like that - and it would mean we could actually get fleshed out villains as well. The world has the potential for things like that, I think. I'm not saying they should be the only villains, but having recurring ones also helps from keeping things just as formulaic, since if you keep introducing new ones, then you'll still run the risk of creating a formula the same way. I can even tell you how really well just because I've seen years of it through all the toku I've watched. Everything's got a formula to it, really.

That said, I think a team of recurring villains that you can play as seems the best also because, while there will always be the "the heroes always win" factor just by nature of the storytelling, because they would likely have their own story mode, you could then always be able to turn the chessboard around and see what happens from their side - and that's assuming they do "just lose" every time, which doesn't even need to be the case. There are plenty of stories that end in an "the adventure continues" sort of way.

I still really disagree with this one, and I don't see why it's magically okay as a spinoff idea but not in a main game. It's not like they even have to be major players every time, either.

Now that sounds like something exclusively for a spinoff rather than a "next step," if you ask me.

That's a pretty straight formula for extreme repetition right there, actually. Especially if new characters can't be introduced anymore - the series is as good as dead if they can't keep doing that, even if it's just to a small extent down the road.

They can always pull off the kill-off-a-character trope. They did in SV.........but with a really minor character and it wasn't really plot changing. Still, they could do it or have a character disappear and have everyone think she's dead, but she's really just in some random in-the-middle-of-nowhere place.

I'm expecting a Senran Kagura Tensei. lol

But anyway. I though something those days:

The idea of Ikaruga and Katsuragi being main characters made a short manga series, but that idea could be used in a Senran Kagura spinoff game.

Remember that idea of making the girls grow? They could make a story where Katsuragi and Ikaruga work together "in the same agency" or something since they have a good sinergy when working together (despite the sexual harassment of Katsuragi). Asuka would be elsewhere and would only appear as a cameo.

The story could be about those two working together as professional shinobi and lots of things happening on the process like Katsuragi actualy seeing her parents after long years(which could end in happiness or deep sorrow depending on the mood of the writers) or something about the relation that Ikaruga has with his brother Murasame.

Daidouji could also appear in the game as a mentor for Katsuragi or even a master since both like CQC and because of how fierce both can get. I would love to see Daidouji teaching her ways to Katsuragi to make her strong enough to beat some badass villian (that could be a youma or a human).

I have a lot of other ideas using what I said in this particular post but I'll mention them later if anybody gets interested.

Technically, no matter what you do, if it becomes recurring, it's an Eggman/Bowser. I honestly like that sort of thing, though I'm not opposed to the alternative completely - but really, isn't just having the same teams over and over really the same thing as having an Eggman/Bowser? So it's not like we don't already have that.