Sailor Moon is one of the most famous anime series in history and was one of the first animes to specifically target women. Of course when you have a popular series, it’s going to spread to other forms of entertainment and an RPG video game based on this series makes a lot of sense.
Originally released in 1995 for the Super Famicom, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon-Another Story (aka Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon-Another Story aka Sailor Moon RPG) takes place after the events of Season 3 of the anime and borrows mostly from the manga along with some original elements.
In the game you play as the Sailor Scouts who have to battle a rebel team of Senshi known as the Opposito Senshi that come from future Crystal Tokyo. The Opposito Senshi are looking to take over the world by changing time and destiny of Earth. This leads the entire team to travel around the world and to different dimensions to put a stop to the Opposito Senshi and their leader Apsu.
The game plays much like Final Fantasy in the battle department. One thing that would make it stand out was that the characters called out every attack, as the only game at the time that did that was Tales of Phantasia. All 10 of the sailor scouts are playable, but only a max of 5 can be played at one time. For most of the game it automatically chooses who will be in your party, but towards the end when some of the other scouts such as Sailor Pluto and Sailor Saturn join to help the battle, you can have free range of whom to pick from.
Another great part is the story. There is a part where the Sailor Scouts each travel to different parts of the world in order to retrieve the Yang stones to find the Rose Crystal. With each level you create a relationship with each Sailor Scout as well as learn why each member of Opposito Senshi joined the organization.
So what exactly is wrong with this game? Well first off the game was only released in Japan on the Super Famicom. Around 1999 an unofficial English translation was made and released online. This means the only way to play the game in English is by using an emulator as an English SNES cart of the game exists. Also while Sailor Moon was a hit among men, the main target audience was female, and at the time, there really wasn’t much of a female gaming community.
Another issue is that when you go to another world the enemies are extremely strong. This isn’t that bad if you decided to grind beforehand, but if you didn’t you’re in for a world of trouble. It’s not impossible, but it is challenging. Once you level up your characters a bit, the characters actually become over-powered before you know it.
Overall it’s not a horrible game, but it’s far from the best. I still found the game to be very enjoyable and some of the things they did, like characters calling out every attack where very new and no RPGs really did that at the time. However, I can really only recommend this to Sailor Moon fans, or just RPG fans who are looking for something a little different. Take a look for yourself and see if it’s right for you.
