Your favorite Sailor Moon characters and villians put into an RPG.
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story is one of those games released only in Japan that could have easily done well and appealed very well to fans of the anime and manga in North America. Released in 1995 for the SNES (Super Famicon in Japan), if you play this game you'll be left wondering WHY it was never released in NA.
The story of the game follows Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon), Rei Hino (Sailor Mars), Ami Mizuno (Sailor Mercury), Minako Aino (Sailor Venus), Makoto Kino (Sailor Jupiter), Haruka Tenoh (Sailor Uranus), Michiru Kaioh (Sailor Neptune), Setsuna Meioh (Sailor Pluto), Chibi Usa (Sailor Chibi/Mini Moon), and Hotaru Tomoe (Sailor Saturn) as they journey through Tokyo and various other locations to help stop a group of enemies who want to change the destiny of everyone so that their own destinies will be different.
Your first "main objective" of the game is to collect four stones of Tuxedo Kamen's (Tuxedo Mask/Mamoru) deceased generals Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite, and Kunzite. Each of the inner sailor senshi set out to explore different locations to obtain the four different stones. As the story progresses, the plot twists more and more as the scouts re-encounter old enemies they've defeated from the past such as Mistress 9, and ultimately learn what the true goal of their enemies and the leader is. The sailor scouts set out to keep destiny the same and to put an end to any destruction.
The game itself isn't very long, only spanning across 5 chapters and each chapter having a different objective for you to complete. You may think that with 5 chapters, the game is extremely short, and in reality, it is short. But you'll find that just because the game is based on the anime and manga of Sailor Moon it is by no means an extremely easy game. There are various times within the game where you will need to spend extra time leveling up the scouts just to get past bosses, or to be able to level at a decent speed so that they don't die in regular battles (yes, I said REGULAR battles).
The difficulty of the game is always overcome by leveling your characters. I found that if I leveled 5 or 10 levels before I went to fight a boss I would do much better not only with the boss fight, but also with the tougher enemies that would be popping up in the next area of the game.
The graphics of the game were fine for it's time, the music is nice, and the controls are pretty good too. As for difficulty, I believe creators may have amped it up a bit just so that the game would be more of a challenge for gamers rather than simply giving them a super easy game based on a favorite anime. However, there is only one downside to the entire game:
The difficulty and LEVEL GRINDING. While gamers don't want a super easy game, and they don't want one that's too hard either, BSSM Another Story makes it hard to progress through certain areas if you DON'T take the time to level up your characters at least 5 to 10 levels before even going through an area with regular battles, let alone approaching a boss battle. Considering everythign, the chapters of the game would have gone by much quicker and seemed much shorter if you didn't have to spend so much time leveling the scouts. This usually isn't an issue as there are areas that allow you to level somewhat quickly, but there are other times where even after you battle a group of enemies you're getting the very MINIMUM amount of EXP for each battle.
This factor made leveling at times very difficult and boring, and even tedious. While I stayed interested in the game's story, I didn't particularly care for how much time I had to put into leveling just so I was able to progress through the game with minor difficulty.
In the end, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story is a great game for fans of the anime or manga and want to see their favorites put into an RPG setting but is still a good game even if you've never seen the se