Let's Play!

Sailormoon: Another Story (Part 03)

2009-06-04T22:39:01Z

When last we left out heroines, 4 of them had gathered outside the hospital and resolved to investigate the enemies. Right after they go shopping.

Since apparently my readership wants me to focus on pretty much every single stat basic accessories can do, with no further explanation, I'm going to buy everyone (even the ones not in the party right now, because by this entry's end we'll temporarily lose access to the specialized shops) one each of the best accessories for attack, defense, and speed, and when I start getting uniques leave the basic one that improves their weak points, because helping glass cannons not die in the face and healers able to attack when everyone else is just fine is a Very Good Thing. =P

I'm also not an idiot and not going to make you watch me grind for cash.

Anyway, after shopping is done, we'll check with the hint guy just for the heck of it.

There's a few of these guys scattered throughout the game, they pretty much just point you to where you're supposed to go next in case you have no idea. But we already know we need to go to Usagi's house, so... meh. Maybe we forgot while we were busy grinding for cash.

When we finally get to Usagi's house...

Yep, your little brother's being a pain in the ass, just like always.

Oh. ...wait a second, you're not supposed to be monster bait, you're not Naru!

So, like good heroines, we head upstairs to Shingo's room...

And challenge the boss.

This is the first boss that can do stuff other than just hit you in the face - it's got a sleep attack. I don't get a chance to show it to you though, because one hit with Deep Shaking (the Uranus-Neptune link tech) one-shots it before it has a chance to do anything.

Frankly, you can get through a lot of the early game without grinding at all, just running straight for your next objective. I only did what grinding I did do because I was after cash, not XP.

Now that that's said and done, Shingo tells us that some people wanted to know where the Ginzuishou was. Shingo doesn't even know what the Ginzuishou is, much less where it is.

Onward!

Through town, up the zillion shrine stairs...

Artemis, the other Obligatory Magical Girl Cute Animal Advisor (he's Minako's), apparently looked this up on the computers of Usagi's future kingdom. I have no idea how.

So we have to deal with them ourselves. Check. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway.

After some dicking around with the invisible computer, with Artemis probably breaking something and Luna trying to fix it...

Also not out of the ordinary. It'd only be unusual if it actually worked.

She's got the other 4 protagonists we've introduced and one we haven't at the middle school, and we have to go get them. It's a pretty blatantly obvious trap.

Blah blah can't leave everyone blah blah power of friendship blah blah let's go kick some ass.

... after more shopping.

With the money we've gotten from the one boss and the random battles we fought just trying to walk places, we grab a handful of Bath Medicines...

... and a Manicure.

These purchases are planning for the future. =D

Off to school! (On the weekend. Ew.)

This is probably as good a time as any to introduce this "Lady Serenity", I suppose. She'll be playable later but she comes up enough in the next few scenes.

Usagi "Chibi-Usa" Tsukino/Sailor Chibi-Moon
From the future! Daughter of Neo-Queen Serenity and King Endymion. Has a huge incestuous crush on her father.
In game terms: The highest speed in the game won't help you when all your other stats SUCK. Transforming with her own Moon Cup gives her an attack that's actually worth using, but OH GOD I wish the game never forced her to be in my party.

The middle school has 4 floors plus the roof, we've got to check the rooms to find our allies, there's no random battles in here to annoy us on the way.

Everyone's got evil-induced dreams/hallucinations/what-have-you, guarded by a boss.

Ami is her a super-awesome doctor.

With a super-awesome husband. (She is supposed to be on the phone here.)

Yeah, yeah, get on with it.

Muhreeds actually don't die in one hit. This one got a chance to use her numb- (i.e. poison-)all Toxic Mist...

Which didn't actually hit anyone and we then took her down by the end of the turn.

Also, everyone we save comes up with some bullshit as to why they can't join us to take out the other bosses. Lame.

Mars is guarded by another Muhreed which we take out with an equal lack of effort.

And she's dreaming about stealing Usagi's boyfriend. Bitch.

lol

We almost manage to escape with Jupiter...

... damnit.

Jarcocks can hit you with charm and make you attack your allies. But they go down even faster than the Muhreeds earlier did.

Makoto's dream has her finally finding a boyfriend. It's boring, especially because the guy's just a random extra.

Venus has no obvious guard at first.

She dreams of having pretty much exactly the same life that Moon had before becoming a magical girl. IIRC, this is pretty close to a dialog in the series between Usagi and someone about Sailor V, Minako's past magical girl version.

And another Jarcock fight, equally easy.

To the roof!

"You meddling kids!"

Sure. We'll totally walk into your obvious bad idea. Totally.

... Sailor Moon, I was being sarcastic when I said we would.

For you, maybe.

Oh hey. A rose. This means Tuxedo Kamen is here to be handsome but useless.

... dur.

D'awwwww, cute normal-life couple dream.

Yeah, Ishtar's a ditz. She's actually here in large part only by accident. You'll see.

Oh yeah, I forgot, Tuxedo Kamen is useful at one thing - being a meat-shield.

Also, when everyone goes to see if he's alright, the bad guys zap Saturn in the back with an evil beam which I failed to capture a screenshot of. Then they teleport away. As usual.

Mamoru gets some bed rest at his apartment, which everyone hangs around in his living room blaming themselves. (Except Hotaru, who's back at the hospital again.)

Psychic... senses... tingling!

Telling you what to do next, duh.

Shut up already so we can tell you!

We have to go all over the freaking world and find the Hi stones.

The Barazuishou ("Rose Crystal") was invented just for this game. If you know your Sailormoon lore, it's the same thing as the Golden Crystal before the series actually invented the Golden Crystal. Otherwise... just know both stones are pretty much the Ginzuishou only it belongs to Mamoru and is only used for like one plot point ever.

"Because we're the only ones with only tenuously canonical romantic links with the Shitennou." The Outer Senshi are cool with this, deciding they'll look for the Barazuishou

Usagi is less cool with it until everyone tells her to sit down and STFU.

And Chibi-Usa forgets how useless she is and tries to play the heroine.

Luna prompts us to save since this is the end of Chapter 1, so let's poke around the menu again.

We have Sailor Mercury! And only Salior Mercury! From now up until about halfway through Chapter 3, we've got solo missions. Mercury in Switzerland, Mars in Nepal, Jupiter in Canada, Venus in Turkey, and Chibi-Moon in Tokyo.

We also have a stupid quantity of orange juice.

And a partly-finished puzzle. Time to save and go on.

Mercury is here chilling out on "Europe's tallest mountain". That's all it says. Really.

That's... one way to escape I guess.

All the segments of Chapter 2 have a Token Love Interest to some degree or another.

At least with her brains it's not entirely unreasonable to assume Mercury can speak French. I have no idea how the other characters actually communicate during their segments.

So polite.

Unfortunately, when we try to head out...

Instead, we have to talk to EVERY SINGLE VILLAGER and then go back to Hans's place.

Well yeah, it's an RPG.

Hans has a poor sick mother whom he takes care of.

Huh?!

Sure. "Special".

Amusingly, this whole part of the cutscene happens whether you actually bought SchwartzMed at the town general store or not.

This is the only time Hans doesn't put up a fight about letting the "poor, defenseless" girl go wandering in the monster-filled glacier on her own. Let's take advantage of it.

Once we get to Andeng we get to start seeking puzzle pieces not available from random drops. There's just these two in Mercury's section of the chapter.

And of course the doctor's not actually here.

He's here instead.

For what it's worth, my rule of thumb for leveling through these solo segments is to do so until the character is faster than the mooks - the enemy HP and defense are adjusted to something suitable for the particular character to fight, so we're one-shotting everything anyway, gaining a few levels will keep the bosses from taking forever and when you're faster than the enemies you get through unscathed.

There's a fork in the cave path, going north gets the first of Mercury's unique accessories.

And going east finds us Dr. Schwartz.

I wish we hadn't had to come find him.

He's afraid of all the monsters, but we say we can take care of them. Unfortunately, that means actually having to escort him to Hans's.

Fuck you.

At least his part of the cave has Mercury's other unique accessory.

... because a guy in a Swiss town isolated from the rest of the world for 200 years totally knows what mochi is.

Mercury says it's too dangerous for Hans, Hans continues to insist it's too dangerous for Mercury. So we go together. (Not like any of these characters we escort places show up anywhere at all until a cutscene calls for them again. Better than trying to protect them in battle I suppose.)

Here's what Mercury's stats look like now with the two Sapphire accessories and a Bracelet.

We pop into this cave...

(Not shown because you can't catch it in a single screenshot and I'm far too lazy to do animated GIFs: earthquake.)

And another earthquake!

Down the hole. For a 300 IQ, Mercury, you sure don't seem to have a whit of sense sometimes...

This shockingly isn't a But Thou Must! choice. Thus, readers, I leave the decision up to you: go treat Hans's mom first, or go straight for the prize?

Sailormoon: Another Story (Part 02)

2009-05-28T04:25:19Z

As we left our heroine, weird shit was apparently going down in the Juuban District of Minami ward, Tokyo, Japan. As the sailor-suited pretty soldier of love and justice, Sailor Moon, it's our job to go actually do something about it.

Obviously no one cares what color scheme I go with, so I'm just going nice and neutral.

Anyway, we were in Usagi's bedroom. Her house is actually rather extensively mapped out in-game, but we don't really care about that, so we'll just head right outside.

I'm pretty sure you don't care about every single thing every last NPC has to say, so I'll just show those that I found particularly interesting/amusing, along with introducing the shops as we go by, since there's a wide enough variety and we come back to the area often enough that it makes a pretty good shopping hub. We can't go into a lot of them yet though - most of them are closed barring the tutorial and plot-related ones.

This guy took the wrong turn at Albuquerque, and is now hopelessly lost on Usagi's street. But he gives us free heals, so he's cool. Later in the game these guys get a palette swap on the clothing and act as shops, they're cool too except that by that point we probably won't need to buy anything ever again except piles and piles of one thing. I'll explain when we reach that point.

Here's the cosmetics store. It's got a wide variety of single-use items, with a focus on status cures and stat-ups. It's one of two, maybe three, shops we actually care about.

The bookstore is pretty lame. It only carries two items, one of which another store carries too (and isn't even very useful). Though the other is non-obvious but totally supposed to be a porn magazine, lol. We only care about it because a plot event brings us here later.

The arcade is one of two locations that explains game mechanics. It doesn't really have much of even that, though. I think it's mostly just here because it was such a prominent location in the series.

Crane Game Joe is kind of amusing, if useless. Maybe it's Candlejack causing the weird stuff in to

Suuuuuuure, kid. I guess you are a little young for the actual long stuff like Xenosaga though.

I don't even remember what the toy store has, the internet won't tell me, and I really don't feel like jumping back in-game just to check. I think it's minor healing stuff. Can you tell we don't care about this one? (EDIT: I did find one item at least that pretty obviously is from here - it's a full-party HP restore that costs twice what the one at the cosmetics store that also refills EP costs.)

The convenience store is the main place to get healing stuff. It's got food covering a wide range of amounts of HP restored, and is the other store that stocks Nakayoshi magazine, the magazine that ran the Sailormoon manga (which refills 2 EP - I'll explain EP later, but suffice it to say that this is useful, but not really enough to spend money on). It's not a bad store to visit, but there's enough healing from drops and chests that's it's not vital either. It's also the only regular shop that's open right now, because it's a 24-hour store. =P

You're fucking nuts, kiddo.

The clock shop is the other tutorial location, but I'll be explaining battle once we get into one. It also sells two items, a speed-up (watch) and a sleep cure (alarm clock).

And finally, the jewelry store. This sells accessories, making it the equivalent of most RPGs' weapon and armor shops. It's also where our next plot point occurs, but we're not going in quite yet.

Why yes, we are cool, thank you.

Luna bitches at us if we try to leave this part of town. =/

This is school. Several of our characters go here, Juuban Middle School. They and a couple others at other schools are in third year middle school, equivalent to America's 9th grade.

Off to the jewelry store, I suppose!

And of course Naru Osaka is being monster bait. As usual. That doesn't qualify as "something funny" at all, Luna. >=|

Yeah yeah, I know, Luna. It's not like I've never done this before.

Transformations and most combat actions are accompanied by little voice clips from the anime voice actresses. It's cute, even when under SNES limitations. =D

"Ai to seigi no seeraa fuku bishoujo senshi Seeraa Muun!"

"Tsuki ni kawatte..."

"Oshioki yo!"

=O
Time for our first combat!

Anyway, at the beginning of every combat, we get a screen like this identifying our enemies. The very early-game bosses (like here) and the random battles are monsters of the day from the anime. This one is both from a moderately important episode and quite fitting for a jewelry store, though.

At the top are our various commands, at the bottom are all our party members and their current HP (hit points) and EP (energy points? unsure, it's never actually expanded and unlike HP the magic resource isn't consistent across the genre). HP is pretty standard, EP works perhaps a little unusually - the max any character can have is 12, but it fully refills between battles. This is probably why you can't use healing techs outside of battle - since it refills, you'd basically get infinite healing out of combat.

The currently-selected (though it might be a bit hard to tell in the screenshot - I'm starting at the far left and moving right, if it helps) command is "Attack". This is the pretty obvious "smack them in the face" command. It's weaker than techs, but doesn't use any EP, so when you're not wiping out monsters in one turn, it's probably more economical to switch to this than to refill EP when you're out and not fighting a boss.

"Techniques". Moon Spiral Heart Attack is listed in red because it costs 3 EP and Sailor Moon only has 2 - it's unusable.

"Link Techs". Not even going to open the sub-menu because we still haven't set them up, but it works the same as the techs menu - white if you can use it, red if you can't (either due to insufficient EP or the other character(s) in the link not being around. Link techs cost EP from all characters involved equal to the number of characters in the link - 2 EP each for a 2-person tech, 3 EP each for a 3-person tech. They only take up the turn of the character selecting it, so if you want to and have enough EP, you could use the same one 2 or 3 times in a turn.

"Formation Techs". These are all too expensive to care about (they take the listed cost per person, and 5 EP is the cheapest) and as I recall, take up the entire party's turn. For what it's worth, though, there's one for each formation and one that's formation-independent but requires that your party consist of specifically Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus.

"Item". Pretty obvious.

"Defend". Cuts all damage in half (except I think poison).

"Run Away". Attempts to flee battle.

So anyway, let's smack this bitch down. We'll start with a Moon Tiara Action.

Unfortunately, Persian-Cut is faster than we are and smacks us first for 3 damage. ;_; (Each turn you select the entire party's actions at once and they resolve in order of character speed.)

We smack her for way more though. =D

After one more Moon Tiara Action and a few kicks in the face, Persian-Cut dies and we get our rewards:

But why are old enemies coming back to fight us again?

Afterwards we reassure Naru and her mom that things are alright and we'll totally beat up any more evil things that try to hurt them. Like we always do. Because Naru is useless.

One of the rooms upstairs has our first chest:

This goes under our Rare Items:

Any items with this description get sold for phat lewts at a store we haven't seen yet because it's elsewhere in the city.

Talking to Naru afterwards:

Because you sure as fucking hell can't rely on yourself.

Oh come on, you only just got up.

Someone else is sleeping too, though, and he gets a pixel-y transition to a DREAM SEQUENCE:

Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Kamen ("Tuxedo Mask")
Usagi's love interest. Was the prince of Earth in his own past life, and rules by Usagi's side in the future too, because they are in luuuuurve and also it's destiny. Mostly shows up to provide pithy pep talks, but sometimes gets kidnapped and brainwashed. He's not playable, so he has no stats to care about. =P

In a dream, duh.

Kunzite is the leader-ish one of the Shitennou ("Four Heavenly Kings"). In the anime, they were just the major henchmen to the first season's Big Bad. In the manga, they were that too, but they got expanded upon some in that they were the guardians to Mamoru's royal past life, Prince Endymion, and their spirits kept hanging around and advising him after their defeats in the present-ish day.

Summary: "There's an evil comet which is going to fuck up every single part of the timeline. Obviously, this isn't cool."

Yeah right, like Mamoru ever does anything that vital. That's Sailor Moon's job, duh.

Later that day? The next day? How should I know?:

So here's two more of our protagonists:

Rei Hino/Sailor Mars
She's a miko (a sort of priestess, typically a young maiden) at Hikawa Shrine. In the manga she was very quiet, mature, and reserved (though not necessarily "shy" per se), but in the anime she was sassy and fought with Usagi like an old married couple. Powers are fire themed,
In game terms: High HP and attack, but fragile.

Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter
Tough-girl exterior hiding a girl who loves flowers and cooking. Pretty much every guy on the planet reminds her of her ex. Powers lightning and plant themed.
In game terms: Can I just copy Mars's line here?

Clearly this game is using snarky anime-personality Rei.

Ami Mizuno/Sailor Mercury
Resident Science Genius Girl. IQ 300, with the shy, geeky personality to go with it. Powers are water/ice themed.
In game terms: High defense, low pretty much everything else. She's good for chucking healing items around at least.

Urawa-kun appeared all of twice in the anime. I'm not sure he appeared at all in the manga. All you need to remember about him is that he's psychic and kinda-sorta Ami's boyfriend, even though he moved away.

Here, they pretty much just discuss boys. Highlights:

Urawa-kun is visiting and Ami is taking him to the freaking library. To study. She is entirely serious about this.

[And... apparently I accidentally got rid of the other particularly amusing bit. Oops.]</br>
(By the way, Ami is also allergic to love letters. Pretty much literally.)

Frankly, this scene is pretty boring. One more playable character shows up in the middle though:

Minako Aino/Sailor Venus
Pretty much the exact same personality as Usagi, minus the crybaby-ness. Also half her powers are moon-themed too because in the manga that came before Sailormoon she was told she was totally the moon princess, but then later it turned out she was just a decoy, lol.
In game terms: Good attack, good evasion, crap defense.

Also, the sprites for characters in the scene but not on-screen at the moment are hiding behind the border.

Anyway, Ami leaves for the train station and everyone else decides to follow her. Makoto is kind of reluctant though.

And we take the bus to the train station.

Everyone hides behind the pillars and Usagi has to talk to them to advance the scene for no good reason.

Ami goes up to the platform to wait while the others hang back, still "hiding". Not very well, I say.

Great.

*sigh*

Or the Sailor Senshi. They're right here, much more convenient.

Onward! But first, a word from our spons- er, no, our explanations of formations and the link tech menu.

So anyway, there's four formations:

As explained earlier, they're pretty typical stuff, people in the front deal and take more damage while people in back deal and take less. Cluster is a bit weird though - the center actually gets enhanced attack and defense, while the front and back are more extreme than the other formations in their effects. It's pretty potent, though any of the formations can be plenty effective. For now, though, we're just going to be lazy and go with Shoot.

The link tech setup menu is pretty easy to use. Just select characters on one side and move them to a spot on the other, then press Y to see if the set on the right has a link tech:

I find its remark on the lesbians amusing though.

Anyway, get on the train and about halfway through the first train car is a battle. It's easy, but it gives us enough XP for everyone to level up!

There's one of these screens for everyone who levels up even at the same time, but you really didn't want to stare at 5 of them, I'm sure. Also, this is one of those lovely games where leveling up provides a full heal. =D

Next car gives us another battle, with enough XP to level everyone again. These 5 are already getting pretty close to the EP cap, you reach it quickly.

One more car, with...

Don't worry, he's just unconscious. We'll take him back to the Hikawa Shrine to rest up and he'll be good as new.

He had a dream though. Someone's screwing around with destiny.

... okay, however that works.

*ker-SPLODY*

Bathtime for Rei. I can't really blame her.

The phone is currently being guarded by Rei's pervy old grandpa. But he lets us take the call after minimal interference.

Off to the hospital for us!

Also, Luna's going to leave us alone for a while now too.

A short walk later...

All the other rooms are empty. Apparently no one gets sick in Tokyo.

So let's go meet most of the rest of our protagonists!

Haruka Tenou/Sailor Uranus
Races cars, dresses like a guy - she's the butch lesbian (though she also plays a pretty good piano). She's generally badass. Powers are earth and air themed.
In game terms: High attack and HP and she's fast! She's squishy and sucks at dodging, but overall she's pretty decent.

Michiru Kaiou/Sailor Neptune
Graceful violinist, femme lesbian. She's also kind of badass, though not as much as Haruka. Powers are sea themed.
In game terms: She's pretty much another healer - doesn't die easily but doesn't hurt much either.

Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn
Mysterious waif who was possessed by evil, then Sailor Moon healed her but reverted her to a little baby in the process, and then left her in Haruka and Michiru's care. Powers are death and rebirth themed. She can pretty much destroy the world if she wants to - good thing she doesn't want to.
In game terms: Low all-around stats at first, but her unique items turn her into a strong all-around character. Plus, she has an attack that hits all enemies for 2 EP. We love her. A lot.

She's all sickly and stuff. =/

That's probably not a good sign considering the other stuff going on lately...

Oh great. Mugen Gakuen ("Infinity Academy") was a K-12 private school acting as a front for the bad guys in the third season.)

And Mistress 9 was a villain that possessed Hotaru at the time. She will totally choke you with her hair.

Hrm?

And another battle. It's not difficult either.

Fucked if I know. *shrug*

Haruka thinks this game's plot is dumb. But then again, Haruka and Michiru think everything is srs bizness.

Oh hey, the Vaguely Familiar Character Design Squad is behind it all.

*shiny power flash*

Yeah, your boss said that already.

Nope. =D

So... you have the same plot as every other villain in the history of the series? I don't see this working out for you.

D'awwwwwww, Anshar has a crush, does he?

You should probably go check on Naru instead. She's the monster bait.

But DA~~~~~~~~~~D!

... okay, fine.

So! Now the game lets us off the rails a little bit - all the Juuban shops are open, though random battles have started up too. (It's OK, we can use them to get grind for money.) We've got four characters:

... I guess those train battles were worth more than one level each...

The other three will catch up soon enough though.

Now, questions for you, the readers!

What formation do you want me to use? Do you have any other requests within that, like the usual "put the squishies in back" or maximizing strengths by putting the glass cannons up front and letting the tanks just blow healing items on them to make up for it?

What accessories should I buy for everyone? (The jewelry store stock is listed below.) This goes for the characters introduced but not in the party right now too, since by the time we get control of them again we'll be away from jewelry store access for a while - they will all get their unique accessories not long after that, but it's nice to give them some equipment in the meantime.)

OSA-P stock list:

Name	Cost	Effect
Anklet	800 Yen	+9 Speed
Bracelet	700 Yen	+5 Attack
Choker	500 Yen	+3 Defense
Earring	500 Yen	+5 Speed
Necklace	700 Yen	+5 Defense
P. Earring	600 Yen	+4 Defense
Tiara	800 Yen	+8 Defense
Watch	500 Yen	+3 Speed

Caution: Shifting Layout

2009-05-19T17:24:16Z

Just as a warning, don't be surprised if the layout suddenly changes, I'm probably going to be fussing around with it for a while trying to get as close to what I really want as possible.

Also, color scheme suggestions are welcome!

Sailormoon: Another Story (Part 01)

2009-05-19T07:42:05Z

Are you a bad enough... magical girl... to save the... world... YET AGAIN?! Let's Play (the fan translation of) Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon: Another Story!

I've decided to do my Sailor Moon character-/past plot-related infodumps as things come up rather than do a gigantic intro post. I will try to keep them succinct, and feel free to check out Wikimoon too so you all can absorb any more info you may want at your leisure. Feel free to ask questions if you need any more info. =D

So anyway, just to start off, Sailormoon lasted for five seasons in Japan. This game is a turn-based RPG set in bewteen the third and fourth seasons. (There were also movies paired with but not particularly connected to the second, third, and fourth seasons. They're also no particularly connected to anything in this game. =P There's like one boss who's from the movie for season two and some mooks from there and season three's movie, and that's about it.)

This game is also pretty stupidly easy, and kind of short - I've finished it in under a day of real-time, and that's with time for eating, sleeping, etc. (Though that's also with liberal use of the emulator's fast-forward when doing things like "grinding" and "reading cutscenes I've seen in my multiple other playthroughs" and... "most of the game".) There's also very little chance for user interaction early-on, though later I can toss party selection choices at you guys at least.

Think of this as more of a practice at doing LPs than anything else. Constructive criticism is much appreciated as well - need more/longer infodumps? Fewer/shorter infodumps? Am I insufficiently funny (probably)? Want to contribute in some way yourself? (It's hard to work multiple-person commentary into a screenshot LP, especially long-distance, but I've seen some pretty lulzy fanart added into other LPs, for example.) Let me know!

From the depth of the darkness, he continues to wander.
Soon, the void of the darkness is interrupted by something...

AHMAHGAWD IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US! (Whatever it is.)

Oh hey, I guess it's supposed to be a comet.

The light covers the darkness, and the darkness is no more.
Then the light and the darkness are one.
The light makes light, and the dark makes darkness.
I seek the darkness... and before long...
...he and I will become one.

As far as I know, the script for that whole sequence had absolutely nothing to do with anything in the entire rest of the game, by the way.

Also, there's opening credits between shots, but it's nothing important.

approaching Earth.
It's determined to be a meteor of enormous size.

And while all this is happening...

Meanwhile, several youths have banded together to form a vicious gang!

Crystal, Ginzuishou.

The Ginzuishou (literally "Silver Crystal") is pretty much the Ultimate Plot Token for the Sailormoon universe. It's the fuel for many of Sailor Moon's defeats of season Big Bads, as well as for the peace of kingdoms past and future.

Yeah, you can't really tell because it's all stills here in a screenshot LP, but it's shaking back and forth pretty quickly.

Also, the game designers decided not to mark who's saying any of the dialog in the intro cutscenes, which is obnoxious. I'm just going to make guesses.

Cat: It must be incredibly powerful.

Not even sure who that cat's supposed to be - it's not any of the sprites Luna uses in the rest of the game and Diana hadn't been introduced into continuity yet.)
: The Death Phantom has dealt a powerful blow.
: .........huh?
: This Death Phantom is a new...enemy?

: It was bound to happen sooner or later...
: This is a very serious matter.
: We must call upon the Sailor Senshi!

The crystal stopped shaking, by the way. (Also, I missed getting a good shot of the "!" over the cat before those two shots right when the shaking stopped.

: The ominous tremblings, what do they mean?
: Undoubtedly, this is in some way related to the comet.
: .....could it be so?
: .....yes! It must be so.

Ginzuishou.

"And I must stop trailing one or two words over to the next screen of text!"

: The New Silver Millennium must remain!

Present day, present time! *maniacal laughter*

Some characters we don't recognize from anywhere else in continuity teleport in and hover for a sec before deciding to stand on a nearby roof. One of them looks suspiciously close to the character design for someone we just saw though...

: Certainly, this is what we were sent here for.
: This must be where they live.
: Should I spy on them?
: It is our Destiny.

Suspicious Unknown Chick teleports off to somewhere else.

Missed screenshot: pink-hair stopping with a "!" speech bubble. Oh well.

: I just had a vision from the future!

Blonde apparently thinks this is quite funny.

: It was about Mamo-chan!
: Idiot...
: It's more important than THAT!!
: ........Usagi........
: It was about a new enemy.

: We have to defeat them!

: Even if evil aliens invade Earth.
: I am Sailor Moon...

Oh hey, we get a title screen now. (That whole first sequence was skippable actually, but I couldn't not show it to you all, could I? =P)

But time to not press anything yet, because there's another smaller cutscene if we don't.

This must be the future, everything's all crystal-y.)

: I'm late for the parade!

Parade? I love parades! \o/

(Missed getting a decent screenshot of green-hair and Chibi-Usa running into each other. Quite literally.)

I didn't think I loaded up Chrono Trigger...

Seriously, guys, I'm not supposed to be playing Chrono Trigger here! Not like I'd mind, but still...

"... stop appearing from nowhere like that!"

"Everyone's sneaking up on me out of thin air, that's what's wrong."

: Nothing.
: Let's go!

And just like usual, everyone teleports off. Again.

Yay parade!

Yeah, you should have the idea by now. Why don't I get to teleport everywhere with no obvious external assistance?

Now, we get to the title screen again, and actually press Start this time around.

Looks like we have no choice really but to start a New Game.

Kitty jumps on the bed. Bad kitty!

: What's wrong, Luna?
: There's something peculiar about the town.
: I don't know what it is exactly...
: But there's something funny going on.
: Num num...
: Are you sure it isn't your imagination, Luna?
: No, there's something about the people as well.
: Hmm, ok.
: Be careful out there.
: G'night.
: Wa..wait a sec!
: Get up and go check it out!

But Thou Must! (So we take the easy way out and just say yes.)

Yeah, yeah, no sleep for us.

: Remember to take along your diary.

: But you can only save when you talk to a Luna-P Ball.

Here the game asks us if we understood it. Not like there was much to understand so far, and as I recall this is the only time it asks us such things.

: Ok, let's go!

Now to introduce our protagonist! (Da da da daaaaaaaaaa!)

Usagi Tsukino/Sailor Moon
Yeah. Title character. Ditzy slacker crybaby chosen to save the world with the power of The Moon. Also, The Power of Friendship.
On top of that, she was the moon princess in a past life 1000 years ago and will rule a kingdom of unspecified size (somewhere in between "Tokyo" and "the universe") 1000 years in the future. We saw her in the opening sequence!
In game terms... She's pretty "meh", especially considering how many times over she's SAVED THE FUCKING WORLD already. Passable attack, though nowhere near the top of the pack. HP and defense are a little below average, other stuff's average. She can transform in combat to Super Sailor Moon, at which point she'll do a lot more damage. Frankly, though, if we weren't pretty much required to have her in our party nearly all the time, I'd probably only use her enough to keep her levels up to speed with everyone else's.

Also we have...

Luna. She's our Obligatory Magical Girl Cute Animal Advisor, and she fulfilled pretty much the same role for Usagi's past life's mom Back in the Day. She doesn't actually participate in combat, but she's with us most of not all the game regardless.

So now that we actually have control over things other than yes or no questions, we should head over to the save point and... well... save. We'll hit X and check out the main menu in general, too.

This is the main menu. It's a pretty generic RPG menu.

Under "Items", we have... our items. (Brillant!)

"Use item" takes us over to out main item list, where we can check out most of our loot and use applicable items. Anything that's greyed-out is stuff that's for in-combat only. This probably accounts for about half the items in the game. (In combat everything that will ever show up on this list is usable.)

Stuff we have so far:

Moon Cup 1 and Moon Cup 2: These are the transformation items for Super mode for Moon and one other character, respectively.
Nigiri: Delicious delicious sushi. Heals one character for 30 HP.
Nigiri Set: More delicious sushi! Heals the entire party for 300 HP each. (Whole-party healing can only be done in-combat, and honestly, single-target heal items are much more common than target-all ones, so most of the time using this out of combat would be Not the Best Idea even if we could.)
Life Water: Revives one party member, healing them for 200 HP in the process. (Dead party members revive with 1 HP after combat, so there's no use for revive items outside of combat.)

"Sort items" is pretty self-explanatory - it sorts your inventory.

"Rare items" covers all the various Plot Tokens (and later some stuff that can only be sold at one specific store). There's not much here yet, and aside from the diary, all of the items are widgets from the series.

"Accessories" are this game's equipment. Everyone has three accessory slots. We don't have anything to put in those slots yet, but before too horribly long we'll get to a store that specializes in accessories. Also, every character has two character-specific accessories, and there's some other special accessories too - these two types will be found primarily in treasure chests.

"Formation" lets us lay out our party arrangement. I'll explain it more when we have more of a party to make it a little more visible, but for now suffice it to say that for the most part it's typical RPG fare, party members up front deal and take more damage and party members in back deal and take less.

"Status" is pretty obvious and again, typical RPG stuff. This game has some character details like birthday though. =D (Also, the gemstone listed will let you know which the character's specific accessories are.)

"Techniques" is your magic. The vast majority of techs differ only in cost, how much damage they do, and whether they're single- or multi-target. You start with every tech you'll ever know, leveling up doesn't get you any more.

Sailor Moon has one tech that hits one enemy...

... pretty much the only healing tech in the game... (Don't worry, we'll have healing items out the ears later anyway, this frankly isn't worth bothering with.)

... and another tech that hits one enemy. It's a pretty simple deal, the more expensive techs do more damage, so this one does more damage than Moon Tiara Action. (Also, if you were curious, this game takes tech names from both the anime and manga, which is kinda neat. =D)

When Sailor Moon transforms into Super Sailor Moon, she instead has one tech, a target-all that does pretty decent damage but is a fair bit more expensive.

"Link techs" are techs involving two or three characters. They have to be "discovered" through a different menu altogether, which I'll show later. So we don't know any yet. But that's OK because we'll only have one character in our party anyway for a little bit.

The "Puzzle"... we'll find puzzle pieces throughout the game - most of them are fairly common random drops off of enemies, but no matter how many enemies you fight you'll always have to find four pieces though stuff like checking barrels. You can get all four of those pretty quickly though. Completing the puzzle nets some nice accessories in the mid-late game.

And then "Save" is the obvious. There's two save slots, and the page number increments one per save. You don't get anything for keeping it low or anything, though, so I don't know why they bothered.

(It switches back to the main menu automatically pretty quickly after you save, which is why the color's darker in my screenshot for it - I didn't catch it until mid-fade.)

Also from the main wandering-around screen, hitting Select brings up the config screen. Options are pretty typical stuff again, sound/cursor memory/text speed/color.

I'm the only one here who's going to have to deal with the options on the left side, but I figure I'll let you all pick the last two. They're individually configurable, but I took screenshots in pairs just to cut down on the number of them.

Background 1/Text color 1

Background 2/Text color 2

Background 3/Text color 3

Background 4/Text color 4

Background 5/Text color 5

So go ahead, comment, everyone tell me what color scheme you personally think will be least eye-bleeding. Or most if you want to make me suffer, but you have to see it too... =P