Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story

"For Sailor Moon fans, but Sailor Moon fans only."

FORWARD:
Okay, first off let me say that you shouldn't even bother with this game if you don't know what Sailor Moon is about, because you'll be entirely confused as to what the heck is going on. In addition, knowing the story and characters is the main source of enjoyment that comes from this game.

I do know the gist of the Sailor Moon chronicles, so I was able to follow along considerably well, and in turn I'm probably rating it a little higher than I should.

NOW ON TO THE REVIEW!

Sailor Moon: Another Story is essentially a Sailor Moon R P G. It's based heavily on the Japanese anime, so you better know something about it.

THE STORY:
In a nutshell, a bunch of ne'er-do-well Senshi look-alikes become servants to a creepy lady in black. (GASP! The originality!) Their plan? To rewrite history and change the destiny of the world, bringing back all the monsters that the Senshi defeated beforehand. So it's your typical screw-with-the-time-space-continuum plot. Time to kick some creepy black lady butt.

GAMEPLAY:
Nothing original. You walk around, press the A button to look at stuff, and the like. One nice little convenience is that you can get around pretty quickly by holding the R button, in which case Sailor Moon runs like a greased rabbit with her butt on fire. Occasionally you'll walk into a random battle and be whisked off to the standard FF-style battle screen, as we've seen so many times before.

Battles are, uh, unimpressive. The enemies don't do much in the way of strategy. It's not in real time, so urgency is thrown right out the window. Combat goes in rounds; you enter all the commands for your five (or less) Senshi, and then they do it. You can have them do a regular attack, one of their signature attacks (which consume energy; you can only get 12 points max, which you will get after gaining about 5 levels), or a combination attack a-la-Chrono Trigger. Attacks are pretty much damage only, with a few exceptions that raise or lower stats. This leaves you with few options during fights, which can get rather tedious.

As far as customizing your Senshi goes, you can arrange them in a number of ways, but they won't do any significant damage unless they're in the front row. You can also equip them with up to three accessories, which increase their stats. So it's all a matter of arrangement.

You get ten characters; the ten Senshi. Personally, I think they should have designed some characters just for the game, but the designers obviously went for accuracy over originality.

GRAPHICS:
MY GOD, they botched the graphics in this game! Potentially, this could have had awesome attack animations (it's Sailor Moon, for chrissakes!) but it instead leaves you with bland visuals. The only even remotely impressive bit of graphics in this game is the pictures of the characters next to their text boxes.

SOUND:
Not good. Some of the music is just plain annoying. The only good music is the laid back, walking around music; unfortunately, the music representing emotion is unexpressive, and the battle songs aren't at all riveting (as battle songs should be).

CHALLENGE:
Actually, this game can be kinda hard at times, mainly due to hard-hitting enemies. All it really means is that you have to level up, though.

OVERALL:
Pretty standard R P G fare, with a Sailor Moon wrapper. I would only recommend it if you're a Sailor Moon fan, or if you've whipped every other R P G for SNES. If not, you can do better.

-Stuffman

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/10/01, Updated 03/10/01