Sakura Wars 2019 feels like a modern iteration on the original in every aspect and in most cases it's a notable improvement. The artstyle looks great and the character models are really high quality. I was quite happy seeing the imperial theater in its remade PS4 glory and the other locations look nice too. Even the loading screen looks beautiful. The story retains the soul of the original where it takes a bunch of cliches and bundles them together into a surprisingly charming package with a likable cast of well-designed characters. Out of the protagonists I have experience with, Kamiyama is the most likable of the 3 though I've only been able to experience Ogami's story in 1. I was weary going into the game because of a lot of remarks about the game feeling like it was just made to set up for a sequel but it didn't feel that way to me at all and I quite enjoyed it from start to finish. I think the original revue is used in an interesting way with their mysterious and potentially tragic circumstances, especially with Sumire being the new manager of the theater. I also like new sakura much more than old sakura, especially since she's voiced by sakura ayane MMMMM. I would say the only parts where the reboot falls short of the original are novelty and soulful saturn anime cutscenes. The new combat is a pretty simplistic musou style but the attacks feel good and the presentation is solid. The combat environments could use some more variety though. The music is good and the theme song in particular is wonderful but they do play it a tad too much. Another issue I encountered was that some dialogue choices have really unpredictable results which can be pretty annoying since they put so much emphasis on the relationship-building. Overall I'm very pleased with the direction this new Sakura Wars is taking and I think they've set a really solid foundation for a modern series. I only hope it did well enough to actually get that continuation.