Sakura Wars So Long My Love - Would I like it?

[Gamerace]

I have it, and I must admit, to my own surprise I like it. A lot. But IGN is out of their f---ing minds giving it a '9' and ranking it over MH3.

Sakura is a BUDGET game, made for a small Japanese only audience. It's more of an interactive book than a game, although the mecha robots SRPG elements are good if somewhat standard fare.

70% of the game is clicking 'A' to go through all the story/dialogue - which is campy as hell, disjointed, and at times utterly ridiculous, albeit strangely charming and amusing in it's own way.

Occasionally you get to choose a response which affects how much the like you. The choices are not obvious, you really have to take the nature of the person you're talking to into consideration and you're giving a very short time frame in which to do it. You've really got just enough time to review the answers and go with your gut.

Once is a while the dialogue gives way to running around on a 3d map or a quick mini-game which amounts to QTEs with the analog stick (press up, right, right, up, down, circle as instructed in the time allowed - sort of thing).

At the end of each chapter (roughly 45-60 minutes of gameplay) you get the to (tacked on) SRPG mecha combat. Which is good but not particularly deep, at least not yet but I'm only just finished chapter 2.

Where the game wins is in playing on ones natural desire to be liked. I do find I genuinely want the 'girls' to like me (and maybe be enamoured) and have even replayed parts to get better results.

The relationship building plays right into the SRPG as that's your best weapon. The better the bonding with your teammates, the more damage you do when you do a joint attack. Even had one girl who's particularly fond of me, sponteously save my character from a certain death blow. So you really want to make the friendships/romances work which is already becoming a bit of a juggling act as you have to take each characters egos into consideration and what might score points here, might cost you there.

If you like adventure games and SRPG then you might really dig this game. It's got charm. But's it's got nothing at all in common with Oblivion or Fallout. Closer to Fire Emblem and trying to score with a chick in Mass Effect.