When the anime craze finally picked up steam around these lands in the '90s, the high school playground was divided between boys who watched Dragon Ball and girls who watched Sailor Moon. A few more enlightened people actually enjoyed both shows, refusing to accept that gender should decide what anime you could enjoy. Both shows remain instantly recognizable even today, and their heroes and heroines timeless.
Then there were the hardcore few who kept looking up magazine import reviews to check what anime-licensed video games Bandai was releasing for their console systems. Super Famicom owners were somewhat spoiled for choice, with many titles being released every year of the system's lifespan. In fact, no less than eight different Sailor Moon games landed all the way from the Moon Palace straight to the SNES cartridge slot between 1992 and 1996. We were even lucky enough to have one of them released in Europe - Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon - that followed the tried-and-tested Final Fight approach to allow European Sailor Moon fans to clean up the streets, Moon Justice style.
But the series didn't stick to fighting games only, with RPGs and puzzle games also thrown into the mix. Even more impressive: they were all actually rather good, something we cannot say about all anime licensed games of the '90s. All of this led up to 1995's attempt at the puzzle genre: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Super S: Fuwa Fuwa Panic. Thanks to Dynamic Translations, an English fan translation has just been released.
All of the iconic Sailor Scouts run around in lovely super-deformed art style trying to inflate and pop up balloons of the same colour in order to get some power ups (be careful, some of them are power downs!) and throw impossible-to-pop gray balloons at their opponent. Each character also uses their iconic special moves from the show, usually to hinder the opponent's playing field.
Hats off to Dynamic Designs for actually releasing two translations for the game, one of them with all the character names from the original Japanese manga and anime and other for you Sailor Scout fans who grew up with the names from the DiC/Cloverway western dubs. You can grab the translation patch here and of course you can use it along with your RetroN 5 or Retro Freak.
Comments 25
A fighting/RPG puzzle game? Count me in.
sounds great. i love Sailor Moon.
Omg...i remember this game....I hope they decide to make a modernized Sailor Moon game...maybe like the RPG or fighting games
the Super Famicom RPG is fantastic. Or at least the one that was translated before this.
I actually just purchased the Gameboy game, still in Japanese, for my Gameboy collection last weekend. Gotta love systems without region locking.
Wow, Sailor Moon Super S.
What a classic anime...
I used to be watched it when i was 6th grade Primary.
But my fave is Sailor Moon S. Of course, the Daimons , Witches 5 and Outer Planet Senshi.
Don't care for Sailor Moon (I already got my magical girl anime anyways, yes they count shaddap, lol), but they need to give anime more love when it comes video game localizations. TwT
Best way to describe this one is "Pocket Fighter" meets "Puzzle Bobble" while winking at "Puyo Puyo".
I don't get why this game even needs a translation, you could basically play it without any knowledge of the story. I mean it's a simple puzzle game, there's no need for story. Just import it and play.
@retro_player_22 And miss out on all that zany dialogue!? Dynamic Translations even explicitly pointed out they simply translated the text, not adding anything. It's hilarious!
Yes. Because popping balloons was exactly what Sailor Moon was about. -_-
I remember playing a Sailor Moon Beat em Up on the Sega Genesis once.
I recall trying some Sailor moon JRPG style game on the Snes one time. It was weird.
i never watched sailor moon..
@Tempestryke The SNES one was slightly better. And a lot of fun, surprisingly.
@Shiryu
Hmm. I had no idea there was an SNES version
Sailor Moon is unbelievably near and dear to me. I used to play the ROMs when I was in high school. Sure, why not? For old time's sake!
This..........is exactly what we all needed.
@hieveryone That could be a good or bad thing that you never watched Sailor Moon. Definitely something of acquired taste.
The original Sailor Moon animé was fun for its time, but we had to deal with the double whammy of large changes (including added plotholes) and huge amounts of added filler compared to the manga, as well as an absolutely butchered English dub. Thank goodness we now have "Sailor Moon Crystal," the Sailor Moon animé adaptation we always wanted!
Aww I played that and the Sailor Stars sequel to DEATH as a kid. All the sailor moon games actually. One of the few franchises that got consistently good licensed games. Stil got my fingers crossed for a Crystal game.
Yay!, Yeey! Yeey!!, memories!! ^.^, I had played this game and ever I had fun, specially trying to complete the puzzle challenge (Stage clear), not forget that great music/melodies and the cute desing of characters, very funny their expressions, XD; and yes, it´s secuel that is more hard and with more characters!
There are more puzzle games of Sailor Moon in SNES, I hope that also they can translate them.
@hieveryone
Get out.
@CharlieSmile im sorry that i offended you
Yet another one I've never heard of; I would've thought I had no interest in any Sailor Moon game that wasn't just Sailor Uranus on a motorcycle with sword beat-'em-up levels, but this looks great!
@hieveryone yes how dare you
OMG!!! Sailor Moon!!
btw, yes, I was one of the enlightened (and chosen) ones. Not only did I totally fan over Sailor Moon, but I was known to have seen an episode or 2 of Dragon Ball Z. Later on I got into Gundam Wing too, but heck if I know what the plot of that show was.
btw, there's a Sailor Moon fighting game? Where? Gimme gimme gimme!!
Too bad most of these games didn't make it out of Japan. It would have been a hit with the kids back in the 90s when the original series was super popular along side Dragon Ball Z.
Tap here to load 25 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...