Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon

 -Banpresto (1995)

Summary

Sailor Moon and friends sexily saunter from left to right to destroy evil. 

My Thoughts

Okay, I’ll admit it; with most of my arcade reviews thus far I’ve been intimately familiar with the subject matter that the game is based on. I know Spiderman, T2, G.I. Joe and the rest like the back of my hand. What I don’t know much about is Sailor Moon. My knowledge of the Sailor Moon franchise is limited at best. I do know that it appeals to me, because it features hot chicks in skimpy school uniforms. And by hot chicks, I mean the standard underage girls that the Japanese find so tantalizing. Because of this, these short skirt wearing school girls draw a female audience along with the regular horny fourteen year old crowd. As an added bonus, the franchise attracts creepy old guys who read manga and know every difference between the American and Japanese versions of the show. Sorry gals and weirdoes, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon is a run of the mill beat-um-up.  

The controls are simple with the standard punch and jump buttons and a power attack option. There are a few different moves your pretty soldiers can perform, like a sort of dash and bash attack, or a spin attack that eats away at your health like in a lot of Capcom brawlers. I don’t think I’ve played a beat-um-up that is any more similar to the classic Final Fight in terms of controls and style. I’m amazed that Capcom didn’t make this game. 

You might get a large selection of Sailor Moon ladies to fight with, but there is little discernable difference between each of the girls aside for a few animations in their attacks. The power attack feature for each girl is pretty cool, because it shows a nifty animation of the school girl you’re controlling. The special attack animation changes and becomes more powerful depending how many crystals you can pick up during the game. It’s one of the very few things that sets Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon apart from other standard beat-um-ups.  

Two players can take charge of the S ladies at a time, which is probably the best way to play this game since Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon can be pretty tough at times. The only downside to playing with two players is that you can actually hit your allies at any time, leading to some frustrating moments when you're too close to your buddy. Perhaps some players will want to beat the heck out of each other as anime school girls, but to me it was simply annoying.

The enemies are pretty colorful on the whole, although you’ll end up fighting the same ones repeatedly, complete with the standard variation of uniform color to indicate their strength levels. The boss battles are rather standard stuff as well, although their character designs can be pretty nifty, like the house cat that becomes a huge killing machine.

From what I’ve seen of the show the design of the characters is dead on, including that charming and mysterious Tuxedo Mask who shows up occasionally to lend you some assistance. Oh, Tuxedo Mask. You hold the key to unlock my heart! There really isn’t anything else in the gameplay to make this one special aside from the ability to fight evil tennis racket wielding enemies with sexy school girls, but then again, do you need any other reason to play this game?

Score: 5.5

- Paul

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