Introduction
Today we are going to look at a beat em up game that might be older than I am. We are going all the way back to the SNES era, when games had pixel graphics, we had only a few buttons to play a game, and real stories were far and between. Now what game are we looking at? This time we will be looking at Sailor Moon, it was quite hard to find a working (English) ROM. Luckily, there is no story and all you have to do is, beat up bad guys!
What did I think before playing Sailor Moon
I saw this game come by on Facebook, someone was trying to find a working example, color me intrigued. I went to dig into the internet archives to see if I could find a working ROM. There were no English working ones, but I found a French one. At least, I think it is French? For more information, we will check out the Wikipedia page.
The Wikipedia Page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailor_Moon_(1993_video_game)
On this Wiki, you can see that this game can also be played in co-op mode. It seems this game follows the first arc of Sailor Moon, it has been a very long time since I saw that, so I had no idea anymore what exactly is handled in the first arc. All you need to do in this game is beat up the bad guys!
Rating
I rated Sailor Moon with a 6,7 before playing.
It seemed like a fun beat em up game where you can even cast magic on enemies by performing combos.
Gameplay
The game starts fairly simple, you need to choose one of the five original guardians. They all have different attributes and attacks. You can just select your favorite or try to find the best character. I like the main character the most, this might be easier for people who watched the anime, or maybe even read the manga!
As you make your way across the 2D levels, you will need to follow the path while monsters will continue to assault you from both sides. You can either use magic, or beat the crap out of them. There is something very funny about a girl beating up monsters. As you progress in the game, more annoying monsters will show up.
The stages get much harder as you progress, which brings to the next point. It is hard to connect your attacks with some monsters. This makes it hard to pin your combo to an enemy. You have only three lives, but multiple continues. The levels are fun to go through and look at.
Rating
I rated the gameplay of Sailor Moon with a 6.9
If you are interested in a beat em up game, then this is a decent SNES game.
Sound and Graphics
Graphics
The graphics, are quite good. You have to keep in mind that this was in a long, bygone era. There are many monsters, they made good use of the limited space on the cartridge by using color swaps. Most of the data went into making good levels.
Sound
The music fits the game perfectly, there are different soundtracks, great sound effects for beating up the monsters. All in all, a joy to listen to.
Rating
I rated the sound and graphics of Sailor Moon with a 7.9
They did an impressive job!
What did I think after playing Sailor Moon?
If you get damaged in the fights, there is also random food to find on the ground. I mean, there is nothing better than finding a cake or candy on the ground and be like, yum! Luckily, it does heal some health points. The biggest gripe in this game for me was that some attacks did not connect with the hitboxes or character sprites properly. But all in all, quite a blast.
Rating
I rated The Sailor Moon with a 7.0 after playing.
Transform!
What are my personal thoughts about Sailor Moon?
It might have been more fun for me since I once watched a lot of Sailor Moon, that was a long time ago. Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed this beat em up game, it was not as bad as I had expected. The characters also having different skills was a great touch.
Rating
My personal Rating of Sailor Moon is a 7.5
I had a blast playing this!
Last Words
Pros
- There are five characters to choose from.
- Use food to heal your wounded character
- There are many fun levels to explore
- The soundtracks are fun to listen to and has great sound effects
- Fight dangerous bosses
Cons
- The character attacks do not connect well with the enemy sprites
- The working ROM is a hard one to find
- The difficulty is pretty high
You might need to know a bit more about Sailor Moon if you truly want to appreciate this game.
The Final Rating
7.1
Please let me know what you think of Sailor Moon in the comments!
I hope you enjoyed reading this review, I hope to see you in the next review!
If you liked reading this review, maybe you would like to share this review with your friends.
Although I’m not going to play it, it was interesting to read. Thanks for the review!
I am glad you liked the review!
WOW! it brings back the moemories 🙂
this one looks interesting. its normal for those games back then to be difficult because they were short games and they wanted you to invest more time in them
They also invested a lot of time in balancing the game, having a good difficulty curve.
Sailor Moon deserves to have more video games!
Brings back childhood memories!
I love beat’em ups and this one looks pretty good. Thanks for the review!
to be honest. I’m not really convinced ^^
Never seen this game before, seems an old good one
I’m not very much into this type of game, but it’s good to see, that there is still some love for the really old ones.
I like old games!
Not at all my kind of game but I certainly like the retro feel.
Actually i prefer to watch its anime ^^
Not my cup of tea
While “beat em up” is not my type of game, this game looks interesting. I would like to try it if I could find this game in the Steam Store. Thanks a lot for this review!
oh i would like this one
I actually heard nice things about this game
Game looks really cool, thx for showing it. This used to be a lot in tv when i was a child but i never watched it anytime longer 😉 But i played similar games to this on amiga 500+, “Double Dragon”/”Shadow Dancer”/”franko”/ and other but lets say that similar too “Ghost and goblins”, “Toki”.
Indeed very good music, sound effects and graphics for that time.
my sister would like it
This looks like a cute and well-done retro game from the anime! It’s cool to have a beat em-up game where you can use magic too! I recently got River City Girls and I’m sure these have similar vibes!
Good review! I think this game could be appreciated more by the fans of the anime.