Mainline Sakura Wars Games Ranked

For those of you who do not know what the Sakura Wars series is, it was a once hugely popular Sega franchise that was a multi-media amalgamation of different genres. The games are set in an alternate history 1920s Japan where a government sanctioned team of girls defend Tokyo with their steam-powered robots from evil monsters all while hiding their group's identity under the guise of a theater group. During the day they are performers but at night they are heroes of justice and it is up to the team's Captain, the player, to lead the group to victory on and off the stage. The games are a mixture of elements from adventure games, strategy RPGs and dating sims with one of the main goals being to increase the Captain's relationship with one of the girls, leading to a number of different endings.

While I never technically played any of the Sakura Wars games myself, my brothers and I played through all the mainline titles together years ago and we had a blast doing so. It has been long enough since our playthroughs that my opinions of these games might be covered in rose-tinted nostalgia but I love this goofy series and have always had a fairly strong view on how each game stacks up to one another. So here is my personal ranking of the mainline Sakura Wars titles, from best to worst.

List items

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  1. Sakura Taisen 3: Pari wa Moete iru ka?

  Sakura War 3 is number one. The game takes all of the franchise's best qualities and puts them into one title. The cast is the best of the series with every troupe member featuring cool designs and colorful personalities. The story has a fish-out-of-water setup, with series' protagonist Ogami being transfered to Paris to lead the Paris Assault Force, so the game has a nice arc where the player grows from being an outsider to the group's trusted captain by the game's end. Other titles have similar arcs but it was never executed quite as well as it was in the third entry. Also the cheesy villain B story from the previous entries, where the game would occasionally cut to the villains explaining their scheme throughout each chapter, is thankfully thrown away. Instead each episode centers around a mystery where the Assault Force has to find out who the villain is and what their goal is, which is much more engaging than watching the main characters try and figure out what is going on when the Player already knows. Sakura Wars 3 was released at the height of the franchise's popularity in Japan and it is evident in the game's production values with the title containing a huge variety of beautifully rendered artwork, tons of voice acting, film quality cut-scenes, good looking 3D for the time and a soundtrack full of vocal tracks. Sakura Wars 3 is also the game that introduced the series' iconic free-roaming strategy segments, giving the series' RPG mechanics a more unique identity compared to the rather generic tile-based system used in the previous titles. Not only would all future Sakura Wars games use this system but the title's gameplay would influence other games and eventually evolve into the basis for the Valkyria Chronicles series. The adventure segments are also improved, with a larger verity of interactions and the player being able to explore the whole city or Paris instead of just the group's theater like in past games. Sakura Wars 3 is simply the largest and most polished entry in the franchise, marking a huge leap forward for the series that all future entries would try to emulate. Also it has the coolest subtitle. "Is Paris Burning?" Doesn't get much better than that.

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  2. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love

  Every now and then I hear people claim that Sakura Wars 5 is "probably" the worst in the series with the person imagining that the game must not stack up to the franchise's other entries because it didn't sell well in Japan and sort of marked the end of the series. Maybe it is because 5 was the first Sakura Wars game I experienced or maybe it's because the game is the only title to ever be officially localized, so you don't have to play it using an ancient translation guide, but I think So Long My Love is much better than a majority of the franchise. The game's cast is certainly one of the goofiest with each member of the New York Combat Revue sort of representing different aspects of America. And honestly that is one of the most entertaining parts of So Long My Love, the hilarity of a Japanese developer having their game set in America and all of the cultural misunderstandings that ensue. Besides the American silliness, the game's story is solid and takes the fish-out-of-water premise from 3 and brings it to another level with the new protagonist, Shinjiro, having literally no experience leading a team and the Combat Revue having none of his greenhorn crap. Shinjiro really has to prove himself and it is entertaining to watch him fumble his way to success. So Long My Love also has one serious gameplay improvement over previous entries: the boss battles. In past games, once the boss appeared, battles would inevitably lead to all the units surrounding the boss in a circle and just smacking him until he was defeated. However in 5, all of the player's units transform into airplanes when the boss arrives and the battles change into airborne dogfights where you have to target the enemy's ever-changing weak points. It is a big improvement and makes boss battles a lot more exciting. The rest of So Long My Love could be considered "by the numbers" for the Sakura Wars series, with the story and gameplay being fairly similar to previous entries. But the game never slips up on any one aspect and the silliness of the game's setting as well as the improvements to the boss battles make So Long My Love one of the best in the series. Plus it was my first Sakura Wars game and none of the other titles felt quite as special because of that.

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  3. Sakura Taisen 2: Kimi, Shinitamou koto Nakare

  Sakura Wars 2 might be the best entry to feature the original cast. While I've never been that big a fan of the Imperial Assault Force, this is the game that shows them in the best light. Sakura and the gang are much more well developed in the 2nd entry and the number of characters has been greatly expanded from the first game. In fact that is the biggest impression I get from 2, there is more of everything. Battles are more flashy, there is more artwork, more characters, more songs, more, more, more. This was the game that sort of cemented what a Sakura Wars game should be, a big spectacle with amazing production values and a large cast to hang out with. More so than 1, Sakura Wars 2 set the standard for what the franchise would be and while I literally can't even remember what happens in the story I can remember all of the fun interactions with the cast, which is the heart of the franchise. The game also does a great job of making you feel nostalgic for the first game when you reunited with the Hanagumi and the game even remembers who you romanced in the first title if you transfer your save. The game is a solid entry in the franchise but it sort of can't be enjoyed to the fullest without playing the original game first, which is not really the case with the previous two games on the list. Honestly people should probably consider 1 and 2 as one game, which is how it was released on the PSP, but even as a standalone title it is one of the stronger entries in the series.

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  4. Sakura Taisen 4: Koi seyo, Otome

  Ranking Sakura Wars 4 is difficult. The game is the shortest entry in the series despite carrying the responsibility for being the "finale" to the Ogami storyline. Every character from every game makes an appearance and it can feel overstuffed at times with every NPC fighting for a quick spot in the limelight. The title's story is also super barebones and it is very clear that the game's development was rushed in order to make it out before the Dreamcast was discontinued. However despite all its setbacks, Sakura Wars 4 does mange to feel like a proper send off to the original cast and even to the Dreamcast itself in a sad way. The game's final cutscene almost brought a tear to my eye when I first saw it but even still it is hard to recommend 4 because of all of its short comings. Also the game is really only for fans that have played through every entry up to that point and transferred theirs save from game to game.

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  5. Sakura Taisen

  Sakura Wars 1 is not that great. The first game on the Saturn was the start of the franchise and spawned dozens of sequels, spin-offs, and other related merchandise and media but the game itself feels very straight forward when compared to what came after. I'm sure the title was very impressive in 1996 but, playing it almost two decades later, it comes off as a bit disappointing. The quality of the character art is still pretty good but the game is also full of gross looking pre-rendered images and really basic gameplay for both the adventure and battle segments. The cast's personalities are super one-dimensional (even more so than in other entries) with several characters' development basically adding up to the girls overcoming childish fears like spiders, snakes and lighting stealing their navel (?). Sakura Wars 1 feels like a prototype or a TV pilot episode with the game containing all of the franchise's trademark traits in their most basic and unpolished form. I'm not including it in my list but a remake of the first game came out years later on the PlayStation 2 called "In Hot Blood" that improves upon the original game on almost every level. A lot of the game's sillier story points are still present but its presentation and gameplay are brought up to the "modern" standards of the series post Sakura Wars 3. If I were to include the remake on my list it would place above 4 and maybe even 2 but the regular vanilla Sakura Wars is certainly the weakness entry in the franchise. But who knows, maybe I'd like it more if I could play it with a proper translation.