Sakura Taisen: Steampunk robots fighting demons (and also dating)

...Actually, to be honest that sums most of it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakura_Wars


(The first game in the series.)

Sakura Taisen (also known as Sakura Wars) started out in the 1990s as a Sega Saturn game. You were placed in the shoes of Ichiro Ogami, a fresh-out-of-school military cadet assigned to...clip tickets at a 1920s Tokyo theater where a bunch of women perform Takarazuka-style plays.

In reality, of course, they pilot steam-powered kohbu robots to repel the demons that occasionally attack the city, with the theater as a cover job: it's based on a pun in Japanese where "Teikoku Kagekidan" is a homonym for both "Imperial Opera/Theater Troupe" and "Imperial Combat Troupe".

You're one of the few males who can pilot a robot the way these girls can, and you command them in battle; the closer they are to you and the more they trust you, the better they fight. Gameplay is half SRPG with the robots and half visual novel dating sim, with the added twist of responses being timed; sometimes not saying anything and letting the timer run out is actually the right thing to do.

The game became really, really popular and spawned four more sequels: ST2 introduced two more pilots, ST3 relocated to Paris, with an entire new troupe, ST4 combined them both.


(An image from the fourth game. Ogami's at the top there with his arm raised.)

STV was actually released in the US, titled Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love. Instead of starring Ogami, it starred his nephew Shinjiro, who thought he was joining the Flower Division in Japan but instead got sent to America--well, Japan's conception of 1920's steampunk America. That was how I got into the series.


(I played the PS2 version but this is a nicer picture.)

The series expanded, as well, and some of the material that's not the games is avaliable in the US: two OVAs focusing on the Flower Division, a 26-episode series loosely based on the first game, one of two OVAs focused around the Paris group, and a movie that introduces Ratchet Altair, the woman who will become your commander in STV. There are also a few spinoff games, the most recent of which is Dramatic Dungeon for the DS.

There's also a Facebook group aiming to localize the rest of the series through digital distribution. Currently the goal is to get the attention of Operation Rainfalls and get a petition through to have Sakura Shinguji (main love interest of the first game) included as a DLC in a Sega racing game.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kiss-Me-Sweet-The-Sakura-Wars-Localization-Project/382878205094476

All my images were obtained via Google search and copy-paste.

OHOHOH! So Long, My Love came into my posession earlier this year and it was awesome! I really enjoyed it! I wish more of it was localized and more US people played! It's cheesy and fun, and really quite fun to play! I still need to get more than one ending. I was all about Subaru in my playthrough. xD

Subaru is always the best option. Ratchet is sweet and Gemini is adorable but the graceful Noh dancer who drags you around town in drag for your first date is the best.

Literally my favorite part of the whole game. It's hard for me to focus on other girls because I don't want to miss being a woman to Subaru's man. They are so VERY ok with it and natural, it's so much fun.

I have mixed feelings about Diana as well. Kinda like how she spurs you on and encourages you early in the game before she becomes a whiney, bitch-ass full member. Plus I'm almost certain her voice actress is the same as Misha Arselic Lune from Ar Tonelico, though I haven't looked it up yet. A whole other bag of mixed feelings.

If you're interested in the older ST games but can't read moonrunes, you can still sort of play ST2 and ST3. There are text translations for both on Gamefaqs. They're not complete with every dialogue choice and everything, but you'll be able to finish the games and follow the story since they're fairly linear games.

The easiest version of ST2 to do this with is probably the ST1/ST2 compilation for the PSP since that's region free. ST3 is harder; You'd need a PS2 or Dreamcast that can play Japanese games, or you could try to track down the out of print PC copy.

In any case, I've played 1 through 3. ST1 is okayish; the series was still finding its feet and didn't always treat its characters well, though in its defense you get to FIGHT SATAN. ST2 is when it really hits its pace and lets the strong characters drive the adorably cheesy story. Plus you get Oni-Ou who is basically Japanese Darth Vader, and a good villain always does a lot for any narrative.

Then ST3 happens and suddenly it's in Paris, except it's not Paris, but Paris the way crazy Japanese video game developers imagine it to be. ST3 is balls-to-the-wall insane in the best way imaginable. In my opinion it is one of the finest games ever made, and I've played a lot of games.

If I had the time/patience/money I'd probably check 'em out. I really enjoyed the one localized, and I imagine the others are pretty decent. I'm rather hoping they keep making them, and throw some more out in English to begin with, though.

Considering it's not widely known and heavy sold in English though, I won't hold my breath. : ( Too bad, it's really fun stuff in a weird and refreshing way to me.

I have the most merchandise relating to the Paris group, for some reason it was the easiest to find. But I don't know much about them. Or Leni and Orihime for that matter...

I saw the dubbed ova episodes of the Paris group. Alas the dvd was corrupted or something since it skipped a lot and the quality of the picture was really bad.

Yeah, I have that as well. It was nice, but I still don't know much about Hanabi or Coqueli--the little girl whose name I can't spell.

I didn't know any of these games were in English! This sounds fantastic. I'll have to buy the version for the Wii at some point when I'm no longer saving up to buy a ridiculously expensive stenographer's machine.

Oh yes Nekochi please do. I played the Wii version and liked it.

I had it on PS2, but I cannot reccomend it highly enough. It's quirky and fun. Not too hard, stays interesting with good pacing, and some of those characters.. xD

I finally got a ways into ST5 over winter break and I'm enjoying it, though not without caveats. Most of the characters seem to take their chapters as a cue to be whiny/emo/crazy/a dick to the rest of the cast, which is a rather cheap way to build narrative tension and doesn't contrast well to the times when they aren't in the spotlight and just interacting naturally with the other girls. I started out really disliking Sagitta in her hurf durf legal beagle chapter (and I'm in law!), but she becomes so much more likeable once it's obvious she cares deeply for the team and works to keep everything together. And constantly busts Shinjiro's balls. Christ, Oogami was a goddamn boob, but Shinjiro is ten times worse. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it certainly is a funny thing.

Gemini is also adorable at the beginning of the game, even if she is incredibly impressed by correct screwdriver handling, then it gets to her chapter and everything just kinda goes what. The less said about Diana, the better. That woman is not related to Ci.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh on the cast though, and maybe I'm a little biased, because I finally got ST3 working in correct aspect ratio and whoops there goes half the week. You know that feeling when, after a decade, you apprehensively dig out something you really loved in your teens and it's still every bit as awesome as you remember? Yeah.

Is Diana actually related to Ci or is that a coincidence?

Also what do you think of Subaru~? And Rosita, for that matter? Rosita is the best little sister ever and I find her adorable.

Hmm, I see what you mean about Gemini. It's a bit strange, definitely, but...xDD And I wound up disliking Sagitta/Cheiron the most, too. She always wound up last in the ranking...and then she'd be weak in battle, so she'd get killed and hate me more...it was a vicious cycle.

...how much do I have to beg to get a LP of ST3? Seriously, please?

I don't know if Diana and Ci are actually related. It seems unlikely to be a coincidence, but they really are nothing alike and ST is not really known for subtlety.

Subaru is pretty cool. How did they translate her verbal tic? "Thus speaks Subaru"?

Rika is hilarious because she continues the ST tradition of having child characters with depressing backstories except jacked up to ridiculous proportions in this case. There's a very fine line between funny and unfunny there, and so far it usually stays on the funny side. Also, she threatened to make Songbird McNuggets in front of Diana.

I might just be inclined to give Sagitta ("Cheiron"? Huh, okay.) a break because she is a romanceable black character in a Japanese game. I honestly can't name a single other example.

As for LPing, it'd make more sense to do ST2 first. I was on the verge of starting ST1 for a long time but that's been done already, and the PC version I have is a straight port of the original game rather than the PS2 remake.

Hmm. Well, Diana's related to Sunnyside, too, right...?

Mostly just referring to herself in third-person. It kind of ruins the genderless aspect in English, but I guess they couldn't really use "zhe" or anything like that...

Hah, yeah, she kind of just does her own thing. (In the dub she's Rosarita because Rikkarita isn't a remotely Mexican name. Sagitta Weinberg becomes Cheiron Archer because...I don't know, I read a theory it's because Weinberg sounds Jewish?)

Yeah. I mean, ST5 did some stereotyping of America and such but it's kind of impressive that they got a black character right.

2 works as well. Because Leni looks amazing.

I have the Japanese PC ports but I can't for the life of me make them work. Even if they did I doubt I could read much.

What OS are you running? As far as I know there shouldn't be any significant problems in installing the games and starting them on newer Windows versions, though their options are ridiculously barebones and I had to fiddle around a little before I could get them to run in the correct aspect ratio. It's probably worth putting the effort in if you like the games and are working on your Japanese because there's actually quite a bit of everyday language in there and you can look up the bits you don't understand in the GameFAQs translations.

I'm guessing Sagitta's full name was changed because 1) seriously, "Sagitta", gotta do something about that and 2) now we have to work the constellation reference in properly like for every other Star Division member and the centaur thing wasn't close enough. You probably know this already, but Subaru's name (昴) is the Pleiades.

I'll go see about Fraps to capture ST2's video this weekend, anyway. It's nice to know somebody is already interested in seeing the game, and I've been slacking on my Japanese so another project would be nice.

I'm on Windows 7, but I managed to screw with my settings quite a bit and I probably messed something essential up somewhere when I was installing a different game. Basically, the opening movie for 1 works fine but it crashes afterwards. On the other hand, I haven't tried it in a while...hmm.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yaaaay! That would be wonderful.

I'm on Windows 7 as well. The only thing I did was set my system locale to Japanese, though I really only did that just in case and don't even know if it's really necessary. It's definitely possible to get them working, anyway.

I do have a soft spot for ST2 as well since it's the first ST game I ever played, before I even knew a lick of moonspeak. I was a little disappointed when I first played ST1 for the first time last year, to be honest. It was rather heavy-handed with the whole "The womenfolk have blundered into a predicament and Oogami must now save them!" parts, whereas the later games are mostly happy to just let the girls kick ass and make the protagonist's life miserable.

But then Kohran and Kanna show up and everything's pretty much okay again.

...wow, how did you manage to get through the game without knowing any Japanese? Seems like you'd make them hate you pretty quickly.

ST1 had a reason for the 'damsel-in-distress' parts. Oogami was just a stranger then, a fresh-faced lieutenant thrust into the position of squad leader whom none of the girls knew or (understandably) trusted. Heck, a couple of the girls were outright hostile. Pretty much the fastest way he could endear himself to the group (the results of which you see in ST2) was to solve their problems.

Things got better with Kohran and Kanna because they're cool birds who don't sweat the small stuff :)

I guess that makes some sense. Compare that to Shinjiro in V, too...he helped them out quite a lot if I recall correctly. (And people were even more hostile to him.)

Also, hi! Not sure if I've seen you around much; always great to see another ST fan~!

Aye, as you can tell from my title I'm pretty new. I registered on brokenforum just to show my appreciation on Meserach's Gnomoria LP thread, and discovering this subforum was a nice surprise.

I...actually much prefer ST1 and ST2 (i.e. the original Hanagumi) over the rest of the franchise. The later heroines just seemed to get a little campy for my taste.
Though I have no complaints over the Koubu (the spirit-powered mecha) designs...

And the music. I will never forget Hanasaku Otome.

The online translations. It was inconvenient but it worked.

It's not so much the fact that he had to go gallivanting off to save them (ST is, after all, Japanese male wish fulfillment) but the way it was written, especially in Maria's chapter. She has reservations about Oogami taking the lead, sure. Then she goes running off on her own for vague reasons, Oogami follows alone because he is a boob and then suddenly all tensions are resolved because she is impressed with him doing precisely the same thing she got irritated over in the first place. It felt like the character was being bent to suit the narrative and since ST's narratives tend to be pretty dumb it usually works better the other way around.

But again, it was the first game and some teething problems were to be expected.

This is true, they even call it out in story in Subaru's. 'Oh she was doing fine for a while when you came. Now all of a sudden she's being an ass. I don't know why. No one knows why.' It never gets explained, unlike the others. Diana's illness, Cheiron's weird law case over Harlem, Gemini's... Er.. Geminine which was also never explained clearly, Rosita's horrifying past- Actually, Rosita's was the only one that read naturally. You met her, you slowly learned her crazy, and it naturally exploded.

Who ISN'T on Shinji's balls at some point? That kid had all my sympathy.

I liked her in the begining of the game where she gave Shinji confidence. After that, I couldn't like her once you got to know her... I really thought she'd be redeemable after her chapter, but nope, still grating.

Ugh, me too. I wanted to like her, but she ws just too obnoxious. Then she died and died and DIED.[/quote]

It isn't really as contradictory as you seem to have put it. Not sure how your translations interpreted it, but the way I read it was this:

Maria was initially hostile because Oogami was unproven, untested & generally unfit for command, yet somehow the brass had appointed him to replace herself (a hardened war veteran) as squad leader.
Oogami's actions didn't really help that image (throwing yourself into enemy fire to save an innocent is, while decidedly a heroic and shounen-like thing to do, not a sound military tactic when it risks one - and by extension, the rest - of the nation's scarcest effective resources against the demon threat. Sad but rational. Even LG Yoneda might have agreed.)
Maria didn't make her peace with Oogami because of his shounen-like heroics, but because she recognised the true merit of his leadership lay in his ability to rally & unify the team. I believe if the same thing happened again she would still get irritated at him.

I wasn't using a translation for ST1, though to be fair my Japanese still hardly at an intermediate level when I last played it.

I agree with the way you interpret her character, I just don't think it comes across in that chapter. Oogami doesn't really display leadership, he surrenders himself to the hostage taker and gets pulled out of the fire by a deus ex machina. That aside, though (because Oogami being an idiot and getting bailed out happens all the time), what really bugs me is that Maria then trusts him because . . . he was willing to go to extremes to save her, I guess, and no matter that he was throwing his own life away without a plan. It felt like a contrived situation intended to prove that the protagonist was Right All Along and I didn't think it was a fair treatment of Maria's character.

I guess it stuck out to me because I prefer the characters when they're asserting themselves and making the protagonist's life miserable rather than getting shoehorned into video game damsel roles. The ending cinematic where the entire squad fawns over Oogami made me wince a little too.

Man, I probably sound really down on ST in this thread. I'm just pointing out bits I don't like because I love everything else, really.

Yes, I think I see what you mean. ST2 would be the better on that score indeed.
...I'm starting to wish they would port this over to iPhone or something already.

Dammit, I have no idea what ST2 is like and it makes me sad. =(

Any progress on that LP, Oscar? =D

As could be guessed I too look forward to a LP of ST2 and/or ST3.

I got the impression that Subaru was kind of scared that she was relaxing, really; she didn't like that she was changing and she responded by reverting to her pre-Shinjiro mannerisms, aka being an ass.

...still my favorite character, though. I think I have a thing for kuuderes...

You probably wouldn't waste your time putting the faults under a fine-toothed comb if you weren't really invested in it out of love. That's what I figure. You're striving for excellence in something you like.

I don't know why this reply got cut out in the last post.

...Without warning or explanation other than 'it's Subaru's turn' did she suddenly notice she was vulnerable and revert. That's my only complaint, it was very abrupt and a lot of things were never addressed.

I normally DON'T like kuuderes, but I can't like any of them but Subaru every time I play.

Man, I forgot how bloody ST2 could get at the beginning. The ESRB would not have been kind to this game.

Unfortunately, the PC port isn't quite working out for me. It's playable, but the special attack animations don't work and that just won't do at all. I may just go straight to ST3, which to be honest I'm not terribly broken up over because nuns with machine guns. On second thought, it's not a bad idea to start fresh with the new cast anyway.

Edit: Holy shit ST3's ending kicks my ass every single time.

A video issue? Some tweaking might change that but it'll probably take some research.
I'll try to fire up ST1 & ST2 on my system.

Edit: I just recalled, I had to change program compatibility & disable hardware acceleration as well...this port is pretty high maintenance

...what.

Really? That's--that's kind of hard to believe...

Yikes. It took me a while to get them working in the correct aspect ratio to begin with and that already stressed my limited computer savvy. Wonder whether it'd be easier to try to find and emulate the PSP version.

And yeah, a dude totally gets shanked in ST2's first chapter and there is ketchup. The older games feel a little more serious sometimes, maybe because they're not based in foreign cities with the wacky dial set all the way up to 11.

Now I really recommend playing the older games to you, it'll be great education for all you ST5 gamers :D
Even the older games avoided depicting this somewhat (for the sake of rating?), but the origins of the Koubu were founded in blood. Things were apparently quite grim in the distant past.

I have the PSP version of 1&2, but ST2 doesn't seem to want to work on it. ST1 works fine, though. O.o

...maybe I just have bad luck with ST and tech...

/looks up/

I think I need to improve my Japanese a bit first... =P

Wait, does Ratchet have an ending in ST5?