I really wish Sailor Moon had gotten more RPGs because it lends itself so well to the genre! The lack of descriptions for the environment is a small detail I often get frustrated by as well. It's a great opportunity to make the world feel alive and even pack in some world building.
Right? A large party of players, all with their own specific skills and abilities? Totally suited for an RPG! I wonder if all that stuff is in the manual. Curse my inability to read Japanese!
keep in mind when this was released, SM hype was at all time high in Japan/Korea. The target audience would have already known all the backstories. The game isn’t meant to be a standalone narrative like CT or FF6, but “another story” to the franchise. There’s a reason why an official English version was never released. Also by the time SM gained traction in NA, the SNES was on its way out. So it makes sense since there was no demand for one.
Yeah, that's all very true. I guess my expectations of myself were a bit inflated, you know? I thought watching what we had every day growing up would've at least kinda set me up? But it didn't by a long shot!
Honestly I didn't notice how empty of game-interactions the houses and other rooms were in this game until I watched your view. During your live stream, you kept us all entertained and engaged with fun conversation during these "lets go tap all the walls" segments. The fun music and colorful art and sprite work really made this game stand out, and me and my daughter spent many enjoyable evenings watching your live streams of this game. Thank you again for the detailed discussion of this game, it was a real treat to watch this morning!
Thank you! I've definitely been noticing the "filler" aspects of RPGs the more I play them. Breath of Fire and The 7th Saga did a lot of that too, and it felt like a way to take up time more than anything else. I appreciate that you and your little one could sit back and take in some Sailor Mooning with me. Your company is always appreciated!
Your show is amazing. Thanks for the hard work, unique content and in depth analysis that really gives the viewer a feel for the gameplay experience. There are very few channels that give you in 10 minutes an experience of playing a game that realistically you never are going to get time to play yourself. Thanks!
Too kind! I always try to frame these videos from the perspective of my own experience, and it seems to serve others well enough. I'm glad you're enjoying the channel here.
True. I gave up on this game twice because the Sailor Mercury solo was so frustrating and thought to myself I coulndnt go past the game with that level
Seeing this underappreciated channel cover this underappreciated game is a special treat. Both are fantastic! I remember discovering this game at the height of both my Sailor Moon zeal and RPG fanaticism, back in the late 90s. It was a near-perfect blend of everything I loved from both; the game was a little rough around the edges, but then so was the anime. The source material was treated with care rarely seen in a licensed title. (If you have any remaining interest in the anime, check out the third season, "S!" It's the only season covered in this game that you hadn't seen in the original Canadian airing, and in my opinion it's the best.)
Thanks very much! I'm always glad to shine some light on things that don't get a ton of coverage elsewhere. I just wish I'd been in touch with the source material enough to appreciate so much of that care you mentioned here. I'd love to see the rest of the series sometime, and also re-watch the originals from my youth. Thanks for pointing me directly to what I've missed... I found the naming conventions for the seasons a bit confusing!
Thanks for reviewing this. I've been throwing this around as something to play for a couple of years now and this video helped me decide to hold off on it, was great hearing you talk about it in-depth.
Glad to help! As nice as the game looks and as great as an RPG as it was mechanically, there are other better experiences out there that might have more solid immersion you might be holding out for. Anything that shortens the endless list of backlog is helpful!
Grew up watching the English dub on Toonami after school. I fondly remember emulating this game and even learned to play a few of the songs from the OST!
The music was so catchy eh? I had a hard time choosing what to put in the video because there was just so much good music here. This is one of the many games I wish I'd gotten a chance to experience when I was younger!
That was a good overview! I have heard of this game but didn’t know much about it. I don’t feel in a rush to play, but good to know it is a solid entry available
Ooo I was not expecting to see this review. I'm glad you ended up finding the game a lot of fun! I definitely have some nostalgia for this game despite not being very familiar with the series the first time I played. In fact, I think this was my very first introduction to the series. I love the music and sprite work of the game, and while I did lack the context for the series, I think the story did a good enough job to keep me engaged. Its kind of unfortunate the gameplay itself tends to be tedious and grindy, some sections would absolutely demotivate me from continuing. Thankfully there was a balance patch made for it alongside the new translation, so if you ever replay the game I definitely suggest trying those patches out.
I kinda snuck this one out there... and yes, definitely a very fun experience overall despite wanting more from the story side of things. The story was definitely engaging but just confusing? I think the half-translated objects really threw me as well... there were a couple of roadblocks for me here. Have you had the chance to try out the balance patches? I would've appreciated a lot less grind in some spots. I don't usually mind it, but especially that one area right before you fight Rubius, it was misery incarnate.
@@hungrygoriya Iirc the patch is called the "Grind be Gone" patch. It reduces enemy encounter rate by half while doubling XP and Yen. With it, it definitely took me less time to get characters to a decent enough level and make progress. In particular the sections where you control only one sailor scout became way more bearable. In general, just a lot less grinding to deal with a boss. Some bosses like Nabu and Rubius are still frustrating unfortunately, but the overall process taking less time makes it more bearable at least.
@@hungrygoriya I just struggle in any game with more than one physical attack and any timing involved. I just can't puzzle out when I'm supposed to do the light attack, the heavy attack etc. This is a button mashing combat household
(before video) Definitely one of my favorites, even if the translation is a bit off at times (English phrasing is horrendously difficult-I know this firsthand as my native is NOT English), mostly leading to more than a couple handfuls of grammatical and structure errors. 4:42 One of my gripes is with the explanations and names of the ailments. Yeah, consider me afflicted by 'selfishness', lolz 6:56 Pork chops are a status ailment reliever. Yeah; it's for numbness. I consider those 'treasure items' and sell them off. 8:50 Given Hotaru has power directly from *_Talamiura,_* the Governess of Death/Darkness, it's not a surprise that in game, her power is exceptional. It's very lore-friendly, if a bit too much. Problem is that she can deal it but can't take it. Tradeoff? Hm. 10:24 Some of the most powerful healing moves are locked to the Senshi Link. In fact, those would be the only remotely useful skills apart from a few offensive AoE skills like Uranus+Neptune to name one. They all use a lot of EP though. 10:32 Victory, or Cluster. 14:10 I'll have to look that up. Good to know. ... A lot of the original story of the anime was altered for the US English dub. So, there's a lot that this game delves into that will likely be lost on some lesser-fortunate fans of the series, and not just the fact that the majority of the cast were lesbian/bi. Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon is as 'gay harem' as (something I cannot mention on this platform without risking the busted-arse broken algorithm AI falsely censoring me), and the cast, to boot, is adamant about self-defense by any means possible, definitely censored in the US storyline. ... The time travel that the story of this game provides, exists in a bubble, a sandbox; the bubble/sandbox just happens to end up containing all life on Earth and the Moon, because Apsu is powerful enough to pull it off. It's Garland and the 2,000 year time loop, presented in a slightly altered format, and without direct implications of said loop. If Apsu really is sick, her symptoms should be having her bedridden, so I believe she's faking it for sympathy, and wow, does she get said sympathy. Lots of it. (my little tangent on Apsu)
I learned the trick to Mercury's solo boss. You'll need about 10 cure alls for poison, and the manicure item. First spam bubble spray until Nabu's attacks do virtually nothing. Then use manicure. Manicure made Mercury's attacks go from doing 1 damage to 24, absolute game changer
This was a great review tysm! My SO is very much a super fan of the show and I wanted to see if maybe I could share on her enthusiasm by playing this, but I might have to get her to sit beside me and spout lore at me during my playthrough haha.
13:52 yup. This is the “Keikaku means plan.” school of 90’s fansubbing where, congrats you’ve got some proficiency, you’ve done your homework, why the hell do you have to spell it “Bentou set” or use terms like Hotaru-Chan or Older Sister 3:21 “He looks just like my sempai.” 12:52 “Go study more, odango head” C’mon, you weebs, you’re willing to sacrifice readability just for something as dumb as the slight incorrectness of “dumpling head”. Rom hacking is not easy, and something like this is just snatching defeat from the jaws of victory . On the upside, 32 megabit SFC rpg, lots of animation with big sprites and cool enemy designs that follow the show. Late generation SFC/SNES is a real treat
If I did, I certainly didn't mean to sound ungrateful for the work of the localizers... I just struggled a lot with the story, and those mostly Japanese words and phrases didn't help any of that fog to lift! I would've enjoyed reading "meatball head" because it would've been a good memory jog. I wonder if the new translation effort fixed up some of those things or if they were also retained for the new version. And it was such a beautiful game to look at! What it lacked in story depth for all the Sailor Moon lore I just didn't have it made up for in the visuals. I played Front Mission: Gun Hazard as well, and that was probably just as gorgeous!
@@hungrygoriya Ah! The new rom hack is a complete re-translation that fixes a lot of mistakes in the original. www.romhacking.net/translations/snes/patches/4654readme.txt
Oddly, my experience with Sailor Moon has been the complete opposite of yours. I only watched a couple episodes here and there of the American TV broadcast. Then a friend of mine found some tapes of the last two seasons in Japanese. Things got REALLY weird in that series, I'll just say that. When I first found out there was a Sailor Moon RPG I burst out laughing. I instantly started playing it, even though I had no idea there was an English patch (or maybe it didn't exist back then, this was a long time ago). I didn't expect to get very far, but somehow I managed to blunder through a large chunk of the game before I just couldn't figure out where to go next. I felt like it was a surprisingly good game and was sad I couldn't play it for real. I never did figure out what was up with the magic points. It actually kinda makes sense that Saturn is OP. If I recall correctly she has the power to destroy the entire universe, and the outer scouts were trying to keep her from gaining her powers so she wouldn't be able to do it. Then, of course, Sailor Moon comes in with her whole power of friendship deal to set things right, or something.
Do you think knowing that there's a patch now might entice you to go back and finally have that for real playthrough you'd been hoping for? That might actually be fun to do given your past experience with all this. And that's pretty much all I know about Sailor Saturn, that she had some amazing power that could destroy everything, but no idea about her surrounding plot. I'm extremely curious to say the least!
Some day I'll check it out for sure. It'll probably coincide with tracking down the anime and watching the whole series instead of just the last part. (They finally re-released it a while back on DVD/Bluray. Might have even put out the entire series by now. But the price tag: oof!) Or it'll just pile up in my endless, ever growing backlog... I hope you get to see the whole thing yourself some day. There's definitely some good stuff in there. And some tragic stuff. And some really confusing stuff. Also, a lot of stuff got changed in the original English release. Just be prepared is all. As a side note, the Genesis game might amuse you, even if only with the character select screen and the goofy voice clips. It's very hard to understand "moon prism power make up!" when it's compressed audio files in Japanese.
I just bought this game last year and added it to my backlog. Can't wait to check it out. If you have Hulu then you can watch all 5 seasons of Sailor Moon on there. I also grew up with the NA dub version, and watching it with subs and the origibal Japanese voice actors is the best way to go. My daughter and I watched it a couple of years back. So glad to have finally been able to complete the series.
Unfortunately I don't have any streaming services, but I would really love to either revisit the original dub I grew up with or try out the subbed versions. When I was writing this review I watched some bits and pieces of the show on UA-cam and I really enjoyed them... it's only a matter of time I think! And enjoy the game when you get around to it. I'm sure you'll have a good time. Do you know if you got the most recent translation on your copy?
@@hungrygoriya you can always sign up for a free month trial to Hulu just to binge watch the show. The only thing that's jarring at first is the name changes. Even in the new english dub, Serena is Usagi, her traditional name in Japan, and Darien is Endymion, just to name a few. Coming from someone qith nostalgic love for the 90's version, I felt closure being able to finally complete the series. And the way it ends just brought a huge smile to my face!
@@RunMeThrough This game changed the names too and it made things even more complicated than they already were with the translation troubles. Getting a month free trial is a good idea though.
Oh crazy! There's a website I've been buying SNES games that didn't release here (like Ys 4 and Terranigma) and this is one of the games listed there. Maybe I'll give this one a go! Thanks for the lovely review and glorious insight!
Right on! Have fun! I'm not sure how many reproductions you've bought in the past, but if these are the first, you might want to do a bit of research for reviews to make sure that the site's making a reputable product. Some reproductions are badly made depending on who is making them (don't save, have a bad rom, etc.) One other thing to think about is that some repros are made from sacrificing existing games to make other games. Some have become super rare and hard to find as a result... just some things to bear in mind! I have no problems with reproductions, but I just wanted to mention this to you because nobody told me when I started looking into them.
@@hungrygoriya good to know! I usually don't buy repros but I really wanted to play Terranigma and it worked well and saved! So far the seller has been pretty good but thanks for the tips! I really appreciate it!
Sailor Moon was a little before my time... The magical girl show I remember watching when I was little was Cardcaptor Sakura, shame the English dub sucked so much, but the show stuck with me enough that I later got into the manga, and eventually watched the anime subbed and I loved it! Unfortunately, I can't say Sakura lucked out as much as Sailor Moon when it comes to video game adaptations... Sailor Moon's got an RPG, some decent beat'em ups, fighting games, even puzzle games! Good stuff... The only Cardcaptor Sakura games I found were one which I believe to be a minigame collection on GBA, and a visual novel that I can't read (yet) on WonderSwan...
You know, I had three very good friends in high school that were very much into anime, and I hadn't heard the name Cardcaptor Sakura since then. It was one of the shows they used to talk about! I am totally unfamiliar with it, but I'm sorry you haven't had an opportunity to enjoy it in the ways you want to. Hopefully that WonderSwan game gets a translation sometime... I'm sure there are lots of others in the same boat as you just patiently awaiting the day.
I don't blame you for liking it! It was pretty fun and reasonably challenging. I'd been hoping to connect more with the story, but that was an oversight on my part! Thanks very much for checking this out.
Oof this game brought up such a roller coaster of thoughts when I played it. So much goodness and talent, along with so much laziness in game design that makes you ask "why". Like there's such a large amount of tactical choice in the gameplay but almost no reason to bother with exploring it. I feel like cluster formation and sailor saturn are kind of like just making everyone spam ultima in final fantasy 6. Except in this game you can pretty much do it from the start. I'm a pretty big sailor moon fan, read the manga in japanese and watched all the series and movies and it really does make a difference as far as the story goes. The game really does deliver on the novelty of actually playing a team of sailer scouts and going on an adventure. The special attack animations just feel so satisfying when you're already familiar with them from the show. I was sold from the beginning despite how everything outside the story and graphics felt kind of hollow. The things that were well done in the game really did keep me plodding on. Although if it weren't for the franchise I might have put it aside well before the end.
I totally agree with you. The base attacks for most people are nice enough, but all of the group attack stuff was totally over my head. There was a ton of lost potential here for what could've been a really unique battle system. I truly wish I'd come into this game with more experience from the show/manga/movies but alas :( I would love to replay it sometime if I ever sit down and watch the rest down the line.
One of many games not released here on there original console that I first played on a friend's PC though some of the non-licensed games I played that way were released here later. Also one of the first animes I watched though I didn't know what anime was at the time. The order I started watching my first 5 animes was Technoman/Tekkaman Blade, Starblazers, Robotech, Sailor Moon, and Gundam Wing I believe (I may have three and four flipped but the rest I'm sure on)
This was also my first (and pretty much only) anime, and I also had no idea what it was at the time... it was the first experience I had with cartoons that were not just slapstick humour like everything else I watched growing up. I loved it though!
@@hungrygoriya it is actually a balancing problem. I cheated to get an extra 10 levels or so before it felt right. Either the boss was OP or LNF's patch accidentally altered some values
I wonder what it would look like if the Opposito Senshi had cosplayers. When I went to a comic convention and got to talk to the Jacksonville Sailor Sensi cosplay team, they asked about ideas, and I mentioned them. They didn't know about the translated ROM, so I mentioned it. In 2016, I bought the various Viz subtitled DVDs, so I knew what the later characters were. I discovered ROMs and emulators in 1999, and played the Super Famicom and Megadrive beat-em-ups. I thought they were awful and laughed so hard at them. If I won the lottery, I'd pay the AVGN to review them. I'd rather shove a magic wand up my nostrils and fry my brain with a spell!
Oh interesting! I think the Oppositio Senshi are just from this game, right? That's a neat idea for cosplay though. Something brand new that nobody else has done very often! I have no interest in playing the beat-em-ups at all really. I can't get into those games at all, even if they star cool characters. Are they really that bad? Control-wise or something else?
@@hungrygoriya I think this game was the only place the Opposito Senshi were seen. However, I have only seen the first anime. They might have ended up in Crystal, Eternal, or one of the live action musicals. The beat 'em ups were just mediocre at best. You can watch various reviews of them that would explain it way better than I do.
Funny you mention looking down at the controller for the thief battles in Yoshi's Island. I used to do the same thing when I was a kid. That button layout is now permanently burned in my brain. Makes playing games with an Xbox controller rather tough, though.
Yeah! See I didn't grow up with an SNES but had a Playstation 2 when I was 16, so I learned that layout. I still have a hard time with menus in SNES RPGs around which buttons cancel and accept things.
This was such a great game. I don't remember exactly where in the story but there was one part where you're in an ice land as Amy. I had some weird combination come out where the boss could only hurt me enough to where I had to heal now and then but my attack only took a small amount of it's hp, I'm talking like 1-3 per hit. That fight literally took me hours somehow and I was soooooooo relieved when I finally beat it everyone other than Amy had died a long time ago.
Were you alone with Amy there? It might've been the fight I showed in the video because your experience sounds really similar to mine. I was facing off with a boss and the only reason I won eventually was because the boss ran out of MP.
For any fans of Sailor Moon I'd recommend checking out the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime. I got into it after playing the Saturn fan translation of the game, now it's one of my favourite animes.
It was surprisingly beautiful and smooth as an RPG. I just wish the story had been a little better with me as an audience member. Can't win them all I guess.
This actually looks like a ton of fun, and the production values here are just fantastic. Sadly, I am quite the noob when it comes to Sailor Moon, but I kinda want to give this a try anyway
I feel in love eith this game as soon as i played it. Since i was really a fan of the storie, O didn't have much trouble to get it, although I can recognize that some Japanese terms throw me off a little. However the voice actong on the attacks was my favorite part. I love Japanese voice acting so for me wasn't a trouble. The music is spectacular, directly from the series. Such amazing work. Th only part that is a downer for me is the grinding. So difficult to gain experience once you have a high level, sometimes its get annoying. Anyway, excellent video 😊
I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! I liked it too, but just wish I could've connected with most of the story a bit more. I think repetitive voice calls get tiresome for me in every game that has them. And here, it was so frequent and felt like it slowed the battles down, so I wasn't a huge fan. It wasn't a make or break for me, but definitely worth a mention based on my preferences.
While I totally respect the idea of creating a game thats aimed for the hardcore fans of a series, this game is a bit too.. I dont know, vague, for those who arent as familiar with the material. There's one quest early one where they say, and Im paraphrasing of course, "We need to go where we first met her". With pretty much an entire town open to explore, and nothing else to guide me, it felt like fumbling my way in the dark. Other than that, Im a big fan of it.
I think we are very much on the same page. There are lots of open ends when you don't know the story, and while wandering around will get you there eventually, it's far from the ideal way to play a game as long and as involved as this one.
I've never played this game, but I've always salivated over the screen shots. You're so right - the sprites are like top 5 in the 16 bit generation. And I feel like modern RPG sprite sheets are quite hard to do well. My ex wife was a huge sailor moon fan, so I've seen a lot of sailor scout media... I highly recommend the 2000s live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon for so bad it's good entertainment.
@@jwrush I am going to have to look into this! I heard they did some live action stuff but had no idea when any of it got released. I love so bad it's good stuff. Thanks for the suggestion! I'm glad we're in agreement about the sprites. I've seen some great-looking SNES games but this one was a pleasant surprise! I wasn't expecting it to look quite as nice as it did!
I played this before I'd watched a single episode of Sailor Moon; my sister had been into it when she was younger, but she and I are quite a lot of years apart, so I'd just written it off as some kids' show that I wouldn't enjoy. Within the last few years, I've watched the entire series, and since I remember so little of this (even a lot of what I saw in this review), I think it'd be interesting to play again, now knowing who any of these characters are. I do remember that the Sailor Senshi went from just about useless to completely overpowered once you found their matching accessories, and a brick wall boss gauntlet about halfway through that softlocked me because I couldn't grind, but not a lot else.
I still remember that wonderful time around 2000 or so, when people online were talking about sailor moon and there were all these websites, I could find out everything we'd missed on this side of the pacific, plus Toonami was airing seasons 3 and 4 less edited than before.. it was pretty special. but my super moonhead friends did tell me that the videogames were a letdown. not bad, but not really worth playing.
When I played this I used a dual patch with both the English translation as well as a grind be gone feature which greatly reduced the amount of grinding required to advance thru the game making my life much easier....plus I agree being someone who has only watched the English dub of the original anime, and having never finished it at that, some greater context to the story and characters I was unfamiliar with would have gone a long way...great review tho!
Thanks so much! And yeah, I was aware of some other patches might exist out there but I always like to suffer through the original design of games first and then come back to it with those perks. A grind patch would've really helped though!
I can still hear the attack screeches in my head. Also pork chops solve just about everything. Sorry this game didn't quite live up to what you were hoping for, but you'll always have Artemis with this wide-eyed optimism. Excellent work as always!
I wish I had clipped your Sailor Jupiter impressions... those were so funny! Artemis' stare is sooooo silly. That was probably the funniest part of the whole game for me: his inappropriate smile.
13:35 I just got my English translated repro of Sailor Moon: Another Story in the mail today. Comparing your footage with what little I played so far, it looks like I got the 2020 version and the team behind it did a fantastic job with the updated translation (like “Shitennou no Hako” being changed to “Four Kings’ Case” for example). Not sure if you’ll ever play this one again in the future but, if you ever do, the 2020 translation patch is definitely the way to go.
This is good to know! I'm sure the translators did their best with all of this at the time, but knowing there's an extra-refined version out there is good to recommend if anyone asks.
Now i know why a lot of people love this game, quite interesting mechanics and near graphics, gotta check it out, but now romancing saga 2 is calling me, grear video thank you for your hard work
Great video HG. I agree, this game does a good job of capturing the feel of the anime. Though I was a bit disappointed by the lack of the track "The Outer Senshis" from the anime. As for the game, I tried it initially in the early 2000's, got frustrated with the grind-y nature, and restarted a new game with a cheat that starts off all playable characters at level 16. Er ... as Sailor Moon might say "私のホバークラフトは鰻でいっぱいです" :D
I'll have to check out that tune actually... I didn't talk about music here much but it was pretty good as well. It was definitely a grind, you're right. You and your endless codes! That had better say: In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!
I recently also tried another anime-based RPG for the SNES, Ranma 1/2: Treasure of the Red Cat Gang. Now, if you've never seen Ranma... hunt it down, now. You won't regret it. (Though it might be a good idea to read the manga instead, especially if you end up liking it enough to want to read the whole thing). Maybe review that one in the future? I was actually gonna post a long review about it but then I realized I don't want to bias you before you've even played the game. I would strongly recommend being familiar with the source material first though.... though in Ranma's case its far easier to get caught up.
I think I saw a tiny bit of Ranma 1/2 when I was a kid since I had friends that were really into anime. They used to like to rent a few tapes every year for their birthday parties. I'll think about taking the plunge into the show and playing the game sometime. From what I can remember from that teenaged experience, the show was funny.
Hey! A game I actually recognize. My wife definitely makes some of these oddities a bit more understandable. Alienating an audience is never good, but I guess it is understandable for the developers to expect you to know what you're playing. But a little exposition would be nice. You did a great job with this one! I do hope one day we might get something new with the Sailor Moon franchise.
Thanks! A little more backstory would've helped tremendously, at least to fill in a few gaps here and there. Alas! It was still fun as an RPG even though I didn't have a lot of context for the story. While I think it'd be great to have some more Sailor Moon stuff come out here, I'd also need to do some catching up on backstory before diving into anything else. I've learned my lesson!
@@hungrygoriya It looks like it didn't get to Stars so that's not too bad. Definitely recommend getting to the Outer Scouts. Saturn is quite the beast!
i remember my younger sister playing this game on emulator back in the day, it must have been close after or in 1999 (when this translation patch first came out), i was more into rpgs than she was so i tried to watch her play and give her tips. i think she got very far in the game but not sure if she beat it. she was (like you) a fan of sailor moon, and also not familiar with the characters that didn't air on tv here.
Don't worry. The first Sailor Moon beat-em-up on the SNES was pretty bad. The Sailor Moon R game at least improved the playability. The two SNES beat-em-ups had their music reused in the RPG. Also, never mention the arcade game, unless you have friends, and expect to pump in quarters. I remember my sister playing this one, when we discovered SNES9x. I was more into Chrono Trigger at the time, trying to figure out why holding L+R+A wasn't working. BTW, this never goes anywhere near the SuperS season. In fact, it fits somewhere after S and before SuperS. Be grateful for that.
I was perusing the soundtracks from the other games last night when I was putting the finishing touches on the video and was surprised to see so many of the same songs in the other games. So interesting! And I get ya... this game is no Chrono Trigger, but it at least looks the part!
@@hungrygoriya I thought the reuse of the music was fitting, since the original series reused music from past seasons as well. Same composer, too! If you haven't already discovered, the soundtracks for some of the SNES games aren't straight recordings of the game audio, but completely arranged in the same style as the (Japanese) show's background music.
@@absuplendous Right on! I think a few people mentioned they'd taken some music from the Japanese version of the show, and I was floored that there was a difference to begin with! I suppose it makes sense though. This whole game experience blew my perception of North American-dubbed DiC Sailor Moon out of the water!
@@hungrygoriya As I recall there isn't any music from the show in the game, but a lot of sound-alikes. I assumed there was some copyright barrier in play. Some music in the games would later "reappear" in later seasons of the anime as sound-alikes, too. One game song was used in the last season. (I was really into the music back in the day!) And on that note, yes, the difference between the DiC music and the Japanese music is vast and incredible!
@@absuplendous Ohhhh! Maybe I misunderstood then. It's still neat to know I have a whole other show worth of Sailor Moon music to experience if I ever get around to watching the subbed versions!
Good review. I was really young when I saw Sailor Moon. Kinda want to watch the DIC dub again. Idk about the jrpg though. I still need to try Arabian Nights on SFC some more.
If you have some time, you might as well dive into the dub... I have really fond memories of it and I'd be curious to watch it and beyond now that I've played the game.
Oh you're in Canada! Toronto? I used to love Sailor Moon as a kid (crush on her, wanted to be tuxedo mask yada yada yada), but my ex from a few years back was obsessed with the English dub. So I went with her a couple times to the Sailor Moon Con at the Science centre, which was honestly pretty cool. Sailor moon was a pretty awful dub in hindsight, but the IP was really cool. The show had some themes that were pretty cool and progressive. Much like Power Puff Girls it really felt like the media's way of introducing kids to the girl power themes that 3rd wave feminism seemed to bring with it. Kickass and cute aesthetic. Emotional yet powerful, check. I wish I was old enough to appreciate JRPG type games in the 90s. But alas I was born in '93 and my SNES days were strictly, Zelda, Mario, and DKC at my grandma's.
I'm in Ontario but don't usually get more specific than that, but nice to know another Ontarian! I didn't realize there had been a Sailor Moon Con at the science center... I've been there for other things throughout my life but I might've been interested to go if I had known! Cool! I also wish I could've played some of these games when they were first out. I didn't get into JRPGs until the 2000s myself so I'm very late to the party!
I was one who watched a lot of the original dub. I was so wanting more I was one of those dorks who found the rest online in the early days of the internet. Even lucky enough to find decent fan subs! Through this I found out just why they didn’t go beyond what they dubbed originally. That dub edited a lot just to make it safe for tv at the time, and some of the later subject matter wouldn’t have gone over well without more heavy editing. If you are a fan it’s worth the watch, and the ending! It … I can’t even vaguely comment without spoilers! Anyways, enough with my super fan rant. I always wanted to find this game. It’s both RPG and Sailor Moon so it is a must. Unfortunately, from what I heard, it’s one of those you do need to be a fan who has seen up to a point. I hate tie in games and movies that do that. I know it’s hard to design something for the uninitiated but not everyone knows all the Sailors! Anyways, this wasn’t a review of the anime, but I tend to rant and I love Sailor Moon 🌙 and for those who say “it’s a girl show” come on man! I was a young teen who saw cute girls use super powers to destroy evil! What’s not to love?
I still have yet to watch anything more than what aired on TV when I was a kid, but I've definitely wanted to. It's just such a significant time sink! I'm glad you got into it back then. I really think this game is meant for people like you who are familiar with a lot more of the series than I am. If you play it sometime, I'm sure you'll love it!
What nostalgia! I´ve watched it on german channel (I think RTL2), just becuse it was before Pokemon. And then I believe there was Dragon Ball Z from 20.00 and it had teletext CHAT! Oh man, I´ve blown a lot of money when sending SMS to abroad xD
Oh no! That's too funny though... I don't think we ever had text interaction with TV back then. This was on in the 90s for me on Canadian television well before I had a cell phone. I watched a bit of Pokemon as well, but never Dragon Ball Z. I've heard that show was great too!
@Boco Corwin I remember Digimon and Pokemon coming on back to back on the weekends when I was a kid. And I think Sailor Moon was standalone after school. Or maybe I just flipped to something else afterward. I don't remember running into any other anime until I was a bit older.
Great review! I was always curious about this one. I remember first coming across this when I was looking for a gift for my sister's birthday 3 years ago and snagged her some retro games for her Retron5, though I ended up getting her a copy of the puzzle game Fuwa Fuwa Panic instead (still looks great though; I think a lot of the Sailor Moon SFC gamse look pretty dang good), but I forgot it existed afterwards and just never got around to checking it out. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm genuinely surprised there aren't more RPGs for the brand... or magical girl RPGs in general. I mean, they never really do _fight scene-style fights_ in these shows traditionally, they always just talk & eventually throw out special attacks (spells) all the time when taking on villains. Seems like RPGs would make a better fit for "classic" magical girls (newer stuff like Madoka Magica and, like, Flip Flappers or Magical Spec Ops Asuka show magical girls that can actually fight and would be a better fit for fighting games), yet there are so few out there. Is this the only Sailor Moon one? Good on you for highlighting it then, but that is really weird....
I agree that the Sailor Moon games look wonderful no matter what kind of game they are. I'd be curious to try out some of the puzzle games sometime since there's a ton of those as well, but like I said here, I have no hope of making it very far in any of the fighting ones. RPGs are way more my speed, and I was also surprised at this being the only RPG entry in the Sailor Moon series. I am not very well-versed in anime in general so I can't speak to other examples from other franchises, but I agree that this formula would work well for classic magical girl stuff. Definitely!
@@hungrygoriya I'm not super well versed in magical girl anime myself, actually, lol. I only know of Madoka Magica and Flip Flappers from, like, clips that UA-cam recommend. I will say they both have some pretty cool looking fight scenes though!
I never really got this series, I think it's because it wasn't shown on television here in the UK at the same time it was either being made or broadcast in the US, and then there would be better things to be watching or doing with your time, like, would pokemon have been as popular elsewhere has it not shown the show in english
I remember seeing Sailormoon rented in the Video store in the mid-late 90's, manga was new and else only you could see it on some cable channels, after 9 evening. Guyver for example was discontinued on Tv after a few episodes cause of violence, graphic adult scenes and such, so renting was the thing and using 2 video recorders to copy, good memories. Even shin-chan was around in the early 2000's and an odd kid show for Europe. 90's, manga was pretty unique still. The games here were never available either in the EU, far I know. But I started with emulators of Zsnes since 97 and then early translations for Japanese Snes games! Wish I bought way more Snes games back in the 90's and 00's, then the dozen I got.
The neighbour I had growing up used to have the whole two VCR recording setup going too, haha... those were the days! I've heard that folks in the EU missed out on a lot of great games. We missed out on some here in Canada as well, so I feel for you!
@@hungrygoriya Yes when I used emulators later on I found like so many that never left the USA to us. I even have a converter plug to put in old snes to play American games, cause the american cartridges were different shaped and such. Only way back then to get FF3, breath of fire and a lot other games, through special small stores here.
Even doing research I had some trouble with this game - the difficulty is unbalanced you either get floored or destroy everything: no middle ground or strategy like you said. It makes me wonder about the true target demographic because it is simultaneously easy to play combat wise but tough to get to the point where you can do that at some points. I took a few breaks out of frustration but I would like to get back to it. I think once I finish rewatching season 3/S I can dive head into it. A lot of things feel like chores like you mentioned the link which I totally agreed with - all you do is manually match the girls in groups, why do that I wonder? It felt like busy work, didn't teach much of anything other than what the attack is. Still overall it is compelling as a fan from a story telling perspective but would be better suited as a movie than a game in my opinion because the interactive part feels a bit flat. I love it because I am a fan but otherwise I couldn't recommend it, to others. I think from what I wrote just now we probably agree over-all, I'm just hashing out what you said differently from my perspective. Spot on.
Yeah, I agree with you about the target demographic... those steep difficulty climbs were hard for me even as someone that loves RPGs, but other than that, it was cake. It's hard to really see the truth in there. I really do hope you get back to it and finish it soon and that you'll share a bit with me if you find anything interesting in the link techs because I just couldn't be bothered. It'd be cool to see this story adapted to movie form, agreed!
My memories of Sailor Moon go like this: Young kid sees Anime, "Hey neat" Hears name of Moon's BF 'Tuxedo Mask', laughs. Has crush on Sailor Jupiter. Becomes a teenager and finds out Jupiter is a lesbian. 🤯🤦
hey hold on, I don't see your signature zelda 1 meat on the thumbnail, ha really good looking game though, if I was a sailor moon person I'd easily give this a go
:O I forgot!! Thank you for the reminder! It was a beautiful game, that's for sure! I got through it with a very loose grasp on the story myself, so apart from knowing who a few of the characters were coming into it.
@@hungrygoriya sure thing, always like seeing how you incorporate it seems like something you can get the most out of if you know the source material, though maybe at some point I'll look into
All I could think of while watching this were all the Harry Potter RPGs on Game Boy, and how weird it is that so many pop culture icons actually dared to dip their toes into the genre. You didn't happen to be into HP at all, did you? Have you played those games?
I've read the first few HP books and finally saw all the movies a few years ago, but I have yet to try any of the games out. I've heard good things about a few of them though!
@@hungrygoriya I was, yes. though, as i was playing the 99 translation as well, some of the localization was rough (ie untranslated) and had to figure out through context, but it was a bit easier than if I hadn't seen everything prior to
Yeah, Saturn is basically the bringer of the apocalypse so her being overpowered makes sense in the lore. Very strange gameplay choice though lol. Also, wouldn't Pluto die every time she used time stop? 🤔
Hahaha I guess they had to make her cool because she had such ultimate power maybe? And was she supposed to die if she used time stop? I don't know much about her story either!
@@hungrygoriya Was going to smash the keyboard and say "first, finally after all these-" my kid squeals... I'm just getting back ...at this rate my next lapse may be 19 years. Going to have to place the goal back on the friggin bucket list. 😟 Great review tho!
Gonna be brutal honest, I did finish this game twice and I still dont understand why they did hate Sailor Jupiter that much her chapter was SOOOOO UNBEARABLY HAAAAAAARD.
I don't know how you managed! I guess I wandered through the game without knowing much of what was going on story-wise... were the menus translated at least?
@@hungrygoriya I cannot remember, but it wasn't good enough to keep my interest. I tried later in life to play with an English patch, but I was well passed my curiosity by then.
I watched this show back when I was a horny teenager back in the 90s, for the reasons horny teenagers watch things like this. Having said that I tried my best to pay attention to characterization and lore. Personality and characterization means a lot to me, because anyone can draw an attractive and sexy female, and when you have a show or game, you need to have more than that. I like the fact there were many different girls, but they would fight/argue all of the time (and I mean ALL of the time) which was one of the main turn offs. Mercury and Mars where the biggest offenders. Sailor Moon herself was a massive off put by me; I can appreciate an MC *not* being a cookie cutter good guy, you can have a character with "personality" without making them a selfish, mater... like Link from the Super Mario Bros. super show. Serena and Darian are essentially Link and Zelda from that show, with the gender's swapped. I have watched the Outer scout arc, so I'll fill you in on them: Sailor Saturn's only attack is the End the World. That's it. In the game she can just use it like Ultima from FF6 but she LITERALLY cannot use her magic without blowing the planet up. Sailor Pluto is flat out NOT allowed to used her Time Stop power and cannot even leave her lair unless she is told to. Uranus and Neptune are a lesbian couple in the Japanese (in the English Dub, there are "cousins"). The "Outer" scouts have their own agenda, and conflict with the OG team like the Marvel Civil War. A lot of the character reveals were seen coming miles away, such as Darian being Tuxedo Mask and being married to Serena 1000 years ago, Renee being Serena and Darian's daughter, and if you didn't guess that the grey kitten was Luna and Artemis's child, you haven't been paying attention (it gets exceptionally cringeworthy when Luna outright accuses Artemis of cheating on her, even though it's obviously HER CHILD). Some of my favorite things in the game is Lita/Jupiter wanting to be a housewife/cook/sew person in spite of being the physically strongest, in an age where everyone was making "strong female characters" who don't need no man because being capable of taking care of yourself without having a man 100% of the time and being a damsel are not exclusive traits (also women in Japanese society trained in the use of the Naginata (japanese polearm) and Native American women trained with men with the Composite Bow, and both still did the standard housewife thing in both cases). Her backstory implies people pick fights with her because of her size (Japanese kids bullying people for being different). Saturn is also my other favorite because of reasons I said above and she looks better in white to me than the other scouts. The problem you have with Mercury in that boss battle is that you need to put her in the FRONT front row for her scenario, because the game exaggerates front/back row spots. Also characters with incapacitating effects drop like a truck, can be one-shotted pretty easily. There is supposed to be a 180 puzzle piece thing you get from chests and enemies drops, but enemies stopped dropping it after a time, meaning you can't complete the puzzle.
When I tried to play it, I also was using the original translation, and it bugged me. Just saying, I hate when the translator is overly fannish or weeby, and thus they think its best to just leave terms in Japanese rather than translate them. Mamoru calling her "odango" head rather than either of the two acceptable English translations (Meatball head or Dumpling head) is an example of this, though I was more bothered by things like "Ginzuishou" or "shittenou no hako." You know how some people don't like Star Trek because they hate having to hear tons of nonsense technobabble? Yeah, this gives me that effect. I also recall some aspects of the story feeling fanfic-ish. Now, I came in a little better informed than you because I had seen a fansub of the anime, so I knew what they were talking about when they called some demons "youma" [what Queen Beryl's monsters were called] and others "daimons" [Professor Tomoe's monsters]. But.... thing that gets me is, Sailor Moon seeing some monster and instinctively knowing "that's a youma!" is kinda... weird. Like, from an outside perspective, a monster is a monster. It's like someone seeing two rabbits and instinctively knowing one of them is a hare. Sailor Moon itself, for me, is one of those oddities in a couple of ways. First, I actually do think the DIC dub is better than the original Japanese in a bunch of ways (most notably in Serena/Usagi being given more snark, and I prefer the DIC music a lot of times). But at the same time, its a show that is hard to go back to. Back in the day, watching one episode a day was fun and doable. But today the culture is around binge-watches and streaming and Sailor Moon can actually be annoying to watch if you're binging... ... At least, it can be until you get to a season midpoint or story arc bit, at which point it suddenly becomes really effing good. These days I would instead read the manga, though that tells a vastly different story from the anime.
Ugh. The worst part about anime based games past and present, is they are not designed to be great games to get you into the anime but just to make a buck off those into the anime. Like the story comment, that's silly that you need info from the TV show. Batman Arkham and Spiderman for ps4 are prime examples how to take a media and make it into a video game where fans and non fans can fall in love
I can't agree with this sentiment enough. There might've been some backstory in the manual that I couldn't understand since it's in Japanese, but certainly not enough to cover every character and relationship you need some insight into to get the most out of this game.
@@hungrygoriya the sad part is this game is amazing. It isn't typical shovel ware. They did put a lot of effort into it. So there is a great game here to be enjoyed by any jrpg fans, but dropped the ball a bit on the 4th wall side of the story being told. I'd just really like to play a One Peice videogame that didn't rely on me watching 800 episodes which I absolutely won't be doing but I'd totally love some insight to this world that so many people love.
@@braydenb1581 I agree with you completely. It'd be nice to get introduced to a series through a game rather than the game being some sort of fan service instead.
I really wish Sailor Moon had gotten more RPGs because it lends itself so well to the genre!
The lack of descriptions for the environment is a small detail I often get frustrated by as well. It's a great opportunity to make the world feel alive and even pack in some world building.
Right? A large party of players, all with their own specific skills and abilities? Totally suited for an RPG!
I wonder if all that stuff is in the manual. Curse my inability to read Japanese!
keep in mind when this was released, SM hype was at all time high in Japan/Korea. The target audience would have already known all the backstories. The game isn’t meant to be a standalone narrative like CT or FF6, but “another story” to the franchise. There’s a reason why an official English version was never released. Also by the time SM gained traction in NA, the SNES was on its way out. So it makes sense since there was no demand for one.
Yeah, that's all very true. I guess my expectations of myself were a bit inflated, you know? I thought watching what we had every day growing up would've at least kinda set me up? But it didn't by a long shot!
Ha! My dog used to howl along with the Sailor Moon theme song.
I love how unpolished the vocals are. I still howl along with the words when I hear it, haha
Honestly I didn't notice how empty of game-interactions the houses and other rooms were in this game until I watched your view. During your live stream, you kept us all entertained and engaged with fun conversation during these "lets go tap all the walls" segments. The fun music and colorful art and sprite work really made this game stand out, and me and my daughter spent many enjoyable evenings watching your live streams of this game. Thank you again for the detailed discussion of this game, it was a real treat to watch this morning!
Thank you! I've definitely been noticing the "filler" aspects of RPGs the more I play them. Breath of Fire and The 7th Saga did a lot of that too, and it felt like a way to take up time more than anything else. I appreciate that you and your little one could sit back and take in some Sailor Mooning with me. Your company is always appreciated!
@matt fahringer Yeah, it's solid as an RPG if you don't mind a little grinding.
@@hungrygoriya I think they should make this downloadable for the switch.
@@humangirl2122 It would be nice to see it reach a wider audience, agreed.
Haha you are right. Breath of fire is almost all filler material . I still love it though
Coming from somebody who had zero interest in Sailor Moon, watching you play it kinda sold me on trying it sometime. Looks really fun.
Even if you ignore all the Sailor Moon bits, it's a great game. Good luck with it if you do jump in!
Your show is amazing. Thanks for the hard work, unique content and in depth analysis that really gives the viewer a feel for the gameplay experience. There are very few channels that give you in 10 minutes an experience of playing a game that realistically you never are going to get time to play yourself. Thanks!
Too kind! I always try to frame these videos from the perspective of my own experience, and it seems to serve others well enough. I'm glad you're enjoying the channel here.
Love it! And your intro music is so warming.
Goriya content two weeks in a row? 2021 really *is* getting better!
"We pretty much poked each other for 30 minutes." LOL
It was literally The Pokening. It took forever. When that boss ran out of EP I exclaimed, "Yasssssssssssssss!" and it went a lot faster after that.
True. I gave up on this game twice because the Sailor Mercury solo was so frustrating and thought to myself I coulndnt go past the game with that level
I have got to say, I absolutely love your interest and videos covering retro games. Thank you for another great video ☺️
You're welcome. Thanks for taking some time to watch what I'm putting out there. I appreciate it.
@@hungrygoriya I have even been enjoying your back catalogue of great content , thank you for keeping me entertained 🤗
Seeing this underappreciated channel cover this underappreciated game is a special treat. Both are fantastic! I remember discovering this game at the height of both my Sailor Moon zeal and RPG fanaticism, back in the late 90s. It was a near-perfect blend of everything I loved from both; the game was a little rough around the edges, but then so was the anime. The source material was treated with care rarely seen in a licensed title.
(If you have any remaining interest in the anime, check out the third season, "S!" It's the only season covered in this game that you hadn't seen in the original Canadian airing, and in my opinion it's the best.)
Thanks very much! I'm always glad to shine some light on things that don't get a ton of coverage elsewhere. I just wish I'd been in touch with the source material enough to appreciate so much of that care you mentioned here. I'd love to see the rest of the series sometime, and also re-watch the originals from my youth. Thanks for pointing me directly to what I've missed... I found the naming conventions for the seasons a bit confusing!
Your videos are so cozy, and they remind me of a simpler time. Good work!
Awww thanks! That makes me happy to hear :)
Thanks for reviewing this. I've been throwing this around as something to play for a couple of years now and this video helped me decide to hold off on it, was great hearing you talk about it in-depth.
Glad to help! As nice as the game looks and as great as an RPG as it was mechanically, there are other better experiences out there that might have more solid immersion you might be holding out for. Anything that shortens the endless list of backlog is helpful!
Grew up watching the English dub on Toonami after school. I fondly remember emulating this game and even learned to play a few of the songs from the OST!
The music was so catchy eh? I had a hard time choosing what to put in the video because there was just so much good music here. This is one of the many games I wish I'd gotten a chance to experience when I was younger!
Oh man. I remember when this fan translation came out. I was so stoked.
Yeah! Apparently there is a newer one now that's even better than this!
That was a good overview! I have heard of this game but didn’t know much about it. I don’t feel in a rush to play, but good to know it is a solid entry available
Thanks! I tried to be thorough without spoiling too much. I hope you have fun with it when you get around to playing.
This is such a great channel.
Thanks so much!
Ooo I was not expecting to see this review. I'm glad you ended up finding the game a lot of fun!
I definitely have some nostalgia for this game despite not being very familiar with the series the first time I played. In fact, I think this was my very first introduction to the series. I love the music and sprite work of the game, and while I did lack the context for the series, I think the story did a good enough job to keep me engaged.
Its kind of unfortunate the gameplay itself tends to be tedious and grindy, some sections would absolutely demotivate me from continuing. Thankfully there was a balance patch made for it alongside the new translation, so if you ever replay the game I definitely suggest trying those patches out.
I kinda snuck this one out there... and yes, definitely a very fun experience overall despite wanting more from the story side of things. The story was definitely engaging but just confusing? I think the half-translated objects really threw me as well... there were a couple of roadblocks for me here.
Have you had the chance to try out the balance patches? I would've appreciated a lot less grind in some spots. I don't usually mind it, but especially that one area right before you fight Rubius, it was misery incarnate.
@@hungrygoriya Iirc the patch is called the "Grind be Gone" patch. It reduces enemy encounter rate by half while doubling XP and Yen. With it, it definitely took me less time to get characters to a decent enough level and make progress. In particular the sections where you control only one sailor scout became way more bearable. In general, just a lot less grinding to deal with a boss.
Some bosses like Nabu and Rubius are still frustrating unfortunately, but the overall process taking less time makes it more bearable at least.
Sounds like a great quality of life improvement! I'd go for that!
0:15 this is such a mood lmao. Can’t wait to watch this through in full when I get the time! Have never seen any sm but always up for an obscure JRPG.
Hahaha any time I'm dealing with SNES controls, it's like I'm all thumbs.
@@hungrygoriya I just struggle in any game with more than one physical attack and any timing involved. I just can't puzzle out when I'm supposed to do the light attack, the heavy attack etc. This is a button mashing combat household
@@abbieburton2794 You'd love this game then... so many perks like remembering your last battle moves between battles make it a mash-fest!
(before video) Definitely one of my favorites, even if the translation is a bit off at times (English phrasing is horrendously difficult-I know this firsthand as my native is NOT English), mostly leading to more than a couple handfuls of grammatical and structure errors.
4:42 One of my gripes is with the explanations and names of the ailments. Yeah, consider me afflicted by 'selfishness', lolz
6:56 Pork chops are a status ailment reliever. Yeah; it's for numbness. I consider those 'treasure items' and sell them off.
8:50 Given Hotaru has power directly from *_Talamiura,_* the Governess of Death/Darkness, it's not a surprise that in game, her power is exceptional. It's very lore-friendly, if a bit too much. Problem is that she can deal it but can't take it. Tradeoff? Hm.
10:24 Some of the most powerful healing moves are locked to the Senshi Link. In fact, those would be the only remotely useful skills apart from a few offensive AoE skills like Uranus+Neptune to name one. They all use a lot of EP though. 10:32 Victory, or Cluster.
14:10 I'll have to look that up. Good to know.
...
A lot of the original story of the anime was altered for the US English dub. So, there's a lot that this game delves into that will likely be lost on some lesser-fortunate fans of the series, and not just the fact that the majority of the cast were lesbian/bi. Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon is as 'gay harem' as (something I cannot mention on this platform without risking the busted-arse broken algorithm AI falsely censoring me), and the cast, to boot, is adamant about self-defense by any means possible, definitely censored in the US storyline.
...
The time travel that the story of this game provides, exists in a bubble, a sandbox; the bubble/sandbox just happens to end up containing all life on Earth and the Moon, because Apsu is powerful enough to pull it off. It's Garland and the 2,000 year time loop, presented in a slightly altered format, and without direct implications of said loop. If Apsu really is sick, her symptoms should be having her bedridden, so I believe she's faking it for sympathy, and wow, does she get said sympathy. Lots of it. (my little tangent on Apsu)
Terri Hawkes as Sailor Moon was like Sean Schemmel as Goku, just sounds right.
Hers was the voice of my childhood!
I learned the trick to Mercury's solo boss. You'll need about 10 cure alls for poison, and the manicure item. First spam bubble spray until Nabu's attacks do virtually nothing. Then use manicure. Manicure made Mercury's attacks go from doing 1 damage to 24, absolute game changer
Oh wow! This is a great bit of advice I wish I'd had when I played this. Having a manual with item descriptions would've probably helped!
@hungrygoriya the manicure does say attack up on thee description, but that might not have been the case in the 1999 translation...
This was a great review tysm! My SO is very much a super fan of the show and I wanted to see if maybe I could share on her enthusiasm by playing this, but I might have to get her to sit beside me and spout lore at me during my playthrough haha.
That honestly sounds like a great way to play it. Good luck with it!
13:52 yup. This is the “Keikaku means plan.” school of 90’s fansubbing where, congrats you’ve got some proficiency, you’ve done your homework, why the hell do you have to spell it “Bentou set” or use terms like Hotaru-Chan or Older Sister
3:21 “He looks just like my sempai.”
12:52 “Go study more, odango head”
C’mon, you weebs, you’re willing to sacrifice readability just for something as dumb as the slight incorrectness of “dumpling head”.
Rom hacking is not easy, and something like this is just snatching defeat from the jaws of victory .
On the upside, 32 megabit SFC rpg, lots of animation with big sprites and cool enemy designs that follow the show. Late generation SFC/SNES is a real treat
If I did, I certainly didn't mean to sound ungrateful for the work of the localizers... I just struggled a lot with the story, and those mostly Japanese words and phrases didn't help any of that fog to lift! I would've enjoyed reading "meatball head" because it would've been a good memory jog. I wonder if the new translation effort fixed up some of those things or if they were also retained for the new version.
And it was such a beautiful game to look at! What it lacked in story depth for all the Sailor Moon lore I just didn't have it made up for in the visuals. I played Front Mission: Gun Hazard as well, and that was probably just as gorgeous!
@@hungrygoriya
Ah! The new rom hack is a complete re-translation that fixes a lot of mistakes in the original.
www.romhacking.net/translations/snes/patches/4654readme.txt
Oddly, my experience with Sailor Moon has been the complete opposite of yours. I only watched a couple episodes here and there of the American TV broadcast. Then a friend of mine found some tapes of the last two seasons in Japanese. Things got REALLY weird in that series, I'll just say that.
When I first found out there was a Sailor Moon RPG I burst out laughing. I instantly started playing it, even though I had no idea there was an English patch (or maybe it didn't exist back then, this was a long time ago). I didn't expect to get very far, but somehow I managed to blunder through a large chunk of the game before I just couldn't figure out where to go next. I felt like it was a surprisingly good game and was sad I couldn't play it for real. I never did figure out what was up with the magic points.
It actually kinda makes sense that Saturn is OP. If I recall correctly she has the power to destroy the entire universe, and the outer scouts were trying to keep her from gaining her powers so she wouldn't be able to do it. Then, of course, Sailor Moon comes in with her whole power of friendship deal to set things right, or something.
Do you think knowing that there's a patch now might entice you to go back and finally have that for real playthrough you'd been hoping for? That might actually be fun to do given your past experience with all this.
And that's pretty much all I know about Sailor Saturn, that she had some amazing power that could destroy everything, but no idea about her surrounding plot. I'm extremely curious to say the least!
Some day I'll check it out for sure. It'll probably coincide with tracking down the anime and watching the whole series instead of just the last part. (They finally re-released it a while back on DVD/Bluray. Might have even put out the entire series by now. But the price tag: oof!) Or it'll just pile up in my endless, ever growing backlog...
I hope you get to see the whole thing yourself some day. There's definitely some good stuff in there. And some tragic stuff. And some really confusing stuff. Also, a lot of stuff got changed in the original English release. Just be prepared is all.
As a side note, the Genesis game might amuse you, even if only with the character select screen and the goofy voice clips. It's very hard to understand "moon prism power make up!" when it's compressed audio files in Japanese.
Ah, yes... the weird licensed stuff from anime we love. Same thing happened to me with both Athena no Seinto and Rurouni Kenshin.
I just bought this game last year and added it to my backlog. Can't wait to check it out. If you have Hulu then you can watch all 5 seasons of Sailor Moon on there. I also grew up with the NA dub version, and watching it with subs and the origibal Japanese voice actors is the best way to go. My daughter and I watched it a couple of years back. So glad to have finally been able to complete the series.
Unfortunately I don't have any streaming services, but I would really love to either revisit the original dub I grew up with or try out the subbed versions. When I was writing this review I watched some bits and pieces of the show on UA-cam and I really enjoyed them... it's only a matter of time I think!
And enjoy the game when you get around to it. I'm sure you'll have a good time. Do you know if you got the most recent translation on your copy?
@@hungrygoriya you can always sign up for a free month trial to Hulu just to binge watch the show. The only thing that's jarring at first is the name changes. Even in the new english dub, Serena is Usagi, her traditional name in Japan, and Darien is Endymion, just to name a few. Coming from someone qith nostalgic love for the 90's version, I felt closure being able to finally complete the series. And the way it ends just brought a huge smile to my face!
@@RunMeThrough This game changed the names too and it made things even more complicated than they already were with the translation troubles. Getting a month free trial is a good idea though.
Omg, I just barely started this game 2 days ago! God how the time flies. Wish me luck lol
Thank you for covering this wonderful JRPG. I love Sailor Moon, and I wished that it was released in North America back in the day.
You're welcome. I wish we'd gotten more Sailor Moon here. I had no idea we missed out on so much when I was young.
Gonna play this now
Enjoy!
Oh crazy! There's a website I've been buying SNES games that didn't release here (like Ys 4 and Terranigma) and this is one of the games listed there. Maybe I'll give this one a go!
Thanks for the lovely review and glorious insight!
Right on! Have fun! I'm not sure how many reproductions you've bought in the past, but if these are the first, you might want to do a bit of research for reviews to make sure that the site's making a reputable product. Some reproductions are badly made depending on who is making them (don't save, have a bad rom, etc.) One other thing to think about is that some repros are made from sacrificing existing games to make other games. Some have become super rare and hard to find as a result... just some things to bear in mind! I have no problems with reproductions, but I just wanted to mention this to you because nobody told me when I started looking into them.
@@hungrygoriya good to know! I usually don't buy repros but I really wanted to play Terranigma and it worked well and saved! So far the seller has been pretty good but thanks for the tips! I really appreciate it!
I believe the re-translation is based on VIZ's localization of the series. They would often use phrases found in the dub.
No, it's because the mistranslations.
For example, "Her Destiny" now is "Hell Destiny".
The old fan-translation also invented some lines.
Sailor Moon was a little before my time... The magical girl show I remember watching when I was little was Cardcaptor Sakura, shame the English dub sucked so much, but the show stuck with me enough that I later got into the manga, and eventually watched the anime subbed and I loved it!
Unfortunately, I can't say Sakura lucked out as much as Sailor Moon when it comes to video game adaptations... Sailor Moon's got an RPG, some decent beat'em ups, fighting games, even puzzle games! Good stuff... The only Cardcaptor Sakura games I found were one which I believe to be a minigame collection on GBA, and a visual novel that I can't read (yet) on WonderSwan...
You know, I had three very good friends in high school that were very much into anime, and I hadn't heard the name Cardcaptor Sakura since then. It was one of the shows they used to talk about! I am totally unfamiliar with it, but I'm sorry you haven't had an opportunity to enjoy it in the ways you want to. Hopefully that WonderSwan game gets a translation sometime... I'm sure there are lots of others in the same boat as you just patiently awaiting the day.
I still love this game and i agree with you on the pro and cons about this game.
Great informative video
I don't blame you for liking it! It was pretty fun and reasonably challenging. I'd been hoping to connect more with the story, but that was an oversight on my part! Thanks very much for checking this out.
Very well made video as always!
I tried all these on emulation but didn't take the time to really beat them. I give you props for playing through it!
I wanted to see it through to the end. As an RPG it was great! I just wish the story had grabbed me more!
This game seems to have a lot of impressive mechanics along with the good graphics. I really enjoy your articulate, fair, and thorough reviews.
I think it's a fantastic game but I wish I could've connected with the story a little more. It's definitely deep in terms of its action though!
Oof this game brought up such a roller coaster of thoughts when I played it. So much goodness and talent, along with so much laziness in game design that makes you ask "why". Like there's such a large amount of tactical choice in the gameplay but almost no reason to bother with exploring it. I feel like cluster formation and sailor saturn are kind of like just making everyone spam ultima in final fantasy 6. Except in this game you can pretty much do it from the start.
I'm a pretty big sailor moon fan, read the manga in japanese and watched all the series and movies and it really does make a difference as far as the story goes. The game really does deliver on the novelty of actually playing a team of sailer scouts and going on an adventure. The special attack animations just feel so satisfying when you're already familiar with them from the show. I was sold from the beginning despite how everything outside the story and graphics felt kind of hollow. The things that were well done in the game really did keep me plodding on. Although if it weren't for the franchise I might have put it aside well before the end.
I totally agree with you. The base attacks for most people are nice enough, but all of the group attack stuff was totally over my head. There was a ton of lost potential here for what could've been a really unique battle system.
I truly wish I'd come into this game with more experience from the show/manga/movies but alas :( I would love to replay it sometime if I ever sit down and watch the rest down the line.
One of many games not released here on there original console that I first played on a friend's PC though some of the non-licensed games I played that way were released here later. Also one of the first animes I watched though I didn't know what anime was at the time. The order I started watching my first 5 animes was Technoman/Tekkaman Blade, Starblazers, Robotech, Sailor Moon, and Gundam Wing I believe (I may have three and four flipped but the rest I'm sure on)
This was also my first (and pretty much only) anime, and I also had no idea what it was at the time... it was the first experience I had with cartoons that were not just slapstick humour like everything else I watched growing up. I loved it though!
I remember having a LOT of trouble during the boss battle for Sailor Mercury's solo mission.
It took me a ridiculously long time to defeat her. I wonder if there was a major balancing problem there or if it was just us?
@@hungrygoriya it is actually a balancing problem. I cheated to get an extra 10 levels or so before it felt right. Either the boss was OP or LNF's patch accidentally altered some values
I wonder what it would look like if the Opposito Senshi had cosplayers. When I went to a comic convention and got to talk to the Jacksonville Sailor Sensi cosplay team, they asked about ideas, and I mentioned them. They didn't know about the translated ROM, so I mentioned it.
In 2016, I bought the various Viz subtitled DVDs, so I knew what the later characters were.
I discovered ROMs and emulators in 1999, and played the Super Famicom and Megadrive beat-em-ups. I thought they were awful and laughed so hard at them. If I won the lottery, I'd pay the AVGN to review them. I'd rather shove a magic wand up my nostrils and fry my brain with a spell!
Oh interesting! I think the Oppositio Senshi are just from this game, right? That's a neat idea for cosplay though. Something brand new that nobody else has done very often!
I have no interest in playing the beat-em-ups at all really. I can't get into those games at all, even if they star cool characters. Are they really that bad? Control-wise or something else?
@@hungrygoriya I think this game was the only place the Opposito Senshi were seen. However, I have only seen the first anime. They might have ended up in Crystal, Eternal, or one of the live action musicals.
The beat 'em ups were just mediocre at best. You can watch various reviews of them that would explain it way better than I do.
@@skylinefever Fair enough! I'll check out some other videos.
Funny you mention looking down at the controller for the thief battles in Yoshi's Island. I used to do the same thing when I was a kid. That button layout is now permanently burned in my brain. Makes playing games with an Xbox controller rather tough, though.
Yeah! See I didn't grow up with an SNES but had a Playstation 2 when I was 16, so I learned that layout. I still have a hard time with menus in SNES RPGs around which buttons cancel and accept things.
This was such a great game. I don't remember exactly where in the story but there was one part where you're in an ice land as Amy. I had some weird combination come out where the boss could only hurt me enough to where I had to heal now and then but my attack only took a small amount of it's hp, I'm talking like 1-3 per hit. That fight literally took me hours somehow and I was soooooooo relieved when I finally beat it everyone other than Amy had died a long time ago.
Were you alone with Amy there? It might've been the fight I showed in the video because your experience sounds really similar to mine. I was facing off with a boss and the only reason I won eventually was because the boss ran out of MP.
@@hungrygoriya yea I think it might have been that was so many years ago I can't remember all of the details clearly.
For any fans of Sailor Moon I'd recommend checking out the Revolutionary Girl Utena anime. I got into it after playing the Saturn fan translation of the game, now it's one of my favourite animes.
Great review. As much as I love SM and how beautiful this game looks I doubt I will ever get to it. Was a fun stream to watch though:)
Yeah, it's a fun game but middle of the road in my opinion. There are a lot better ways to spend your time if you want to experience great games.
Everyone knows Japan only has one TV model :P
Seriously though, this game looks way better than I expected
It was surprisingly beautiful and smooth as an RPG. I just wish the story had been a little better with me as an audience member. Can't win them all I guess.
What got me was the one blatant FF6 reference: Terra's Esper form.
This actually looks like a ton of fun, and the production values here are just fantastic.
Sadly, I am quite the noob when it comes to Sailor Moon, but I kinda want to give this a try anyway
I totally feel like I knew next to nothing about most of the story, but the RPG aspects of this game are top notch. I'd say give it a whirl for sure!
I feel in love eith this game as soon as i played it. Since i was really a fan of the storie, O didn't have much trouble to get it, although I can recognize that some Japanese terms throw me off a little. However the voice actong on the attacks was my favorite part. I love Japanese voice acting so for me wasn't a trouble.
The music is spectacular, directly from the series. Such amazing work.
Th only part that is a downer for me is the grinding. So difficult to gain experience once you have a high level, sometimes its get annoying.
Anyway, excellent video 😊
I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! I liked it too, but just wish I could've connected with most of the story a bit more.
I think repetitive voice calls get tiresome for me in every game that has them. And here, it was so frequent and felt like it slowed the battles down, so I wasn't a huge fan. It wasn't a make or break for me, but definitely worth a mention based on my preferences.
While I totally respect the idea of creating a game thats aimed for the hardcore fans of a series, this game is a bit too.. I dont know, vague, for those who arent as familiar with the material. There's one quest early one where they say, and Im paraphrasing of course, "We need to go where we first met her". With pretty much an entire town open to explore, and nothing else to guide me, it felt like fumbling my way in the dark. Other than that, Im a big fan of it.
I think we are very much on the same page. There are lots of open ends when you don't know the story, and while wandering around will get you there eventually, it's far from the ideal way to play a game as long and as involved as this one.
I've never played this game, but I've always salivated over the screen shots. You're so right - the sprites are like top 5 in the 16 bit generation. And I feel like modern RPG sprite sheets are quite hard to do well.
My ex wife was a huge sailor moon fan, so I've seen a lot of sailor scout media... I highly recommend the 2000s live action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon for so bad it's good entertainment.
And it's a totally self contained narrative that captures the essence of the franchise.
@@jwrush I am going to have to look into this! I heard they did some live action stuff but had no idea when any of it got released. I love so bad it's good stuff. Thanks for the suggestion!
I'm glad we're in agreement about the sprites. I've seen some great-looking SNES games but this one was a pleasant surprise! I wasn't expecting it to look quite as nice as it did!
Great and honest review of the game.
I'm glad you enjoyed!
@@hungrygoriya there was a PC engine cd translation for Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon which is a visual novel if you are interested.
I wonder if I'd be at the same disadvantage story-wise jumping into a big game like that without series background...
I played this before I'd watched a single episode of Sailor Moon; my sister had been into it when she was younger, but she and I are quite a lot of years apart, so I'd just written it off as some kids' show that I wouldn't enjoy. Within the last few years, I've watched the entire series, and since I remember so little of this (even a lot of what I saw in this review), I think it'd be interesting to play again, now knowing who any of these characters are. I do remember that the Sailor Senshi went from just about useless to completely overpowered once you found their matching accessories, and a brick wall boss gauntlet about halfway through that softlocked me because I couldn't grind, but not a lot else.
It was quite a moment when Sailor Venus out of nowhere decided to be really mean to Sailor Moon.
My jaw hit the floor... I couldn't believe she'd say something so mean! She was so nice in the show :(
I still remember that wonderful time around 2000 or so, when people online were talking about sailor moon and there were all these websites, I could find out everything we'd missed on this side of the pacific, plus Toonami was airing seasons 3 and 4 less edited than before.. it was pretty special. but my super moonhead friends did tell me that the videogames were a letdown. not bad, but not really worth playing.
Yeah, this is definitely an interesting game, but not something I can see myself picking up again any time soon.
When I played this I used a dual patch with both the English translation as well as a grind be gone feature which greatly reduced the amount of grinding required to advance thru the game making my life much easier....plus I agree being someone who has only watched the English dub of the original anime, and having never finished it at that, some greater context to the story and characters I was unfamiliar with would have gone a long way...great review tho!
Thanks so much! And yeah, I was aware of some other patches might exist out there but I always like to suffer through the original design of games first and then come back to it with those perks. A grind patch would've really helped though!
I remember this game! Had a lot of fun playing it even though I never finished it. Seeing this makes me want to go back and give it another go.
There were a couple of difficulty spikes but I'd definitely try it again too. It was fun!
I can still hear the attack screeches in my head. Also pork chops solve just about everything. Sorry this game didn't quite live up to what you were hoping for, but you'll always have Artemis with this wide-eyed optimism. Excellent work as always!
I wish I had clipped your Sailor Jupiter impressions... those were so funny! Artemis' stare is sooooo silly. That was probably the funniest part of the whole game for me: his inappropriate smile.
@@hungrygoriya I can do them on demand! And yeah, he was so optimistically excited about everything haha
Accidents are why pencils have pork chops
Hahaha that sounds about right
13:35
I just got my English translated repro of Sailor Moon: Another Story in the mail today. Comparing your footage with what little I played so far, it looks like I got the 2020 version and the team behind it did a fantastic job with the updated translation (like “Shitennou no Hako” being changed to “Four Kings’ Case” for example).
Not sure if you’ll ever play this one again in the future but, if you ever do, the 2020 translation patch is definitely the way to go.
This is good to know! I'm sure the translators did their best with all of this at the time, but knowing there's an extra-refined version out there is good to recommend if anyone asks.
Now i know why a lot of people love this game, quite interesting mechanics and near graphics, gotta check it out, but now romancing saga 2 is calling me, grear video thank you for your hard work
Thanks for stopping by! It's a lovely game, that's for sure. I hope you get to play it soon, but have fun with Romancing Saga 2.
Great video HG. I agree, this game does a good job of capturing the feel of the anime. Though I was a bit disappointed by the lack of the track "The Outer Senshis" from the anime. As for the game, I tried it initially in the early 2000's, got frustrated with the grind-y nature, and restarted a new game with a cheat that starts off all playable characters at level 16. Er ... as Sailor Moon might say "私のホバークラフトは鰻でいっぱいです" :D
I'll have to check out that tune actually... I didn't talk about music here much but it was pretty good as well. It was definitely a grind, you're right. You and your endless codes!
That had better say: In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!
I recently also tried another anime-based RPG for the SNES, Ranma 1/2: Treasure of the Red Cat Gang. Now, if you've never seen Ranma... hunt it down, now. You won't regret it. (Though it might be a good idea to read the manga instead, especially if you end up liking it enough to want to read the whole thing).
Maybe review that one in the future? I was actually gonna post a long review about it but then I realized I don't want to bias you before you've even played the game. I would strongly recommend being familiar with the source material first though.... though in Ranma's case its far easier to get caught up.
I think I saw a tiny bit of Ranma 1/2 when I was a kid since I had friends that were really into anime. They used to like to rent a few tapes every year for their birthday parties. I'll think about taking the plunge into the show and playing the game sometime. From what I can remember from that teenaged experience, the show was funny.
Hey! A game I actually recognize. My wife definitely makes some of these oddities a bit more understandable. Alienating an audience is never good, but I guess it is understandable for the developers to expect you to know what you're playing. But a little exposition would be nice. You did a great job with this one! I do hope one day we might get something new with the Sailor Moon franchise.
Thanks! A little more backstory would've helped tremendously, at least to fill in a few gaps here and there. Alas! It was still fun as an RPG even though I didn't have a lot of context for the story. While I think it'd be great to have some more Sailor Moon stuff come out here, I'd also need to do some catching up on backstory before diving into anything else. I've learned my lesson!
@@hungrygoriya It looks like it didn't get to Stars so that's not too bad. Definitely recommend getting to the Outer Scouts. Saturn is quite the beast!
i remember my younger sister playing this game on emulator back in the day, it must have been close after or in 1999 (when this translation patch first came out), i was more into rpgs than she was so i tried to watch her play and give her tips. i think she got very far in the game but not sure if she beat it. she was (like you) a fan of sailor moon, and also not familiar with the characters that didn't air on tv here.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was a bit lost on all the extra characters, but it's cool she got to play this when the patch was new. That's great!
Hidden gem! (Good point about how you probably need to know the later arcs to agree though 😂)
I will take your word for it! Even just as an RPG without knowing every detail of the story, it was pretty fun!
Don't worry. The first Sailor Moon beat-em-up on the SNES was pretty bad. The Sailor Moon R game at least improved the playability. The two SNES beat-em-ups had their music reused in the RPG. Also, never mention the arcade game, unless you have friends, and expect to pump in quarters.
I remember my sister playing this one, when we discovered SNES9x. I was more into Chrono Trigger at the time, trying to figure out why holding L+R+A wasn't working.
BTW, this never goes anywhere near the SuperS season. In fact, it fits somewhere after S and before SuperS. Be grateful for that.
I was perusing the soundtracks from the other games last night when I was putting the finishing touches on the video and was surprised to see so many of the same songs in the other games. So interesting!
And I get ya... this game is no Chrono Trigger, but it at least looks the part!
@@hungrygoriya I thought the reuse of the music was fitting, since the original series reused music from past seasons as well. Same composer, too! If you haven't already discovered, the soundtracks for some of the SNES games aren't straight recordings of the game audio, but completely arranged in the same style as the (Japanese) show's background music.
@@absuplendous Right on! I think a few people mentioned they'd taken some music from the Japanese version of the show, and I was floored that there was a difference to begin with! I suppose it makes sense though. This whole game experience blew my perception of North American-dubbed DiC Sailor Moon out of the water!
@@hungrygoriya As I recall there isn't any music from the show in the game, but a lot of sound-alikes. I assumed there was some copyright barrier in play. Some music in the games would later "reappear" in later seasons of the anime as sound-alikes, too. One game song was used in the last season. (I was really into the music back in the day!)
And on that note, yes, the difference between the DiC music and the Japanese music is vast and incredible!
@@absuplendous Ohhhh! Maybe I misunderstood then. It's still neat to know I have a whole other show worth of Sailor Moon music to experience if I ever get around to watching the subbed versions!
Good review. I was really young when I saw Sailor Moon. Kinda want to watch the DIC dub again. Idk about the jrpg though. I still need to try Arabian Nights on SFC some more.
If you have some time, you might as well dive into the dub... I have really fond memories of it and I'd be curious to watch it and beyond now that I've played the game.
@@hungrygoriya all the episodes are on internet archive iirc. Thanks for the reply. I look forward to your possible soul blazer review
I need to find a copy, looks pretty fun!
It's a pretty great time. I just wish I'd been able to connect a little more with some of the story, but it's a fantastic RPG nonetheless.
Oh you're in Canada! Toronto? I used to love Sailor Moon as a kid (crush on her, wanted to be tuxedo mask yada yada yada), but my ex from a few years back was obsessed with the English dub. So I went with her a couple times to the Sailor Moon Con at the Science centre, which was honestly pretty cool. Sailor moon was a pretty awful dub in hindsight, but the IP was really cool. The show had some themes that were pretty cool and progressive. Much like Power Puff Girls it really felt like the media's way of introducing kids to the girl power themes that 3rd wave feminism seemed to bring with it. Kickass and cute aesthetic. Emotional yet powerful, check. I wish I was old enough to appreciate JRPG type games in the 90s. But alas I was born in '93 and my SNES days were strictly, Zelda, Mario, and DKC at my grandma's.
I'm in Ontario but don't usually get more specific than that, but nice to know another Ontarian! I didn't realize there had been a Sailor Moon Con at the science center... I've been there for other things throughout my life but I might've been interested to go if I had known! Cool!
I also wish I could've played some of these games when they were first out. I didn't get into JRPGs until the 2000s myself so I'm very late to the party!
I was one who watched a lot of the original dub. I was so wanting more I was one of those dorks who found the rest online in the early days of the internet. Even lucky enough to find decent fan subs! Through this I found out just why they didn’t go beyond what they dubbed originally. That dub edited a lot just to make it safe for tv at the time, and some of the later subject matter wouldn’t have gone over well without more heavy editing. If you are a fan it’s worth the watch, and the ending! It … I can’t even vaguely comment without spoilers!
Anyways, enough with my super fan rant. I always wanted to find this game. It’s both RPG and Sailor Moon so it is a must. Unfortunately, from what I heard, it’s one of those you do need to be a fan who has seen up to a point. I hate tie in games and movies that do that. I know it’s hard to design something for the uninitiated but not everyone knows all the Sailors!
Anyways, this wasn’t a review of the anime, but I tend to rant and I love Sailor Moon 🌙 and for those who say “it’s a girl show” come on man! I was a young teen who saw cute girls use super powers to destroy evil! What’s not to love?
I still have yet to watch anything more than what aired on TV when I was a kid, but I've definitely wanted to. It's just such a significant time sink! I'm glad you got into it back then. I really think this game is meant for people like you who are familiar with a lot more of the series than I am. If you play it sometime, I'm sure you'll love it!
You do a good job. Just found ya. Keep up the good work Hungry Goriya.
Too kind! Thanks very much!
What nostalgia! I´ve watched it on german channel (I think RTL2), just becuse it was before Pokemon. And then I believe there was Dragon Ball Z from 20.00 and it had teletext CHAT! Oh man, I´ve blown a lot of money when sending SMS to abroad xD
Oh no! That's too funny though... I don't think we ever had text interaction with TV back then. This was on in the 90s for me on Canadian television well before I had a cell phone. I watched a bit of Pokemon as well, but never Dragon Ball Z. I've heard that show was great too!
@Boco Corwin I remember Digimon and Pokemon coming on back to back on the weekends when I was a kid. And I think Sailor Moon was standalone after school. Or maybe I just flipped to something else afterward. I don't remember running into any other anime until I was a bit older.
I've been checking out Sailor Moon on UA-cam these days!
Though, I'd personally be more into a beat 'em up than an RPG
If that's the case, you're in for a treat. There are tons of beat 'em ups that star the cast and crew of this series.
Great review! I was always curious about this one. I remember first coming across this when I was looking for a gift for my sister's birthday 3 years ago and snagged her some retro games for her Retron5, though I ended up getting her a copy of the puzzle game Fuwa Fuwa Panic instead (still looks great though; I think a lot of the Sailor Moon SFC gamse look pretty dang good), but I forgot it existed afterwards and just never got around to checking it out.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm genuinely surprised there aren't more RPGs for the brand... or magical girl RPGs in general. I mean, they never really do _fight scene-style fights_ in these shows traditionally, they always just talk & eventually throw out special attacks (spells) all the time when taking on villains. Seems like RPGs would make a better fit for "classic" magical girls (newer stuff like Madoka Magica and, like, Flip Flappers or Magical Spec Ops Asuka show magical girls that can actually fight and would be a better fit for fighting games), yet there are so few out there. Is this the only Sailor Moon one? Good on you for highlighting it then, but that is really weird....
I agree that the Sailor Moon games look wonderful no matter what kind of game they are. I'd be curious to try out some of the puzzle games sometime since there's a ton of those as well, but like I said here, I have no hope of making it very far in any of the fighting ones.
RPGs are way more my speed, and I was also surprised at this being the only RPG entry in the Sailor Moon series. I am not very well-versed in anime in general so I can't speak to other examples from other franchises, but I agree that this formula would work well for classic magical girl stuff. Definitely!
@@hungrygoriya I'm not super well versed in magical girl anime myself, actually, lol. I only know of Madoka Magica and Flip Flappers from, like, clips that UA-cam recommend. I will say they both have some pretty cool looking fight scenes though!
I never really got this series, I think it's because it wasn't shown on television here in the UK at the same time it was either being made or broadcast in the US, and then there would be better things to be watching or doing with your time, like, would pokemon have been as popular elsewhere has it not shown the show in english
Yeah, that surprises me given how big it got in Canada and the US. When I was a kid, people couldn't shut up about it! I totally hear ya though.
@@hungrygoriya funky!
I love sailor moon and artimis is amazing
So goofy!
Liked and subbed after listening to your beautiful voice only for 5 seconds
I remember seeing Sailormoon rented in the Video store in the mid-late 90's, manga was new and else only you could see it on some cable channels, after 9 evening. Guyver for example was discontinued on Tv after a few episodes cause of violence, graphic adult scenes and such, so renting was the thing and using 2 video recorders to copy, good memories. Even shin-chan was around in the early 2000's and an odd kid show for Europe. 90's, manga was pretty unique still.
The games here were never available either in the EU, far I know. But I started with emulators of Zsnes since 97 and then early translations for Japanese Snes games! Wish I bought way more Snes games back in the 90's and 00's, then the dozen I got.
The neighbour I had growing up used to have the whole two VCR recording setup going too, haha... those were the days! I've heard that folks in the EU missed out on a lot of great games. We missed out on some here in Canada as well, so I feel for you!
@@hungrygoriya Yes when I used emulators later on I found like so many that never left the USA to us. I even have a converter plug to put in old snes to play American games, cause the american cartridges were different shaped and such. Only way back then to get FF3, breath of fire and a lot other games, through special small stores here.
no playable tuxedo mask?
Unfortunately not!
I remember getting pummeled by the party split as a kid. The benched team was way behind and got obliterated by random encounters. Traumatizing.
I'm sorry that happened to you too.
Even doing research I had some trouble with this game - the difficulty is unbalanced you either get floored or destroy everything: no middle ground or strategy like you said. It makes me wonder about the true target demographic because it is simultaneously easy to play combat wise but tough to get to the point where you can do that at some points. I took a few breaks out of frustration but I would like to get back to it. I think once I finish rewatching season 3/S I can dive head into it. A lot of things feel like chores like you mentioned the link which I totally agreed with - all you do is manually match the girls in groups, why do that I wonder? It felt like busy work, didn't teach much of anything other than what the attack is. Still overall it is compelling as a fan from a story telling perspective but would be better suited as a movie than a game in my opinion because the interactive part feels a bit flat. I love it because I am a fan but otherwise I couldn't recommend it, to others. I think from what I wrote just now we probably agree over-all, I'm just hashing out what you said differently from my perspective. Spot on.
Yeah, I agree with you about the target demographic... those steep difficulty climbs were hard for me even as someone that loves RPGs, but other than that, it was cake. It's hard to really see the truth in there.
I really do hope you get back to it and finish it soon and that you'll share a bit with me if you find anything interesting in the link techs because I just couldn't be bothered. It'd be cool to see this story adapted to movie form, agreed!
Well, Neptune and Uranus are lovers, so try to make joint attacks with thoes two or them and Pluto.
My memories of Sailor Moon go like this:
Young kid sees Anime, "Hey neat"
Hears name of Moon's BF 'Tuxedo Mask', laughs.
Has crush on Sailor Jupiter.
Becomes a teenager and finds out Jupiter is a lesbian. 🤯🤦
My experience was more or less the same, minus the crush on Jupiter. She was my favourite though!
hey hold on, I don't see your signature zelda 1 meat on the thumbnail, ha
really good looking game though, if I was a sailor moon person I'd easily give this a go
:O I forgot!! Thank you for the reminder!
It was a beautiful game, that's for sure! I got through it with a very loose grasp on the story myself, so apart from knowing who a few of the characters were coming into it.
@@hungrygoriya sure thing, always like seeing how you incorporate it
seems like something you can get the most out of if you know the source material, though maybe at some point I'll look into
@@markasscop I had even left a space for it beside Sailor Moon and forgot to put it in! I appreciate the reminder. It's fixed now!
@@hungrygoriyano problem, it's amazing what can slip our minds sometimes
Could you enable subtitles? auto-generated is fine
Heh we have a similar experience with Sailor Moon when it comes to the show. :)
I'm glad I'm not alone!
@@hungrygoriya I also watched Samurai Pizza Cats!
sailor moon is so amazing
I really loved the show growing up. The game was a neat way to re-experience some of that.
All I could think of while watching this were all the Harry Potter RPGs on Game Boy, and how weird it is that so many pop culture icons actually dared to dip their toes into the genre.
You didn't happen to be into HP at all, did you? Have you played those games?
I've read the first few HP books and finally saw all the movies a few years ago, but I have yet to try any of the games out. I've heard good things about a few of them though!
I love this game so much, it's right up there with Chrono Trigger and Earthbound as some of the best games of all time, imo.
Were you familiar with the whole show when you played it? If so, I'm jealous!
@@hungrygoriya I was, yes. though, as i was playing the 99 translation as well, some of the localization was rough (ie untranslated) and had to figure out through context, but it was a bit easier than if I hadn't seen everything prior to
Yeah, Saturn is basically the bringer of the apocalypse so her being overpowered makes sense in the lore. Very strange gameplay choice though lol. Also, wouldn't Pluto die every time she used time stop? 🤔
Hahaha I guess they had to make her cool because she had such ultimate power maybe? And was she supposed to die if she used time stop? I don't know much about her story either!
@@hungrygoriya Oh, I really regret giving that spoiler then. :\ Sailor Moon crystal covers everything lol. Great video though!
@@WorldofFood It's all good! I have no idea if/when I'll watch the other seasons of the show.
Nunca lo encontre en ingles😰
Is this multiplayer?
No, unfortunately.
@@hungrygoriya I found a translated cart on etsy I'm going to get thanks for the review
(Cracks knuckles)
Are we fighting?
@@hungrygoriya Was going to smash the keyboard and say "first, finally after all these-" my kid squeals...
I'm just getting back ...at this rate my next lapse may be 19 years. Going to have to place the goal back on the friggin bucket list. 😟
Great review tho!
Gonna be brutal honest, I did finish this game twice and I still dont understand why they did hate Sailor Jupiter that much her chapter was SOOOOO UNBEARABLY HAAAAAAARD.
It was really tough! I died a lot in that area just because I was unlucky in some of the fights.
I played this in the 90's. Couldn't understand Japanese, but I tried.
I don't know how you managed! I guess I wandered through the game without knowing much of what was going on story-wise... were the menus translated at least?
@@hungrygoriya I cannot remember, but it wasn't good enough to keep my interest. I tried later in life to play with an English patch, but I was well passed my curiosity by then.
Game chucked you
I watched this show back when I was a horny teenager back in the 90s, for the reasons horny teenagers watch things like this. Having said that I tried my best to pay attention to characterization and lore. Personality and characterization means a lot to me, because anyone can draw an attractive and sexy female, and when you have a show or game, you need to have more than that. I like the fact there were many different girls, but they would fight/argue all of the time (and I mean ALL of the time) which was one of the main turn offs. Mercury and Mars where the biggest offenders. Sailor Moon herself was a massive off put by me; I can appreciate an MC *not* being a cookie cutter good guy, you can have a character with "personality" without making them a selfish, mater... like Link from the Super Mario Bros. super show. Serena and Darian are essentially Link and Zelda from that show, with the gender's swapped.
I have watched the Outer scout arc, so I'll fill you in on them: Sailor Saturn's only attack is the End the World. That's it. In the game she can just use it like Ultima from FF6 but she LITERALLY cannot use her magic without blowing the planet up. Sailor Pluto is flat out NOT allowed to used her Time Stop power and cannot even leave her lair unless she is told to. Uranus and Neptune are a lesbian couple in the Japanese (in the English Dub, there are "cousins"). The "Outer" scouts have their own agenda, and conflict with the OG team like the Marvel Civil War. A lot of the character reveals were seen coming miles away, such as Darian being Tuxedo Mask and being married to Serena 1000 years ago, Renee being Serena and Darian's daughter, and if you didn't guess that the grey kitten was Luna and Artemis's child, you haven't been paying attention (it gets exceptionally cringeworthy when Luna outright accuses Artemis of cheating on her, even though it's obviously HER CHILD).
Some of my favorite things in the game is Lita/Jupiter wanting to be a housewife/cook/sew person in spite of being the physically strongest, in an age where everyone was making "strong female characters" who don't need no man because being capable of taking care of yourself without having a man 100% of the time and being a damsel are not exclusive traits (also women in Japanese society trained in the use of the Naginata (japanese polearm) and Native American women trained with men with the Composite Bow, and both still did the standard housewife thing in both cases). Her backstory implies people pick fights with her because of her size (Japanese kids bullying people for being different). Saturn is also my other favorite because of reasons I said above and she looks better in white to me than the other scouts.
The problem you have with Mercury in that boss battle is that you need to put her in the FRONT front row for her scenario, because the game exaggerates front/back row spots. Also characters with incapacitating effects drop like a truck, can be one-shotted pretty easily. There is supposed to be a 180 puzzle piece thing you get from chests and enemies drops, but enemies stopped dropping it after a time, meaning you can't complete the puzzle.
When I tried to play it, I also was using the original translation, and it bugged me.
Just saying, I hate when the translator is overly fannish or weeby, and thus they think its best to just leave terms in Japanese rather than translate them. Mamoru calling her "odango" head rather than either of the two acceptable English translations (Meatball head or Dumpling head) is an example of this, though I was more bothered by things like "Ginzuishou" or "shittenou no hako." You know how some people don't like Star Trek because they hate having to hear tons of nonsense technobabble? Yeah, this gives me that effect.
I also recall some aspects of the story feeling fanfic-ish. Now, I came in a little better informed than you because I had seen a fansub of the anime, so I knew what they were talking about when they called some demons "youma" [what Queen Beryl's monsters were called] and others "daimons" [Professor Tomoe's monsters]. But.... thing that gets me is, Sailor Moon seeing some monster and instinctively knowing "that's a youma!" is kinda... weird. Like, from an outside perspective, a monster is a monster. It's like someone seeing two rabbits and instinctively knowing one of them is a hare.
Sailor Moon itself, for me, is one of those oddities in a couple of ways. First, I actually do think the DIC dub is better than the original Japanese in a bunch of ways (most notably in Serena/Usagi being given more snark, and I prefer the DIC music a lot of times). But at the same time, its a show that is hard to go back to. Back in the day, watching one episode a day was fun and doable. But today the culture is around binge-watches and streaming and Sailor Moon can actually be annoying to watch if you're binging...
... At least, it can be until you get to a season midpoint or story arc bit, at which point it suddenly becomes really effing good.
These days I would instead read the manga, though that tells a vastly different story from the anime.
My breast hurts
Portuguese is my mother tongue. When I read that, I thought it was something cultural among speakers of English. LoL
Ugh. The worst part about anime based games past and present, is they are not designed to be great games to get you into the anime but just to make a buck off those into the anime. Like the story comment, that's silly that you need info from the TV show. Batman Arkham and Spiderman for ps4 are prime examples how to take a media and make it into a video game where fans and non fans can fall in love
I can't agree with this sentiment enough. There might've been some backstory in the manual that I couldn't understand since it's in Japanese, but certainly not enough to cover every character and relationship you need some insight into to get the most out of this game.
@@hungrygoriya the sad part is this game is amazing. It isn't typical shovel ware. They did put a lot of effort into it. So there is a great game here to be enjoyed by any jrpg fans, but dropped the ball a bit on the 4th wall side of the story being told.
I'd just really like to play a One Peice videogame that didn't rely on me watching 800 episodes which I absolutely won't be doing but I'd totally love some insight to this world that so many people love.
Er basically what I mean is... I'd like to buy anime based games that didn't make me feel like I was missing something going in
@@braydenb1581 I agree with you completely. It'd be nice to get introduced to a series through a game rather than the game being some sort of fan service instead.