Sakura Taisen 3: Pari wa Moete iru ka?

Overview

Sakura Taisen 3: Pari wa Moete iru ka? ("Sakura Wars 3: Is Paris Burning?") is the third installment in the popular Sakura Taisen franchise that mixes dating sim elements with tactical combat. The third title saw several big changes to the franchise, notably revamping the series' 2D isometric strategy segments into a fully polygonal semi real-time system. A completely new cast of characters was also introduced in Sakura Taisen 3 and the traditional Japanese setting was changed to that of Paris, France. Sega and Red Company once again returned to create the third entry, with Sega's Overworks division leading development, and it premiered on the Sega Dreamcast exclusively in Japan on March 22, 2001. Ports for the PC and PlayStation 2 were released years later in 2004 and 2005 respectively.

Story

Following on from the previous games' storyline, Sakura Taisen 3 sees protagonist Ichirou Ogami assigned to the newly-formed Paris Assault Force where he must not only train the inexperienced team but also adapt to the unfamiliar French culture. Meanwhile, Paris is under siege by a group of evil magicians lead by a mysterious figure who disguise themselves as regular humans. The group torments individual members of the Paris Division in order to break their will to fight as they wait for the opportune moment to attack the city. Ogami's experience and leadership skills will be instrumental in helping the five female pilots and various other members of the Paris Assault Force to counter the threat, operating from their secret HQ underneath a Parisian cabaret called the Chattes Noires.

Gameplay

Once again, the story of Sakura Taisen 3 is divided into episodes and the bulk of each episode is played out in the game's adventure mode. However, Ogami is no longer confined to only exploring the team's HQ but is also allowed to wander the streets of Paris as well. LIPS (Live and Interactive Picture System) returns from the previous games as well, which is the franchise's trademark system for making dialogue choices where the player is timed to make decisions quickly. Additionally Sakura Taisen 3 also has "Analog LIPS", which is a meter the player can move up or down to determine how forcefully they want to respond to someone. For example, the player could use Analog LIPS to decide exactly how hard to shake another character's hand.

The combat sections in Sakura Taisen 3 see the most changes from its predecessors. The 2D grid of the previous titles is replaced by a fully 3D battlefield that allows the player to directly control the Koubu mecha in a free-roaming manner. The system, called ARMS (Active and Realtime Machine System), lets the player move wherever they want with their movement only being limited by an action meter that decreases as they control the Koubu. This system would later inspire similar gameplay systems in Sega's Valkyria Chronicles franchise, which was developed by many of the same people involved with the Sakura Taisen series.

Characters

A number of characters, including Ogami, return from earlier entries in the series but the following are the five main heroines that appear for the first time in Sakura Taisen 3:

Erica Fontaine Birthday: August 15, 1909 Age: 16 Height: 5'1 Weight: 45 kg Blood Type: A Erica suffers from the unusual position of having not only a double but a triple identity. She is a nun in training at the local convent by day, a cabaret dancer at Chattes Noires by night, and one of the pilots in the Paris Assault Force. To make matters worse, she's extremely ditzy and clumsy which causes nothing but trouble at Chattes Noires and her convent. Oddly enough, she's actually fairly competent fighter in the Paris Assault Force.
Glycine Bleumer Birthday: April 18, 1907 Age: 16 Height: 5'3 Weight: 46 kg Blood Type: B Being the "Sumire" to Erica's "Sakura", Glycine hails from a wealthy Norman family, with all the haughtiness and airs that implies. However, where Sumire is elegant and overbearing, Glycine comes across as straightforward and unnervingly aggressive. She even challenges our hero to a duel with poleaxes.
Hanabi Kitaoji Birthday: May 22, 1906 Age: 17 Height: 5'2 Weight: 46 kg Blood Type: O Hanabi is the daughter of Duke Kitaoji, a Japanese noble. She is the only Japanese member of the group outside of Ogami and is a timid young woman that carries a heavy saddness with her due to her fiance, Philip, dying in a shipwreck not long before the events of the game. Hanabi's story in Sakura Taisen 3 has to do with her coming to terms with Philip's death and moving on.
Coquelicot Birthday: October 10, 1914 Age: 11 Height: 4'8 Weight: 36 kg Blood Type: A Coquelicot is of Vietnamese decent who was orphaned at a very young age and was later taken in as a performer in a traveling circus. She is in many respects the polar opposite of Iris, the young girl from the previous two games. While Iris was stereotypically feminine, girly and prone to emotional explosions, Coquelicot is tomboyish and fiercely independent. She seems to regard Ogami purely a big brother and nothing more but she still gets awfully defensive when their relationship is threatened.
Lobelia Carlini Birthday: November 13, 1903 Age: 20 Height: 5'10 Weight: 64 kg Blood Type: AB Lobelia probably has the most unusual background of any Sakura Taisen character so far. She's an extremely dangerous criminal, utterly without compassion at the start, and is capable of summoning fireballs by sheer mental power. She joins the group for purely self-centered reasons, but by the end of the game, things are a little different...

Trivia

• Sakura Taisen 3 features animated cut-scenes produced by the world-famous animation studio, Production I.G. The cut-scenes introduced a new animation technology developed by Production I.G called "Neo CGI" which blended traditional 2D drawings with computer generated 3D animation. Because of the cut-scenes' impressive production values, rumors spread in Japan that the budget for the animated opening alone was almost as expensive as creating a feature length film, costing 100-300 million yen. While the exact budget was never revealed, Production I.G staff did explain in the game's art book that all three versions of the game's opening, about 5 minutes of footage in total, required the the same amount work to produced as a 30 minute episode of anime.