Review: Sakura Wars is at its best when it’s being theatrical

Fifteen years ago, in 2005, the last “real” Sakura Wars game was released. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love introduced Japan to a New York Combat Revue and the promise of new characters for the series, then five years later introduced the rest of the world to the series as a whole. It was a great game that blended visual novel elements, relationship building and thoughtful strategic endeavors into one experience. With Sakura Wars, the reboot set two years after the fifth installment, it at least gets two out of three right.

Read more

Preview: Project Sakura Wars focuses on establishing characters

Project Sakura Wars, known as Shin Sakura Taisen in Japan, is an opportunity. The series has been dormant for years and is being revived with a new developer (Sega CS2 R&D), a new character designer (Bleach’s Tite Kubo) and entirely new gameplay that abandons its strategic roots. It is a lot of change all at once. As a means of showing how what is old fuses with something new, the Shin Sakura Taisen demo does its best to try and introduce everything this installment attempts in a short amount of time.

Read more