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Still playing a bunch of RPGs, trying ones I’d never really seen or played before. Double Moon Densetsu and Ghost Lion kinda burned me by being just okay, but SURELY this one will be good right? I mean, it’s SAILOR MOON! I like Sailor Moon! I’m a girl in her 30s who grew up watching it, of COURSE I like Sailor Moon, that’s like, the law. Uh, no. Sadly, no. This one is pretty damn mid.

This Sailor Moon game is an RPG for the Super Famicom, and it is the most fanfictiony thing I’ve ever seen in my god damn life. Basically, the plot is there’s an evil powerful shaman who gains control over time, and she sends her bad guy five-girl squad into the past to change history, so that the Sailor Scouts are defeated and she can rule. Simple, and quite fitting for Sailor Moon, right? That’s pretty typical stuff. What makes it fanficky is that they’re changing the fates of characters we know, EXPLICITELY so that the Sailor Scouts (you can tell I’m from the 90s, they’re not called that anymore) can fight enemies from their past. We get retreads of all the villains from season 2 and 3 of Sailor Moon. We DO also fight Beryl, though her five goon squad are actually good guys in this game. I guess the writers liked them too much.

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It’s a time travel timey wimey plot, and like true fanfiction, it makes NO fucking sense. It has no care for scale, or plot, or consistancy. It falls apart under the SLIGHTEST scrutiny. I’m not about to sit here and tell you that this sailor moon game is bad though because it has plot holes, that’d be dumb. If anything, it helps. It’s VERY fun to point and laugh. What the fuck is this weird cult-like town that’s in the middle of Canada that you visit? Why did it exist thousands of years ago during the Silver Era???? Where are the natives? Oh it doesn’t matter. Like I said, it’s fun to laugh at.

The one thing I REALLY did not like in the plot was the decision to take the Goon Squad from the second half of season 2 (in other words, the good half), and change their fate. Unlike EVERY other villain in the game that we fight, these are the actual same normal girls. Like, for example, you fight Sailor Saturn’s dad, who was brought back to life and back to the moment where he was a villain. That’s like an AU version of him dragged here. But the Spectre Sisters are EXPLICITELY the same Spectre Sisters from our universe. They settled down and quit being villains and are living a happy life…. except now that time travel fate changing powers are in play, they join in and get themselves killed pathetically, throwing themselves at you one after another in one on five boss fights, just for the chance of maybe grasping victory again. It’s a slap in the face from their story conclusion in Sailor Moon R >:(. I’m angy.

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The Goon Squad this go-round are the Oppositio Senshi, who are basically just evil-sailor scouts. They’re all assigned a Sailor Scout to be the opposite of, and they’re kinda like that Scout, taken to an extreme. They’re also all named after Mesopotamian gods. Nabu is Mars’ counterpart, she’s cold and calculating, but to an extreme, with little empathy. Ishtar is Venus’ counterpart, she’s aloof and goofy, but taken to an extreme. You get the idea. Sin is the leader, and she’s focused on helping and saving her friends and family… No matter what.

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So that’s the story. How’s the gameplay? It’s uh…. it’s boring! In this game, you mostly walk through hallways, and occasionally open mini-dungeons and door mazes, fighting random encounters that will NOT threaten you, because Sailor Saturn is UNBELIEVABLY BUSTED. And if you have Sailor Pluto on your side, good fucking luck to the opponents. She can freeze time for 3 turns, heal her MP, then cast it again, and stun lock you down. This works on EVERY boss. But what if you don’t have them on your team, due to story reasons? Well, then you grind. This game is VERY grindy, and unbalanced. Poor Sailor Mars gets the short end of the stick, she’s basically useless. Which is really a shame, because she’s my favorite Scout. The first chapter is the Scouts all splitting up, and you do a small mini chapter with each of them. Mars’ chapter is agonizing, because she does NO damage, and is made of paper. She has heals and support stuff, but that doesn’t help when its just her. Oh also, these mini chapters with all the scouts alone? The mini-plotlines in them all have the Scouts fall in love with some random OC made for that mini-chapter. Uh, Ami has a boyfriend, game. He’s even brought up and mentioned.

The art is really nice. It’s cool that they have all the Scouts in there. They have this team up system where you can learn skills with Scouts fighting together. You have this menu, plop two Scouts together, and if they have a teamup skill, you learn it. It takes like 5 minutes to plop them all together. The music is forgettable. All in all, this RPG is just extremely mid, which is a shame. It’s very interesting as a fan of Sailor Moon, but for ANYONE else, it’s not worth it at all. It’s also interesting because the game was made AS Sailor Moon S was being worked on, so they had to look at the notes for what the Outer Senshi were going to be like, but had no idea who the hell they were cause the devs hadn’t watched that part of the anime yet. That’s kinda funny.

Anyways, meh.