Sakura Wars (Sakura Taisen) was a fall 1996 release in Japan, and is best described as a visual novel, dating sim, and strategy game mashed up into one.
Set in a fictional 1923 Tokyo, you are the young Ensign Ichiro Ogami, freshly assigned to the Imperial Navy’s all-female Flower Division, tasked with defending Tokyo against the evil forces of the Hive of Darkness. Manage tricky relationships by daylight and fight demons by moonlight using mech-like, spirit-powered Koubu armor before retreating to the Grand Imperial Theater to start the cycle anew.
The game features an innovative “LIPS” system, where the time taken to select between dialog choices impacts a hidden “trust” stat in-game. Your social skills, therefore, are as important as your combat strategy through the 10 awesome episodes in the game.
This title was co-produced by SEGA and Red Company and became one of the Saturn’s defining experiences — it was re-released in 1998 under the Satakore (“Best of Saturn”) label and spawned a whole line of sequels on the Saturn and beyond. Sadly, it never found its way out of Japan… but in 2019, a troupe led by NoahSteam fought back against the Hive by releasing a full English patch! Hooray!
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