The Sakura Wars series was once perfect proof that Japan's gaming market was radically different from North America's. In Japan, players thronged around a line of strategy-RPGs with a 1920s setting and copious character interaction. In North America, only a fringe of dedicated fans would want such a thing. So it went for years after the 1996 debut of Sakura Wars, with even ardent RPG experts admitting that there was no chance of U.S publishers translating a niche title so heavy on text, voice acting, and anime overtures. Then things changed. In the past few years, Americans started buying RPGs with dating-simulator elements, from the cult hit Persona titles to Mana Khemia and Ar Tonelico. And just when Sakura Wars was fading in popularity in Japan, NIS America brought Sakura Wars V over here.
Why Sakura Wars V? Well, it's the most recent main Sakura Wars, and it's set in America; New York, to be precise. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, as it's known in North America, also doesn't demand much knowledge of the previous titles, though it opens with Japanese naval ensign Shinjiro Taiga meeting with series heroine Sakura Shinguji and hero Ichiro Ogami (in a Disney-like arrangement, Shinjiro is actually Ogami's nephew). Since this is an alternate version of the 1920s, Japan's military is battling a race of otherworldly creatures instead of brutally subjugating other countries, and Shinjiro is dispatched to join the New York Combat Revue. Like the casts of the first four Sakura Wars games, the New York branch sends transforming steam-powered mecha into battle, and all of the pilots are also actresses at the troupe's theatrical base of operations, the Little Lip Theater.
That name should be warning enough to anyone who cringes at overtly anime-influenced RPGs. If the high-school drama of Persona 4 left you embarrassed, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love will send you shrieking into the street. The series is often described as a mix of dating simulator and strategy-RPG, though it goes well beyond the usual static, pandering stuff of dating sims. It comes closer to an actual anime series in RPG form, with its own story arcs, next-episode previews, and silly, silly melodrama. Of course, it's still driven by conversations with a cast that's mostly women, and Shinjiro can play the flirt as much as the player wants.
And it's the cast that really drives a genre hybrid like this. Introduced to a combat team that was really expecting his more experienced uncle, Shinjiro is initially patronized by his commanders, the vaguely troubled blonde Rachet Altair and the eccentric Mr. Sunnyside. The rest of the team welcomes him in varying ways: Japanese fan-wielder Subaru Kujo is aloof, sickly Diana Caprice is politely supportive, lawyer Cheiron Archer shoves Shinjiro around at every opportunity, café-running hostess Cherry Crocker teases him, and the shy Japanese-American clerk Anri Yoshino seems afraid of him (as though she thinks she's in a much more adult sort of adventure game). Naturally, Shinjiro proves himself by the end of the game's first episode, emerging in command of a bunch of more qualified pilots.
Yet it's samurai cowgirl Gemini Sunrise who carries the game from the start. The obvious main character, she's an endearing example of the cultural mishmash that makes Sakura Wars so guiltily fun. As the first friend Shinjiro makes in the city, she's a whirl of cornball talents and country-girl enthusiasm. This is a game for modern anime fans, however, and so Gemini is also sometimes clumsy and dependent on our hero. Still, she's the most likeable character in the bunch, and it's hard to see any other cast member being the right match for Shinjiro.
Of course, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love lets the player build a relationship with any of the game's six principal mecha pilots, including an apparently platonic one with underage gunfighter Rosarita Aries. Conversations are guided by Shinjiro's player-chosen responses, with the selections being distant, friendly, or crude. Players can also gauge just how forcefully Shinjiro speaks, and that also affects how other characters see him. Forge stable bonds with his fellow pilots, and they'll all improve in battle. To the game's credit, Shinjiro isn't a complete blank for players to control. While his dialogue is rarely voiced, the script tries to define him as an earnest kid out to prove himself, with his minor personality quirks left up to the player.
Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love also offers the chance to see 1920s America through the deliberately skewed perspectives of series creator Hiroi Ohji and writer Satoru Akahori (who's done some of his best work on Sakura Wars, though that's not saying too much). While not as hilariously warped as the America of Ohji's Tengai Makyo IV, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love shows a New York that never quite was, and it's fun to see just how it defies history or, in rarer cases, stays true to it. There's a weird appeal to the whole thing, like a Prohibition-era Phoenix Wright game where the legal battles and item searches are less frequent and the innuendo is mostly heterosexual.
There's a strategy-RPG in the middle of all of this, too. The original Sakura Wars was a basic affair, but So Long, My Love loses the grids of the older games in favor of a battlefield where 1920s steam-mecha roam freely. It's still a broadly painted combat system: an energy meter governs movement and actions, though it allows players plenty of chances to take back their decisions. Characters use special attacks based on the specific weapons they wield, and team-up moves require two party members to corner an enemy inside their shared range. It's hardly competition for the latest tactical RPG or real-time strategy title, but it's solid enough. And Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love lets characters transform their robot armor and fight aerial battles. Let's see Final Fantasy Tactics do that.
NIS America rolled out a Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love trailer draped in corny faux-Texan narration last year, causing some fans to vow they'd switch the game over to its Japanese language track. Yet the localization seems an excellent fit for the absurdity of stage actresses piloting Model-T robots through Manhattan. Gemini's voice isn't quite as overblown as it is in the trailer, but it's still peppered with old-fashioned twang and played to amusing extremes by her actress (who seems to be Laura Bailey). The rest of the voices heard in the first few hours past muster, though Cheiron's actress seems to have trouble with a character who's constantly pissed off. The only possible weak part might be Rosarita's, as the few voice clips I've heard (by accident) sound really shrill. At any rate, there'll be a Japanese track in the PlayStation 2 version, with the Wii version featuring only the English voices.
There's another troubling question: will Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love find an audience? It's several years old, and its approach to relationship-based gameplay lags behind the detail and restraint of Persona 3 and 4. Moreover, it's arriving in a month with at least two high-profile console RPGs. Yet there's really nothing like the Sakura Wars brand of alternate history and operatic drama, and it's acutely tailored for the anime-fan crowd. If nothing else, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love will end the PlayStation 2's lifespan on a stylish note.