It’s been a while since we posted the second story arc for the Sakura Wars X Granblue Fantasy crossover featuring Gemini. We now uploaded the third story arc to our Youtube channel, this time featuring Erica Fontaine! Her story arc is noticeably shorter than the others, and focuses mostly on comedy. You can find the video below! With the three arcs finished, our next video will feature the epilogue of the crossover event.
The Japanese official Sakura Wars website recently posted scheduling details for a 20th anniversary Sakura Wars event. Titled “Chisa Yokoyama’s Sakura Wars 20th Birthday Party”, it will be taking place the weekend of September 23rd-25th – which, incidentally, is the weekend before the franchise’s 20th anniversary on September 27th. That is one extreme party!
Across these three days, five different performance and talk events will be held. Each event will feature different guests, but Chisa Yokoyama will be present at all of them.
It’s time for another part of the story from the Sakura Wars X Granblue Fantasy crossover. Previously, we’ve shown the prologue and Sakura’s event story. Now it’s Gemini and Shinjiro’s turn to star in their own story in the world of Granblue Fantasy. Separated from the others, Gemini and Shinjiro end up meeting a group of skyfarers, and join them in their fight against Aoi Satan. You can watch how it all unfolds below! We’ll be working on a video for Erica’s story event next, followed by the finale of the event.
The Youtube Channel Chronicles, which focuses on covering the complete history of popular franchises in all of media, has recently completed their documentary video of the Sakura Wars series, aptly called Sakura Wars The Documentary. The video is a combination of smaller videos published earlier, and the end results offers a very comprehensive look at all the Sakura Wars games and media that have been released since the debut of the original Sakura Wars on the Sega Saturn in Japan.
The documentary does a good job of explaining just how important the Sakura Wars franchise actually was for SEGA in Japan. Sadly, it also details how the franchise’s decline in sales ended up seemingly sealing its fate. While the documentary offers a rather bleak outlook for the future of the franchise, I’d like to stay optimistic and think that SEGA isn’t going to let the 20th anniversary this year go by with just a few crossover events to mark the occasion. With that said, I can only encourage SEGA fans to take a look at the video, illustrating the rise and fall one of SEGA’s most iconic franchises. You can view it here:
Earlier on we posted the prologue video for the Sakura Wars X Granblue Fantasy crossover event. At the end of the prologue, the five characters from Sakura Wars (Ogami, Sakura, Shinjiro, Gemini and Erica) were thrown into the world of Granblue Fantasy. The video posted below shows Sakura’s Event, and details how she and Ogami end up joining forces with the heroes from Granblue Fantasy. We also added the prologue video from our previous article.
Stay tuned for more Sakura Wars X Granblue Fantasy videos, next time we’ll be posting Gemini’s Event!
The Sakura Wars X Granblue Fantasy crossover event has ended, but we’ve recorded the story parts of the event, and are in the process of uploading them to our Youtube channel. The videos feature official English subtitles, as the Japanese version of Granblue Fantasy actually has the option to change the game’s language to English.
As part of the 17th entry into the Game Symphony Japan Concert Series, GSJ has announced a new and familiar performance concept – the SEGA Special 2016! Set for July 17th of this year, it features many songs from the Sonic the Hedgehog, NiGHTS into Dreams…, Puyo Puyo, Sakura Wars, and Space Channel 5 franchises. This event continues Game Syphony Japan’s performances of SEGA-themed music.
Seating tickets are separated into three classes. S class seating costs ¥8,500, A class seating costs ¥7,500, and B class seating costs ¥6,500. Special musical guests include Tomoya Ohtani, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, and Jun Senoue. The venue will be the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.
Phantasy Star Online 2 sure does love its crossovers. And why not? Especially if there is an upcoming event for Sakura Wars.
Some time ago, Sega announced a collaboration event with the Sakura Wars series for Phantasy Star Online 2. With the broadcast of the recent 42nd PSO2 Livestream, we have more footage and images to share.
The collaboration event features Scratch items inspired by Sakura Shinguuji and Ichiro Ohgami. There are also voice options for the characters, with the original seiyuu (Chisa Yokoyama and Akio Suyama, respectively) reprising their roles. There are also weapon skins for the respective character’s weapons, alongside Mag Devices (autonomous supportive units) themed after their Koubu.
Check out a small gallery of images below!
Bumped’s PSUBlog has archived footage of the 42nd Phantasy Star Online 2 Livestream broadcast. The segment of the broadcast featuring the Sakura Wars collaboration (following some other segments, include another Sonic the Hedgehog lobby and a new story event) can be viewed below.
This Sakura Wars collaboration update is scheduled for late June.
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but this year has seen an abundance of Sakura Wars-related events – from concerts, to museums, and to game promotions with other franchises. The only possible way to make this 20th year anniversary sweeter than it already is…
…would be to announce another Sakura Wars game! Please oblige, Sega!
Credit to the above-linked PSUBlog entry for information and archiving the Livestream broadcast.
We’ve been keeping an eye out on the Sakura Wars X Granblue Fantasy crossover event since its launch, given that an English translation had been announced for the event. As we mentioned in a previous article, the game’s Japanese version actually has an English language option, and as such events like this one also end up getting an official translation. With a few days left in the campaign (it’s ending May 23), the English translation finally appears to have been finished. We’ve included a few screenshots below from the prologue, and we’re also planning to make a video of all of the story sequences before the event ends.
While the story of the event isn’t anything amazing, it’s more Sakura Wars, so we’re not complaining! Although playing these Sakura Wars crossovers, one can’t help but wish that SEGA would bring back these characters in an actual new Sakura Wars game. After all, what better way would there be to celebrate the franchise’s 20th anniversary this year?
The Sakura Wars X Granblue Fantasy collaboration event has already launched in Japan and is causing quite a stir. Even though cross-over events like this aren’t unusual, Granblue Fantasy is a rather popular mobile game in Japan, and Sakura Wars fans of course want to see more of their beloved franchise. This event also sees the return of Shinjiro, the protagonist of Sakura Wars 5, who wasn’t included in either of the Project X Zone games. The event is due to close on the 23rd of May in Japan.