Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (Arcade) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
563A playthrough of Banpresto and Sega's 1995 beat 'em up arcade game, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon.
Played through as Sailor Moon on the machine's default difficulty setting.
Since it wasn't sold in the United States, the Sailor Moon arcade game is only really known in America because of the internet. The English version that I'm playing here was exclusively released in Europe where it was distributed by Sega.
Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon is a bog-standard belt-scrolling beat 'em up dolled up in some rather nice window-dressing. Based on the first season of the anime, the five core sailor senshi (pre-Chibiusa, huzzah!) take on scenarios based on select episodes of the cartoon, and of course all of the main villains are in place. You'll have to save Naru from the demonic force possessing her mother (because she sells jewelry, naturally), Umino from a monster that has taken over the middle school's computer lab, and all of the Dark Kingdom baddies make appearances throughout.
The controls neatly mirror what we had in Streets of Rage 2, so you've got double-tap dashing, stun jump attacks, a good variety of grapples, and a couple of specials at your disposal. It doesn't feel as smooth and the collision detection isn't as accurate, but it's a gameplay solid base, and it makes for a perfectly competent recycling of ideas pioneered half-a-decade earlier.
But let's get real - especially in the 90s, people didn't generally buy games based on anime expecting good gameplay. They bought them because they loved the stories and characters. And while Sailor Moon is a perfectly adequate game, it does a fantastic job of recreating the look of the show. The animation and the stage backdrops are excellent - backgrounds are adapted specifically from backgrounds used in the show, and the sprites all convey the personality of their characters nicely. However, the real stand-out in an already impressive presentation is the special attack animation.
You can collect up to five blue crystals at a time, and these fuel the special attacks. Each of the five costumed school-girls have five unique moves, and they get progressively stronger as you collect more crystals. The cool part of these attacks, though, is that they're all shown with a full-screen, cartoon-quality animated overlay of your character doing flashy poses while shrieking ear-piercing Japanese battle cries. It's a gimmick, yes, but for how good they look, I can easily imagine kids pouring coins in just to see all twenty-five moves.
So if it's fan-service you're after, Sailor Moon nails it. (But if it's primarily gameplay that you're interested in, I'd recommend the awesome Sega Genesis game instead!)
But it doesn't come with no-strings-attached. For a game that looks like it's trying to appeal to an elementary school-aged girl, you might be a bit surprised by just how viciously greed-driven the difficulty level is. It doesn't take long before the game starts flooding the screen with enemies that think nothing of juggling you back and forth until you die, and boss battles tend to frustrate when three or four hits will easily wipe out your life gauge. Compounding the frustration is the time limit: unless you exploit the game's AI with the infinite-combo trick (which I really tried to avoid in this video, though I do make use of it in some convenient moments near the end), it's entirely too easy to be insta-killed by the timer when enemies keep backing away as you try to hit them.
I was a bit surprised by the severe balance issues the game suffers from considering that the developer, Gazelle, was made up of ex-Toaplan talent.
Generally speaking, the amount you get out of it will largely depend on how much you like the TV series or the aesthetic. If you want to play it for the excellent graphics and its faithful adherence to the source material, you'll probably love it. Just make sure that you keep the 'insert coin' button warm. You'll be using it. A lot.
(Did anyone else notice how the end credits theme is almost a direct rip off of the old Zard song Kono Ai Ni Oyogitukaretemo? Just listen to it! :) https://youtu.be/uDpDXwwRT6I )
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!