I only found out this game existed a couple of years ago as my interest in the Sakura Wars franchise grew thanks to work by fans on patches bringing them over to the West in English for the first time. Sakura Wars: Go Forth Young Cadet! as translated is kind of an interesting game. It seems to be set during the latter half of the first Sakura Wars game (1996) and to be honest I feel that playing that first is a necessary perquisite to play this. Knowing the characters makes a huge difference.

You play the role of a young unnamed candidate with high spirit power scouted by Vice Commander Ayame Fujieda of the Imperial Assault Troupe. If successfully chosen you are invited to a month long trial with the troupe to see how you perform. The premise is kind of...odd to be honest. This is never mentioned in any form to my knowledge anywhere else (so probably isn't regarded as cannon?) and recruiting someone off the street for only 30 days to teach them everything about a top secret military unit hidden in the heart of Tokyo with no intention of keeping them permanently? It seems a little tactically unsound.

Regardless the premise sets up for a clean slate to meet the girls from the unit and spend time with them either training or just socially. The cadet has several attributes to manage over the 30 days. Stamina, Intellect, Spirit Power, Guts, Agility and Accuracy. You can spend time training up to twice a day to improve these at the cost of stamina or skip a training session to recover your stamina by having a nap (as apparently sleeping over night doesn't do that?). At the end of the 30 days you are given a rank based on your performance. I got rated as an Usher though the description made that sound like a positive thing at least.

The morning training sessions are mapped out for you over the course of a week training with Sakura, Sumire, Kanna, Iris, Kohran, or Maria. Each character builds up a different stat and you can choose who to train with in the afternoons if you want to specialise further. At the end of each week you have a mock battle in one of the Koubu mechs. It's a turn based affair with which Koubu you choose being directed by the stats you've built or relationships you want to increase further.

This is where the game comes across as a little odd again because it takes the almost dating sim / visual novel elements of the main game with talking with the girls in-between training. You select dialogue options on how to respond resulting in neutral, positive or negative retorts. At times it's a bit flirty but will never go anywhere due to set ups from the original game. The girls are spread all over the theatre you all work from in the morning, noon and evening though there is no way to tell who they are until you begin the conversation. If you build up a good enough relationship with a character you will get extra scenes and endings with them. I focused on Sakura to see most of hers. Some conversations will give you minigames to play like shooting targets or hitting wood blocks with swords as the most interactive part of the whole game. Some conversations will also lead to instant game overs which was irritating. In my case on my recent run I ended up with some permanent damage from a situation I couldn't get rid of and there is no way in most cases of knowing a possible outcome. In that conversation it was instant game over or permanent stat damage as my two options having rewound on emulation to see.

I really dislike the trial and error nature of the visual novel having such frustrating effects with no way of knowing and it's not that frequent that it's possible to play through without even knowing they are there. So when it does happen it's like a bolt out of nowhere. Whilst it is designed to have multiple play throughs to see all events (Someone trying the worst possible run without game overs amuses me) in it's short play length. Having the character icons on the map hidden at a cost of 5000 points per girl when a single playthrough only earns you 2000 is one hell of a grind. (Though this game also had an extra peripheral of a modified Tamagotchi called pocket Sakura that worked as a pedometer to gain points for the shop when connected to your gameboy) You can also buy music, voice clips and bromide pictures of the girls from the shop for these points too.

This brings me to my last point and the most impressive is the production values. Maybe because it's more visual novel than game but Sakura Wars on the Gameboy colour looks and sounds phenomenal for the system. The character sprites, art design and backgrounds are so far of anything else I've seen on the system. They really did manage to bring the game to a portable without losing the aesthetic that makes this series what it is. the music transitions amazingly well too. The theme title is instantly recognisable albeit without the singing. Other Tracks from the original game transition just as well.

So an odd game in some ways but I must admit despite that I kind of like it? It's technically extremely impressive and getting to spend more time with the Sakura Wars cast on a platform I didn't think was capable of capturing the essence was a pleasant surprise. I hope Sakura Taisen GB2 gets translated at some point in the future as I understand that is more of a dungeon crawler so would be interested to know how it fares.

+ Amazing visuals and music considering the platform limitations.
+ Getting to spend more time with the Sakura Wars cast is great for fans.
+ Lots of replayability and things to unlock.

- Some instant game overs just aren't fun.
- The unlockable extras to navigate the game easier are way too expensive.
- Game's story premise seems slightly out of place in the grand scheme of things.

A beautiful puzzle adventure about linguistics, culture, and the benefits of understanding one another, inspired by The Tower of Babel.

Chants of Sennaar does a fantastic job with its ludonarrative; The goal is to decipher the languages of different civilizations, achieved by analysing environments and conversations. All the while, we learn about their ways of life and what led them to the current day and the lives they live. This dual purpose really resonated with me, and I personally think it struck an absolutely perfect balance between gameplay depth and narrative substance.

I adored the use of different linguistic mechanics that make you turn your head a little when it comes to certain puzzles (as well as the different script styles inspired by existing languages). It may not be as intricate as it could have been, but it’s enough to make you go “ahhh! cool!” when you notice certain things for the first time.
Thinking about it from the opposite perspective, it was clear that a lot of care was taken into simplifying certain aspects to make sure the puzzle solving felt smooth, accessible and rewarding. An example of how this is done is the removal of many “less interesting” words in the glyphs given to you, such as “the”, and “a”. We only have to focus on the parts that are meaningful to the purpose of the game and its world. The translation experience is finely crafted for that of a game player, and not that of a PhD student, which is what keeps it fun!

Many reviews complain about the stealth sections breaking up the pacing, I disagree with this, possibly due to me being a huge sucker for the narrative. I just found that these sections blended in with the journey so well, added in a unique feeling throughout the exploration that otherwise wouldn't have been felt, and did way more good than any harm they may have done by taking you away from puzzles. They don’t take up that much of the game anyway, and some of them had dialogue to analyse throughout! Keeps the brain thinking in both ways.

Great presentation, with an especially amazing soundtrack. Even though a fair bit of the game had me slowly backtracking, it was just too striking of a world to get very upset about it.

This is definitely up there as one of my favourite puzzle games and I recommend it to anyone who thinks it sounds remotely fun. The morals told are reflected greatly within the gameplay, which is also executed extremely well.