Hopes and Dreams for the New Sakura Taisen Project

While most Western Sega fans are excited about some of the recent announcements at Sega Fes 2018, such as Shenmue HD and the new Sega Genesis Mini, I am instead over-the-moon about one piece of news from the event that isn't being discussed by many English fans. A brand-new Sakura Taisen game was announced! While details are still scant, and we don't currently know the exact scale or nature of this game, it appears like the project might be a revival of the series similar in some ways to Sega's recent resurrection of the Valkyria Chronicles series. For those of you who are unaware of what Sakura Taisen is, it is a strategy RPG series that combines elements from adventure games and dating sims that was once a huge franchise for Sega in the late 90s and early 2000s in Japan. The Sakura Taisen series, specifically the five mainline entries, are games I hold very near and dear to my heart. I even made a list of my favorite games in the series last year on GiantBomb and I couldn't be more excited to finally hear that a new game is in development. It has been 8 years since my brothers and I played through NIS America's release of Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, the fifth, final and only localized entry in the series, and a whopping 13 years since the game was published in Japan. So there has been plenty of time for me, and probably many fans, to daydream about what a new game in the series could be like. So here are some hopes, dreams, and questions I have about the newly announced project, with the expectation that it will indeed be a real-deal Sakura Taisen title and not some mobile game or spin-off. Let's do all we can for now and hope.

A New Cast?

First and foremost, the teaser site for the new Sakura Taisen title says that the game will once again be set in Tokyo, after the last few entries were set in Paris and New York, and will feature a "completely new story". This statement is vague enough to mean a number of things, but I hope it means that the game's story will feature a completely new cast. Fan service and returning characters can be fun but since the franchise has been dormant for so long, and the fact that this new title could attract a lot of new fans, I think it would be best to start the series fresh. Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love had cameos of old characters, such as Ogami and Sakura showing up in the game's opening, but I think it is important to not have the new game be weighed down by the series' long history by having a bunch of old characters coming back in any form. Don't let it be like the current Ace Attorney series where there are so many returning characters and plotlines that there almost isn't any time to focus on the current story. Also it has been so long since fans have seen anything new from the franchise that introducing an all new team would go a long way in making the next game feel fresh.

Returning Staff?

One of the biggest hopes I have for the new game, and the most likely to happen, is that I want to see the return of Kousuke Fujishima as the character designer. While I think this is pretty much a given since his artwork and designs are so intertwined with the franchise, it still hasn't been confirmed. I think I could be okay with a new artist designing the characters, if Sega got the right person, but it certainly wouldn't feel like a proper comeback for the franchise without Fujishima's iconic style.

On the note of Fujishima, I really wonder how much of the staff from the previous Sakura Taisen games will return to work on this new project? Red Entertainment wasn't mentioned anywhere during the announcement, which is the studio that co-created the series with Sega by coming up with the story and characters. While once a prolific company involved in hugely popular franchises like Tengai Makyou, today they are unfortunately a shadow of their former selves and are currently owned by a Chinese company where they have mainly worked on the occasional visual novel and otome game. Series creator and producer Oji Hiroi was also not mentioned during the announcement and who knows if series writer Satoru Akahori will be involved in the project either. And most importantly, will Kohei Tanaka return to compose the soundtrack? I think Sega could still create a new entry in the series without these people, and it would be interesting to see some new blood work on a Sakura Taisen title, but it would be more than a little worrying to see any of these key players be absent from the project.

Presentation?

From this...

...To this?

There hasn't been a new mainline Sakura Taisen game since the PlayStation 2 era which means this new title will be the very first HD game in the series. I have a lot of ideas about how the franchise could be updated for this current generation of hardware, but I would mainly want to see the new game go full 3D. While the franchise has been known for its beautiful hand-drawn artwork, I think it would be cool to see the franchise move towards a fully polygonal presentation. I think this transition would help the series look more modern while also giving the game a more consistent appearance by showing the world and characters in one style, instead of having the graphics constantly switching between 2D in the story scenes and 3D for the battle segments. Plus I think 3D graphics would allow for more dynamic possibilities with the presentation, because while 2D portraits can certainly look nice they are also very limited. If you wanted to show a character at a different angle, or integrate them into the background in some way, they would need to be completely redrawn, which is not a problem when using polygonal models. If the new Sakura Taisen game had a cel-shaded look similar to the recent Ace Attorney titles or even Bandia Namco's iDOLM@STER games, it would be a real upgrade over the previous games in the series and a welcome change for me personally.

Also, how could it be a Sakura Taisen game if it didn't have some kind of animation by Production I.G.? They always did amazing work for the series and it would be cool to have the studio at least make an animated opening for the new game.

Gameplay?

The later Sakura Taisen titles served as an inspiration for the gameplay of the Valkyria Chronicles series back in the day, with both franchises sharing a lot of the same staff. Years later it would be interesting to see the new Sakura Taisen game take some inspiration back from the series it inspired. The battle segments in the Sakura Taisen series have always been a little weak with there often being little to no difference in the abilities between each unit, making battles a little repetitive (at least from what I remember). Maybe the new game could take a note from Valkyria Chronicles' class system and have each character have their own unique abilities and strengths/weaknesses. Having more interesting maps to navigate and the option to modify your mechs outside of battle would also be a nice addition. Honestly, I don't know exactly how Sega could beef up the battle segments for a new Sakura Taisen, but I hope at the very least they put some effort into making the battles more strategic and varied then they were in the older titles.

Sakura Taisen

Valkyria Chronicles

The Adventure segments and dating sim elements are another area I hope to see changes. Town exploration in past games was always rather limited with your character feeling like a simple node moving around segmented areas from hotspot to hotspot. I want the new game to feel more like you are physically in the environment. Move the camera in closer, give the locations more detail, and have there be a larger variety of things you can do outside of battles besides just talking to people. I don't think it has to be as in-depth as Sega's Yakuza games or anything, but it would be nice to see something more in line with Persona 5 in terms of presentation. Dating and dialogue choices could also use some updating. Choices in past games effected your relationship points with other characters but had no lasting effect on the story or characters themselves. While I doubt Sega would go full Telltale with their new title it would be nice to see characters at least treat the player differently depending on the choices you make instead of them reverting back to their default opinion of you after each choice. It would also be nice to see the protagonist slowly build their relationship with one of the girls throughout the story somehow instead of their relationship suddenly taking shape near the end of the game. I'm no game designer but I just hope that Sega doesn't take the easy route and carbon copy past game's mechanics and call it a day. It has been 13 years since So Long, My Love and there have been a lot of games that have combined RPGs with dating elements since then, again like Persona or even the recent Fire Emblems, and this could be an opportunity for Sega to learn from those titles or add something new to the space.

Conclusion

There are countless other smaller things I would like to see in the new Sakura Taisen game or theories about the future of the franchise. An orchestrated soundtrack would be cool to have instead of the MIDI tracks from previous games. What if Atlus, who are owned by Sega now, is developing the new game? It would be interesting to see someone like the team that created the Devil Survivor games and Tokyo Mirage Sessions take a swing at the franchise. If Sega is making a new game does that mean they may also port the older Sakura Taisen games to modern systems? If they do, maybe that could open an opportunity for Sega of America to finally localize the first four games in the series. It would be especially cool to see the PlayStation 2 remake of the first game in English. There are so many random things I'd like to discuss but I will stop myself here.

Video games have changed a lot since the last Sakura Taisen's release and the Western gaming community has changed just as much since So Long, My Love was first localized by NISA. I feel like American game fans have become much more excepting of "weird Japanese games" and the success of titles like Yakuza, Nier and Persona as well as the rising popularity of visual novels makes me believe that a game like Sakura Taisen would be accepted much more positively if it was localized today than it did in 2010. This new Sakura Taisen project could still end up being a huge disappointment, since we don't really know what it will be yet. But Sega seems to be turning themselves around these past few years and I want to hope that this new game will be a return to form for the franchise, like Sonic Mania or Valkyria Chronicles 4. I may look back on this post in a year or two and laugh at my optimism but right now I couldn't be more excited about the future of one of my favorite franchises.

In the mean time, if you want to jump into the series for the first time, you can play Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love on the PlayStation 2 or Nintendo Wii as well as the first four games using albeit ancient translation guides.

To learn more about the series in general I'd recommend checking out HG101's article on the series and this extensive video detailing the history of the franchise.