Sakura Wars

Playstation LifestyleGeorge Foster

8/10

Sakura Wars finally makes its way West. Our Sakura Wars review looks at the English localization to see if it's worth spending your time and money on.

TheSixthAxisMiguel Moran

8/10

Sakura Wars may be a crisp, fully 3D modern release, but every inch of the story, characters, and sound feels like it's straight out of the 90s. This soft-reboot may not revolutionise gaming as the original game did, but it still manages to deliver an expertly crafted love letter to those old-school stories and characters that will put a smile on anyone's face. The combat scenes may lack the same depth and intrigue as the story beats of the game, but they're a minor part of an otherwise unforgettable anime adventure.

Worth PlayingDavid Silbert

7.9/10

A cultural phenomenon in Japan, the long-running Sakura Wars series defined the JRPG / romance genre with its memorable characters, masterful writing, and sublime music.

GameSpotHeidi Kemps

7/10

Sakura Wars' unique world, fun character interactions, and high-stakes melodrama help it overcome mediocre action sequences.

DestructoidChris Moyse

7/10

Sakura Wars represents an ambitious new start for the franchise, one that might not be to everyone’s tastes. While its mediocre combat and dialogue-heavy design may leave some players disengaged, its fabulous presentation, pleasing visuals, delightful characters, and histrionic melodrama will delight others. Perhaps most importantly, it offers the franchise a bright future bursting with potential. Encore!

RPGamerAlex Fuller

After a decade in the wilderness, Sakura Wars is back with its unique mix of musical theatre and demon-fighting mechs. Not even a change to an action combat system can keep this star from shining.

TwinfiniteKeenan McCall

Sakura Wars isn't the return fans were hoping for, but it's still one worth seeing and playing. For all the flaws the new action hack and slash combat and scatter-brained storytelling entail, the well-executed character interactions, visual novel elements and sound design all show how much potential the new take on the series has.

GameSpewRichard Seagrave

7/10

Needless to say, Sakura Wars is far from being perfect. It does, however, have charm, and that goes far. With its amusing character interactions and dramatic scenes, it keeps you eager to discover what’s going to happen next. It’s a lengthy story, too, with optional combat scenarios, a card-based mini-game, and multiple endings to pad out the playing time. And though the combat isn’t anything special, it’s enjoyable enough to keep you slashing and blasting away when it becomes a much more prominent aspect of the game. A unique combination of genres, Sakura Wars is ultimately a compelling adven...

COGConnectedMichael Chow

68/100

On paper, Sakura Wars has the potential to be an exciting JRPG soft reboot for contemporary fans of the genre. However, this genre combining game that features action RPG, dating sim, and visual novel elements does not execute as hoped for. While Sakura Wars is a franchise with roots back to the mid-90s, Sakura Wars for the PS4 is a soft reboot that does not require previous knowledge of the franchise, though some aspects will be appreciated by previous fans.

Sirus GamingJarren Navarrete

6/10

You better have to choose if it’s worth spending your spare cash, because it might not be the game for you and it might be for others.

Impulse GamerAbdul Saad

While the west recently received a new installation to the beloved Sakura Wars franchise, the series has been around for nearly 25 years spanning from the

Checkpoint GamingPedro Cooray

4/10

Sakura Wars is not an RPG, turns out. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed. With Fire Emblem, Persona 5, Trails of Cold Steel, and the other Persona 5, I thought this would be another social sim/JRPG hybrid. But Sakura Wars bucks the trend by being part dating sim, part action-platformer. The parts are deliberately uneven; battles only make up 20-30% of your total playtime. Most of the game involves running around a steampunk reimagining of 1940s Tokyo, having conversations, doing small quests,...