Season S of Sailor Moon is generally considered the best of the original series, so it seems fitting that it had plenty of tie-in games based on it. I decided to go with this one out of the main three I’m aware of (that being this game, the SNES fighting game, and Another Story) because it’s the one I have the least to say about. Not that this game is bad, actually quite far from it. It’s pretty decent in fact!
The game seems to be a weird fusion of enemy types and player movesets from the beat em up games now thrown into a.. platformer? A bit odd but it’s not terrible or anything. Usagi can punch/kick, grab enemies, and charge up her tiara just like the R game for SNES. However, now that these moves have been put in a game with significantly less enemies around at a time, the game is a complete joke. Literally no enemy in this game will give you trouble, not even the bosses. In fact, it was actually more punishing for me to try and use my full moveset than it was to simply crouch and punch enemies, especially the bosses. Platforming is also not really an issue, there’s not much there aside from “moving platform over a bottomless pit” occasionally.
In between each stage there are bonus stages, really just to restore your health or give you more rod items to use. They’re pretty dead simple but I think they’re cute and they fit the arcadey nature the game is going for. My favorite was probably the one where you have to roll Luna-Pi across the stage without touching Luna or Artemis although I couldn’t beat it lol.
Graphically the game is alright, dunno if it’s impressive for Game Gear standards but it’s colorful and the sprites are cute. Although, this did make me realize one thing.. And it’s that these characters are way too damn tall for this small screen! This is more of a problem with the shitty gameboy game but I felt that Usagi takes up too much space on the screen. I get that it’s just apart of that shoujo aesthetic to have your characters with extremely long legs but I think it’s a detriment to the core platforming when your player character takes up too much of the screen real estate.
So overall, this game isn’t too bad! My main complaints is I felt they should’ve just done a beat 'em up if they were gonna use these controls, and also the lack of being able to play as the senshi aside from Usagi/Chibiusa was a bit disappointing. Is this a great game? Not really. But if you’re a fan of the show, especially S, this is worth checking out. You can finish it in about a half an hour or so.