30 years of the Sega Saturn: Sakura Wars 2: Thou Shalt Not Die

On May 11, 2025, the Sega Saturn will turn 30 years old in North America. Throughout the month of May, I’ll be covering the console and its history, its games, and what made it the most successful Sega console in Japan but a disappointment outside of it. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

There is maybe no series that better represents the difference in the experience of the Japanese and international Sega Saturn owner than Sakura Wars. Generally speaking, third-party games were the ones that only released in Japan on the Saturn, and not in North America or PAL regions, owing to the smaller install base for the console in those regions. Sega certainly didn’t localize every single game released in Japan that they published there over the life of the Saturn, leaving some things at home instead of releasing them internationally, but of the 154 games for the system that Sega published (including three by SegaSoft, a joint venture between Sega and CSK), 79 of those ended up in North America, with 67 of those published in the region by Sega themselves. Considering that, overall, the Saturn had 1,028 games and 775 of them remained exclusive to Japan, Sega’s batting average was a whole lot higher for this than the norm for the system, even if it’s not as high as you’d have liked it to be.

That’s what makes the absence of Sakura Wars from North America that much worse, however. Sega, naturally, made sure their ports of their popular arcade games came out everywhere. First-party, console-specific releases like the Bug! and Clockwork Knight games showed up all over the world, as did the Panzer Dragoon games, the offerings from Sonic Team, anything with Sonic’s name in it, of course, and even first-party licensed sports titles that were actually exclusive to the region. Sega of America, though, had a problem with role-playing games — they tried to avoid them at all costs. A lot of this has been lain at the feet of former Playstation executive Bernie Stolar, who arrived at Sega of America in the spring of 1997 to become its COO (and eventually president) after helping Sony’s inaugural system find its feet as a founder of Sony Computer Entertainment America and its executive vice president: the reason for that is because of his policy against localizing RPGs, since he felt they were too niche to be worth the effort.

It’s not like Sega of America had been pumping out RPGs before that point, though. Sega published 1995’s Virtual Hydlide in Japan, but Atlus handled it in North America. Working Designs is the reason that Shining Wisdom (June 1996) and Dragon Force (Nov. 1996) made it out of Japan. Sega didn’t bother publishing Linkle Liver Story (March ‘96) in North America like they had in Japan, despite the fact that Nextech’s previous titles had been released on the Genesis, including the Sega-published Crusader of Centy. Sega of America didn’t exactly have a reputation for treating RPGs — action, turn-based, strategy, any of it — spectacularly well during the era of the Genesis, either, so it’s not like this was a new thing. Stolar’s philosophy for looking for flashier 3D games, especially in the sports world, was one he brought over from Playstation, but it also fit in with what Sega of America was already up to. Sega of America did localize tactical RPG Riglord Saga as Mystaria: The Realms of Lore in the fall of 1995, but it’s not as if they were in a position to reject Saturn games at that point, either, given their still-fresh self-inflicted wounds of the time.

Sega would end up publishing some RPGs under Stolar, even, but with some exceptions like dungeon-crawler Shining the Holy Ark — which did have 3D environments and pre-rendered 3D graphics to show off — it wasn’t until after Final Fantasy VII blew up the market in a way that made the genre seem like there was more than niche potential there. When that game turned out to be a massive success in the late-summer of 1997, then Panzer Dragoon Saga ended up localized and published by Sega despite the series’ shift from on-rails shooter to RPG. (Though, that game, too, heavily featured 3D, and had been very much about Sega doing what Sony couldn’t to this point, anyway.) Shining Force III didn’t have to be localized by a third-party publisher like Shining Wisdom , and instead, Sega released it. Well, one-third of it, anyway. They just weren’t a huge RPG company with or without Stolar, even if the RPGs their internal studios in Japan made were regularly killer.

Which is a long way of saying that Sakura Wars never stood a chance when it came to Sega of America. There was 3D in it, for sure — big, fancy 3D animations used in battle to show off animated mechs — but the majority of the game involved a 2D visual novel- and adventure-style presentation that had you navigating a dating sim, and the parts that weren’t that were a tactical RPG. Also, the dating sim bit powered the tactical RPG bit. It would have been a significant undertaking to localize the script and fill out the large roster of voice actors to speak a huge number of lines, so Sega of America simply did not do that. The game had to be expanded from a one-disc release to a two-disc release to accommodate all of the voice acting that series creator Oji Hiroi wanted to include, but all that extra effort is part of what made the game work so well in the first place. Meaning, it was going to be important to nail that in a localization, and Sega of America just wasn’t going to do that.

Sakura Wars would be a significant success in Japan, selling nearly 360,000 copies. That might not sound like much, but you need to remember a couple of things here: the Saturn had sold around 4.8 million consoles in Japan by the end of 1996, the year that Sakura Wars released, which is a lot different than selling 360,000 copies of a game on the system leading an era of consoles in sales; these figures are just for Japan, too, not an internationally released game; and Sakura Wars, for all its greatness, is niche. Consider all of that together, and that it ended up being a best-seller for the Saturn in Japan is stunning.

Sega’s attitude shifted after seeing the game take off like that, which turned it into a franchise rather than a one-time collaboration between Red Company (now Red Entertainment) and Sega. Not only would there be video game sequels, but also an OVA, an anime, spin-off titles (did you know that there’s a Sakura Wars-branded Columns game on the Saturn?), and stage shows — fitting for a game that featured stage shows within it as a not-insignificant portion of the proceedings. Those demon-fighting, mech-piloting ladies belonging to a secret branch of an international military were in disguise as a theater troupe, after all. If this had happened at a different time, then it’s possible that Sakura Wars would have been a candidate to be localized in North America. It didn’t, though: anime wasn’t as widely accepted in North America as it is in the present, for instance, so it’s not like seeing Sakura Wars go from a game with bits designed to be like an episodic anime then nail the actual transition to episodic anime would have convinced anyone at Sega of America to change their tune about localizing the game.

And there’s one additional reason that Sakura Wars 2, despite the success of its predecessor and the franchise as a whole in Japan, never made it over to North America, either: its release date. Sakura Wars 2: Thou Shalt Not Die landed in Japan in April of 1998. Burning Rangers arrived in North America on May 28, 1998, and would be the second-to-last game that Sega would release on the Saturn in that region before Sega of America cut off support to the system. Between July 31, 1998 and September 9, 1999, Sega of America didn’t bother releasing a game for a Sega console, and just one third-party release — Working Designs’ localization of Magic Knight Rayearth — existed in that gap. Sega of Japan released another eight games for the system despite the Dreamcast releasing in November of 1998, and third-party publishers continued to support the console well beyond those dates — 218 Saturn games were released in Japan from 1998 through 2000, with 69 of those coming after July 31 when Sega of America shut it down in North America. Sega of America had the resources and the time to localize Sakura Wars 2 — and hell, the first game, too, if they had wanted to — but they did not want to. The Saturn wasn’t the future of Sega, as Stolar had famously said, and all energy would be devoted to its successor system at this point, even if it meant well over a year in between Sega of America-published releases for a home console.

All of this is a shame for many reasons. Sakura Wars and Sakura Wars 2 alone wouldn’t have saved the Saturn, by any means, but they do represent this larger problem of a lack of availability of games that would have filled out the Saturn’s international library with quality while also helping the system stand out. The push for sports games and for ports of impressive 3D arcade games worked for the Saturn, for sure — in since-deleted tweets, analyst Mat Piscatella shared the Saturn’s best-selling North American titles, and the list was entirely comprised of sports, arcade ports, and a few of Sega’s 3D console offerings, as well as the first Tomb Raider — but it’s not difficult to argue that there should have been more invested in the Saturn in North America. Sales were low for the console, yes, but they weren’t going to get any higher without games to buy for it. The Saturn, with the help of some explosive marketing, ended up outselling the Nintendo 64 in Japan despite Sega abandoning the system in the N64’s later years. They kept releasing games and supporting the system, so third-party publishers did, too, and while it wasn’t a massive commercial success, there was at least something to show for all the effort in the end.

Sakura Wars 2 was everything that people loved about Sakura Wars, but more of it, in every sense. The game had ballooned from two discs to three, for one, and the cast added two new ladies — Italian actress Orihime Soletta and German actress/Winter Soldier precursor Reni Milchstrasse — as well as the Rose Troupe, a trio of men who also love Sakura Wars’ protagonist Ichiro Ogami as much as all of the women of the Imperial Revue’s Flower Division do. Okay sure, it takes Orihime some time to warm up to Ichiro Ogami, given she is very clear basically from the first time you meet her that she despises Japanese men, and you need to break the hold over Reni’s “programming” before she even does so much as smile, but by playing through the missions based around them and being sure not to speak to them in a way that will make them hate being around you, they’ll get to a place of love, too.

You are once again tasked with defeating demons who aim to destroy the capital of an alternate universe 1920s Japan. You are once again betrayed by someone you thought you could trust (though, the game flashes giant warning signs again and again that it’s Ichiro here who should trust this person, even if you, the person holding the controller, should not, so it works a lot differently), and there’s a big old twist and a necessary upgrading of your mechs — known as kobou here — in order to combat the evil behind all of the chaos you’ve faced in the preceding chapters. The Imperial Combat Revue puts on stage shows, you are tasked, as Ichiro, with settling disagreements between the ladies that will either make one of them happy with you and the other angry or both upset at you if you choose the worst possible answer, there are minigames exclusive to specific times in the game and specific characters you will play them with once more, and Ichiro once again is continually accosted by a 12-year-old who he has to figure out how to gently remind her of being being 12 whenever she starts to get a little too dreamy-eyed about the man she’s decided is her future husband. (None of that is in a creepy way, mind you, she just gets real mad if you dismiss her as a child with the wrong tone, so, you know. Don’t do that.)

The Live & Interactive Picture System, aka LIPS, has gotten a bit of an overhaul for Sakura Wars 2. You’re still on a timer for your responses when those prompts show up, and the amount of time it takes you to choose might impact how your answer is received — the ladies know if you’re waffling, buddy, shoot from the hip in all of your social interactions, at least it’s honest. There are moments where your responses will not just impact the mood of the person you’re speaking directly to, but possibly anyone within earshot — don’t reveal, for instance, that Sumire called you to ask a question that will be interpreted as very personal to the rest of the group, because multiple members will frown upon you sharing something that wasn’t meant to be shared. Forgetting Reni’s last name in conversation won’t bother Reni at all, but it will cause Orihime to utter another blanket statement about the uselessness of Japanese men. In addition, you’re now tasked with choosing some dialogue options that will result in the tactical portions of the game being played differently. For example, when you go to rescue Sumire from an arranged marriage at her family’s mansion, you’re given options to either go all-out to destroy the invading demons and their mechs, or play more of a defensive role that prioritizes the safety of the people in the mansion — the level will be structured a bit differently depending on your choice here and in other stages. Try to rescue Reni with Ichiro and Iris, or send Iris out to get reinforcements while Ichiro holds down the fort by himself? That sort of thing. These don’t choices don’t impact relationships, just how the tactical portions of the game will be played.

There are also more personality-based answers that are represented by colors, so you get a sense of how your answers are going to come off. Orihimi is not impressed by a failure to show strength and conviction, for instance, and like Sumire, is not easily impressed by the same kind of compliments that Sakura or Iris will eat up because they subsist off of the Ichiro attention economy. You can give every single member of the Imperial Combat Revue the same compliment about their outfit, for instance, and the likes of Sakura or Iris will take said compliment at face value, while Sumire and Orihime will feel insulted that you think so little of them as to be taken in by something you say to everyone that therefore holds little meaning to them. And, while not taking too long with your answers is a good rule of thumb, there are also times where answers might disappear, be added, or be replaced the longer you wait, which is the kind of thing that can go either way. What it does do, in addition to the fact that you can’t physically get to every possible location in the theater to meet with every girl who wants to speak with you before you run out of time, since the clock is running, is give you reasons to come back to Sakura Wars 2 another time and play differently on that run.

Your success in the dating sim portions of the game do determine the offensive and defensive capabilities of the mechs in the tactical portions of the game: if, say, Sakura caught you flirting with Maria, or she finds out that you made the 12-year-old girl, Iris, very upset, she’s going to give you a disapproving look and be put into a foul mood, which will limit her stats in the next fight. You see, the mechs are “fueled” by spirit power, which is in part charged by emotions — more positive emotions means more spirit power to channel into the mechs. There was a significant story arc in the first Sakura Wars about Iris losing control of her spirit power due to anger and frustration, which, when unleashed directly into the world, was basically the equivalent of psychic energy attacks on her surroundings.

In addition to the mood-based stat boosts, there is also command function to consider in-battle. The command function can be utilized by Ichiro, the captain of the Imperial Combat Revue, and lets you change whether you want to prioritize movement movement, attack power, or defensive capabilities for all of your mechs, with a corresponding drop in the effectiveness of one of the others. Meaning that you can increase your defense, for instance, but at the expense of your movement range. Sometimes characters will suggest you switch to a specific command mode, but you aren’t required to do so, and they won’t be offended if you don’t take their advice, either: sometimes it just comes down to what you feel you need to be focusing on, or what you prefer to be focusing on, and that’s that. However, battles can get tougher later, especially if you don’t use the command function to properly strategize or you somehow make everyone mad at you and therefore limit their effectiveness in battle, and you will absolutely feel it when you have the wrong command.

For example, in one of the battles where you fight the aforementioned Suiko, she seemingly splits into multiple copies of herself. While those copies are “fake” and can be defeated in a single hit, they also have fully charged up bars that let them use their devastating special attacks, and those attacks — just like your own — can do massive damage to multiple opponents at once. Picking them off one at a time while setting yourself up to survive their assault is the way to go about things, so, given they all die in one hit, anyway, you don’t need extra attack power: you need defense here. Doing otherwise will cause a problem, since each character has limited healing capabilities in terms of both total hit points healed and the number of times you can heal in a battle, and Iris can only use her larger heal power when her special is charged. And healing uses up one of the two moves you have each turn, as well, so if you heal, you can’t perform another choice from that same category of moves, and you also now need to decide between attacking or moving, but not both. It’s not the most tactical game you’ve ever played, but this does all add another layer to the proceedings, and there was room for that layer.

There is an absurd amount of charm in all of these characters, whether they’re ones that you can flirt with and build relationships with, or just a boss or coworker, or even the demons trying to kill you. Hey, Suiko might hope that you die a horrible death, but she’s at least entertaining while she’s making that wish. The returning characters get to expand on their personalities here, which makes them that much more enjoyable — you don’t get the same deep-dive, personal episode for every lady in the Imperial Combat Revue this time, but you already had one of those that helped endear them to Ichiro and you to them in the first Sakura Wars. While Sakura Wars 2 doesn’t require playing the original, it is absolutely more rewarding to already have that foundation in place, since it does build so much on what was already on offer, in addition to giving you a similar, personal arc with Orihimi and Reni.

Nothing in Sakura Wars 2 is a revolutionary change from the original, but that game didn’t need that kind of overhaul, either. Sakura Wars needed a sequel that could tweak and build on it in small ways to improve the overall game, and to successfully return to (and expand upon) the cast of the first title, and Sakura Wars 2 did all of that. It ended up selling over half-a-million copies, and is often regarded as the high point of the series, as well, which isn’t a knock on its follow-ups so much as a testament to just how good this first sequel is.

As such it’s one of the finest games on the Saturn, and you can now finally play it in English, 27 years after its original release, courtesy an unofficial translation team led by Noah Steam, who also helmed the translation of the first title in 2019. Sega had nothing to do with that, of course — Sega has never had anything to do with that, outside of the 2019 Playstation 4 release that introduced a new cast and was actually handled by them worldwide for the first time — so that’s nothing new. But at least Sakura Wars 2 is going to feel new to you when you fire up this unofficial translation, and that’s all that matters, not whether Sega of America ever wanted you to experience game or not.

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