This game is awesome. Blends tactical RPG gameplay with VN affection growing in a wholistic way where your actions in one gameplay type affect the other. The story is a pretty standard sentai-style "group of color-coded heroes destroy the great evil" plot but the moments the story has are fantastic, mostly in part to the excellent writing of the characters. The Tokyo Kagekidan is composed of some of my favorite characters in video games, and each member brings their own unique personality both in conversation and in combat. I also love the double-life dynamic each member lives as both a performance actor as well as a military soldier, and the drama motifs are awesome. The setting is also a wonderful fantasy steampunk rendition of 1920s japan. This game sets the stage(hah) for one of the best series Sega has ever made.

this game feels like hiring a master chef, but they have their budget limited to cook for less than 10 dollars: while the individual ingredients may not be the best by themselves, the craft and expertise used to prepare the final dish still give you a good ass meal.

i can't also help but think about actraiser, a game that has some reviews on this site praising its ability to mix genres with excellent results. while i do agree with these, sakura wars also acts as a good contender for that field, merging its srpg and dating sim bits without any issues, managing to provide an engaging experience that doesn't overstay its welcome. also, actraiser doesn't have sumire kanzaki.

Sakura wars é um jogo bem interessante, o jogo mostra bastante potencial até, mas precisa de ajustes
a parte de SRPG parece que é colada com durex velho, mas funciona de alguma forma.
A ideia de fazer a parte de Visual novel afetar diretamente a gameplay estratégica é bem interessante até você perceber que isso significa que o protagonista nunca vai receber nenhum buff em qualquer luta por causa disso.
Existem1 outras falhas que você só entende jogando como o quão estranho é o sistema de duas ações para os personagens, o sistema não te permite cancelar a primeira ação dada e é frustrante demais, é difícil explicar bem bem o porquê é frustrante, só jogando para entender.
Eu vim esperando um jogo de date sim bonitinho e tive o que queria, mas acho que se viesse esperando um SRPG muito foda eu ia me decepcionar ou me estressar
Mesmo com esses e outros problemas, SW é um jogo muito charmoso. Ele consegue passar a vibe de um animezão antigo que almejava, além de que o jogo é bem comfy.
Espero que um dia o jogo 2 seja traduzido....

A very charming game that holds up surprisingly well. The presentation is very well-done with a lot of nice-looking anime sprites, cgs and cutscenes. The character designs are all pretty cute and the voice acting is plentiful and high quality. The story is pretty cliche but the 90s saturn charm makes it really endearing. There are only a few groan-worthy parts like Iris being an annoying kid in her chapter and Sumire/Kanna's chapter making you go through pretty much the same scenario twice in a row with zero self-awareness regarding how identical they are. Aside from that, the story is fine enough and proceeds at a surprisingly rapid pace. The quick-response choices were fun as well and spruced up conversations. I honestly think the game could've used a few more laid-back parts where you can go around and view SoL scenes to let the girls connect with eachother more. I was pretty pleased with how much unique dialogue Sumire got since I focused on her throughout the game but Sakura felt unnaturally minor despite being the titular character. The many minigames I got to play throughout the story were also fun little diversions that added to the soul. The strategy gameplay was pretty simple throughout but the animations were decent and it was nice that it allowed me to speed up movement. Also the theme song is ballin'.

This review's gonna be different, since I'm really just gonna recollect on this instead of getting into the nitty-gritty of the plot and mechanical workings of Sakura Wars 1. I do have a replay in-progress, but stopped around Chapter 5 since I was still focusing on other stuff at the time, so once I get off my ass and finish it, I'll make a(n actual) review talking about all that. Also there'll be some slight endgame spoilers, nothing major but I'll describe a few events that're isolated from context as much as possible.

Anyway, Sakura Wars. Originally one of my Gaming White Whales, I learned about it in 2016 when Sega revealed and got feedback on the large amount of people wanting a revival of the series, which it did 3 (4 for international release) years later in the form of a PS4 soft reboot. An adventure format? With VN and dating elements? Even containing SRPG combat sequences? Sounds like my thing! Only, there was one problem: Japan-only, no English translation available outside of guides. Hence why I referred to it as a white whale, there was no way I, someone still in their Junior year of high school, was gonna comfortably learn Japanese alongside other studies, and having to follow a guide for a text-heavy game is ludicrous to me. Granted, there was the anime OVAs of the games that had English subs, an alternate retelling of the first game via a Madhouse-produced TV series that aired overseas, as well as Sakura Wars 5 becoming available for PS2 and Wii versions thanks to NISA, but the OVAs are more or less continuations of the games so doing that would mean having little context, the TV series is a retelling like I said and I'd rather have gone through the original first, and the 5th game... I actually did pick up and put some amount of time into, but at the time of writing I've yet to finish it cause I keep getting distracted.

Then, in mid-December 2019, it happened. A group of people were able to finally translate the game, start to finish. Not even kidding when I say that was one of the biggest pieces of joy I've gotten in recent years. Sure, it meant having to figure out Saturn emulation, configuring Mednafen and (at the time, I don't use this anymore) Retroarch, all at once, but man I didn't care, as long as it meant I could finally play the first entry in a series I've had my eyes on for so long, going through it on-and-off for other games, as well as to avoid burnout.

As you can tell from the score, it lived up to my expectations pretty comfortably. There were some drawbacks and questionable decisions that bog it down that, again, I'll get into when I finish my replay, but for the most part I got exactly what I was hoping: Great adventure walk-arounds with a soothing and fantastic atmosphere, blending nicely with the VN and dating elements of talking to crew within the Imperial Combat Revue, and the SRPG element that, while very simple (it cannot be stressed that combat sequences are not the main focus, the stuff pertaining to the crew and adventure/VN format is), was still pretty fun and hilariously easy to break.

What really stood out to me - and really, the series in general - was how earnest and sincere it was in telling its tale. Amongst all the banter, fun, and the of-the-times anime tropes and such, laid a story about trust, forgiveness, and standing together despite the differences and difficulties that lay face as it goes along. We're talking about a story that doesn't shy away from the fact that the (initial) Big Bad is just a Conservative mad about the fact Japan has been taking influences from the Western side of the world, wanting to isolate it from those they deem unholy. We're talking about a story that contains two individual moments practically resembling a Goku Spirit Bomb attack, purely because they believe and have the heart to stand above the evil. We're talking about literal, actual angels and demons getting involved in order to loop these themings and threads back around in a full manner. I won't act like sincerity is lost or whatever, but in the recent years where creators and even normal individuals have taken the route of irony, cynicism, and just never taking things as what they are and judging them for what they aren't, coupled with the fact that, to reiterate, I was finally playing this within the timeframe of early 2020, seeing something like this unfold, was pretty refreshing and breathtaking. It may not be exactly for everyone, but you can't deny there's a ton of heart and soul that goes into each entry, even the spinoffs, as time went on.

The only other games available in English are the aforementioned PS4 game, which I already finished and also like (though not to the same degree as this), 5, which as I said I need to get back to, and some spinoffs like the sequel to a previous Columns game, and a Game Boy title, which I also played and rather enjoyed nicely, with another translation being done for the third game, which I should mention finally being that 1, 3, 5, and the SR are standalone and can be enjoyed without prior knowledge of either game. I dunno when I'll sign back on, but since I already waited three years to delve into the series' roots, I don't mind waiting that much, maybe even more, for the title everyone beholds as one of Sega's all-timers.

An ambitious game that straddles genres, it's quite impressive for the Saturn. Charming sprites, voice acting, and even small 3D sections and CGs, the game has a lot going for it. It incorporates minigames well, not forcing you to participate in them but rewarding you for doing so; in fact, it's part of the interplay between the VN and SRPG segments. Treating the characters well and keeping them in a good mood improves their abilities in combat, incentivizing you to be kind and caring, and making it believable that they all end up liking you. The music is also really good, so overall there's a lot to like!

However, the game has some significant flaws. The VN sections can sometimes be too short, not allowing enough time to interact with the characters; the final boss is awful and requires multiple restarts and I had to RNG scum for crits in the emulator; and the combat overall is weak and unchallenging for the rest of the game. Still, a good experience overall and definitely worth playing.




Kohran Li my beloved

One of my favorite games I played in 2020. If you love 90's anime. Then this is something that might be your alley. Great graphics that's incredibly immersive making it feel like an actual playable anime. Very charming and easily likable cast of characters that get proper screen time to flushed out. Great OST. The tactical game play is just fun. And the gameplay loop is pretty similar to a modern Persona game. And what makes this game so impressive and goes to show how ahead of it's time it is, is that this was done back in 1996. Sakura Wars is a great and endearing game. And also a very short game so I urge anyone to it a chance. The game deserved more love