Angel_Arle Sailor Moon reviews
Part 1: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon for GB
Part 2: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon for Super Famicom & Mega Drive
Part 4: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R for Super Famicom
Part 5: Welcome Nakayoshi Park for GB
Here we are with the next Sailor Moon review but what’s this? This doesn’t seem to be a Sailor Moon game! Well I’m cheating a little, this is a game with Sailor Moon in it because this stars a bunch of series that were featured in the Nakayoshi magazine. That magazine is where Sailor Moon was serialized in. This was also one of the last Famicom games to even come out officially, coming out December 10th 1993. In fact the only other Famicom games left that weren’t rereleases were Igo-Shinan ‘94, Momotaro Densetsu Gaiden, Nekketsu! Street Basket: Ganbare Dunk Heroes, Wario no Mori, J-League Super Top Players, Pachi Slot Adventure 3, J.League Winning Goal, and Takahashi Meijin no Boukenjima IV. I can’t even find a developer for this game, the only thing known is the publisher which is Yukata. It’s weird because there are credits so maybe someone someday can figure out who it is. That said this could be the most negative I’ll be for this series of reviews so be warned I’m not going to be positive.
Nakayoshi to Issho is an RPG where you go through 6 different worlds based on different franchises. You play as a nameless little girl you can name yourself. The story is barely even there and can be said in one sentence, being a bad guy that I already forgot the name of and wants to steal the gold gems and the 6 author’s favorite pens to make them all write Evil Manga. Yes I’m serious this is really what the plot is. You don’t even see the main villain till the fight with him and he has absolutely no substance. The most you’ll get out of the game is some of the writing being kind of funny like Peeko saying “What the cluck?” If you’re wondering what the Sailor Moon plot is, well the girls get kidnapped and you have to save them with the help of Luna and Artemis. You’ll face off against brainwashed versions of Umino, Naru, and Motoki. That’s really about it, the final boss is also here but he really is just there to be a boss at the end of Tokyo Tower. Mamoru and Chibiusa are also oddly missing in the plot which feels odd to do.
Now the gameplay has you walking around getting important items and enemies. What you do in the overworlds is pretty simple and there are barely even any puzzles to solve in these. It’s mostly just walking from one destination to the other with most plots just being this character is in trouble, please save them and also make sure to get those 3 gold gems and author’s pens. Though, these overworlds are awful. Have you ever played an RPG where an enemy can unintentionally walk into a spot preventing you from getting to where you want? Well that happens a lot in the town parts of this game ESPECIALLY THE SAILOR MOON ONE! It is so damn annoying and what’s even worse they have dead ends so that 30 seconds of waiting could have been all for nothing! Worst part of this is they like to copy and paste areas so much, this one town is the same as the Juuban District, this one school is the same as the other school, this forest is the same as the magic world. It’s all just so lazy, even the layouts seem copy pasted. To be honest I’d even argue it’s also offensive towards the source material, you’re basically just saying these stories don’t have unique places which feels awfully rude. Maybe I’m just overthinking it though.
Battles are something that never happen randomly. Some enemies disguised or not can only fight if you interact with them. The game does still sometimes force you to fight enemies if they block a path. Battling is such an unfun task. I’m going to be blunt, it’s freaking slots IT’S JUST SLOTS!! You start with choosing what magic you wanna use and then spin the slots and hope you land on what you want. The punch will let you do a basic attack, the gem will let you do your magic, the bag will let you use your attack item, the smiley face gives you a chance to fully heal, and then there are the stars. Getting something like two stars and a punch can make you do a continuous attack but getting something like all three stars will make you do an ultimate attack, this also is the case for something like three punches but not as strong. Folks, this is just not fun. What the hell is even the point of making a beginner’s RPG if it’s going to have some of the most boring combat I’ve ever seen, there’s not even strategy! There’s no statuses to deal with, no stat buffs or debuffs, no items besides healing, NOTHING!
Actually let’s talk about those attack items. Ok so you can get an item to use to attack and they all have a specific amount of power. You can even buy stronger ones in shops at least that was the point but my god it just doesn’t work! I swear 90% of the time it lands on the bag you just use the one you got from the Author. What’s even worse is by the later half they just give you items that are stronger than in any shop, there is even an egg shop for attacks but they are still weaker like what is even the point of any of this!? There’s also magic which for most of the game drains too much of it if you want to use powerful ones and again you really don’t have control over using it or not, it’s luck based. But what if I told you a lot of this doesn’t matter because there is no EXP…
That’s right, no EXP basically means optional encounters are a waste of time. Why even do optional ones when it’ll just drain resources. Sure you can get peaches which is the currency in fact let me give you a tip about this. In the 2nd world in the game, you can go to this park where a clown is which you need his help for progression, there’s an enemy in this area. Just fight this thing over and over till you have 8,000-10,000 peaches and congrats you have now completely destroyed any reason to fight any enemy that isn’t forced onto you. You might go, but what if I accidentally talk to an enemy that I thought was an NPC? Not to worry because 97% of the enemies have a 100% run rate! I’m not kidding, there was only one boss named Waruji where I couldn’t run away from. You can even run away from the final boss! I seriously have to ask, what were they thinking!? The last thing I have to mention is in the Sailor Moon world, for each Sailor Senshi you save, they can show up on slots and do an attack if it lands on their symbol. Not sure why only they got to do battles with you and not anyone else from other worlds but at least they look cool.
The last couple of things I have to bring up are the transformations. You can turn into Wapiko in world 1 which lets you talk to animals. You can turn into MinMin in world 3 which lets you float in the overworld. Finally you can turn into Usagi Tsukino which lets you become Sailor Moon once you get the transformation brooch. They even have special moves for all three stars like Tuxedo Mask showing up to throw roses. Be careful because wearing them drains your health which means nothing because you can find an item in the first world to prevent this making me wonder why even have that be a thing. Lastly there is the phone booth which is where you can save with the editor. You can also talk with other characters here too for tips but they are so useless and they even have this phone card where you have a limited amount of seconds before it expires. Thing is you’ll never even run out of the first one and they expect you to pay 1,000 peaches just to get a new one. God this game is just mistake after mistake what a nightmare.
Here’s the only trivia I have to give this time. One NPC in the Sailor Moon world will tell you the Super Famicom Sailor Moon game is awesome. He is wrong, don't make it tempt you to buy the game, don’t do it!
Graphically this game is very unimpressive for how late it is. It almost could pass as competition for Dragon Quest 1. This game not only lazily reuses areas all the time but even reuses sprites. There are three important characters that just have the same sprite as Minako which feels wrong and again disrespectful. The only neat thing I have to say is the portraits for characters and the authors are good and the battle sprites look nice and big but lack much animation. It was also nice seeing the Sailor Senshi looking more like how they do in the manga. It’s not all bad but a lot of it is sadly. RPGs from 5 years ago looked better than this. The music is also neat but nothing amazing. I really don’t have much to say about it except I hate how it always restarts when you go into a new room.
This game just annoys me like how I have played this game 6 times. I don't get it! What is wrong with me?! I usually don’t like to say this because I often feel it’s wrong to say but it actually feels like they didn’t try at all. There’s no heart put into this game and it rarely ever feels like it’s respecting the source materials for each world. Granted maybe it’s not fair to say when I haven’t seen any of them besides Sailor Moon but if they can’t even do anything cool for that one, why should I expect the others to be better? This game fails in many ways and while it’s far from the worst game on the system heck it ain’t even the worst RPG not even close. It’s still very bad though and it’s just not worth going through even if you’re a Sailor Moon fan. The game also goes for high prices nowadays so good luck even owning a legit copy. There were two more Nakayoshi games after this with one on the Game Boy and another on Super Famicom. I can only hope this will be the worst it gets because god this wasn’t fun. See you next time and remember, The Moonlight is a Messenger of Love!
Part 1: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon for GB
Part 2: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon for Super Famicom & Mega Drive
Part 4: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R for Super Famicom
Part 5: Welcome Nakayoshi Park for GB
Here we are with the next Sailor Moon review but what’s this? This doesn’t seem to be a Sailor Moon game! Well I’m cheating a little, this is a game with Sailor Moon in it because this stars a bunch of series that were featured in the Nakayoshi magazine. That magazine is where Sailor Moon was serialized in. This was also one of the last Famicom games to even come out officially, coming out December 10th 1993. In fact the only other Famicom games left that weren’t rereleases were Igo-Shinan ‘94, Momotaro Densetsu Gaiden, Nekketsu! Street Basket: Ganbare Dunk Heroes, Wario no Mori, J-League Super Top Players, Pachi Slot Adventure 3, J.League Winning Goal, and Takahashi Meijin no Boukenjima IV. I can’t even find a developer for this game, the only thing known is the publisher which is Yukata. It’s weird because there are credits so maybe someone someday can figure out who it is. That said this could be the most negative I’ll be for this series of reviews so be warned I’m not going to be positive.
Nakayoshi to Issho is an RPG where you go through 6 different worlds based on different franchises. You play as a nameless little girl you can name yourself. The story is barely even there and can be said in one sentence, being a bad guy that I already forgot the name of and wants to steal the gold gems and the 6 author’s favorite pens to make them all write Evil Manga. Yes I’m serious this is really what the plot is. You don’t even see the main villain till the fight with him and he has absolutely no substance. The most you’ll get out of the game is some of the writing being kind of funny like Peeko saying “What the cluck?” If you’re wondering what the Sailor Moon plot is, well the girls get kidnapped and you have to save them with the help of Luna and Artemis. You’ll face off against brainwashed versions of Umino, Naru, and Motoki. That’s really about it, the final boss is also here but he really is just there to be a boss at the end of Tokyo Tower. Mamoru and Chibiusa are also oddly missing in the plot which feels odd to do.
Now the gameplay has you walking around getting important items and enemies. What you do in the overworlds is pretty simple and there are barely even any puzzles to solve in these. It’s mostly just walking from one destination to the other with most plots just being this character is in trouble, please save them and also make sure to get those 3 gold gems and author’s pens. Though, these overworlds are awful. Have you ever played an RPG where an enemy can unintentionally walk into a spot preventing you from getting to where you want? Well that happens a lot in the town parts of this game ESPECIALLY THE SAILOR MOON ONE! It is so damn annoying and what’s even worse they have dead ends so that 30 seconds of waiting could have been all for nothing! Worst part of this is they like to copy and paste areas so much, this one town is the same as the Juuban District, this one school is the same as the other school, this forest is the same as the magic world. It’s all just so lazy, even the layouts seem copy pasted. To be honest I’d even argue it’s also offensive towards the source material, you’re basically just saying these stories don’t have unique places which feels awfully rude. Maybe I’m just overthinking it though.
Battles are something that never happen randomly. Some enemies disguised or not can only fight if you interact with them. The game does still sometimes force you to fight enemies if they block a path. Battling is such an unfun task. I’m going to be blunt, it’s freaking slots IT’S JUST SLOTS!! You start with choosing what magic you wanna use and then spin the slots and hope you land on what you want. The punch will let you do a basic attack, the gem will let you do your magic, the bag will let you use your attack item, the smiley face gives you a chance to fully heal, and then there are the stars. Getting something like two stars and a punch can make you do a continuous attack but getting something like all three stars will make you do an ultimate attack, this also is the case for something like three punches but not as strong. Folks, this is just not fun. What the hell is even the point of making a beginner’s RPG if it’s going to have some of the most boring combat I’ve ever seen, there’s not even strategy! There’s no statuses to deal with, no stat buffs or debuffs, no items besides healing, NOTHING!
Actually let’s talk about those attack items. Ok so you can get an item to use to attack and they all have a specific amount of power. You can even buy stronger ones in shops at least that was the point but my god it just doesn’t work! I swear 90% of the time it lands on the bag you just use the one you got from the Author. What’s even worse is by the later half they just give you items that are stronger than in any shop, there is even an egg shop for attacks but they are still weaker like what is even the point of any of this!? There’s also magic which for most of the game drains too much of it if you want to use powerful ones and again you really don’t have control over using it or not, it’s luck based. But what if I told you a lot of this doesn’t matter because there is no EXP…
That’s right, no EXP basically means optional encounters are a waste of time. Why even do optional ones when it’ll just drain resources. Sure you can get peaches which is the currency in fact let me give you a tip about this. In the 2nd world in the game, you can go to this park where a clown is which you need his help for progression, there’s an enemy in this area. Just fight this thing over and over till you have 8,000-10,000 peaches and congrats you have now completely destroyed any reason to fight any enemy that isn’t forced onto you. You might go, but what if I accidentally talk to an enemy that I thought was an NPC? Not to worry because 97% of the enemies have a 100% run rate! I’m not kidding, there was only one boss named Waruji where I couldn’t run away from. You can even run away from the final boss! I seriously have to ask, what were they thinking!? The last thing I have to mention is in the Sailor Moon world, for each Sailor Senshi you save, they can show up on slots and do an attack if it lands on their symbol. Not sure why only they got to do battles with you and not anyone else from other worlds but at least they look cool.
The last couple of things I have to bring up are the transformations. You can turn into Wapiko in world 1 which lets you talk to animals. You can turn into MinMin in world 3 which lets you float in the overworld. Finally you can turn into Usagi Tsukino which lets you become Sailor Moon once you get the transformation brooch. They even have special moves for all three stars like Tuxedo Mask showing up to throw roses. Be careful because wearing them drains your health which means nothing because you can find an item in the first world to prevent this making me wonder why even have that be a thing. Lastly there is the phone booth which is where you can save with the editor. You can also talk with other characters here too for tips but they are so useless and they even have this phone card where you have a limited amount of seconds before it expires. Thing is you’ll never even run out of the first one and they expect you to pay 1,000 peaches just to get a new one. God this game is just mistake after mistake what a nightmare.
Here’s the only trivia I have to give this time. One NPC in the Sailor Moon world will tell you the Super Famicom Sailor Moon game is awesome. He is wrong, don't make it tempt you to buy the game, don’t do it!
Graphically this game is very unimpressive for how late it is. It almost could pass as competition for Dragon Quest 1. This game not only lazily reuses areas all the time but even reuses sprites. There are three important characters that just have the same sprite as Minako which feels wrong and again disrespectful. The only neat thing I have to say is the portraits for characters and the authors are good and the battle sprites look nice and big but lack much animation. It was also nice seeing the Sailor Senshi looking more like how they do in the manga. It’s not all bad but a lot of it is sadly. RPGs from 5 years ago looked better than this. The music is also neat but nothing amazing. I really don’t have much to say about it except I hate how it always restarts when you go into a new room.
This game just annoys me like how I have played this game 6 times. I don't get it! What is wrong with me?! I usually don’t like to say this because I often feel it’s wrong to say but it actually feels like they didn’t try at all. There’s no heart put into this game and it rarely ever feels like it’s respecting the source materials for each world. Granted maybe it’s not fair to say when I haven’t seen any of them besides Sailor Moon but if they can’t even do anything cool for that one, why should I expect the others to be better? This game fails in many ways and while it’s far from the worst game on the system heck it ain’t even the worst RPG not even close. It’s still very bad though and it’s just not worth going through even if you’re a Sailor Moon fan. The game also goes for high prices nowadays so good luck even owning a legit copy. There were two more Nakayoshi games after this with one on the Game Boy and another on Super Famicom. I can only hope this will be the worst it gets because god this wasn’t fun. See you next time and remember, The Moonlight is a Messenger of Love!