Sakura Taisen/Sakura Wars: A History, Part 3: LIPS, ARMS and a Long Day

The Adventure Part

ST1: Adventure part - Drunk Yoneda...

Sakura Taisen officially calls these scenes which occupy the majority of the game the adventure portion of the game. Sakura Taisen was part of the barrage of these console bishoujo games that followed in the wake of a game called Tokimeki Memorial. Most were straightforward interpretations of the same contemporary high-school dating troupe, with NEC Interchannel's 1998 title Sentimental Graffiti being the most successful. But Sakura Taisen fused the bishoujo and dating sim tradition with a conglomeration of other concepts: tactical RPG combat, a steampunk setting, and a dramatic, musical theme. And Sakura Taisen always reinvents everything that it borrows, so of course it implements its own unique dating-sim system: LIPS.

LIPS stands for Live & Interactive Picture System. It includes several types of interaction between the protagonist and the rest of the cast. The most basic of these is the typical visual-novel multiple-choice question, in which the player is asked to decide what to say or do next. But most of these decisions are accompanied by a unique countdown timer; if you don't make a choice in time, your character will either keep quiet or blurt something inevitably worse than any of the presented choices. This adds tension and consequence beyond the ordinary, static visual-novel decision point and can actual be helpful to do in certain situations.

Another basic LIPS scenario is a portrait view of a character in which you are given control of a cursor. You can

ST1: LIPS

move the cursor around the screen to interact with the character in various ways. Hover over the character's eyes, hair, clothes, possessions, and so on to turn the cursor into an eye, and press the button to look. Sometimes this yields an internal monologue from the protagonist on the qualities of the clicked feature; sometimes a brief conversation happens, and sometimes it gives you a "quit staring at me" from your the heroine your talking too. Stalker. Hover over the mouth for a talk icon, and push to continue the conversation. You can similarly knock on doors, pick up objects, or leave via exits. And yes, there is a blushing, glancing-sidelong icon for when you hover over a female character's chest. (Whatever you do. Don't press that button! You don't wanna know...)

Depending on your answers and actions, you may positively or negatively affect your relationship with the characters present; these effects are indicated by a rising, sharp jingle and a falling, bumbling jingle, respectively. Throughout the series, Sakura Taisen masterfully trains the player to have a Pavlovian reaction to these positive and negative reinforcements - every good jingle is a victory, every bad jingle a tragedy. A bad jingle with your favorite heroine? Epic Fail. Occasionally, you have no choice but to harm your relationship with one character in order to better your relationship with another you like. Other times, you may have the opportunity to improve the trust level of all of your teammates at once. During the adventure part, though, your trust level with each heroine is kept secret from you; you need to wait until the eyecatch to check on their motivation levels. Because the trust your squad members have for you directly affects their motivation, (otherwise known as battle stats), in battle, your understanding, kindness, and values in the LIPS parts are crucial to succeeding in the combat parts. Later games in the series introduce further variations on the LIPS system, which will be covered in the every games particular section.

The adventure parts form the heart of the series, unfolding at a slow, deliberate pace, gradually building up the player's willingness to identify with the protagonist, and gradually deepening the protagonist's relationship with the rest of the Teikoku Kagekidan, Paris Kagekidan, or New York Kagekidan. And of course, at a crucial point in the story of every game, you will be prompted to choose a heroine to pursue a true relationship with - the nature of this relationship is chaste but very meaningful, and can be developed over the course of several games.

The idea of intertwining dating simulation game conventions with traditional combat systems made its way into other titles. In the 1990s, this included RPGs like Thousand Arms and Langrisser III, where the protagonist's romantic relationship with one of several female cast members affected the storyline. Atlus's Persona series adopted a relationship system in its colossally popular third and fourth installments, with deeper relationships leading to more powerful summons in combat. Gust's Ar tonelico series fundamentally incorporates a visual-novel relationship system with an RPG combat system. And Sega's own Valkyria Chronicles is arguably the most Sakutai-influenced game of all.

Combat System

ST1 Battle Saturn vers.

When Sakura Taisen was conceived, tactical RPGs had a long tradition on consoles going back to the 8- and 16-bit eras: notably, Nintendo & Intelligent Systems' Fire Emblem series, Koei's Nobunaga no Yabô series, Masaya's Langrisser series, and Sega's own Shining series (just to name a few). But the tactical combat system in Sakutai was supposedly inspired not by such console games, but instead by tabletop wargames.

Battles are fought with Koubu or "warrior of light", steam- and

ST1: ACN Combat

spiritually-powered robots manufactured by Kanzaki Industries. Each character has a Koubu of a distinctive color, with a distinctive weapon. The squad members pilot their Koubu against robotic and demonic threats in turn-based combat; in Sakura Taisen 1 and 2 this happens on an isometric grid similar to that of older styled strategy rpgs. This system is replaced in Sakura Taisen 3 by the more advanced, and unique to the series, ARMS system.

The original, isometric combat system allows each unit to perform two actions per turn, from a menu with options such as Attack, Defend, Move, Deathblow, Charge, and Heal. Each unit has a hit points gauge and a kiai or "fighting spirit" gauge. When moving, the destination squares you can use are highlighted in blue. When attacking, the shape of the character's attack area is highlighted in pink - making use of the various shapes of attacks possessed by your characters is a key part of mastering the combat system. Ohgami and Sakura's katanas can only reach one square in any direction; Sumire's naginata can attack two squares away; Maria's guns can fire several squares away in four directions, and so on. The kiai gauge can be spent to perform deathblows otherwise known as super moves, attacks that invoke a full-screen animation effect and deal lots of damage. When you have reached the moment of truth and chosen the heroine you like best, a gattai or unity technique becomes available in which the two of you team up to deliver an especially dramatic and powerful attack. This was later called a couple attack in the english translation of Sakura Wars V.

Long Day Mode

Upon completion of every game, each Sakura Wars game offers a new mode, called Teito no Nagai Ichinichi or "A Long Day". In this mode you roam around the theater, which has bonus activities located in various areas. You can see any of the movies or still event images you have unlocked, listen to music, play minigames, and so on. As the series goes on, these bonus materials get more elaborate, to the point that you can almost spend as much time with the post-game as you did with the game itself.

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