Ultimate Guide: Sakura Wars
With a new game making a rare western appearance, we revisited the Saturn original
irst released on the Saturn in 1996, Sega’s adventure/strategy RPG hybrid has always been easily passed over by importers. This is largely thanks to its dense paragraphs of Japanese text (only very recently overcome with the aid of a fan-made translation patch) coupled with an appearance that superficially resembles the endless supply of nigh-identical dating sims happily devoured overseas. These factors have understandably contributed to what could be described as ‘tepid’ English-language interest – a terrible shame for a series that is to Sega what Final Fantasy is to Square Enix. More than a polished new release guaranteed to leave a hefty dent on sales charts and sell oodles of merchandise, these games are a ‘I’m definitely phoning in sick on launch day’ level event. It’s the sort of series that sees fans eagerly pore over every last morsel of information in the months before release, where hype can build up over details as minor as uniform redesigns and staff announcements. A setting that generates so much affection for its main cast, it has spent the past 24 years delighting Japanese fans with a slew of sequels, spin-offs, remakes, stage shows, movies and more. Sega’s marketing department may know how to milk the series for all it’s worth but it’s the quality of the games themselves that has given Sakura Wars a place in the hearts of series devotees for all these years: somewhere the writing makes the characters feel so alive, and the story puts the player at the centre of such a special experience, that becoming immersed in it feels like nothing less than coming home.
This early 20th century steam-powered setting is viewed through the eyes of naval ensign Ichirou Ogami, a hot-blooded young man hoping to embark upon a career move that will see him gloriously leading a defence force against any outside threats that would dare harm Japan. He soon finds himself working as a confused and apparently slighted ticket clipper, serving in the lobby of an all-female theatre group, with not a drop of Japan-defending in sight. This unexpected job reassignment is, of course, all part of the plan, as the theatre and its workers secretly serve a dual purpose: they’re popular entertainers during peacetime who become fearless protectors of the public should the forces of darkness rise from the depths of hell.
Even in this first outing, the cast are a reasonably varied bunch, hailing not only from different parts
of Japan but as far afield as Europe and China, too. They all possess their own identities and insecurities that influence their behaviour during the course of the game, and are focused on in turn as the plot moves on before being inevitably overcome with Ogami’s assistance, beautifully building the Flower Division into an interwoven team born out of empathy, shared experiences and petty bickering. There is an overarching and ultimately linear plot at work here – Ogami can’t wake up one morning and quit, or fail to recruit someone, or treat anyone so badly they never speak to him again – but it soon becomes clear that the plot’s apparent restrictions are in reality
a welcome feature, giving the player freedom to prod and poke at the characters as they see fit, and form relationships with them that aren’t based on optimal stat-boosting decisions or designed to artificially steer the game towards an alternative ending, but true personal choices that are allowed to emerge naturally as the plot unfolds. This narrative leeway also affords the writing breathing space to give its stars the full spectrum of emotions, presenting the player with scenes where showing the other members of the Flower Division as annoyed, tired or making mistakes isn’t considered a failure on their part, but a unique opportunity to explore the characters in a humorous way that wouldn’t be possible if ‘wrong’ dialogue choices had the potential to cause lasting harm.
All of this event-based interaction is handled using ‘LIPS’ – that’s ‘Live Interactive Picture System’ – a design feature that at the most basic level adds a timer to dialogue selection boxes, forcing players to pick something, right now, or be shown up as an unresponsive dullard with nothing to contribute to the topic at hand. This simple twist turns what would normally be genre-standard multiple-choice responses into fast-moving interactive scenes where the player’s awareness and input has a direct impact on the outcome of any conversation.
There comes a time when the talking has to stop, and the only way to hold back the demons terrorising a city is to get out there and hit them with something big and sharp, and at these fixed points in the tale, the by-nowfamiliar adventure-style scenes give way to tactical showdowns that vaguely resemble Front Mission, if all the serious camouflage paintwork had been covered with delicate pastels and everyone burst onto the battlefield doing their best colour-coordinated impression of a Power Ranger. ‘Turn-based mechs on a grid’ is where these superficial similarities begin and end, with Sakura
Wars’ skirmishes being so bare-bones there are no levels to gain, no equipment to buy and little else to worry about beyond hitting things until they fall down, while making sure the enemies don’t do the same to the Flower Division first. This may sound deeply disappointing but it’s important to consider the intent behind this gross simplification. Normally the sort of game that has tactical battles in it would be a game where the fights form the bulk of the action and the surrounding story only existed to tie everything together and give boss chatter a bit of emotional depth – and when judged by these standards Sakura Wars is nothing short of an embarrassment. Fortunately for the game, the real purpose of these fights is to repackage the strong storytelling found everywhere else in a different format, and as the plot invariably involves the brave cast under Ogami’s fearless leadership coming out on top and performing a victory pose together afterwards, before getting back to rehearsing for their next big stage show, it’s no wonder the focus is on the heroic joy of sweeping away their foes than trying to present players with an in-depth challenge.
That desire to get the player to walk a mile in Ogami’s shoes, living life as one member of an extraordinary group – eating with them, laughing with them, fighting by their side – is the key to Sakura Wars success and the core component that sets it apart from the lesser imitators that have come and gone along the way. Playing as the leader of the Flower Division isn’t a chance to romance an attractive woman or stomp around in a mech, it’s an honour – our honour.
Sakura Wars
Sakura Wars’