Floral Fantasy: The Adventures of Sakura Taisen (Part 1)

 🌸Introduction🌸

Sakura Wars, also known as Sakura Taisen, is a game series that’s lingered on my radar for a few years. The game's name surfaced occasionally in casual conversations, but my knowledge of it was fairly limited. It wasn't until much later when I heard that Sakura Taisen's characters and mechs were featured as DLC in Super Robot Wars 30, which brought my attention back to the series.

Furthermore, last summer, since I had just graduated from college and had a lot more time on my hands, I had been catching up on a lot of anime. In particular, I was watching a lot of older mecha series, and over time I decided it was time for me to try out this Sakura Taisen game. So, I downloaded a Sega Saturn emulator, the two disk files necessary to actually play the game, and the fan translation. Once, I got everything set up, I went right into the game. And as such, I wish to share my playthrough with all of you in a two-part blog post.

🌸Development History🌸

Sakura Taisen is the first installment of a long-running series of cross-genre games jointly developed by Sega and Red Company, now known as Red Entertainment. The development of this game was spearheaded by Ōji Hiroi, whose real name is Teruhisa Hiroi. Before Sakura Taisen, Hiroi co-authored a shōnen manga series called Samurai Crusader alongside Ryoichi Ikegami. Additionally, he also developed the iconic Tengai Makyō series, also known as Far East of Eden. 

Far East of Eden proved to be notably popular in Japan, where it became one of the most popular RPG series during the 16-bit era. A lot of its success was largely attributed to the fact that the first game was one of the first RPGs released under the new CD-ROM format. This allowed for it to utilize fully voiced animated cutscenes and CD music. These elements, coupled with the game’s focus on Japanese history, are both traits that would be revisited during the development of Sakura Taisen.

In 1990, Hiroi conceived the initial concept that would eventually evolve into Sakura Taisen when he saw a Japanese stage production of the play Shanghai Rhapsody and was impressed by the spectacle of the acting troupe he saw on stage. 

In 1993, Hiroi collaborated with anime composer Kohei Tanaka on an OVA based on the game Tengai Makyou: Ziria. Hiroi was deeply impressed by Tanaka's music and envisioned creating a game centered around theater, with Tanaka composing the score. Subsequently, in the same year, Hiroi's team in the Planning Department of Red Company initiated the promotion and basic planning of the game’s concept.

At this point, this small project was called Project Sakura (桜), and it was mostly an example plan rather than a practical project. Which over time started to gain its shape once elements like having a majority female cast, mecha elements, and steampunk were introduced.

During the development of this "Sakura" proposal, Hiroi's team created two tabletop role-playing games called "Sakura 1" and "Sakura 2." Initially, this resulted in the strategy elements nearly overriding the game's other aspects. Being inspired by the combination of tactical combat and the story elements used in the Fire Emblem series, Hiroi steered this project more in that direction. Furthermore, to build upon the narrative and characters influences from contemporary anime were incorporated. After refining the elements for up to a year, Hiroi then presented this project to various game companies, but they all rejected this idea. Despite his determination, Hiroi eventually shelved the project, doubting it would ever get picked up.

It wasn’t until 1994 that the Madlad and Chad, Shoichiro Irimajiri, who was the vice president of Sega at the time, contacted Hiroi about the possibility of developing a game with a potential mascot character for Sega's upcoming Sega Saturn console. Irimajiri wanted a unique IP for the system and had heard positive feedback about Hiroi's previous works. Hiroi was initially reluctant but eventually accepted Irimajiri's offer, inviting him and other potential contributors to spend a holiday in Saipan. 

Hiroi stated that the decision to work on a game for the Saturn was a hard one, as he had previously worked on games for rival consoles before that. After much discussion, Hiroi decided to take Irimajiri up on his offer using his original Sakura Project. The game was later rechristened "Sakura Taisen," and due to some trademarking issues, the kanji version of Sakura couldn't be used, resulting in the word "Sakura" being written in katakana instead.

The development of Sakura Taisen took around three years, twice the initial estimate. Hiroi served as the general producer, with Tomoyuki Ito as the director. Buildup Entertainment and Neverland handled the CGI, while anime cinematics were directed by Shunji Oga and produced by Sega's studio Kyokuichi Tokyo Movie. Initially outsourced, the game's development faced challenges as it drifted too far from Hiroi's initial vision, and he felt that it was becoming a generic simulation game. Which led to the prototype's cancellation. Sega's CS Research & Development No. 2 division then collaborated with Red Company to complete the game, dividing conflicting gameplay elements among teams. This approach made effective testing challenging, making production difficult. Because of these challenges, Sakura Taisen became Sega's most expensive game production to date, although the exact budget remains undisclosed. But through thick and thin, the game was completed and released on the Sega Saturn on September 27, 1996.

To everyone's surprise, the game was a hit for both Red Company and Sega, prompting the companies to develop further entries in the series. Since its launch, Sakura Taisen has maintained enduring popularity in Japan. It earned the 13th spot in a 2006 Famitsu poll, ranking among the best games of all time. All main entries of the series also made it onto this list. Additionally, Sakura, the game's poster girl, was recognized as the 17th best Japanese video game character by Famitsu in 2009. Furthermore, both Sakura Taisen and its initial sequel were voted among the ten most memorable Saturn games in a Famitsu poll. The Dreamcast port of Sakura Taisen also secured a place among the most memorable titles for that platform according to the same poll.

Everyone loved this game in Japan, so how about here on the western side of the pond? Well, we never got Sakura Taisen, in fact, we didn’t get any games in the series until Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, the fifth game in the series, was localized in 2010 by NIS America. 

Hey Larry, why the long face?

Sega of America was a bit afraid of bringing the original Saturn game to the US because it had a lot of things that Americans were afraid of, like heavy anime influences and Japanese cultural references, heavy amounts of text, and SRPG gameplay. Luckily, Sega of America chose not to localize this game to protect our pure American eyes. 

I'm being facetious, but a lot of Western players back then, and even nowadays aren’t very well receptive to these aspects. And it unfortunately made perfect sense for Sega of America to not localize this game. 

Moreover, the predominantly female cast and the generally more lighthearted setting ran counter to Sega's target audience in the West. The emphasis on a "cool," "hip," and "rebellious" attitude, perpetuated through their assertive marketing campaigns and a certain blue hedgehog, made titles such as Sakura Taisen and a substantial portion of the Sega Saturn's library less appealing to the U.S. market.

🌸Fan Translation🌸

Fortunately, curious cats like us are in luck, because as of July of 2021, a fan translation was released for the first Sega Saturn game through the efforts of NoahSteam, cj_iwakura, and their team of contributors. Before 2021, the only way to play Sakura Taisen in English was to play in Japanese and read the script translation from the GameFAQs guide… which is extremely cumbersome. 

However, to cj_iwakura’s surprise, the game was actually localized already. In fact, the first two games were, but they were PC ports, and in Russian, and the localizations were the same quality you’d expect from Google Translate… However, this localization would potentially come in handy as it could be reverse-engineered into making an English version for PC.

Unfortunately, this version was made for really old operating systems, making it really difficult to run on modern hardware. Along the way, however, cj_iwakura learned that NoahStream was already working on a fan translation for the Sega Saturn version. In 2018, Noah’s translation was coming along really well mostly due to the work of MatatabiMitsu. Then about eight months into the project, it got another boost of energy when cj_iwakura reached out to them, giving the current team access to his own translators; Nezumi and Schlomo. And those two, combined with the talents of MatatabiMitsu and CrouchingMouse blazed through the rest of the untranslated text over the next several months.

 

Later, the team expanded with the inclusions of trekkiesunite118 and BowlOfLentils. TrekkiesUnite118 in particular was able to add subtitles to all the anime cutscenes, which at the time was seen as impossible to do. They also translated Maria's and Kanna's minigames and assisted Noah in patching the load screens and intro logos. After everything was debugged and scanned for errors, the game would finally exist in a playable form in English with the presentation to match an officially localized Saturn game. 

The patch itself is fine, it has very few typos or errors. The only real criticism I might have is the fact that sometimes the text reaches too close to the right end of the text box. In addition, letters like 'p,' 'q,' and 'g' get clipped out of the textbox when they're in the bottom line of the dialogue.

🌸Opening🌸

As soon as you boot up the game, you’re immediately greeted with Hiroi’s love of anime-style presentations through an opening sequence reminiscent of a classic anime OP. The theme song, "Geki! Teikoku Kagekidan" (Declaration! Imperial Combat Revue), performed by Chisa Yokoyama, accompanies the visuals. The song itself is decent, and the animation, albeit reusing many scenes, effectively captures the essence of a 90s anime series, creating a nostalgic atmosphere. 

For me, what sets this game apart compared to similar games is its commitment to the anime aesthetic they’re going for. It incorporates an opening sequence, an "end of episode teaser," and even commercial breaks, marked by splash screens that allow the player to save their progress. These presentation elements are aspects I wish games like Super Robot Wars would embrace more.

🌸Let's Play the Game🌸

Now, I want to go over my personal run-through of the game and share my thoughts and how I played through the game in the style of an abridged Let's Play, as such there will be spoilers. During my telling of the first episode, there will be no major spoilers and I will discuss basic game mechanics and features, so that would be safe to read. However, afterward, if you wish to play this game blind, I suggest you leave.

🌸Episode 1 - The Capital Floral Assault Troop🌸

This game is set in a fictionalized version of the Taishō era in Japan, which is set in around the 1920s. The story takes place in the spring of 1923, to be exact, year 12 of the Taishō era. In this version of the era, steam-based technology is prevalent, powering computers, automobiles, and mechs. 

When starting the game, we are put in the shoes of Ensign Ichiro Ogami (CV: Akio Suyama), the recent top graduate of the Imperial Naval Academy. He has been given an outstanding opportunity, being assigned to be the captain of the secret Imperial Assault Troop working under the Anti-Demon Corps known as the Flower Division. After receiving this news, we headed out to Ueno Park to meet up with one of our future subordinates, which also happened to be the previous site of a monster attack.

At the park, I meet up with this subordinate, Sakura Shinguji (CV: Chisa Yokoyama) who is essentially the poster girl of the series. She hails from the city of Sendai and, like us, is a bit of a newbie in the Flower Division. She has a very calm and down-to-earth demeanor, she’s determined, fights for her friends, and she would be considered the "canonical choice." 

…And well, aside from that, she’s kind of basic. I mean, she’s the game’s poster girl and mascot, so you can’t really do anything that can potentially cause people to dislike her. This unfortunately means that you can’t give her as many flaws or negative traits as some of the more minor characters, which isn’t my personal cup of tea. Non-surface level flaws are the meat and potatoes of what I enjoy in characters since that makes them feel more human, to me. And I have the same criticisms with similar characters, like Chiaki Nanami. But still, Sakura is an okay character in her own right.

Speaking of flaws, her most notable flaw for now is that she’s very much the jealous type. Right now, she’s okay because we just met, but don’t let those eyes fool you. Later on, she will bite your head off if Ogami does so much as breathe in the same direction as another woman, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Sakura introduced herself and said she was here to pick us up from the park and bring me to General Yoneda at the Imperial Theater… wait theater?! But before I have time to process that information, I am introduced to the very first instance of the Live & Interactive Picture System—or the LIPS system—a staple system to the Sakura Taisen series. This decision tree shows up whenever Ogami encounters a pivotal moment in a conversation with the Flower Division’s members and other supporting characters within the combat revue. Dialogue options are presented in the form of branching trees, accompanied by a time limit for the player to make a selection, if the time limit runs out, it will result in Ogami saying nothing, which in some scenarios, could be the right call. The chosen response can elicit positive or negative reactions from the character being spoken to, shaping the course of the interaction. It’s almost like talking to someone in real life, but much less stressful. 

In this first decision tree, you can either tell Sakura “Sorry, but I’m on duty”, or “First, tell me about yourself.” and I decide to ask Sakura about herself. Which she positively reacts to. She tells me about herself and the secret troop’s Koubu (光武 lit. Light Warrior) unit. After that, we move on to the theater which is located in Ginza, which Ogami assumes is a way to hide in plain sight.

Sakura walks you into the theater, but interrupting our introduction, is Iris Chateaubriand (CV: Kumiko Nishihara), a nine-year-old French girl born to a noble family. She’s a friendly and precocious girl who is a bit insecure about being treated like a little kid and prefers to be seen as an adult, however, it’s hard to treat her as such when she’s always seen running around with her teddy bear, Jean-Paul. 

She starts doting on Ogami, calling him “Mon Frère” (Onii-chan in Japanese), and talks about wanting to marry him when she’s older. It’s like how young girls fall in love with older celebrities and teachers and stuff like that, but still, keep your guard up. This is Japan we’re talking about! 

More importantly, she also mentions how she senses spiritual power from us… which is interesting, but we have no time to think about that now, we have to look for General Yoneda. But once I’m off on my own, the sound of yelling emerges from the dining hall, and as such, we must investigate. 

At this point, we meet Sumire Kanzaki (CV: Michie Tomizawa), the self-proclaimed “Toppu Sutā” of the theater and the sole heir of Kanzaki Heavy Industries. She’s very arrogant, haughty, conceited, and likes to stir the pot a lot amongst the other cast members, especially with one other character we’ve yet to meet. She’s kind of the asshole of the group and is very reminiscent of your trashy aunt, but at the very least, she’s really entertaining, and I like seeing what she has to say in any given scenario. 

She starts her interaction by insulting us, after that she tells you—from across the room mind you—to pick up the fork she dropped and then tells us to get her a new one. You’re given a second LIPS dialogue tree on whether you say "Yes ma'am, I'll pick up the fork for you right away" or you can essentially just tell her to “fuck off”. And like, you’d have to lack any sense of self-respect to willingly pick up her fork and give her a new one, like what kind of fucking nerd would take that kind of disrespect? 

Anyway, after I pick up her fork and get her a new one, she asks about my opinion on Maria, a character we haven’t met yet. She also babbles on about how Maria is trying to replace her as the Toppu Sutā. She then talks about how Yoneda doesn’t know “real” talent. Once you reveal to her that you’re the new captain of the Division and you're actually looking to speak with Yoneda. She changes her tone real quick, and tries to convince you to keep this discussion a secret, then gives you a kiss on the cheek.

You finally make it to Yoneda’s room, but you run into Maria Tachibana (CV: Urara Takano), the former captain of the Assault Troop. She’s a platinum blonde, half-Russian, half-Japanese woman with a cool, reserved, and professional demeanor. She takes her duties as a soldier very seriously, with her marksmanship being nearly unmatched. On the side, she has a passion for cooking and reading that she engages with in her free time.

She’s generally really kind, but can also be distant or cold, and she even refuses to see Ogami as their true leader until he proves himself. In this first interaction with her, she doesn’t say much, she just introduces herself. This is where you have access to the first instance of the point-and-click feature. This feature has a hand-shaped cursor on the screen that you can control and use to observe different aspects of the character you’re talking to like their hair, eyes, skin, and… uh… *ahem*

That said, if you’re caught staring too much, it will negatively affect your relationship with the character you’re interacting with. In any case, we had a casual talk with Maria and she talked about how she was going off to go train. As she leaves, Ogami comments on how he’s finally encountered someone who looks like an actual soldier. 

Finally entering the Manager’s Office, you meet up with Ikki Yoneda (CV: Masaru Ikeda) who at the moment is hammered with a cup of sake at hand. Yoneda is a pretty funny guy, even on the rare occasions he is sober. He's not really afraid to speak his mind, he's very carefree, and can sometimes come off as rude. However, seeing this drunk old man, instead of the seasoned combat hero he's heard stories about, Ogami is left with more questions than answers. Yoneda doesn’t really clear up any of the confusion either and gives us our first job at the reception desk. Once I leave the room, I find Sakura and Iris eavesdropping. When I scold them for eavesdropping, Iris gets mad and leaves. 

Iris starts crying and running away. I proceeded to call after her and console her, making her sure that I wasn’t actually mad. And that cheers her up pretty quickly. 

They both show me the way to the reception desk and then I learn that this job Yoneda gave to me is nothing more than to clip tickets for the entitled customers who want to go to the theater. Customer Service… a fate worse than death…

Like actual customer service jobs, the customers here are just as pissy and hostile, and now that Ogami is pissed, we get ready to head back to Yoneda’s office. But first, we are stopped by Tsubaki Takamaru, the lady who runs the gift shop. She doesn’t do anything at this moment except for simply explaining that the gift shop exists. 

After that little exchange, you have more free reign to engage with the Adventure portion of the game. This isn't all too different from the free-roaming portions in games like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa. You can move around the map via a cursor which you use to move Ogami around, and you can also interact with people you see in these locations. You have a limited amount of time you can explore the map, and each time you visit a room or talk to someone, more time goes by. Anyways, I’m pissed, but not that pissed, so let’s go to the gift shop to see what that’s about.

At the gift shop, you can buy some different bromides of each of the characters. Bromides are photographic prints of celebrities, similar to autographs, and are named after the type of paper they are printed onto. They originated in the Taishō era and throughout the decades they remained extremely popular as celebrity merchandise. I actually remember in Lunar: The Silver Star Story Complete, bromides existed as collectible items for that game as well. 

Xenobia is my favorite

In Sakura Taisen, you can buy bromides once every chapter, and if you get them all, you get a special bonus at the end. In this run, I haphazardly bought the Maria Bromide… then proceeded to completely forget about the existence of the gift shop for half of the game.

On my way to the manager’s office, I stop by the Secretary’s Office where I encounter Yuri Sakakibara and Kasumi Fujii, neither of which really have much to add right now, so we move on to confront Yoneda, where he drops a bombshell. This isn’t the Imperial Assault Troop, it’s the Imperial Assault Troupe. Just a regular run-of-the-mill theater and all the girls here are simply stage performers.

Understandably, Ogami is bummed out about the whole thing, feeling like his promising military career just vanished right before his eyes. The next day, the girls are performing, and Sumire gets into an argument with Sakura over accidentally stomping on her kimono, this little argument quickly turns physical as Sumire goes in for a Doubleslap, but luckily Ogami is able to use Protect in time to prevent this conflict from further escalating. And this action causes the cast to gain some respect and trust towards you. After that though, Sakura tries to talk to Ogami about the whole troupe thing, but interrupting them is a loud siren telling them to report to the basement floor.

They gather in a combat room, where Yoneda abruptly sobers up. But more importantly, he discloses that everything was all just an elaborate ruse, to test Ogami or something. Despite the venue being a theater primarily during peacetime, it serves a different purpose in times of danger. It also serves as the headquarters of the Imperial Assault Troop, where they fight against evil forces. This particular troupe is actually based on the Takarazuka Revue (宝塚歌劇団), a Japanese all-female musical theater troupe based in Takarazuka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. It's where women play all roles in lavish, Broadway-style productions of Western-style musicals and stories adapted from films, novels, shōjo manga, and Japanese folktales. The troupe originated in 1913 and even includes many different divisions, including a Flower Division.

As the Assault Troop, they fight demons and paranormal beings via steam-powered mechs called Koubu, mechs that can only be piloted by those who possess high spiritual energy. Typically people with high spiritual energy tend to be women, making Ogami an exception. 

Here, we have Sakura's Pink Koubu. It's very pink and it belongs to Sakura.

With the troops assembled, Ogami, Sakura, Sumire, and Maria set out to combat these evil forces. While Iris does have enough spiritual power to pilot a Koubu, she doesn’t have her mech yet and is sitting on the sidelines as a cheerleader for the time being. Our squadron assembles in the carrier train, the Thunderstrike (Gourai-Go in Japanese) and we’re off on our first combat mission.  

We’re presented with Ueno Park being attacked by demon-controlled mechs, known as Hex Mechs, as four mysterious figures watch from the background. These four are members of the Hive of Darkness and serve as the game’s main villains. Once your army is deployed, it’s time to engage with the SRPG portion of this game. 

I’ve seen a lot of people say this game is an SRPG game with some Visual Novel/Dating Sim elements, but I feel that’s a bit of a misnomer. It’s more like a Visual Novel/Dating Sim with some SRPG elements, as the SRPG element isn’t really the primary focus of the game, I feel. It’s very simplistic and kind of primitive, even more so than the early Fire Emblems. 

Like, you can’t even undo a movement choice in this game, so if you move to a tile and realize you selected the wrong space, you can’t press B to undo that selection, you just have to sit there and deal with your mistake. The first Super Robot Wars games on the original GameBoy also had that same problem actually. But I’m getting a bit off-topic, this game has a few unique mechanics that separate it from other SRPGs.

I don't mention this in the blog, but those orange mechs you see are the "Hex Mechs",

just so you know what they look like.

In this game, you have several different action types, and each unit can perform two of each type of action per turn. The different types are as follows: 

Movement:

The only command you have for this option is moving your unit, it’s very self-explanatory.

Attack:

Within this type, you have the Attack command, which allows you to attack the enemy. Each unit has a different attack range and does a variable amount of damage. If you’re lucky you’re able to perform a critical hit which is designated by a slightly longer attack animation and a unique voice clip. It’s also worth noting that enemies won’t counterattack you, they can only attack you on enemy phase, likewise, you can’t counter enemies.

In addition, you have Special Attacks, which are attacks you can only perform if your special meter is filled. This meter is filled by using the Rest command or taking damage. This allows you to perform a stronger attack and each unit has its own unique special attack and animation.

Later on in the game, you also get Combo Attacks, which are a type of attack that a unit can do alongside Ogami if they either have the highest Trust level with him or they are featured prominently in the specific episode you're on. In addition, both units must have a maxed-out Special meter. Once those conditions are met, they unleash a large sum of damage to a given enemy via a cute little combo animation.

Defend:

Within this type, first, you have the Defend command, which lets you reduce incoming damage taken on enemy phase. 

Heal lets you recover damage taken from either yourself or an ally, and can only be used two times in a given map.

And Rest lets you raise up your special meter. There's not much else to say here.

Info and End:

The “Info” type doesn’t abide by the rules of the other command types and can be used as many times per turn as you want. It just gives you stats or mission info, and the “End” type, just has a single command which allows you to end your turn.

Cover:

The last command is a special command exclusive to Ogami. It allows him to select one team member at a time and shield them from taking damage. This results in both the unit of his choice, and Ogami himself taking 0 damage, and the unit gains Trust points towards Ogami. This command can also be used eight times per map, and it can be used from any distance from the desired unit. It is very broken.

Now is probably a better time than any to explain what Trust points are. As I mentioned when discussing the LIPS system, your choices can have positive or negative consequences, typically resulting in gaining or losing Trust points. These outcomes are indicated by a chime you hear during dialogue scenes. The level of Trust you have for a specific unit determines additional stats they gain during the combat portion, those being their attack stats, defense stats, and movement stats, as this game doesn't follow the traditional leveling up or experience system; in fact, it lacks a weapon system or a real currency system.

During development, implementing the Trust system instead of the traditional level-up system was a contentious decision within the development team. According to the director, Tomoyuki Ito, creating and making the Trust system work involved a lot of trial and error, especially in finding the best way to execute it.

Your units' Trust points reset at the beginning of each chapter. So, if you make a significant fuck up during a chapter, it will only affect you for one map. You can view vague descriptions of each character's trust level on splash screens, indicated by their mood. If they're in "High Spirits," their trust level is as high as they can be; if they're "In a terrible mood," their trust level is not as high as it can be. The order in which the characters are displayed on this screen also represents their cumulative trust level in relation to one another. 

In terms of deaths, this game follows a similar formula as most non-Fire Emblem SRPG games. By that, I mean that if any of our subordinates are defeated, they simply retreat and you lose trust points, but if Ogami is defeated, it's an automatic Game Over. With how long these maps can take, it's definitely something you want to avoid. Not that a Game Over is something you'd typically want to aim for in the first place.

Continuing on with the fight, Sakura asks me if there's anything special about the location we're fighting at, being caught off-guard from being asked a question in the middle of battle, I haphazardly say no, then I immediately regret it as Sakura, very dejected like, says something among the lines of "Oh... I guess it wasn't all that special to you." 

If you don't remember, Ueno Park is the location where Ogami meets Sakura for the first time, which I knew, but I was essentially just mashing A. Anyways, during the map we encounter our first boss, Aoi Satan, Which in this patch switches between “Sable Satan” and “Cerulean Satan” from time to time. 

I found it pretty funny how they named the first boss "Satan," just in case you didn't know that this guy was supposed to be evil. In Japanese, they spell his name out in Kanji (葵 叉丹) rather than katakana to try to make it look like a proper Japanese name, which I found even funnier.

After defeating Satan, he retreats, and since he's a handsome-looking guy, you already know he's going to have some kind of relevance to the overall story later on. But for now, with the crisis averted, Sakura introduces us to the end-of-battle tradition of a cute victory pose.

Once we're all cooled off, we go back to Ueno Park for a flower viewing party during the nighttime. Everyone starts to warm up more to Ogami and the troop is all just enjoying each other's company with no shortage of booze along the way. 

And with our drunk princess, the book is closed on the first episode of this game, with many more to come. 

🌸Episode 2 - The Hive of Darkness🌸

Episode 2 opens up with a more formal introduction of our villains, The Hive of Darkness, which is governed by our main baddie, Tenkai, who's named after a Japanese Tendai Buddhist monk of the Azuchi-Momoyama and early Edo periods.

His underlings consist of the Four Lords of Death, or Shitennō (死天王), a play on the term Shitennō (四天王), which refers to the Four Heavenly Kings, four Buddhist gods, who are believed to watch over each cardinal direction of the world: North, South, East, and West. The play on words comes from replacing the Kanji for four 四 with the Kanji for death 死. Which are both pronounced as "Shi".

These Four Lords of Death consist of Sable Satan, whom we already met before. Crimson Miroku, the woman in the red kimono. Azure Setsuna, the short kid who kinda looks like a goth version of Picky from Earthbound. And Argent Rasetsu, the muscular guy with the mohawk. And well, aside from Satan, none of them are really very noteworthy. They only exist to stir up the conflict in the upcoming episodes and then die.   

Right now though, Master Tenkai is angry, very angry at Satan's defeat against the Imperial Assault Troop. Following that, he gives some exposition about his "Hexagram of Infernal Summoning", a spell he's devised to destroy the capital's barrier as well as talking about how he would like to join in on the Troop's next battle at Shiba Park. After his babbling though, Satan suspiciously laughs to himself as he seems to have other plans in mind.

At the theater, we're about to go back to our job punching tickets when Sumire informs us that a new member will be joining our team. This member is being transferred from the Hanayashiki Branch, which is a branch in Asakusa, which is operating as an amusement park, which kind of parallels how we operate as a theater. Fun fact, this Hanayashiki Amusement Park exists in real life, and it's still open to this day. But, as quickly as Sumire leaves, we are treated to another FMV cutscene, and our new member, Kohran Li, shows up with a bang, both figuratively and literally, as her steam-powered bike blows up as she reaches the theater.

This… is Kohran Li (CV: Yuriko Fuchizaki), a Chinese woman who was originally born in Beijing. At a young age, she moved to the city of Kobe, where she explored her interest in machinery and picked up a notable Kansai accent along the way. Kansai accents are usually associated with a more casual and friendly tone, which is displayed in this patch with Kohran's more informal tone, like using phrases such as "Oh jeez", "jiffy", and "Nice to meetcha". 

Kohran as a character is very upbeat and vibrant, serving as the group's mood-maker and comic relief. In terms of the team's contributions, her interest in machinery has made her the team's honorary tech expert, treating the Koubu units almost as if they were her own kids. 

After a little talk, I agree to escort her to talk to General Yoneda, and while I missed it in my run, there's a funny line you can get if you enter the gift shop with her where she comments on how she looks in her bromide. 

We reach Yoneda's office, where he gives us the rundown, he talks to Kohran, and he teases us a bit saying that Sakura might get jealous if I get too buddy-buddy with Kohran. I then show her to her room, but on our way, we run into Maria dressed up as a man, as she's playing a French soldier named André for the theater's next play. 

Because of her handsome appearance, Maria typically plays male characters in a lot of the plays, but this discussion reminds Kohran that she has to get ready for the play... even though she literally just showed up and hasn't rehearsed. She assures us by telling us that she's used to doing things on the spot, then runs off to prepare for the performance. If nothing else, I respect her confidence, if I was in the same position, I would probably be pissing bricks. 

After those hijinx, we run into Iris who informs us that we have to go to the Secretary's Office where Kasumi and Yuri are waiting. So we march over there, and they inform us that they have some papers that need to be organized, which I accept because three people sorting the papers will be a lo— oh, they just kinda get their coats and leave... 

Ogami is then made to stay late organizing all the papers for them, and I don’t really have anything to comment on, it’s funny as fuck. 

Once you're done with the papers, it's already late at night, and before doing your nightly patrol, Kohran comes over and asks you if you want to visit her room later on to have some "fun." You can go over to her room, or just ignore her and go to bed, which, while funny, would probably hurt her feelings, so I join her in her room. 

But aside from that she explains that she wants to play a card game called Koi-Koi (こいこい) a popular card game in Japan played using hanafuda cards. The object of the game is to form special card combinations called yaku (役) using cards gained in a point pile. This also happens to be the first minigame you have access to in the game, and I'll say this right now, you will lose. Kohran is very good at the game and will almost always "just so happen" to get all the cards she needs.

After that, we continued on our nightly patrol, and I kinda just wandered around aimlessly until the time ran out and went to bed, but apparently, there are some other minigames you can get here that I missed. Like one with Sumire, if you had decided to go to her room then follow her into the Training Room.

Another day, another play! As the second showing of yesterday's play is happening on stage, and as Ogami isn't stuck doing papers today, he can actually watch the play this time. But during the play, Sakura trips over her shoelaces or something and falls over, grabbing a curtain, and destroying the set. And as a result, Sumire is kind of being a bitch about it. Sakura and Sumire get into yet another argument. I chastise Sumire, then she gets even more pissed, but the stage's destruction isn't completed yet, more of the stage falls apart and everyone including the audience has to evacuate. 

Unfortunately, nobody got hurt, but Sumire is still scolding Sakura and telling her to fix everything up, and I just feel bad for her, so I offer to fix up the set for her in her place. And doing that causes everyone to gain a bit more trust in me. While repairing the stage, we get another FMV scene of Ogami hammering a plank of wood, and he accidentally slams his pointer finger with a hammer. An older woman then jumpscares us from out of the shadows, and uh, this happens.

After the questionable interaction, Ogami's finger stops hurting as the blood rushes somewhere else, and as the woman leaves, Ogami is left awestruck by how beautiful she is. But he probably should have kept his big mouth shut, as Sakura hears everything, and she's more than a little jealous. 

In fact, she's furious, we lose trust points with her and she storms off, leaving behind the bento box she was planning to give us. I decided to go to her room to make amends, I knocked on her door and she asked "Who's there", I got a LIPS tree where I could either say "Can I have an autograph" or say "It's Ogami", I was afraid she wouldn't open up if I just said it was me, and I wanted to try to lighten the mood a bit, so I selected the former, which she didn't find funny in the slightest, and I lost more trust points with her. 

After that, Sakura asked about the older woman who was with me. I tried to reassure her by stating that I didn't care for the older woman; rather, Sakura was the only girl I had eyes for. Although, in hindsight, I probably should have just been completely honest about the whole thing, because she immediately assumed I was lying, got even more angry, and I lost even more trust points with her.

The next day, a siren rings as soon as we get up from bed and we all must assemble for another fight. We receive word from Yoneda that the Hive of Darkness is attacking Shiba Park which is the site of Teito Tower, which is parallel to the real-world Tokyo Tower. However, it will take forever to get from the theater to Shiba Park, which is why we get aboard the second of the Troupe's carrier vessels, the Soaring Whale (Shogeimaru in Japanese) a steam-powered airship used to fly across long distances. 

Once we get to Shiba Park, instead of being greeted by cute Shibas, we are greeted by Tenkai planting one of his Hexagram gizmos into the ground. Noticing us, he warps to the top of Teito Tower and assigns his group of Hex Mechs to crush us. In this map, we are introduced to three new mechanics: Steam tiles, which can heal your HP when you stand on them,  they're essentially like Forts, Thrones, or Gates in a Fire Emblem game. 

The second mechanic, or rather enemy type, is obstacles. There are different types like ones that simply block your path like a wall or barrier, and then there are ones that attack you from afar like a ballista or cannon, but both of these types can be destroyed by dropping their HP to zero, however, they are notably tanky. Right now, they're kinda just here, but they get extremely annoying later on.

The last notable mechanic is ledges, where essentially, you can't attack an enemy unit from an adjacent tile if they're on a higher elevation than you. However, our new crew member, Kohran can bypass this completely, as she can fire vulcan-like projectiles from a distance ignoring ledges. These attacks also do splash damage and damage any enemies within a one-tile radius around the unit attacked, good for mopping up groups of enemies. 

After taking out the mooks, Tenkai retreats and summons a silver Hex Mech which essentially takes no damage and has very high attack. After uselessly bonking it for a while, a woman's voice is heard, and she tells us that this mech is nothing but a diversion, and the real silver mech that you have to kill is sneaking up behind you and heading to the tower. Once you intercept this mech, Shiba Park is saved, and we strike another victory pose. 

Once we get back on the whale, we find out that the woman's voice belonged to the Finger Sucker we met the other day, whose real name is Ayame Fujieda (CV: Ai Orikasa), the Vice Commander of the Imperial Assault Troop. A gentle motherly woman who was also responsible for scouting Iris, Kohran, and Maria in the first place. Her wisdom coupled with her gentle heart makes her a very respected person among the crew.

This episode concludes with Tenkai angry at his defeat, and going on another evil rant about how he will destroy Tokyo, as he twirls his metaphorical mustache.

 

🌸Episode 3 - Unfit to be a Captain?🌸

Episode 3 starts off with another spat amongst the Hive of Darkness, that's when Setsuna speaks up and proposes a plan to stop the Imperial Assault Troop. He recognizes that Maria and Ogami are the central members of our group, and devises a plan to get one of us out of the picture. He then mentions that he has some damning information regarding Maria Tachibana’s past, which he'll no doubt use as leverage later on.

We go back to the theater, and coincidentally, Maria happens to be in a bit of a mental slump. She's daydreaming, dozing off, being more closed off than usual, and messing up her lines in performances. She asks us vague questions about whether or not our past ever haunts us. And, I honestly feel for her, and can really empathize with her feelings throughout this episode. 

Maria quickly leaves and then Kazumi comes to talk to us. She tells us about Maria, and how maybe Kanna could help her out. She then gives us some exposition on this Kanna person, and how she and Maria were some of the first members of the Assault Troupe. Interrupting their convo though, someone needs Kasumi's assistance, so she leaves us be, and we decide to go talk to Maria some more. On our way, we go to the dining hall, where we see someone sitting at a table and pigging out. They're probably not important right now, so let's move on.

When we go around the theater and talk with everyone, they all basically tell us the same things about how Maria isn't being herself, how she's been messing up her lines, and how she hasn't gotten enough sleep. When we reach Maria's room, we have a bit of a talk with her and find one of this fan translation's few typos. 

Maria doesn't really tell us anything important, but we let her know that we'll be here to listen to her problems when need be. I then follow her to the set, and on our way, we run into Sumire, who doesn't really have anything important to say either. However, upon a repeat look-through of the text, I realized how perfect this casting role was for her in their Cinderella play.

Once we get back to the set, we see that everything is falling apart once again, in fact, as soon as we get there, one of the columns or something falls on top of us, and we desperately try to hold it up. Iris expresses worry, but we're "alpha males," a column like this is nothing to us. 

Choosing to pretend like this is nothing in the LIPS decision tree causes you to lose Trust points with Sumire btw.

Iris then tries to help out by wiping the sweat off of us, which only really makes things worse. The column falls down and almost crushes us both, but before that can happen, they are rescued by the last member of the Imperial Assault Troop, Kanna Kirishima.  

If you would consider Kohran as the brains of the group, Kanna (CV: Mayumi Tanaka) is the brawns. She is an Okinawan woman who's the successor of Ryukyu Kirishima Karate. She's very tomboyish, easy-going, hungry, and can be a bit of an airhead. Her more tomboyish nature is very evident in her speech, even sometimes ending sentences with the masculine term "da ze" (だぜ), which is a trait shared with Marisa Kirisame. As a character, she's very similar to someone like Akane Owari from Danganronpa 2, except that Kanna actually has plot relevance. Kanna is also the character I alluded to before in the first episode that Sumire likes to pick fights with frequently, despite this, Sumire is shown to care for her a lot, discreetly though. 

One of her most defining traits is that she's very strong, in combat she doesn't have long-distance attacks like Kohran or Maria, but she hits very, very hard. Aside from that, she mentions how she learned how to break rocks and fight bulls with her bare hands. She also mentions that her boat from Okinawa sank on its way here, and so she swam all the way here to meet up with us, and uh, for reference:

This is 42 hours by car.

Because of her muscular build, and her height, she, like Maria, tends to play male characters in a lot of the Troupe’s performances. Kanna in particular is really popular with kids and younger attendees because of her playful yet welcoming appearance.  

After having a little chit-chat with everyone after the play, Kanna invites us over to the Training Room where we have a bit of a sparring match. She goes in with several attacks and you're greeted with fast-paced LIPS decisions as to which direction you want to move to avoid her attacks, I actually didn't do horribly, I managed to dodge all her attacks. 

We then decide to go eat with her as she offers to cook us something good, and despite Ogami's initial reservations, the food tastes really good. Over the meal, we have a bit of a heart-to-heart with Kanna, as we learn more about her. We learn about what Karate means to her, how Ayame introduced her to the troupe, how she showed her that she could do things aside from just Karate, and learn a bit about how the troupe has changed since she first joined, as she and Maria were its first members. 

After that little talk, Kanna talks about how she's noticed something's up with Maria, and she wants us to try to help her. After that, we split off and on our way to our room, we ran into Maria, who'd been looking for something. We tried to ask her about it, but she dodged the question. Shortly later though, we find a locket which is Maria's  

Once we go to bed, we get a glimpse into Maria's head as we are presented with a recurring nightmare she's been having. A nightmare that reveals a bit about her past fighting as a soldier in the Russian Revolution in 1917, in which her former captain was killed in battle right before her eyes.

 

She wakes up in a cold sweat, but while Maria is still in the process of processing everything, the siren rings, informing us that the Hive of Darkness has struck again, this time in Tsukiji. We set out once again to stop the Hive from attacking the town, and we find Setsuna of the four Death lords planting another one of Hexagram things into the ground and sending his minions after us. 

The Imperial Assault Troop sets off to defeat his Hex Mechs, and during the fight, Kanna has a little pop quiz asking us her preferred fighting method, which is another LIPS dialogue tree. Answering "Breakthrough the front lines" will grant you more trust with her.

Once you set foot on the topmost island of the map, you trigger a cutscene where you're face-to-face with Setsuna. Once you think you have him cornered, a young boy who is escaping walks in front of you and trips on the air. You get a LIPS decision tree to decide on whether or not you save the boy, and we obviously choose to save the boy. Setsuna, however, uses this as a chance to severely damage Ogami's mech, and flee the battle.

 

Ogami is knocked out cold, and when he wakes up, he finds himself stuck to an operating table. Looking up, he's face to face with none other than Tenkai, and alongside him, it's Kohran. Apparently, Kohran was a double agent all along, selling our secrets to the Hive. And now that Ogami is in the Hive's clutches, Kohran and Tenkai are free to do experiments on him and plan to remodel him as the Hive's newest weapon.

Except not actually, because this was just a bad dream that Ogami had. I wonder if this dream will come back up later on though… (it doesn’t) 

Once we woke up, we found ourselves back at the theater in our bedroom with everyone around us. We ask about the kid that we saved, and we learn that he was reunited with his parents, and a lot of the troupe gains some respect for us for asking about the kid.

I’m not gonna lie, she is quite cute.

We also learned that we were out cold for three whole days. After taking Kohran's wonder drug that is meant to tend to minor injuries, we are out like a light once again for about half a day, a few people walk in and out of the room, including Sakura, with who we have a little talk with, and Maria, who is a bit pissed off. 

Maria asks us why we lept in to save the kid. We don't really have an answer, and she continues by saying that if we risked our lives to save one civilian, and ended up getting killed in the process, it would have caused many more people to die in the long run. 

We get another LIPS decision, where we can respond with "You're wrong!" or "You're absolutely right!" and while I don't particularly regret leaping out to save the boy who was in trouble, I can understand where Maria's concerns are coming from, especially since the enemy ended up escaping in the process. So, I responded with "You're absolutely right", but apparently that was the wrong choice, because this caused us to lose trust points with her, and she scolded us further. 

Maria then storms off, and we chase after her only to find her and Kanna arguing over something in her room. After arguing with her, Kanna leaves, and to avoid her finding us eavesdropping, we run and hide in the library. Though running that fast was probably a bad idea, as our body was still weak from the meds, and we ended up passing out. We had another bad dream, in which Maria's words kept on ringing in our head: “You’re unfit to be captain.”

Ogami suddenly wakes up in Ayame's room, in there, Ayame gives us some wise words of advice, about how a captain's duties don't end once we're off the battlefield. We have to do everything we can to understand Maria's struggle and have a conversation with her about it, so we go look for Maria and see if we can get to the bottom of this. 

In my run, I essentially went directly to where Maria was, but there's a lot of cool side side stuff you can do which I missed, like catching Kohran sleeping in the library or rubbing Sumire's shoulders backstage… how scandalous. 

We meet Maria in the main hall, as she really doesn't want to speak with us, she heads outside and we follow suit, but once outside we meet up with Setsuna once again. 

Setsuna reveals that he has dirt on Maria, specifically how she went by the name Cassowary and how she fought in the Russian Revolution. He threatens to expose to all her comrades her past as a "cold-hearted savage" unless she goes to the Hive's location alone. Maria pretends not to be worried about anything Setsuna says in front of Ogami, but on the inside, she's shitting bricks.

We head back to bed, only to later receive a report that Maria has gone out on her own with one of the Koubu. The rest of us gather in the command room and are ready to stop her, but as we're stumped on her reasons for being so cagey, Ayame has no choice but to speak up about her past in the revolution. She explains that her captain was very close to her, and this captain ended up being killed in action due to Maria's inaction and hesitance to fire a gun. The reason Maria was so strict with us earlier was that Ogami reminds her a lot of her previous captain, and this trauma still haunts her to this day. 

With the crew's newfound understanding of Maria's situation, we set out once again to rescue our comrade. I should probably mention here, by the way, that some episodes will have more than one combat portion, this episode being the first one that does. 

After fighting through another hoard of enemies, we find Maria's Koubu, but it's empty, with the only thing in it being her locket. Setsuna's voice rings from the skies once again telling Ogmai that our princess is in another castle, and if I want to rescue her, I must take a suspicious-looking boat to an undisclosed location, alone.

Even though Ogami is fully aware that this is another trap, he has little to no choice and takes the boat ride there. 

We finally make it to this location, and we find Setsuna as well as Maria in a compromising position that makes a cool reference to Jesus Christ, one of my favorite characters from Christianity. 

And like we expected, this was a trap set up by Setsuna. As soon as Ogami shows his face, Setsuna immediately attempts to kill us with the move Scratch. Little does Setsuna know, Ogami's uniform has a tracking device in it. The rest of the Flower Division follows Ogami’s coordinates and rescues both Ogami and Maria from danger. Once we're all back in our Koubus, we chase down Setsuna and defeat him.

 

After our trademark victory pose, Maria expresses gratitude for our collective effort. She apologizes for her earlier behavior, but we assure her that it's perfectly fine and return her locket. While handing back the locket, we reassure her that we didn't open it, and she expresses her thanks. The entire ending sequence is genuinely really sweet, and it warms my heart a lot. Maria finally accepts Ogami as her captain, she feels more open among everyone, and the other girls are jealous—a very satisfying conclusion.

🌸Episode 4 - Chaos! Chaos!! The Great Rampage!!!🌸

This episode opens up, once again, with the Hive of Darkness with one of the members, Rasetsu, being particularly angry. Turns out, Setsuna was his little brother, and Rasetsu is hellbent on revenge. 

On his forehead, Rasetsu has a manji symbol, an ancient religious symbol that represents the footprints of the Buddha. I hope anyone who's reading this understands that this symbol is referencing Buddha and won’t confuse it with any other symbol.

Back at the theater, Sumire and Kanna are rehearsing, while everyone else observes in total awe, except for Iris, who is excited about her birthday tomorrow. No one else really cares though. 

Predictably, Sumire and Kanna get into an argument and are about to fight, but Iris has no interest in watching it unfold, and she runs off. Sakura then chases after her in an attempt to bring her back. On her way, Sakura runs into Ogami, who has just finished doing some paperwork for Yuri and Kasumi again. She explains that she's been looking for Iris, and I admit that I haven't seen her all day. 

Sakura then asks us if we're free tomorrow, and well, I am. So she invites us over to help her clean the prop room, which I humbly accept. 

Without skipping a beat though, Iris appears, and she asks us out on a date tomorrow. We then turn to Sakura who tells us that we can clean the prop room some other time, and leaving a little girl alone on her birthday is kind of fucked up, so we hang out with Iris. However, if you choose not to hang out with Iris, you get a cool minigame with Sakura where you clean the prop room. In fact, the whole first part of this episode will play out completely differently depending on how you answer Iris' questions here.

Anyway, I go with her to Asakusa, first, we go shopping where I buy her some jewelry from a vendor, and after that, we go on a brief walk through the park. 

Before I continue though, I should probably address the elephant in the room, that being the fact that is a potential romance option for Ogami in this game. You can argue that this sequence is innocent enough since it’s not like Ogami reciprocates Iris’ advances in this episode. But it still makes me feel a little uncomfortable, especially since the player is in the shoes of Ogami through all of it. A lot of these LIPS options don't really help either, I don't want to pick stuff that would sound mean or hurt Iris’ feelings, but at the same time, I don't want to pick anything that sounds creepy. 

Putting that aside, we eventually decided to go to a movie. We take our seats in the movie theater, which is a silent movie since this is the 1920s, and the movie is narrated by none other than Charlie Chaplin.

Unfortunately for Iris, the movie proved to be a bit too scary for her liking, leading to screams and a freak-out. Sadly, this intense reaction ended up electrocuting us and causing some minor damage to the movie theater we were at.

Once we return to our own theater, Yoneda and Maria are, understandably, chewing us out for what happened. All the while these three gremlins eavesdrop on the whole exchange through the door. 

Maria is particularly angry at Iris for not keeping a good handle on her powers, and refusing to acknowledge that she did anything wrong. While I understand where Maria is coming from, and completely agree, I was the adult in the situation and probably should have taken better care in preventing the situation, so I opted to take full responsibility for everything. Maria gets angry saying that our kindness will end up spoiling her. Iris then gets mad because everyone keeps treating her like a kid and storms off in anger. 

We chase after Iris and get to her room, where she's locked the door and doesn't want to come out. Kanna offers to see if she can try to console her, but Sumire insists that Iris needs to talk to a more "refined" adult, like her. The two then start to bicker, as Kohran says something along the lines of  "C'mon you two, is this really the time for that?" We then get another LIPS option on which girl we can choose to have a talk with Iris. And so, I chose Kohran.

Kohran's approach is to try giving Iris a special "400-year-old Chinese medicine which will help her grow up faster." Iris falls for it at first, but Kohran fails to notice that Iris has psychic abilities. She can hear Kohran's thoughts and can figure out that Kohran is only fucking with her, and she becomes quite irate. 

Iris then beats the hell out of Kohran, and it's admittingly pretty funny. But, it doesn't help us in our goal of trying to cheer her up.

Kohran's masterful plan ends up as a failure, so she, Sumire, and Kanna end up retreating. Not knowing what to do, Ayame pulls us aside and has a little talk to us about Iris. She gives us her sage advice on how we should approach talking to Iris, she clearly hates being treated as a kid, so Maria's earlier scolding of her as if she was an adult did have merit. So we have to find a way to console her in a way that doesn't come off as patronizing. 

The next morning, we try to talk with Iris again, but she's still unwilling to talk to us because she's insecure about being seen as a kid. We try to tell her that we don't see her as a kid, so she tells us to prove it by kissing her.

When we refuse by waiting out the LIPS timer, she gets even more upset and is nearly brought to tears. She runs off once again and disappears from our sight. Unfortunately, today happened to be the day that Iris' Koubu was supposed to be delivered, so she ended up taking the Koubu and went out on a rampage.

Unfortunately for us, she isn't the only one causing mayhem. As Rasetsu of the Hive of Darkness is there as well. He plants another one of the Hexagrams into the ground and terrorizes the people at Asakusa. 

We catch up to Iris, who is still mad, and we try to retrieve her. She teleports away and flees the scene. Ogami decides to chase after her and Sakura follows suit, meanwhile, everyone else stays to defend against the enemies as much as they can. After this, we're put into a smaller side map where we have to play a little game of cat and mouse. We chase Iris around the map and trap her between Ogami and Sakura. 

Ogami finally reaches Iris and has a more sincere talk with her, explaining that she's too young for him to see as a girlfriend. However, he emphasizes that he genuinely enjoyed the time they spent together, and she remains an irreplaceable friend. Iris senses his honesty, and she finally cools off, returning to us with open arms. It's genuinely heartwarming, and the underlying message is really sweet.

When we finally have Iris back, we're able to rejoin the rest of the Flower Division and take down the forces of the Hive of Darkness. Iris is the seventh and final playable unit you have and she's probably one of the best. Rather than the standard movement all of your other Koubus have, Iris' has the ability to teleport, allowing her to bypass terrain and even teleport through walls or barriers, which will be really helpful in this map. 

Her standard attack is an Area of Effect attack which does damage to every enemy unit in a 1-tile radius of her. Her special attack is less of an attack, and more of an AoE full heal to any ally in her general vicinity, similar to the Fortify staff in an FE game. 

Back to her teleportation ability, the boss, Rasetsu is hiding behind a gate that is made out of Celesteel, the same material that the Koubu is made out of. Meaning that it's too durable to break through, and the only way to get through the gate and reach the boss is through the control panel which is behind a wall that we can't reach. Well, we can't reach it, but Iris can! So we send Iris there to defeat the enemies there and open the gate.

A few turns in, Manji Man will ask Ogami who amongst our crew is the most important to us and we have a few LIPS trees asking who it is. Being caught off guard, I didn't have enough time to fully think and answer the question, causing Ogami to not say anything, which the boss interprets as us implying that we are the most important person to ourselves. This out-of-left-field question was actually a ploy, to teleport whoever is the most important to us near him so he can immediately start attacking them.

Since we answered ourselves, Ogami is teleported to the boss, and he takes potshots at us. Since I couldn't open the gate in time, and I also ran out of healing by this point, Ogami ended up getting killed by the boss, leading to my first game over. 

In my second attempt, I was more prepared for Rasetsu's pop-quiz, and answered Kohran, just because. While Kohran is holding out against the boss, I send Iris to the control panel and have everyone else wait by the front of the gate in order to ambush the boss quickly.

It's an interesting time-limit gimmick for the map, though I wish the game just automatically teleported everyone else to the gate once you reached the control panel. That way, the player has more incentive to have their other units actually fight the mooks. In this current state, you're almost incentivized to completely ignore them, since walking over to engage them means that once the gate is open, you have to haul ass all the way back to the gate which is right near our initial starting position.  

Once we reach Rasetsu, we're able to surround him and bonk him until he dies. Allowing him to join his brother in the afterlife, and saving the city once and for all. After our victory pose, we return to the theater where Iris seems to be in high spirits after we agree to redo our "date." Meanwhile, Sakura seethes in jealousy.

🌸Episode 5 - Bloom Like a Flower! A Maiden's Willpower!🌸

Tenkai is pissed off… again. First Setsuna kicked the bucket and now Rasetsu as well, and the Shitennō is now just turning to Shit… minus the ennō. Despite this, Tenkai sends out both Miroku and Satan to continue with Tenkai's plans of finishing the Hexagram of Infernal Summoning. Through this, Miroku finds herself at some run-down building with great spiritual power, which warrants her having to seal its magic. 

Back at the theater, Sumire and Kanna are in the middle of a performance and we're all commenting on how well they work together on the stage. 

The fact that Kanna stutters when mentioning the word snake is a 

cute little detail that will make sense later.

During the performance though, Kanna accidentally steps on Sumire's dress, causing her to fall on her face... again. Sumire gets pissed and starts chastizing Kanna, and the two get into another argument in the middle of a show. 

Fuck it, I’m just going to say it. These two need to fuck.

This fight in particular gets really bad, as things quickly get physical, but it's not all bad. The audience loved it! 

We're able to talk with them, or at least attempt to talk with them, and try to console them, but no matter what you'll end up losing trust points with them. They're too angry to really think about talking with us. Maria shows up and temporarily gets them to stop fighting with one another, and also informs us that Yoneda wishes to speak with us in the command room. Before going to the command room though, Kanna and Sumire go back to their rooms to change into their combat uniforms, and you have the option to check up on each of them.

First, I check up on Sumire, and then afterward, I check up on Kanna. They both seem to be in a better mood seeing that I went out of my way to check up on them. Once we reach the command room, Yoneda gives us the run-down on an old mansion located in Fukugawa. He tells us that the Hive of Darkness was spotted in that area. Ogami wonders what reason they'd have for using that old mansion, and Yoneda drops his theory that the Hive is possibly using the mansion for some sort of sorcery. 

Our Koubus at the moment are being touched up by Kohran, so right now, our only option is to go in and investigate the mansion on foot and hopefully discover what the Hive's motives are. Yoneda can only send a few people into the mansion to investigate, and in classic sitcom fashion, we are sent in alongside Sumire and Kanna. 

They both begrudgingly agree to go on the mission, but not until they get into another small dispute that has Ogami wondering if we can even succeed. In the hallway, we meet up with Ayame again. She speculates that Yoneda only chose Sumire and Kanna to go on the mission in an attempt to have us mend the divide between the two of them, which only really puts more pressure on us. 

After that, we briefly met up with Kohran in the mecha hangar, and she asked us a number of questions about whether she should invest in upgrading each of the Koubus' attack stats or defense stats. I opted to upgrade the attack stats of each of the Koubu, because we already have options to defend and cover during the battle, and we don't even take counter damage or anything, so I found raising attack much more useful. Once we answer her questions, she ponders on what the cost will be and then jumpscares us with the most frightening LIPS choice in the game. 

The question goes away once the LIPS decision box shows up and it’s only 

on screen for like a second, this genuinely scared the fuck out of me.

We finally meet up with Sumire and Kanna in the main hall, and they're pissed, saying that we took too long, then Sumire uses this as an excuse to taunt Kanna some more, and they get into yet another argument. Once we save our progress, we jump to the front of the mansion, where Ogami comments on how terrible it looks. Sumire also mentions that she can sense immense spiritual power coming from the mansion. 

We make our way inside the mansion, where it smells like mold and despair. Kanna taunts us asking if we're scared, and well, we are, but as a Captain, I can't say that out loud, so I assure her that I'm not afraid. Sumire isn't afraid either, claiming that nothing in this world scares her, and Kanna says much of the same thing. In Kanna's display of vigor, she briefly falls over as her foot falls through the floor. We're worried about her, but Sumire is especially worried. After making sure Kanna is fine, Sumire is all tsundere about it, saying that she was just concerned for the poor floor that was stepped on by Kanna. This gets Kanna really pissed, and the two decide to go their separate ways… oh brother. 

We first follow after Kanna, because she happened to storm off in the direction we were going towards anyway. It's worth noting though that in this chapter only, you get a new map to engage with in the adventure portion. The devs seemed really proud of it too, because this adventure portion is the longest one in the game. 

After finding Kanna, she complains to us about Sumire. We attempt to see if she's willing to attempt to patch things up, but she doesn't comply, which on the one hand, I can't blame her, but on the other hand, their fighting is making our mission needlessly difficult. We search around for a bit until we hear some noise, which sounds like it came from the second floor, so we travel to the second floor of the mansion.

On the second floor, we catch up with Sumire, who seems to have discovered one of the Hive's Hex Mechs in the next room over. We sneak into the next room and try to get the jump on the mech, but suddenly from the ceiling, a snake falls upon Kanna's arm, causing her to scream and freak out, alerting the Mech, and allowing it to get away.

Sumire decides to try to give chase to the enemy, but we stay behind to try to help Kanna, unfortunately, she was bitten by the snake and is feeling weak. She's worried about the snake being poisonous, so we opt to go look for some kind of treatment. Before that though, we comment on how Kanna seems to be unusually afraid of snakes, which, if we're being fair, I think most people would react the same way Kanna did if they had a random snake fall from the sky and crawl on their arm, especially if they don't know if it's venomous or not. However, Kanna reveals that her fear of snakes stems from a traumatic childhood memory. 

Aww, look at babby Kanna.

As a kid, Kanna's dad was barely present, only talking about fighting and Karate, she was often jealous of the other kids who were closer to their parents. One day when she was training by herself, she fell and got bit by a snake, and with no one around to help her, she grew to have a deep-seeded phobia of them. 

Ogami assures her that she doesn't have to worry about being alone, we're here for her. After that, she tries to get up, but is feeling too weak, and thinks she's going to die, even going so far as to tell us to protect Sumire if she does die here. We reassure her by telling her that she won’t die, and that gives her the courage to keep going. 

We search the mansion for an antidote, and eventually in one of the rooms we find a disinfectant, which isn't an antidote, but that will have to do for now. We pick it up and unfortunately, it's empty, and we have to look around the mansion for another one. After a rather long fetch quest, we give Kanna the disinfectant, and she's already feeling much better. Coincidentally, we hear Sumire from the other side of the room, so we follow her. 

Sumire seems happy to see that Kanna is okay, that happiness is cut rather short though, because the two end up fighting once again. But after that, we follow the Hex Mech into the next room, where it seems to be putting up some kind of seal, all over the wall. We try to get the jump on the mech, but suddenly from the ceiling, a spider falls upon Sumire's arm, causing her to scream and freak out, alerting the Mech, and allowing it to get away.

Kanna decides to try to give chase to the enemy, but we stay behind to try to help Sumire, unfortunately, she was bitten by the spider and is feeling weak. She's worried about the spider being poisonous, so we opt to go look for some kind of treatment. Before that though, we comment on how Sumire seems to be unusually afraid of spiders, which, if we're being fair, I think most people would react the same— ...wait a minute...

Yeah, it's the same damn plot. And yes, you have to do the long fetch quest again to get her the disinfectant. On one hand, it's cute that Kanna and Sumire have this shared experience and trauma resulting in them putting on a hard exterior, but at the same time, this execution almost comes off as lazy. 

That said, Sumire explains her fear of spiders. When she was a baby, her father was the president of Kanzaki Industries and her mother was a successful movie star, which resulted in them never being there for her, even for special events like her birthday. One day, she was so lonely, that she went out by herself without thinking. She then wandered into a spider's web, and no one was around to help her, causing her to develop a deep-seated fear of spiders. 

The spider bite she just received is causing her to faint, and she feels as if she's going to die. She claims that if she were to die here, she wants us to watch over Kanna for her, but we assure her that she's not going to die, and we look for the disinfectant for her. 

When we find the disinfectant that's specifically for spider bites, Sumire seems to be feeling much better. We meet up with Kanna and she reveals that the Hex Mech seems to be behind a door in one of the rooms. Sumire badgers her about why she didn't continue to give chase, and they start to argue, but Kanna then says that the door is locked from the inside, which Sumire acknowledges and promptly apologizes for her badgering, which is a subtle change in her character that I initially missed, but it's really nice.

That door is our only way to progress, so we end up going on yet another fetch quest to get the mansion key… sigh… After a long search, we finally find the key, and we enter the room where the Hex Mech resides. We try to get the jump on the mech, but from the ceiling falls both a spider and a snake!

 

Ogami however is able to quickly jump into action, and shoo away both of the Avenger-level threats. However, Ogami's wicked moves alerted the mech, and it got away. Sumire and Kanna aren't that upset about the mech getting away though, in fact, they tease Ogami about it and share a laugh. This is where Sumire and Kanna form a sort of truce with one another and finally learn to get along, or rather, be more open about how much they get along. 

We follow the mech into the basement, but we're too late. The mech finishes putting down the final seal and suddenly, all the spiritual power from the house is completely sealed off. They continue to chase the mech up until they reach a manhole and make it to the surface. 

They look out for a bit, then come face to face with Crimson Miroku, of the Hive of Darkness.

Things are looking quite dire here, and the only thing we can really do right now is pray. Luckily though, the Soaring Whale along with the rest of the Assault Troop is here to the rescue. The three get their Koubus and run away from Miroku, she doesn't bother to chase us though, and focuses on planting another one of these Hexagrams. 

We then proceed to embark on another combat section, bonking all the Hex Mechs that stand in our path, using the new upgrades given to us courtesy of Kohran. The map itself has pretty heavy terrain, and your starting party is split into two groups, but it's not too bad as long as you know what you're doing, which I didn't because I managed to lose Kanna on this map.

Once we reach the top of the map, Miroku vanishes as she leaves behind her Crimson Wasps Squad for us to fight, a tuned-up group of four or five red Hex Mechs which are more difficult to take out. After defeating them all, we seem to have Miroku cornered, but she has one trick up her sleeve. She fires a beam at Sakura that briefly stuns her then Miroku makes her retreat.  

After our stylish victory pose, Kanna and Sumire banter for a bit, only to realize that the venom is still in both of their systems. Luckily, Kohran just so happens to have a poison detector system and uses it to track the venom in Sumire and Kanna's bodies. Through examination though, it was revealed that there was no venom in either of their bodies, and everything was just in their heads. 

After a few laughs and banter, Ogami comments on how hungry he is and feels like he's about to pass out. Sumire and Kanna start arguing with one another regarding if they could take care of Ogami or not, and everyone else comments on how the two seem to have gotten closer, all while Ogami fucking dies in the background.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows though, because while we were out messing with Miroku, Satan had been elsewhere, planting another one of the Hexagrams for Tenkai. Additionally, the beam that Miroku fired at Sakura is revealed to be a tracking device. A device that gives the Hive the precise location of where the Imperial Assault Troop is hiding. 

🌸Commercial Break🌸

With that, this blog post is getting way too long, so that concludes the first half of my playthrough of Sakura Taisen. Stay tuned for my next blog where I cover the latter half of my playthrough, as well as give my thoughts and opinions of the overall experience! Thank you for reading.