The Sakura Taisen series has had a crap ton of spinoffs and sidegames whilst it's been around. Here's some of the one's that i've found that I think are pretty cool.

Sakura Taisen Hanagumi Taisen Columns - Sega Saturn (1997)

An apparent cash-grab but the surprise is that this is a pretty well-put-together product. On the surface, it seems to just be the classic falling-blocks puzzle game Columns with a Sakutai theme. (The second "Taisen" in the title has different kanji, meaning "competition" rather than "war".) Of course, it includes 1-player and 2-player ordinary Columns modes. But then there's a story mode, in which you choose a heroine and play through normal Sakura Taisen adventure scenes, complete with LIPS dialogues; Columns matches are interspersed with the story. There's also a "Cinderella mode", in which you choose a heroine and she competes with the rest of the cast for who gets to play the title role in the Imperial Revue's performance of Cinderella - as you beat the other heroines, their unglamorous role (such as "tree") is decided.

There is a fair bit of new material in this game: chibi versions of the characters with controllers, reacting to the match; expressive portraits swapping out behind the Columns gems; dedicated illustrations for the story scenes; and so on. Ultimately, a surprisingly rewarding side-disc.

Sakura Taisen Hanagumi Taisen Columns 2 - Dreamcast - (2000)

Released in January 2000, this was the first Sakura Taisen title for Dreamcast. It's basically more of what we saw in Hanagumi Taisen Columns 1, with afew key differences. First, of course, is that it takes advantage of the new Dreamcast hardware for higher-fidelity graphics and fancier animation. Second, it includes the new characters from Sakura Taisen 2. Third, it offers online play using the Dreamcast modem (though the servers have long been turned off, of course). Fourth, and most importantly, it seems to be the first game to use character art by someone other than Kousuke　Fujishima and Hidenori　Matsubara. Because of the consistency in presenting these characters in every other context, it really shows. There's something wrong about seeing the characters you've spent so many dozens (or hundreds) of hours with, drawn by someone kinda, but not quite, like the usual artists.

Otherwise, this is quite similar to the first Hanagumi Taisen Columns. There is a main story mode, a mode in which the heroines compete for a lead role, and ordinary one- and two-player modes.

Ogami Ichirou Funtouki - Dreamcast - (2000)

This game is surprisingly awesome, if only because of how bizarrely meta it is. It was released in February of 2000, and by that time the Sakura Taisen stage shows had become pretty elaborate affairs. The voice cast had transmogrified themselves into a stage cast, performing ever more self-intertwined stories in which they appeared on stage as their characters preparing to put on a play, and then portrayed their characters portraying characters in the play. This, then, is a video game about the putting on of a stage performance with characters who are portrayed by characters who are from a video game about actors who put on stage performances. It is as awesomely self-referential and surreal as it sounds.

It may make more sense to take it chronologically. Sakura Taisen is a series of video games about robot pilots who also perform stage plays. In real life, the voice actors began putting on stage plays in which they portray the robot pilots preparing and putting on stage plays. One of these stage plays was then made into a video game, combining video clips from the real-life performance with regular video game segments as if they are all part of one continuity.

Most of the game is an ordinary Sakutai adventure-part scenario, interspersed with video clips from a real-life performance by the Sakura Taisen voice cast of the original play Benitokage or "Crimson Lizard". After each clip, you get to deal with the behind-the-scenes view of what is going on around the theater, which leads into the next clip. This is a fun thing to get wrapped up in; the clips are actually surprisingly entertaining and well-integrated into the storyline.

Sakura Taisen GB - Geki! Hanagumi Nyuutai! - Game Boy Color - (2000)

Released for Game Boy Color in July of 2000, this game came in a huge variety of different packs. The series was still riding high on the success of ST2, and on the anticipation of ST3. The convenience store Lawson carried a different pack for each of the six original heroines, including a pin and a cell phone strap of that character. The Premium Pack included a T-shirt. The Pocket Sakura pack included a self-contained Tamagotchiesque mini-game, which included a pedometer, and could upload walking progress back to ST GB. And the Game Boy Color pack included a transparent pink Game Boy Color, with a Sakutai motif.

The idea of the game itself is that you are recruited to lead the Flower Troupe for one month, participating in combat practice and doing night watch duty. This means playing a menu-based combat system and primitive LIPS events with the cast. This is one of few ST games where you don't play as Ogami; instead you are yourself, and you actually interact with Ogami during your month of training. The driving goal, in dating-sim fashion, is to manage how you spend your time in order to keep up your various stats: strength, intelligence, spirit, courage, speed, and dexterity. For a Game Boy Color title, the production values are stunningly good. The graphics and music are excellent.

Sakura Taisen GB 2 Thunderbold Sakusen - Game Boy Color - (2001)

Released in December of 2001, this was another Game Boy Color game in which you portray a temporary guest member of the Flower Troupe. It's basically a dungeon-crawling RPG in the vein of early Final Fantasy titles, with some Sakura Taisen touches such as, of course, LIPS events. Each chapter has you wandering a map in a Koubu with one of the ST2 heroines, looking for items and getting in random turn-based battles. The variety of actions you have to choose from in combat is pretty impressive for a game of this sort; each unit has melee, ranged, special, and deathblow attacks. The graphics are once again amazing for the Game Boy Color, especially in the adventure parts. The music is an impressive effort to capture the Sakura Taisen themes and atmosphere in chiptune form.

Sakura Taisen Monogatari: Mysterious Paris - PS2 - (2004)

Now here is an odd game. Originally announced as part of the Sakura Taisen World Project in 2002, along with the rest of the products that were supposed to carry the franchise to great global success, it was finally released in March of 2004. Sakura Taisen Monogatari was meant to be a gaiden (side-story) series, using the settings and characters of the main series, but with different protagonists. Initially, a Tokyo counterpart was meant to be developed alongside this Paris installment, but that game never materialized.

Mysterious Paris takes place after the events of Sakura Taisen 4, and follows the adventures of detective Kojirou Akechi and his sister, Chattes Noires performer Miki Akechi - both are playable characters. The story focuses on a series of mysterious disappearances of Chattes Noires performers, and much of the game plays out in LIPS-based adventure scenarios. The game does introduce a few innovations, such as a life bar (enough bad choices can eventually deplete it and get you a Game Over screen), first-person dungeon crawling, and rudimentary shooting events. It's surprisingly well put-together, considering its peripheral status, with full-on anime sequences and good production values. But it is a bit odd to be running around locations from Sakura Taisen 3, and interacting with its cast of heroines and NPCs, with Ogami and the Koubu nowhere to be found.

Sakura Taisen V Episode 0: Samurai Girl of the West - PlayStation 2 - (2004)

Released in September of 2004, this was the first glimpse fans had of the new Sakura Taisen setting or cast, in preparation for STV. The outlook was notso good. It is generally regarded as a terrible game, and for good reason. The premise is that just before the events of STV, Gemini set out from her home state of Texas to find her destiny in New York, under orders from her mysterious mentor. What follows is a series of jokes about how the klutzy ditz has a miserable sense of direction and ends up in San Francisco instead. She gets wrapped up in trying to protect a girl named Juanita from the antagonists as they make their way across the USA to New York. All this takes place on a curiously botched map, where Illinois is in Missouri and Tennessee is in Minnesota.

The primary gameplay is combat action, controlling Gemini on her trusty horse Rally, as she fights her way through robot enemies with her... katana. That is to say, she gets stuck on geometry, tries to convince the camera to face the right direction, and falls in a pit. It seems that trying to do horseback combat right was a poor choice for the first-ever action title in the franchise. Rally's movements almost never feel natural, and it's downright infuriating to try to get moving in the right direction and accurately swing your sword without bumping into something or getting hit by an enemy or a boulder and thus losing your momentum. The 3D environments are drab, dark, and boring, which isn't helped by how many events take place at dusk or at night. Most battles are a matter of muddling your way toward the newest batch of enemies to appear, then mashing the attack button and listening to Gemini make the same "Yah! Yah! Heyyah!" combo ad nauseum until they are all dead. It also feels pretty stupid to fight robots with a sword on horseback. One is forced to wonder what a proper Koubu-based action combat game could have been like.

Dramatic Dungeon: Sakura Taisen Kimi Aru Ga Tame  - Nintendo DS - (2008)

Released in March of 2008, 4 years after the last Sakura Taisen title, this odd return to the series almost seems like a genuine attempt to rekindle the Sakura Taisen legacy in a new genre. Sega advertisedDramatic Dungeon as if it was a completely original and new genre and franchise, though it's clearly just Shiren the Wanderer mechanics plus Sakura Taisen storytelling. If you're familiar with Shiren, or the Mystery Dungeon series as a whole you'll recognize much of it in this game: random, "Roguelike" dungeons populated by ever-increasing crowds of baddies and ever-mounting hoards of treasure. It has a fast-paced take on turn-based combat. Input is for the most part like an action RPG, but entities on the screen take exactly one action for each of your actions, so you can make things move as quickly or as slowly as you like. Your companions act automatically, attacking monsters, collecting treasure, and disarming traps, among other things. Interspersed with the dungeon crawling are very brief traditional Sakutai adventure scenes, complete with LIPS dialogues. There's a multiplayer mode, in which you can race friends to the deepest level of a dungeon, while casting spells to hinder their progress. Development was done by Neverland Company, a long-running studio with some well-known titles to their name: Estpolis/Lufia, the Shining Force titles on PS2, Rune Factory, and even Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden on Dreamcast, which makes sense considering the Shiren similarities here.

Dramatic Dungeon spends an unusually brief amount of time on storyline for a ST game. It takes place after the events of STV in the year Taishou 18, which would equate to 1929 (in reality, the Taishou period ended at year 15 and gave way to the Shouwa period). Yoneda has retired, promoting Ohgami to commander of the Teigeki. During a performance of The Maid of Orleans by Tchaikovsky, Joan of Arc herself appears; she ends up being the villain of the game. A calamitous event somehow transforms the entire city into a monster-infested labyrinth, and incapacitates the Koubu. The members of the Teigeki have no choice but to delve into the dungeon and investigate. Eventually it is revealed that Paris and New York have suffered similar fates. As the game goes on you move on to playing as Shinjirou, and ultimately you can recruit a party of your choice from the entire cast of 18 heroines.

The real surprise about this game is that it really isn't half bad. Once you get over the oddness of dungeon crawling with your favorite Sakura Taisen characters, it's actually just a quite fun Roguelike with a lot of sentimental value. The combat feels fun, especially when team-up attacks start going off and your teammates are calling out their catch phrases. The character portraits are recycled, but the new pixel sprites and environments are charming. Unfortunately the story scenes are not voiced, save for a very few key lines. If you were in the mood for a dungeon crawl anyway, it might as well be with the ST cast, interspersed with night rounds at the theater just like old times.

Sakura Taisen: Taishou Roman Academy - Browser - (2011)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NMvqQcjIyWI

Closing thoughts:

These games are kinda awesome except the last one which I despise for probably bringing about the end of the true Sakura Taisen series. The other games I won't be including links to find them so you'll have to hunt them down on your own. My next article, Part 10, will be the last one on Sakura Taisen... I hope not.

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