Sakura Wars

(Reviewed with Shin Sakura Taisen copy released in Japan)

During the Autumn of 1996 I as a 6-year-old saw Mighty Morph Power Ranger for the first time. Therefore, I got in touch with a particular type of ensemble cast, combatants in color coded uniforms who would fight for their friendship as hard as they fight against their adversary. Unknown to the boy back then, Japan in that same year witness the birth of a “Power Ranger dating sim” titled Sakura Taisen. To double down on the Power Ranger element of the story, its developer SEGA combined visual novel with turn based tactical combat. Such VN and another genre mash up was not exactly rare back then. Before Hideo Kojima made his name known to other parts of the world with Metal Gear Solid series, Japanese gamers celebrated his Snatcher and Policenauts, both VN and light gun shooter mash up. But such mash up would eventually wind down with other genres catching up on the narrative presentation department.

All that led to my surprise that Project Sakura Wars, the Sakura Taisen reboot is still such a mash up. It is first and foremost a visual novel with relative expensive presentation while its Musou like character action segment feels like a second thought. It tells its cute little story with a straight face to a fault. Throughout its 22 hours long “run time”, a cynic such as myself can see every twist and turn coming from miles away. Yet, this with holidays time for Japan in its mind release entertained me nonetheless. Given that the Giantbomb wiki page for this game is more than a stub, it would be fair to assume that people on this site want to read about it. I’m here to serve.

Story and presentation

My experience with the series before beating PSW was reading the strategy guide of the first 2 games. The closest-feeling games to this one I’ve played are Mass Effect 2&3 and the latest Fire Emblem. While not all of the cut scenes have character’s voice over, most of them are fully animated. And in true visual novel fashion, some events are only depicted with a single Computer Generated image, the collection of such is regarded as a mechanic of dating sim genre.

While I made the comparison to Mass Effect and Fire Emblem in narrative, it is only in terms of the cinematic presentation. There is neither elements ripped from the pages of classic science fiction stories, nor high fantasy political intrigue here. Set in an alternative time line, the year is 1940, instead of the shadow the War cast on the world, humanity faces a super natural threat called Kouma. A bi-annual combat tournament for paramilitary groups dealing with Kouma from all over world would be held in Tokyo, Japan. But Tokyo’s own group is full of star eyed rookies, while defense of the city and the country for that matter is outsourced to the group from Shanghai, China. Enter the player character Sejuuro Kamiyama, a former navy ensign. He would enter those young girls’ life, help them in accomplishing their dreams, win the tournament, defend against lately more organized attack from Kouma and, last but not least, get a date with one of the girls by the time credit rolls.

Aside from the potential love stories, it’s basically Pacific Rim, completed with steampunk elements, vaguely cosmic horror enemies and national stereotypes: Chinese characters are good at cooking, kung fu or both; British people are lady and gentleman on the surface, yet deep down they are aggressive bastards; Germans are uptight, in one way or another. But thanks to the game’s length, some of them would eventually grow on portions of the audience. And the “international collaboration” theme here is served better than in Del Toro’s mech vs. monster movie. All 4 Power Ranger like groups work together in the final battle of Project Sakura Wars, while Chinese and Russian are canon fodders for no good reason in Pacific Rim.

The game received C rating from CERO meaning only people aged 15 and above can purchase and play this game in Japan. The reason is “sex” ,a symbol contain the 2 gender signs, and “sex” alone, combined with the lack of CERO’s symbol for “love”, which contains 2 hearts, it translates into “revealing outfits”. It’s a shame, the story of this game would resonant more with a younger audience, between 10 and 15 to be more precise. I mean I loved what I was reading when I read the strategy guide of the original Sakura Taisen back when I was 11. But this is a dating sim, and there are hornier portions of audience to please.

Gameplay

Mechanically, the game does resemble Mass Effect 2 and 3 more. It’s an action adventure game in which action segment and adventure segment are separate. Even the back of the box says “adventure mode” and “battle mode”.

In adventure mode, player walk around one of several hubs in the game as Kamiyama, talking to people either to push the story forward or to get on their good side. This is the meat of the game and it can get more intense than anything in battle. While there are some “Tell me more about...” portion at players’ leisure, most of the dialogue branches are timed. Player need to choose to be Optimistic, Pessimistic, Fuck Boy or just remain silent until time runs out. Guess lots of visual novel readers have the eager to live out the fantasy as a fuck boy, ask every girl they meet out on a date or call the leader of an opposite paramilitary group a cutie when everyone else worry about fighting them in the tournament...Thankfully, being a fuck boy would not get one far in any relationship, not even in this game. Different characters react to player’s dialogue choice differently, it would be displayed with music ques telling player whether NPC like their words and deeds or not.

Beside the timed choice, there is a volume control with the left stick, in game character react differently to different volumes as well. This volume control mechanic is also used when Kamiyama got the eager to check out the girls’ T and A. Lower the volume and the player would resist such eager. And when I say check out a girl’s A, I do mean the most unpleasant way possible: looking up her skirt...At least the girls only respond positively if I successful resist such eager in my playthrough.

There are 5 love interests, all of them are girls, and dozen more to befriend throughout the game. Player could have chosen a girlfriend by the penultimate chapter of the game, they would go on a date before the said chapter and another date would appear as a post credit stinger. As for befriending NPCs , you can only read their final conversation with you by the end if they are not befriended, or get into a fully animated and fully voiced cut scene, sometimes plus a piece of illustration, if they are.

Battle mode is usually the last segment in each of the 8 chapters in the game. It is Musou, but with some Bayonetta elements. This is a SEGA game released in 2010s after all. Player control 2 (or 3 in the tournament segments) cute steam and magic powered mechs to slay hordes of monsters, with L1 to switch between them. Circle for light strike, Triangle for heavy strike, Cross to jump and, when the bar is full, Square to unleash a special attack. R1 to dodge and when you dodge at the right time, time slows down, exactly like Bayonetta but the windows are clearly more forgiving. R2 to run, which is constant with adventure mode. Guess the lack of combinations of buttons and lower difficulty are their idea of accessibility.

Each of the 6 mechs has its unique attacks, single sword, dual wielding swords(Usually the mandatory one in every battle, since it’s Kamiyama’s mech.), hammer, ninja crawls, magic book and 2 guns. The last 2 are both ranged attacks and the lack of locking in the game drag them down more than a bit. Fortunately, the game here is easy, I certainly had more sweat in my palms picking dialogue options than slaying monsters. Project Sakura Wars is by no means a RPG, but each battle has its self contained progression of bond building. From 1 to 10, the better you do in battle the stronger the bond and vice visa. There are powerful attacks require 2 mech to launch, but since the game is easy, I managed to beat the game without seeing one.

Besides the story battles, there are 2 kinds of optional ones. One kind would be activated when player answer the timed call from one of 5 girls and then fight some enemies in front of the theatre the team uses as their holdout. Another kind to replay story battles through a simulator, with the option to play it with different characters than the story demands. Each victory would feed into the affection the girls have for Kamiyama. I don’t exactly how much, but it just seems like doubling down on the visual novel aspect of this game.

Several afterthoughts

Now the product description portion of the review is done. Here is some of my thought.

First, some thought on the possible future localization.

This review was posted on the very first day of 2020 and edited before the first week was through. I guess “Project Sakura Wars” is likely not the final title, but as of the time SEGA's PR machine is still in hibernation. As pointed out in the comment below, SEGA at least confirmed “subbed” not “dubbed” approach, like Tokyo Mirage Sessions and SEGA's own Yakuza games.

The Shin Megami Tensen and Fire Emblem crossover contains several J-pop songs that proved hard to localize. Thus they pick the reasonable way out. Coincidentally, PSW and TMS share at least 3 cast members between them, I am going to mention them below.

Project Sakura Wars contains 14 songs in Japanese, as listed in the music CD in the limited edition. I can confirm those are the only vocal tracks in the game. One of those tracks resemble an aria in opera instead of pop songs. This particular track titled “Stars of Iron” alone would be hard to overcome, so focus on the text is a reasonable way for SEGA to go.

Focusing on the text alone would not be easy, either. When I got to the second chapter of the game, I found its humor to be heavily dependent on puns, Japanese puns. One of side quests even involves someone writing the wrong number in kanji with only one stroke that would make no sense to English speakers. Without conferring the news of western release plan, I thought this game would not have a western release. Because the humor is almost impossible to localize.

Readers must have noticed that I used “Paramilitary/Power Ranger groups” to describe the mech squads instead of “Assault Team” or “Battle/Combat Revues” in the wiki pages. That is because in Project Sakura Wars the international governing body of such groups has the acronym WLOF (sound exactly like “wolf” in Japanese version), presumably short for “World League Of ” an F word I was not able to identify. I assume this F word is what SEGA’s localization crew use to call those mech squads in the English version.

Fun fact, those mech squads are called “ka geki tan ” and it is a pun on its own. Depends on the different kanjis with this same sound, it means the Power Ranger like group in the game or opera troupe. Given that the super hero hideouts in Sakura Taisen series are operating theatres or opera houses, this is smart word play in Japanese language. Well, even as someone whose undergraduate major was the Japanese language, I did not know this until hearing “opera troupe” said in Japanese in Fire Emblem Three Houses...

Second, how Project Sakura Wars scratch my Mass Effect itch.

I always feel that Mass Effect 2 and 3 have more in common with JRPGs. Also, they are action adventure games with their action segments and adventure segments separate from each other. Project Sakura Wars fits the mechanic there, but the bigger reason lies in its Japanese cast. There are 7 Japanese voice actors in PSW that I want to hear in the Japanese dub of Mass Effect trilogy.

Ayane Sakura played the more or less titular character Sakura Amamiya in PSW. Ms. Sakura voiced Eleonora Yumizuru in Tokyo Mirage Sessions. To clarify, the actor’s family name and the character’s given name are written differently in Japanese. For an elaborate reason involving the animated adaption of romantic comedy comic Nisekoi, I think she would make a great Samantha Traynor in Mass Effect 3. Ms. Sakura was one of the cast members of the aforementioned anime, and that show contains 3 other Japanese voice actors I would love to hear voicing crew members of Normandy.

Saori Hayami played Clarissa "Clarice" Snowflake (Translated it myself, official localization might differ.) in PSW, a playwright with long blonde hair and green eyes, also the love of his life for the Kamiyama I played. Ms. Hayami also voiced Caeda in Tokyo Mirage Session. There are 2 Japanese voice actresses cable of the unique soft talk that can be immediately associated with Dr. Liara T’soni of Mass Effect trilogy. Ms. Hayami, born in 1991, is the younger one of the two. The other would be Mamiko Noto, born in 1980.

Tomokazu Sugita played Reiji Shiba, the team’s mechanic and playboy, in PSW. Mr. Sugita also played Chrom in both Fire Emblem Awakening and Tokyo Mirage Session. He has been a Hideo Kojima collaborator for the last decade, played retconned Master Miller in Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid V before he dubbed Conan O’Brein in Death Stranding. Dude has duality in drama and comedy, a duality would work well with the Urdent Wrex of Mass Effect trilogy.

Miyuki Sawashiro played Hakusyuu Murasame, a master of swords and puns, also rice omelet aficionado in PSW. Ms. Sawashiro also acted in several Yakuza games, included the series' Fist of North Star themed spinoff. Her performance as Katarina in Granblue Fantasy media products sounds almost exactly like a tough talking Jennifer Hale. Thus made her the right option for Commander Shepard in Japanese.

Nobunaga Shimazaki played Arthur, the British “red ranger” in PSW. Mr. Shimazaki had been cast as several playable protagonists in JRPGs over the last decade. Thus made him suitable for the JRPG protagonist vibe of Kaiden Alenko in Mass Effect trilogy.

Nana Mizuki played Iris, the Germany “red ranger” in PSW. Ms. Mizuki also performed the aforementioned aria in the game. She has been a Hideo Kojima collaborator for the last decade, played ill fated Paz in Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid V, also the almost equally poorly handled Fragile in Death Stranding. Ms. Mizuki’s performance in the game stroke the right balance between toughness and gentleness, a quality suitable for Miranda Lawson in Mass Effect 2 and 3. So, yes, I do want the woman who did a commendable job dubbing Lea Seydoux to dub Yvonne Strahovski.

Sho Hayami, no relation to the aforementioned Ms. Hayami(Again, kanjis are different.), played Tekkan Amamiya, father of titular heroine and blacksmith in PSW. Mr. Hayami sounds exactly like Sean Bean, so he would be at home playing Saren in Mass Effect 1, aka the space alien version of 006 in Goldeneye to Commander Shepard’s space faring James Bond.

Sorry about the self indulgence of 7 paragraphs above. And there might be some more.

Third, how Project Sakura Wars made me appreciate Fire Emblem Three Houses more.

In terms of story, besides the short prologue and some end of chapter foreshadowing, the game almost unfolds only through Kamiyama’s point of view. Which makes me miss the support conversations that do not involve player character(I did not keep the name “Byleth” in my 2 playthroughs) in Fire Emblem Three Houses. This limits the scope of a game that already has a rather limited scope.

Also the way the game ask you to seal the deal is about picking your deputy into the final battle, someone you can share your thoughts with, in a crowded war room. On the one hand, I think I get it. When I played Commander Shepard as straight men (Only in terms of sexual orientation and gender. ), they (As in 2 separate playthroughs.) ended up boning the XO of Normandy SR2 who technically are civilians, namely Miranda Lawson in 2 and Liara T’soni in 3. PSW is not that different. But Shepard has the privacy of the woman's office or a date to do so. Even professor “Byleth” in Three Houses has the privacy of their father’s grave to consider their life partner. No pairing in the war room, you all!

And there is the penultimate battle, when 4 of the mechs on Kamiyama’s team were not operational, he had to go in with only one partner. I’m making it sound heavier than it actually is. Mandatory battles in the game all have designated partners, besides the final 2 battles after the player had chosen their deputy aka girlfriend. Then each arena player cleared, the game would have one mech repaired and join the fight. It added little weight.

In Fire Emblem Three Houses’ Golden Deer route, such reunion is handled better with its turn based combat. There are only 2 friendly units to begin with, and even on the lowest difficulty, the amount of enemy units seems overwhelming. Then 2 additional units, the students I had spent a whole year with 5 years prior, appear every turn. By the time everyone arrived, I couldn’t help but yell “Golden Deer. Assemble!” Endgame style in my heart.

On the contrary, Project Sakura Wars’ attempt to accomplish this kind of dramatic moment with its mechanic fell flat. Granted, the game does have its 2 moments of successful mechanic story telling. Both featuring girls getting their confidence up and unlock the full potential of their mechs. But everything else mechanic wise is hardly worth writing home about. There is a fully animated cut scene in which the Chinese and the British join the fight, it renders the team assemble anime melodrama better.

Verdict

“Fans of the genre/series would like it.” is not what I’m trying to say here, since I’m neither. The only dating sim I’ve played through and enjoyed before this one was Crystalline on Steam, so I’m not yet a fan of the genre. I only read about the series, so I hardly qualify as fan of the series. But I did like it enough to write this user review.

Yet, Project Sakura Wars does not have a wide appeal. It contains contents would be off putting to most of Giantbomb community members, not to mention gaming community in the west as whole. Some of those contents even deserve criticism from people way smarter than I am.

If you are just looking for a little interactive anime to play with, this would be among the easier ones to recommend. For not being a RPG, there is no grinding. Just 20 hours or so of melodrama, comedy and action. What more can you ask?

And a final word for fans of the old games who also might be upset about their beloved tactical game turning into action game: in a time when the Yakuza reboot is turning into a turn based RPG, it’s only fair that turn based Sakura Taisen becoming an action game.

(Edited on January, 6th, 8th, 9th and 25th 2020. )