Seasons of the Sakura

"A fairly good introduction to the bishoujo dating sim games"

Quick Summary: Season of the Sakura is a bishoujo (Japanese for cute girl) life-sim game ported into English by JastUSA. The game involves you going to a junior college for your last year in school. During that year, you interact with various classmates and friends. And, if you act accordingly, you can win the hearts of your co-ed friends. All it takes is a little bit of friendship and love.

Storyline: Season of the Sakura puts you in the role of a student during a year in junior college. During the course of the game, you get the chance to woo various co-ed's, and, if you play your cards right, win the heart of one of the girls.

Thoughts: Season of the Sakura is a bishoujo (Japanese for cute girl) life-sim game ported into English by JastUSA. The game involves you going to a junior college for your last year in school. During that year, you interact with various classmates and friends. And, if you act accordingly, you can win the hearts of your co-ed friends. All it takes is a little bit of friendship and love.

The story is very much a romance. As a life-sim game, there are not any really gripping, sad stories (as there are in Gloria, Divi-Dead, Snow Drop, or Tokimeki Check-in, in comparison), but the light-hearted nature of the stories are well done. And, the characters are translated in such a way as they come to life. That is, the tom-boyish character's dialog was translated to be a lot more brusk and ''in-your-face'', while you're old school-girl friends are much more polite and kind. This does let you immerse yourself a bit into the game.

The graphics in SotS are older. As such, I think they're only 256 color. They aren't as sharp and crisp as some of the newer bishoujo games that have been ported over. On the positive side, they faces and eyes are animated, giving the characters a bit of life. They do have a variety of girls and locations to look at. So, if you like smaller girls, or girls with long hair, you still have a good variety. And, the locations do change regularly, allowing you even more spots to vary up the background art.

The music are old midi files. SotS does not support voices, and the ''sound effects'' are text on the screen of what's going on. I.e., if you throw a rock in a pond, the text on-screen would say ''plip''. However, in defense of SotS, it is an older game, and, since it doesn't have voice acting, it's also an inexpensive game to purchase.

Gameplay, in my opinion, is very linear. Not many paths, or plot points. You can end the game with each girl, or with none. And, I found it to be very easy to end with a girl. This, for me, lessened the enjoyment, as it didn't let me really uncover what the girl likes or dislikes. Overall... I found the game to be good, but not as good as it could be. Being so liner makes for an easier game to port (fewer files to have to translate and edit), but it also really limits the chance for interaction with the girls.

One of the neat things about Season of the Sakura is that the girls are all doujinshi of famous anime characters, such as Fuu, Umi, and Hikari from the OVA Magic Knight Rayearth, or Rei from Evangelon. So, if you always had a crush on these sorts of girls, here is your chance to see if you can win their hearts.

Few extras, some pics from other JastUSA games, but no music player or memory room. It does have a ''hint-sheet'' giving advice on how to woo the girls, and hints on how to get the harder of the girls to love you.

Overall, if you're interested in seeing what a bishoujo game is like, Season of the Sakura is a good starting location. But, there are better games available on the market.

Story: 7.5
Graphics: 7.5
Translation: 8
Sound/Music: N/A
Voice Acting: N/A
Gameplay: 8
Extras: 5.5
Personal Slant: 6.5
Overall (the Overall score is not an average): 6

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/02/02, Updated 08/26/02