Welcome to our review of Sakura Wars, a very “Japan” game out now on Playstation 4 and it’s quite special, to say the least.
The Imperial Combat Revue takes the stage as Tokyo’s defense force against a demon threat in this extravagant adventure. Soldiers in wartime, but theater performers in peacetime, the Revue’s Flower Division is not living up to their legacy and is at risk of being shut down. As newly appointed captain Seijuro Kamiyama, it’s up to you to turn the team around.
Engage with a colorful cast through the dynamic LIPS dialogue system where what you say and how you say it has a profound impact on relationships off and on the battlefield. Your bonds with team members flow into the high-energy combat finale of each episode, featuring action-packed fights with giant steam-powered mecha. Gorgeous animated sequences, a lush soundtrack, and characters designed by anime and JRPG luminaries will transport you into a vibrant 1940s steampunk Tokyo.
Sakura Wars is a game that is rather hard to describe as there are several genres thrown into the big hat and I want to say it is an RPG, but … not quite an RPG? For me personally, there are 3 sides to this game, first off, the Roleplaying side where you, the new Captain Kamiyama, are running a troupe of artists in a theater that is slowly but surely going under financially, at least that is what is happening on the surface. Beneath it though, you are part of an earth defense force that fights using big mechas.
Most of the time, I took note of this, you will be evolving the story and not battling. You got several girls in your troupe and well, you can go all out and flirt with them all. Worst that can happen, they do not like you. I have had instances where I told a girl that I wanted to go into a bath with her, told another one that we should be lovers, and made fun of a female ninja by wanting to call her Azzie instead of Azami just because she is a short girl. So typically Japanese too.
In the first 5 hours of the game, I fought literally once. The storytelling takes the main stage and while I have no issue with that, others might. The fighting is a basic Musou style, but without the hordes of enemies. The number of enemies that come at you, reasonable for anyone that has some gaming experience. The animation is very nice though and that goes for just about everything in the game. This game is very anime-esque and is simply gorgeous in fighting, storytelling, and the actual anime interludes that make this game feel like an anime with actual episodes.
What might not be liked by some, the forced time-wasting mechanic, let me explain. At many times, you need to go all the way to the other side of whatever place you are in, to get a call asking you to backtrack to the opposite side. This mechanism is quite present in the game and I wish developers would just stop using it altogether. It is lame and sadly I am deducting a full point for this in my final score of the game.
Another thing I found to be “too Japan” for mainstream gamers, the fact they introduced Hanafuda into this game. Hanafuda is a popular game in Japan, but hardly anyone I know in real life has actually played it, including my Japanese friends. Koi Koi wars as it is called, thankfully it can be skipped. It took a while to leave the game, but I was very happy to skip it. For someone with very little interest in this card game, this felt forced on to me and completely useless.
Now after all the complaining I did, it is important to actually note that I had more than a few giggles with Sakura Wars and I often went the perverted way of the decisions/questions and I rarely really pissed a girl off, except Miss Palma, she must hate me haha. Sakura Wars is really too much of a niche game to really shine, sadly. While I did love everything I described already, I can not shake the feeling that this game is going to find its audience with fans of the anime and in Japan….
In conclusion, Sakura Wars might be too niche for mainstream audiences and that Japanese audio only might not do it a lot of good there either, but in itself, this game is a wacky mix of several genres going from dating simulators to playing card to eventually saving the world! I may be overscoring the game because of the laughs it has given me, to be honest…
