Un perfecto juego anime de 7. Y lo digo en el mejor de los sentidos.
No es muy largo, el juego hace porque le cojas cariño al cast, las protas son estereotipos andantes que no puedes evitar animar, sucumbiendo a sus dramones telenoveleros... Tiene situaciones cómicas ecchi tanto a favor como en contra del prota, por lo que no es un "juego harem" para chicos sin más. Muy entretenidas sus fases de movimiento andando por uno de los entornos currados con más mimo, pese a su presupuesto (es un juego de nicho, no un Assassins Creed).

Es confort food para tu backlog y me ha gustado por ello.

For me the game is a 7 out of 10. I enjoyed it all in all, but felt that the story needlessly regressed into apocalyptic, end-of-the-world nonsense in the last couple of chapters, which ultimately let the game down. This was the first Sakura Wars I've completed (I played some of So Long, My Love on the Wii years ago), so maybe that sort of thing is par the course for the series, but for me it was unexpected and not in a good way. Some of the melodrama felt quite forced too and failed to convince. The game was clearly at its best when it was being light-hearted, focusing on the comical banter with the affable cast of characters and just generally embracing its more laid back, visual novel-esque core.

The big pros for me were the exemplary music, soaking in the cosy setting/atmosphere and especially interacting with the main and supporting cast. Hatsuho is the best girl! Koi Koi was surprisingly fun to play too, once I knew what I was doing.

If there's ever a new one, I'm there. But I hope the necessary improvements are made.

Technically the game shouldn't have been much, but I just loved every moment. The story was simple but the character were so likeable and engaging that I was just completely invested. The animation was so well done, a bit too much at times, but overall it made the scenes so much better and more fun to watch.

Gameplay wasn't much really, barebones at best with a turn your brain-off mentality. However the dating sim part definitely makes up for it, at least for someone like me that likes romance and also just loves these characters.

Overall it was a really nice chill experience, and it makes me wanna try out the old ones. Maybe sega will release them again one day.

Despite being a soft-reboot, this entire game feels like you're dropping in on Season 2 of an anime that had a 5 year gap in production. The characters talk with each other like we already met them and know them.

I've wanted to play this game since it came out, at the time I did not have a PS4 and I was playing PSO2 which had a Sakura Wars collab going on despite the fact that PSO2 was only on Xbox and PC at the time. I know it was having the collab at the same time for JP players but still weird. Not sure what I expected going into this though. I think I was expecting something closer to the Saturn games than what I got here. What is here is a light visual novel with social elements crossed with a poor action platformer with musou combat. All equaling a pretty disappointing package with a lot of small things that are annoying but, all of it stems from two major issues I have with the game.

1. There's no real sense of progression. You have cool robots but you never upgrade them, save for an upgrade that's more so a narrative point than it is a gameplay thing. The cool robots never get new attacks, they never get new armor, they never get new weapons. I was able to use the same strategy the entire time and did just fine, the game doesn't even get harder making it feel even shorter than it is. The visual novel elements somehow suffer from this issue too. I never feel like I'm actually getting closer to any of the girls, or anyone else you have chat events with. In Persona and Fire Emblem you feel like you're getting to know the characters personally, separate from whatever revelations come from the narrative. Here it's very superficial casual conversations like you have with someone you work with. Even by the end of the game I didn't feel like my relationship really progressed at all with my choice from the main 5 girls.

2. The game giving most of its focus to Sakura, the most boring member of the Flower Division, made it really hard for me to care about what was going on at almost any moment. She gets so many featured moments through each chapter, even being featured in some way in the chapters where she ISN'T the focus it's distracting when it's a big cast of characters. I'm hoping that the saturn games don't have this issue, or at least that their Sakura is way more interesting. The ending feels really werid if you pick anyone else (which I ended with Azami and the PS4 trophy stats show that Sakura is the most common pick by a large margin, do gamers just have bad taste or something). The rest of the cast have stronger personalities and interesting quirks beyond being the MCs childhood friend and it would be nice if I could've replaced those moments with Sakura with them instead!

On the positive side the combat sections are pretty fun even if they're basic, hitting super attacks on a large group is satisfying. The music is great. I did find the trust sections to be funny even if they just made Seijuro seem like a predator.

Whenever I get to the English patched Saturn game I hope I like that one more.

Varios juegos a lo largo de esta década han sufrido de la forzada “evolución” en sus sistemas y mecánicas, pasando de lo que en un principio era una obra mas que aceptable dentro de una franquicia se convierten en un sin sentido juego de acción con elementos torpemente implementados para intentar satisfacer la mayor cantidad de publico posible, en consecuencia solo decepcionan a los fans de la saga y de paso nadie nuevo se interesa en susodicho juego.
Sakura Wars es uno de los ejemplos mas recientes y tristes por varios motivos, el regreso de esta saga poco popular en occidente pero respetada en Japón podría haber sido la oportunidad perfecta para introducir estos juegos en nuevos jugadores pero tomaron la vía fácil y en consecuencia lograron un efecto contrario. Y es que desde el inicio el juego puede llamar la atención por su gran dirección de arte y esos diseños del señor Kubo, sin dejar atrás esa música y actuación de voz mas que por encima de la media, pero la realidad a largo plazo fue un juego mediocre, repetitivo y poco inspirado para una franquicia con un plot tan rimbombante como lo es chicas salvan el mundo mientras hacen obras de teatro, todo junto a un mal diseño de juego y ritmo.
Comenzare hablando de lo mas molesto y esas son las batallas al final de cada capítulo, siendo esta la única parte jugable en toda la experiencia se conforma con tirarnos en un nivel poco más que lineal con algo de plataformeo aquí y allá, se enfrentan varias hordas de enemigos para avanzar y repetir el mismo proceso hasta llegar al jefe y derrotarlo. Esta fórmula se repite en todos capítulos con excepción de dos y solo varia el nivel y los enemigos con cajas de recuperación de vida y aumentos en tu barra de especial. Todo esto no sonaría tan mal de no ser por dos problemas:
1.El sistema de combate es tosco y poco profundo.
2.Es increíblemente fácil
Empezando por el primero existen varios personajes con formas de pelear y una habilidad especial distinta, pero todo se va al caño cuando los ataques especiales se hacen de la misma forma en todos los personajes (prepárate para presionar varias veces triangulo y terminar con cuadrado como un remate) y solo esos dos botones existen para atacar, fuera de eso solo obtienes uno para saltar, otro para correr, cambiar de personaje (Que eso es algo también decepcionante, al solo poder controlar dos por nivel y uno de ellos a fuerzas en el protagonista) y otro para esquivar muy a la Bayonetta y detener el tiempo si es preciso. Por ultimo en este sistema puedo decir lo rotos que están los ataques super especiales mostrados en una barra azul, pueden derrotar a un enemigo grande en pocos segundos y bajarle casi la mitad de la vida a un jefe (1/4 al jefe final) de un solo tiro, lo cual vuelve aun mas relevante el segundo punto. Ah y antes de olvidarlo el movimiento y la cámara son un desastre, mover a tu personaje por un tiempo será normal en un inicio pero la latencia y que no exista una animación para caminata lenta vuelve poco preciso donde caerán o donde terminaran tus mechas, sumado a la poca personalización de estos, nunca puedes mejorar algún arma, resistencia, movimiento, estadísticas, vamos que tu personaje será el mismo de principio a fin con nulo cambio en su forma de jugar.
Luego de esto tenemos la dificultad, siendo un juego de dificultad única uno pensaría que se volvería mas complicada a medida que avanzamos, sin embargo todos los enemigos son bastante torpes a la hora de atacar, sin recibes daño nunca es algo preocupante y los niveles están llenos de fragmentos de vida donde uno solo recupera casi la mitad, jefes sin muchos ataques y tu ultra ataque especial que puede derrotar a casi todos de un golpe. Además es necesario mencionar la decepcionante pelea final con apenas tres patrones de ataque y una vista bastante obvia de donde golpear.
Por ultimo queda mencionar la moralidad, la única estadística que puede afectar el daño y defensa de tus aliados, aumentando con solo atacar, esquivar etc. Y baja jugando mal en pocas palabras, el cambio no es algo notorio en tu acompañante o en ti incluso lo cual solo ayuda a conseguir una calificación alta, porque si, al final de cada nivel el jugador recibe una nota según varios términos, lo cual convierte este elemento en el único valor rejugable y así sacar una S con todos los personajes en todos los niveles y recibir un cromo a cambio, solo eso…
En conclusión Sakura Wars es un juego que cayo en las garras de un fenómeno común en estos días, querer hacer un juego para complacer a todo mundo es un error desde la idea misma y convertir un juego de estrategia en uno de acción solo porque se cree erróneamente que los juegos de acción son lo de hoy es un pensamiento perjudicial y se nota que el equipo solo tomo ideas y conceptos populares y establecidos en susodicho genero para crear un juego que no entiende el porqué de las cosas.
Lastima ya que este juegos posiblemente sea el primer encuentro con muchas personas en una franquicia como lo es Sakura Wars y lo más probable será todo menos una impresión positiva.

Minha experiência com esse game foi uma montanha-russa de impressões positivas e negativas ao todo.

Sua história não possui muita qualidade mas é divertida, repleta de clichês narrativos junto com alguns fan services aqui e ali; o que se destaca mesmo é o elenco de personagens, bem esteriotipados e expressivos no geral. Enquanto você não estiver interagindo com eles (ou elas mais precisamente, já que majoritariamente falando só tem mulher nesse jogo) você estará enfrentando hordas de inimigos em um sistema de combate bem simplista, superando ainda mais a simplicidade dos jogos musous que temos atualmente. Não existe evolução de personagem, muito menos melhoramento de ataques ou equipamentos, nem mesmo seleção de dificuldade para apimentar sua playthrough, então não espere muita coisa.

Indo para termos técnicos.. o game é bem bonito, tanto na modelagem dos personagens quanto nos cenários em si, as batalhas são de encher os olhos com todas as partículas voando dos ataques especiais e tals.

A trilha sonora em sí tem seu carisma, mas pessoalmente não me agradou tanto assim, gosto pessoal mesmo.

Como adendo, quero elogiar o sistema de bromides além do mini game Koi Koi Wars; achei bem legal essa ideia de coletar figurinhas das personagens como colecionável, é bem satisfatório para os waifuzeiros de plantão, e o Koi Koi é um ótimo change of pace caso você se canse da narrativa do game.

Levando em torno de 20 e poucas horas pra chegar no zeramento, Sakura Wars como um todo é um bom jogo, mas poderia ser bem melhor com mais incrementações. (Sakura best girl btw)

It's a decent game I guess as someone who's never played Sakura Wars before. It's this weird mix of action and visual novels, but honestly there is way more VN than actual game content here.

Actual gameplay feels basically like PSO2 in the sense that it's a dumbed down action game, but at least in PSO2 you could customize and add on to your combos. This game is a "what you see is what you get".

Graphics look great and the dev team used Hedgehog Engine 2 pretty well here. Story was...alright. Passably entertaining is what I would put. But it has this annoying system of affinity and literally every choice affects something so it ends up like a weird Japanese Telltale game.

All of the characters follow some VN harem archetype. The childhood friend, the bookworm, the tomboy, the bijin, etc. It's very milquetoast in execution.

Overall a very average game and one that I don't think is worth another playthrough after your first unless you really wanna see the different endings, but at that point I'd say just pop a save before the big decision point and whatnot.

Sakura Wars (2019) serves as a soft reboot with the theme of passing the torch to a new generation. Honestly, I found this game to be rather average, with characters that felt somewhat clichéd compared to the charm of the previous series (which I've only experienced through comics, to be fair). The action felt lackluster and somewhat like an afterthought, and there was quite a bit of filler content that dragged on, making it a bit challenging to finish. However, I must acknowledge that the game possesses charm and is rich in details, particularly in its 3D character designs, environments, music, scene direction, and other trivial elements that demonstrate the developers' love for the franchise. Looking towards the future, I hope this series doesn't end with just this game.

P.S.: I was particularly bothered by the variety in character design here. It reminded me of Ao no Kiseki when they used character designs by Katsumi Enami from the previous series alongside new designs by Falcom's in-house artists, which felt somewhat jarring. A similar situation occurred here, with Tite Kubo handling the main cast while other characters had distinct designs, diverging from Kubo's artistic style. Additionally, the bromide system still evokes nostalgia with Kōsuke Fujishima's designs.

My Score: 7/10