My interest in Sakura Wars came from it's inclusion in the Project X Zone games. Based on what i had seen there, it seemed pretty fun so finding a physical copy of this game at GameStop was neat and i ended up playing a game from a franchise i previously only had exposure to via crossovers.
The story is nothing too spectacular but it's not bad either. It's anime as hell but as a whole, it's serviceable with likable characters. I really liked how expressive the character models were. Sometimes they would be moving a bit too much but it was pretty neat seeing these characters full of life in this way. The game only has a Japanese dub although there are weird instances where there'd be no voice acting but the scenes would be playing out as if they were. Though I will have to dock points from the story for pretty much forcing a romance between the two main leads despite giving you other options. Thankfully, a lot of the choices you do make don't have anything to do with romance. There's nothing super impactful that will change the direction of the story since the choices are more limited to the character moments but they did add some potential humor to the game. And i have to applaud the fact that you can avoid cringe anime fanservice scenes by simply choosing to not be a dumbass.
For all intents and purposes, this game is basically a visual novel and normally, i would never play a visual novel but since Sakura Wars has actual gameplay, it was alright in my book. The actual gameplay is pretty mindless and the lack of difficulty options means what you see is what you get. There were hints of a deeper system, like perfect dodges and even finishers but honestly these don't matter too much. You can get away with just spamming your AoEs. Honestly, you can make an easy comparison to Warriors games, in which you hack-and-slash to your hearts content and the fast movement makes this feel pretty good. Unlike Warriors games though, the level design is much more linear and you simply get from beginning to end. The visuals of these levels are generic and uninspired, which was disappointing. Perhaps that was never the focus but it all blends in together and nothing stands out. I could say the same for the music, while the main theme is a banger, nothing else really succeeded in clicking with me. Oh well.
When taking everything into consideration, Sakura Wars is pretty much a textbook definition of a 7/10 game. It's good, it works but i've played better. At the same time, it's also not bad at all and i'd still rank it higher than some other 7/10 games i've played in the past.
The story is nothing too spectacular but it's not bad either. It's anime as hell but as a whole, it's serviceable with likable characters. I really liked how expressive the character models were. Sometimes they would be moving a bit too much but it was pretty neat seeing these characters full of life in this way. The game only has a Japanese dub although there are weird instances where there'd be no voice acting but the scenes would be playing out as if they were. Though I will have to dock points from the story for pretty much forcing a romance between the two main leads despite giving you other options. Thankfully, a lot of the choices you do make don't have anything to do with romance. There's nothing super impactful that will change the direction of the story since the choices are more limited to the character moments but they did add some potential humor to the game. And i have to applaud the fact that you can avoid cringe anime fanservice scenes by simply choosing to not be a dumbass.
For all intents and purposes, this game is basically a visual novel and normally, i would never play a visual novel but since Sakura Wars has actual gameplay, it was alright in my book. The actual gameplay is pretty mindless and the lack of difficulty options means what you see is what you get. There were hints of a deeper system, like perfect dodges and even finishers but honestly these don't matter too much. You can get away with just spamming your AoEs. Honestly, you can make an easy comparison to Warriors games, in which you hack-and-slash to your hearts content and the fast movement makes this feel pretty good. Unlike Warriors games though, the level design is much more linear and you simply get from beginning to end. The visuals of these levels are generic and uninspired, which was disappointing. Perhaps that was never the focus but it all blends in together and nothing stands out. I could say the same for the music, while the main theme is a banger, nothing else really succeeded in clicking with me. Oh well.
When taking everything into consideration, Sakura Wars is pretty much a textbook definition of a 7/10 game. It's good, it works but i've played better. At the same time, it's also not bad at all and i'd still rank it higher than some other 7/10 games i've played in the past.