0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Super S

        

Sailor Moon, which is officially translated as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon and is the title of the Japanese media franchise created by Naoko Takeuchi and is based on the shōjo Manga and Anime series of the same name. The series was highly popular in it’s native Japan with around 20 games released that were based upon it by 1998.

Up to 1995 the series proved to be a steady seller with games in the series routinely selling between 200k and 300k copies, with the exception of the 1994 Angel developed game that released in France, and one other possible release in North America no other entries in the series have released outside of Japan.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Super S also known as Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Super S - Shin Shuyaku Soudatsusen is a fighting game entry in the Sailor Moon franchise. The game is a 2D fighting game that was developed and published by Angel Studio and released on the Playstation and Sega Saturn in 1996

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Super S is a 2D fighting game with a fairly basic control structure, the D-Pad is used to move your character either left or right. The face buttons control your basic attacks, with the square button being your weak punch, and the triangle button being your strong punch.

Kicks work in the same way with the X button being your weak kick, while the circle button is the strong kick. The shoulder buttons are used when you want to use a special move. To perform a special move you press either L1, L2 or R1 along with the triangle to perform the special move. The R2 shoulder button plus the triangle button will allow your character to perform their Super Special move.

The game has three modes to choose from the first is the single player mode, this is the main story mode for the game. The second mode is the 2 player vs mode, this mode allows two players to face off against each other of for one player to play against the AI.

The final mode is the games training mode, this mode is a continual mode for you to practice till your heart is content, you must press the select button to exit this mode. Finally you have the game options, this allows you to change the games difficulty from easy all the way up to very hard, the games difficulty level will effect the level of customisation you can do to the characters stats.

The customisation option will be presented to the player before starting the story mode once a character is chosen. Once chosen the player will have the option to put points into eight different categories, the number of points at your disposal depends on the difficulty setting you are playing, easy allows you 30 points while very hard only allows you 15 points to play with.

The eight options for you to add points to include Punching damage, Kicking damage, Throwing damage, Defence, Hit Ponts, Kawai (cuteness), Special move and Super Special move, the customisation option is also available in the 2 player mode.

This section will be covering the general story of the Sailor Moon franchise, The Sailor Moon story is based in Minato, Tokyo at a middle school, and follows Usagi Tsukino who befriends Luna a talking black cat, who gives her a magical broach, which enables her to become Sailor Moon, a soldier who is destined to save the Earth from the forces of Evil.

Luna and Usagi assemble a team of fellow Sailor Soldiers in order to find their princess and the silver crystal the pair encounter the studious Ami Mizuno, who awakens as Sailor Mercury; Rei Hino, a local shrine maiden who awakens as Sailor Mars; Makoto Kino, a tall transfer student who awakens as Sailor Jupiter; and Minako Aino, a young aspiring idol who awakens as Sailor Venus, accompanied by her talking feline companion Artemis. Additionally, they encounter Mamoru Chiba, a high-school student who assists them on occasion as Tuxedo Mask

The games features the six main characters from the franchise plus an additional four soldiers that joined the roster, all ten are playable with the exception of the story mode in which one of the six main characters must be used.

The overall story for the Sailor Moon franchise is divided up into five different arcs. The Dark Kingdom arc, the Black Moon arc (Sailor Moon R), the Infinity arc (Sailor Moon S), the Dream arc (Sailor Moon Supers), and the Stars arc (Sailor Stars).

The Dark Kingdom arc the group battle the forces of the Dark Kingdom led by Queen Beryl, a team of four generals, the four kings of heaven attempt to find the Silver Crystal and free the imprisoned evil entity Queen Materia.

The Black Moon arc, at the beginning of the second arc, Usagi and Mamoru's daughter Chibiusa arrives from the future to find the Silver Crystal. As a result, the Soldiers encounter Wiseman and his Black Moon Clan, who are pursuing her. Chibiusa takes the Soldiers to the future city Crystal Tokyo, where her parents rule as Neo-Queen Serenity and King Endymion.

The third arc titled the Infinity arc revolves around a group of lifeforms called the Death Busters, created by Professor Soichi Tomoe, who seek to transport the entity Pharaoh 90 to Earth to merge with the planet. Tomoe's daughter Hotaru is possessed by the entity Mistress 9, who must open the dimensional gateway through which Pharaoh 90 must travel. 

Auto-racer Haruka Tenoh and violinist Michiru Kaioh appear as Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, who guard the outer rim of the Solar System from external threats. Physics student Setsuna Meioh, Sailor Pluto's reincarnation, joins the protagonists. Usagi obtains the Holy Grail, transforms into Super Sailor Moon, and attempts to use the power of the Grail and the Silver Crystal to destroy Pharaoh 90.  

The fourth arc titled the Dream arc sees usagi and her friends enter high school and fight against the Dead Moon Circus, led by Queen Nehelenia, the self-proclaimed "rightful ruler" of both Silver Millennium and Earth. Nehelenia invades Elysion, which hosts the Earth's Golden Kingdom, capturing its High Priest Helios and instructs her followers to steal the Silver Crystal. 

As Prince Endymion, Mamoru is revealed to be the owner of the Golden Crystal—the sacred stone of the Golden Kingdom. Mamoru and the Soldiers combine their powers with those of the Holy Grail, enabling Usagi to transform into Eternal Sailor Moon and kill Nehelenia. 

The final and fifth arc is titled the Stars arc Usagi and her friends are drawn into a battle against Shadow Galactica, a group of false Sailor Soldiers. Their leader Sailor Galaxia plans to steal the Sailor Crystals of true Soldiers to take over the galaxy and kill an evil lifeform known as Chaos. 

After killing Mamoru and most of the Sailor Soldiers, Sailor Galaxia steals their Sailor Crystals. Usagi travels to the Galaxy Cauldron to defeat Galaxia and revive her teammates. Joining Usagi are the Sailor Starlights who come from the planet Kinmoku, their ruler Princess Kakyuu and the infant Sailor Chibichibi who comes from the distant future. (Story arc information is taken from Wikipedia)

  

This being a Japanese only release critic review for the game are none existent so we will head over to GameFAQs for their user rating, here we find the game sitting at a rather poor below average rating of 2.26, from a total of 25 user ratings.

While receiving plenty of low ratings from users there were still some that liked the game, with one user each rating the game at a 4.5 or a 4 out of 5. A couple more users rated the game at a 3.5/5 while three more each rated the game at a decent 3/5 and an average 2.5/5.

The largest number of users rated the game below that however, with a total of 6 users rating the game at a 2/5, another single user rated it at a lowly 1/5, while the remaining 5 users rated the game at a pitiful 0.5/5. Next we move on to the games difficulty.

For this we have a good number of users who have rated this category, with 21 in total and we find three quite close difficulty ratings for the game. Just edging it though is the game being on the easy side, with the game being either simple or having just the right difficulty level tying close behind. With a small number of users rating the game as being tough, averaging out the game comes in at having an easy difficulty level.

Lastly we have the games lifespan, here we find a smaller number of users rating this category, but we find a very good spread of lifespan ratings, with eight in total. The minimum we find a user spending with the game is less than 1 hour, we find another three users spent around 1 hour with the game.

Another one user each spent either 2 or 4 hours with the game, from here the game time jumps up to three users spending around 12 hours with the game. Another two users spend a solid 20 hours playing the game, while another one user each spent and impressive 40 and 60 hours with the game. Averaging out this comes to a lifespan of around 14 hours.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese only release, the same goes for Retrogames.co.uk. So we will quickly move on to eStarland.com where we don’t find the Playstation version available, or even listed. We do however find the Sega Saturn release listed, but out of stock at the moment, this version has a usual used price of between $17.08 and $37.95.

Lastly we head over to Amazon.com in the hopes of finding at least one copy of the game, we find plenty more than that with a decent supply available on Amazon. Prices are not cheap however, while the quality and condition of what is on offer being pretty damn good.

Prices for a used copy in very good condition start at $27, with three copies priced at this price point, all three of these copies do come with free shipping. As does the next copy in good condition and priced at $27.40, another good condition copy and two more very good condition copies are priced under the $30 mark.

From here used prices continue to rise steadily with used copies peaking around the $57 mark, with the exception of the usual overpriced copy, this time coming in at $72. If you are looking for a new copy of the game, you will find a handful on offer. And need a deep pocket, with prices starting at $197.85 for a new copy of the game, with three other copies closely priced near this.

Written by

P J Gibbon