Sakura Wars is a solid game that delivers in a lot of areas, story and dialogue choices to give your players control of their fate, and falls a little short in others, especially action/mech. There is far more positive than negative and I think the re-tooling and reboot of the series might gain more fans than lose them.
Drinking cranberry juice is an acquired taste. At first, you don’t understand the appeal of it. It’s got this odd combination of flavors and it’s supposedly good for you. As time passes slowly, you begin to enjoy the cranberry juice, even to the point that it becomes a thing you have to have when you go grocery shopping. Eventually, you adopt it and forget about any potential worries you might have had with it, and end up just enjoying the taste of the juice for the rest of your life.
This is my entire experience with Sakura Wars.
I had heard of Sakura Wars before now, but I never really paid much attention to it. I knew that it had a heavy amount of anime influence to it, and now I know it is a very popular manga, while also discovering that it had been around since the Sega freaking Saturn. In short, I somehow successfully missed Sakura Wars for nearly 25 years. Let that sink in for a second.
Anyway, my assumption upon playing this game was that it was going to be an over-the-top anime-led mech-based action JRPG game. It seemed pretty straightforward. Go into it, see some shouting characters and overreactions, kick the hell out of mechs, upgrade, progress — MOVE ON. Those were my expectations of the experience. What I got was a freaking wholly other. Before we dig into gameplay, let’s talk story.
The baseline story of Sakura Wars is that you, Kamiyama, have been recruited to lead a group of ragtag fighters called the Flower Division. Your job? Build them up into a fighting force and help Tokyo fight off waves of demons. Pretty simple, right? Well, your real job in the game is to be a theatrical trainer for the Flower Division, while on the side saving Tokyo from demons. What you thought you might be doing in the game is actually in the backseat, as your real focus is to get Flower Division’s theater up and going. This means you have to worry about all players involved and their feelings, which is where we are going to start our gameplay breakdown.
Again, I had no idea what I was getting myself into with Sakura Wars.
The moment the gameplay begins, you’re watching a disastrous play put on by the Flower Division with no real audience sitting back to enjoy it. It’s the laughing stock of the town and shows the rawness of the players in the performance, who desperately want to get better. This is where the first part of the gameplay kicks into high gear. The crux of the gameplay mechanics in Sakura Wars is talking with each Flower Division member, getting to know them, trying to help them, and avoiding screwing up. The gameplay mechanics in this portion of the game come down to branching dialogue choices that are based on you listening/reading what the characters have to say, which forces you to get invested in the story. Depending on what choices you make, how accurate you are with your answers, equals out to a specific outcome that dictates the direction of the story. For example, there is a moment in the game where a young witch is very unsure of her own intentions and if she wants to pursue/cultivate her powers. You have to get her to believe in herself, while at the same time helping to stoke the flame of power that she has inherited from her family. The only way to do this properly is by listening to her, figuring her character out, and providing what you, the gamer, believe are the right answers to her questions. The gameplay concept for this is ancient, as it harkens back to a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book type structure, but it gets you to care about the characters, even if it’s a bit forced. Is that a bit tricky on Sega’s part to do this to gamers? Forcing them to be invested in dialogue and characters? Lord, yes, but once you buy into the concept and the gameplay mechanic choice here, you will see that the story is very self-aware and actually incredibly enjoyable. Sega certainly captures the essence of every anime made in the history of anime. One thing should be noted, the choice system is timed, ya know, for added urgency and effect. If you fail to make a dialogue choice, you end up with no dialogue choice, which is generally a bad thing. So, don’t take too long on this aspect of the game, but definitely pay attention to everything. Don’t worry, unlike this large paragraph, the dialogue and story are structured in short stints.
This is the first and main aspect of gameplay for Sakura. While the mechanic does have its purpose, as stated above, it does get the gamer involved with the story, which I can respect the hell out of that, even though the story is goofy at times. Getting the player invested in what’s going on will help make the game connect with them, and the way that Sega’s development team pulls this off, via the dialogue choices with consequences, means that it is almost guaranteed. They do allow you to skip dialogue if you get tired of it, but, again, there is a consequence for missing meaningful details when speaking to characters.
Gosh, reading and retaining in a video game, who would have thunk? It’s like college, right?
Related to the dialogue is the dating simulation portion of the game. Hold onto your butts, folks.
This is my first dating simulator since I snuck into Chris Gatto’s father’s house and played Leisure Suit Larry on his father’s mega 486 computer when I was 11 years old. Yes, that isn’t quite the same thing as Sakura Wars, there is less soap with holes in it, but the idea to make the right choices, find a possible love interest is the same. My daughter actually had to talk me through this portion of the game while I was playing it. She had to convince me not to feel like a creepy guy playing a game and actually helped to show me that all of this was going to be cool/okay. And guess what? It was all cool and okay.
Sega’s folks carefully crafted this portion of the gameplay to make sure you ‘got there’ with the story and earned the opportunity to potentially date an employee. They made it lovey-dovey enough to make it feel innocent, yet complicated enough to make you think through your approach. This is a step up from just simply choosing dialogue, this is a step further when it comes to making the right moves. When dialogue and choices are executed, it could mean that you’re going to strengthen your relationship with your co-workers, or you’re going to severely damage the relationship. There are a lot of directions this game could head when it comes to this portion of the gameplay, as it will send a ripple effect through the story. For example, the young witch I mentioned previously was a dating possibility in the game. SW brought me through a series of dialogue choices, set me up to either succeed or fail, then ended the situation properly (not going to tell you how just know that it isn’t lewd). The process started with choices of dialogue, which led to assumptions, which led to things like potentially handholding or kissing. The game does take it further, depending on how you treat the situation. Again, nothing lewd. As the situation progresses, the game will eventually shift into the first-person view and then you will have to make more intimate choices (again, nothing lewd) that are less dialogue related and more ‘control’ related. AGAIN, nothing lewd — the game is very respectful of how it treats the situation.
The intimate dating simulation portion of this game is neat because it does affect the story and how other characters treat you for your actions. If you’re perceived as a pervert, you will find that carries with you in the story. If you’re leaning towards one dating possibility and shift towards another, then your story shifts just slightly. As goofy as ‘dating sims’ might seem to the outside world that has never tried them, the intricate web built here is complicated and thought through. It’s incredibly immersive, which is a big deal for me when it comes to feeling less creepy about it (I’m old, cut me some slack). It’s very well done overall, though.
Connected to both of the above gameplay mechanics is the actual action JRPG portion of the game. You will be put into mech suits and be sent into battle. The battle mechanics of the game are very button-mashing, sometimes a little uninspired at moments. You have button combinations that are simple to use, enemies that aren’t that hard to defeat, and special moves that aren’t specifically tough to pull off. The actual action of the game is very easy to get into and comes in spurts, which is fine. This is the least exciting portion of the game, and it’s still good. The above elements of dialogue and choices actually dictate how this part of the game goes. It’s all very interconnected together. I think that’s the most impressive part of the overall gameplay design is how the devs managed to take dialogue, story, choices, dating sim, action, and interweave them into some beautifully complicated system that YOU want to play.
Much like cranberry juice, you honestly don’t know what you’re missing until you dig into it.
That is Sakura Wars in a nutshell. It’s a completely story-driven game that requires you to be involved with every aspect of its being. If you commit, you’re going to find out that this is a well-crafted game with a gameplay engine that simply purrs. It’s crazy beautiful how the underbelly of Sakura Wars works, the story especially.
If that isn’t enough for you, the visuals are unbelievably outstanding. I’m literally not going to change my stance on the game’s visuals from my preview. Graphically, this is one of the most beautiful games that SEGA and its developers have produced since the emergence of the Yakuza series — and that’s saying something considering the Yakuza series is notoriously beautiful. Led by a cel-shaded design, Sakura Wars does the best imitation of its manga counterpart. Bringing the over-the-top anime-esque drama visually, while still maintaining the sweet-sweet style that people have come to expect from it.
The game does its best to bridge gameplay, cutscenes, and anime-driven breaks together, and it does a good job. The gameplay visuals are colorful, well-thought-through, with meticulous care given to the details. For example, the arrival at the train station at the beginning of the game sets the tone for what you should expect as the story continues. The floors are reflective, contain mirror images of its residents as they walk through, and are simply stunning to look at as you play. It also sets the color scheme that is prevalent throughout the series, where the steampunk visions of mechs meet carefully crafted animation that keeps your eyes engaged.
This. Is. Throughout. The. Damn. Game.
The bridge from gameplay to cutscenes is seamless and not jarring, as cel-shaded style is kept from dialogue to dialogue. The only transition that might catch you off guard is the shift from cutscenes to actual animated scenes you would find from someone at Funimation. You forgive the temporary upgrades, as the music kicks in, and you’re reminded of how wonderfully outlandish the entire Sakura Wars concept can look and feel.
Overall, Sakura Wars is a solid game that delivers in a lot of areas, story and dialogue choices to give your players control of their fate, and falls a little short in others, especially action/mech. There is far more positive than negative and I think the re-tooling and reboot of the series might gain more fans than lose them.
