Opening this month just like we left the last one, here's one of the latest exclusives to the longest-standing active Taiko game's Gakkyoku Tori Houdai subscription service!
Geki! Teikoku Kagekitan Sakura Wars
檄！帝国華撃団／「サクラ大戦」より
| Game | Genre |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plus STH |
 |
★2 (86) |
★3 (144) |
★5 (264) |
★7 (389) |
- |
141.83-145.37
tei59k (Teikoku Kagekitan, with 5=Go (ko) and 9=Ku)For what concerns the first-comer/exclusive song pool of the i-device/Android-friendly Shinkyoku Tori Houdai in recent memory, a quick glance and you'll see how monthly Anime newcomers have been the leading trend well into 2022. However, some exclusive representation for other genres still lingers around... some of which involving Sega's helping hand, of all parties!
The Sakura Wars (サクラ大戦) franchise has been devised since the early 90ies by author Teruhisa Hiroi (廣井照久) -mostly going by the art name of Oji Hiroi (広井王子)- in his drive to nurture a story combining Japanese stage plays with a contemporary/steampunk setting. All of the games, in fact, take place during the Japanese Taisho era (early 20th century), where the ingrained darkness of human hearts has collectively created a horde of demonic entities that ravage the planet. In order to face the crisis, Japan's government creates a series of steam-based mechas called Koubu whose functioning and abilities mostly operate with spiritual power, an energy source mostly possessed by women which, in turn, make up the main body of the national defense line: the Imperial Combat Revue (帝国華撃団) the first game's theme song is also named after.
Under the ficticious genre labeling as a "dramatic adventure" lies the Sakura Wars games' unique genre blend between tactical role-playing action and an 'explorative' side to it with visual novel-styled progression and a chance to romance any of the game's girls, the relationship with which could also be ported over to later entries of the original quadrilogy via save data! With the first four titles getting released as Japan exclusives between Sega's last two consoles -the Saturn and the Dreamcast- to critical and fan acclaim, only two titles were localized in English afterwards: the Ps2/Wii's Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love and the Sakura Wars soft reboot from 2019 for Ps4, the last one being developed and published by Sega due to overwhelming fan demand.
Companion material for the franchise also exists in form of manga/Anime/OVAs having some lucky English localizations in the way, with the currently-latest step for the franchise being the Aniplex-backed gacha game Sakura Kakumei ~Hana Saku Otome-tachi~, which infamously garnered a lukewarm-to-negative reception in spite of its incredible developing budget (with estimates closer to 3 billion Yen!), warranting the game's termination after 6 months and putting the series' future on a hold. To paraphrase the title of the D-D-Dice Namco Original that came out today, you could be making a cutesy RPG Game Over linedrop reference by stating something like "And So The Brave Sakura Wars Went To [its eternal] Sleep"... or perhaps you could be just as blunt as the same song's official English title translation and go "R.I.P. Sakura Wars"!
Geki! Teikoku Kagekitan is performed by Chisa Yokohama (横山智佐), voice actress of the in-game character Sakura Shinguji who appears in the first two games' cover art; while collectively credited as the "Imperial Opera Company" (帝国歌劇団), the composing/arranging/lyric-penning duties were respectively handled by Kohei Tanaka (田中公平), Takayuki Negishi (根岸貴幸) and the nicknamed Prince Hiroi (広井王子). The Taiko-playable version of this song, while not a cover, is not the original one for its source game as it's actually a track re-recording that was made later on for the collaborative piece of DLC that was made for Bandai Namco's mecha-based RPG crossover Super Robot Wars 30, one of the few English-localized entries in the series. Watch its traditionally-charted 1/16 Oni trial unfold upon your eyes with multiple small BPM shifts like it's Taiko Gen 2 all over again!
