Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love Preview

by Sam Bishop - IGN.com | 29 January 2010 12:00
 
It's been 14 years in the making, but this strategy/dating sim is finally heading Stateside.
 
The very premise of the Sakura Wars franchise has always interested me: an apparently potent melange of dating sim and strategy elements (with mechs, no less) was so undeniably Japanese in its approach that I really did want to see how it worked. It may have taken the better part of a decade, but the boys and girls at NIS America are finally making it happen. After a few hours with Sakura Wars, we're ready to hop right up onto the "holy crap, it actually works bandwagon" and declare this to be one of the last PS2 games you may ever want to check out.
 
I've personally said that more times than I care to admit; the PS2 is unkillable, operating in zombie mode with such vigor that it actually managed to sell more than three hundred thousand systems last month. Most of us loving the current generation have moved on, but it's rather clear that the PS2 isn't quite out of "oomph." Granted, this may truly be the last game of interest on the system, but even if you've moved on, NISA has generously decided to embrace the Wii too, so you don't have to step back to 2000's hardware just to play the game.
 
I, however, did. I fired up the PS3 debug, hugged it, and quickly went to work digging into the first officially translated take on mechs 'n' babes.
 

See, here's the thing: Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love is not what you'd call a "breezy" game. In truth, it was probably a good hour and a half of wiggling my way through an admittedly punchy series of decide-on-the-fly actions while just trying to acclimate to the game's host of characters before I even got to the second half of the gameplay equation. Remember, this is a two-fer -- a game that melds two genres one wouldn't normally see linked.
 
A bit of explanation is probably important here. The Sakura Taisen games somehow managed to blend a strategy combat game with the dating/relationship model for more than a decade, but until 2005's Sakura Taisen V, subtitiled "Farewell, My Love," things had found their home base in Japan. Fittingly, the English version of things, "So Long, My Love" is based in the States -- New York, if you like all that precision stuff. The transplant isn't just a swapping of locales, though; leading man Shinjiro Taiga has had to hop a trans-pacific flight of his own to arrive in the Big Apple and he serves as an apt foil for the series' move to a decidedly more familiar home base. Even if he isn't exactly welcomed with open arms.
 
In truth, Shinjiro thought himself the latest recruit into the robo-slugging ranks of plenty of hometown heroes that came before him. The problem? His uncle thinks he's a fantastic fit for the cause... in America. As such, Sakura Wars serves as a neat little dual acclimation to the game's mechanics -- first by dumping Shinjiro into our country and then us as the players into the particulars of the franchise. He effectively starts from scratch; he's "us" in that he doesn't really know all the basics of how to do his job with the added "fun" of being a stranger in a strange land. NISA couldn't have picked a better protagonist to introduce American gamers to a decidedly Japanese experience -- even if the roles are rather flipped.
 
Shinjiro is a stranger in a strange land -- in fact, his first few minutes in Liberty Land have him encountering a bank robbery, foiling it (a little) and then getting blamed for the whole mess before he's bailed out by an enigmatic proprietor named Kamiya that apparently has some serious clout with the boys in blue. Bailed out and dropped onto the doorstep of the Littlelip Theatre, Shinjiro (and I) thought an assignment into the anti-robo force would go smoothly considering he was personally recommended from the top brass in Japan.
 
Things... were not quite so simple. Oh, he found himself in the right place alright, but even a chance encounter with a horse-riding hero-in-training during the quelled bank heist left him as just another Joe Schmoe at the employ of the Off-Broadway theatre that serves as a front for the local robot ass-kicking force. Shinjiro knows this. You know this. They don't really care. It's usher duty for 'Jiro.
 
Granted, I'm skipping ahead a little, but there's a rather painful slap to the face when the actual team that goes to stomp baddies waves "piss-off" to Shinjiro and makes it pretty clear that his superior was meant to arrive in his place. Instead of weeping and ho-humming, though, he sucks it up, offers to pull hardcore usher duties at the Littlelip and waits for his inevitable 777 trip back to Japanland.
 

Except that doesn't happen. See, peppered throughout the Sakura Wars gamut of talking heads (though, admittedly, they do actually blink rather than stand as anime portraits), there are moments where decisions are required. There will often come an opportunity to pick a choice as to how you respond. You're given a trio (usually) of options and the bounding box for that interface starts to snake out a timer, making it plain that there's no chance for hemming and hawing. Make your choice and, if you've chosen wisely, you're greeted with the usual next dialogue box with a pleasant chime.
 
Screw the pooch, though, and you'll get a Price is Right-style baaarooom and you'll know you've botched an opportunity to further your persistent relationship with someone. Many someones, actually, but the good news is that you'll have plenty of opportunity to suss out their personality and go with a response that fits that character, thus winning you brownie points.
 
Eventually, through a series of quick-fire analog stick moments that have you saving one of the stage shows all those girls are performing in nightly, you prove your worth. These segments range from jiggling the analog sticks in logical ways to various dialogue mechanics.
 
Shinjiro (That's you!) buys his way out of a life of scrubbing stage floors and rockets right into Littlelip's true purpose: it rises out of the ground, opens a bay door for a massive ship called the Ahab (which houses the mechs that fight off robo-baddies)and then literally throws the ship out with a crossbow mechanism to take on big-time threats.
 
That's all before you actually get to fight, though. While you're grounded in normal theatre-ticket-tearing form, you're just another guy. And as a normal guy, you'll get the chance to explore New York -- such as it is, in the way of full 3D environments. Depending on who is tagging along, though, that can lead to some interesting bits of conversation. It also depends on which of the various bite-sized chunks of New York you lead them to, from Central Park to a coffee shop, the right lady in tow can introduce better ways to get to know them -- provided you can sweet talk your company.
 
Doing so is more than just flattery and the odd downturned eye; getting to know your fellow (and fittingly all-female) staffers means you grow your bond with them. Better relationships mean better bonds in battle, which means you can unleash Duo Attacks. Ah, but I haven't really dug into that side of things, have I?
 
Yes, impossible as it may sound, you finally get the chance to rock some robot jock with your gal pals. And that's when Sakura Wars rolls out the second part of the equation: thumping on all things mechanical.
 
It's both a blessing and curse that Sakura Wars is hitting now here in the States. Developed by the same folks that gave us the brilliant and woefully undersold Valkyria Chronicles, the roots of the battle system in Sakura Wars are apparent from the second you start your first fight. Everything is governed by a front-and-center meter filled with Mobility.
 

Mobility is the life blood of Sakura Wars' mechs, dubbed Super Telekinetic Assault Robots (STARs in the parlance of our times). Attacking burns a pre-determined chunk of Mobility, as does just moving around (though not in the VC sense; it's burned in chunks), and -- most importantly -- if you go back towards whence you came, you recover Mobility. This little difference means you aren't bound to how you move but where you move.
 
And that's good because melee distance plays a large part in how you attack. All of your squadmembers can rack up five consecutive attacks with progressively more accumulative damage. Snipe a bit with an enemy and then back off; some squad members dole out strikes from long range, others do it up close-range (like 'Jiro, who rocks a set of robo-katanas).
 
Every person on your team can slug it out solo, or they can use their Bonds with other characters to issue a Joint Attack that drains some Spirit from both but does so in a flashy fashion. Oh, and then there are Spirit Attacks that drain another meter (the same for Joint Attacks but not Mobility, mind you). These moves fully depict the anime-inspired nature of the series. They're flashy, complemented by oft-times hilariously over-the-top, personality-specific and hyphen-inducing cutscenes before racking up huge damage. They're also quite fun.
 
But they're still not the whole of what you can do on just a normal turn with an enemy (it should be mentioned that you have to end a turn for a character when you've spent their Mobility in classic strategy fashion). Spirit Attacks consume SP, but that can be burned from your Mobility (so long as enough -- about half of your initial meter -- is still around), and if you have about a quarter of the starting meter, you can Defend. Every turn, units can opt to Heal themselves for a nominal burn of Mobility. All of these things come to a head when the STARs transform into flight mode. Going all Decepticon turns big boss fights into a matter of 360 degree movement and elevation, both of which put your party members in range of specific weak points on an enemy (some of which have to be taken down in order), but also in line with their various defenses. The first major boss, for instance, has proximity, melee and beam weapons that can all be neutralized if taken out properly in due time.
 
I'm not entirely ashamed to admit that the first time I fought the first boss, I went all gung-ho with special and Joint strikes, but I was taken out (luckily, the game lets you retry from the start of a big battle). When the game was just about taking out "normal" grunts, positioning one's units and taking into account range and retaliation were both major factors, making Sakura Wars a true strategy game.
 
Again, slugging it out with bad robots is just one part of the two-part gameplay experience. While roaming a vaguely steampunk New York in Shinjiro's off time, we were able to listen to radio broadcasts that would thicken up the events in the world, and interact with the various members of the team, which included a daydreaming Texas transplant, an overzealous lawyer and an androgynous Japanese girl who refers to herself in the third person.
 

At some points with characters, there's actually the opportunity to move a cursor to select specific body parts that can not only open up new dialogue choices that affect relationships (yes, ogling boobs has a price), but help you get to know the characters better. Even their normally still portraits can reflect mood and change depending on how you deal with them (and a tap of the Select Button will allow you to scroll back through the entire chat history of everyone to see how they reacted to earlier conversations).
 
Suffice it to say, whether because of NISA's localization or the original characters, this isn't the typical group of lads and lasses. There are strong personalities in place here -- and ones that defy conventions to the point where Sakura Wars shows serious indications of precisely why fans of the series have cried out for it to get a localization.
 
Given the setting and characters, So Long, My Love seems to be an introduction tailor-made for the kind of audience that will properly appreciate the experience. And maybe, just maybe, a few folks that wouldn't have given it the chance otherwise might come along for the ride.
 
Supplied by IGN.com