Sailor Moon: Another Story
Sailor Moon: Another Story is a Super Famicom RPG based mostly on the Sailor Moon anime, taking place after the S season. The girls' enemies are the Oppositio Senshi, a team of Evil Knockoff psycho rangers, who are led by the mysterious Apsu. Apsu and the Oppositio Senshi are futzing around with time and fate, resurrecting previous enemies of Sailor Moon. Well, we obviously can't let them get away with that, now can we?
Tropes used in Sailor Moon: Another Story include:
- Awesome but Impractical: Super Sailor Moon and Super Sailor Chibi Moon. The stat buff really isn't that great for characters that are built more for support (which they lose when they transform).
- Badass: Every fighting character.
- Badass Crew: Two. The Sailor Senshi and their counterparts.
- Battle Theme Music: Based on music from the series.
- Canada, Eh?: One of the levels in the game. None of the Canadian NPCs say "eh" at the end of their sentences, but come on, people living in hidden tree villages in a provincial park?
- Classic Cheat Code: One of the few RPGs in the existence where they have a direct effect on the main game: they can be used to start the game with everyone at noticeably increased levels.
- Combination Attack: The Senshi get these in battle.
- Continuity Nod: When you visit the Silver Millennium in the past, there's an ice-skating rink. A man says that Jupiter-sama often comes to skate.
- Continuity Snarl: The game combines elements from the manga and anime seemingly at random. Possibly the worst case with this the part with Professor Tomoe and Germatoid. In the anime, Professor Tomoe was a more-or-less innocent victim possessed by the evil Germatoid, who later left the professor's body to fight Neptune and Uranus. The professor, however, lives. In the manga, Professor Tomoe was an evil man who willingly transformed himself into his Germatoid form and gets Killed Off for Real. Sailor Moon: Another Story has Tomoe still alive, which means he should have been possessed by Germatoid, yet when you meet him later on, he transforms into Germatoid. Defeating Germatoid will result in Tomoe's permanent death, with the implication that it is his fate. Even the fact that the bad guys are messing with the timeline doesn't explain this blunder.
- There's also the Barasuishou (Rose Crystal), created before the Golden Crystal, but essentially the same thing except for the fact that the Rose Crystal is red and shaped like a rose.
- The Sailor Senshi's attacks are also a mix of the anime and the manga.
- Creator Provincialism: Throughout the game, you visit Switzerland, Nepal, Canada and Turkey. Creator provincialism is scattered throughout, but one glaring moment is when a man in Switzerland asks whether halyomoss is a "type of mochi".
- Curb Stomp Battle: Almost every random battle is like this. Either you wipe the enemy out in one blow, or the enemy wipes you out in one blow, depending on who hits first. This is due to the damage algorithms of the game, being slightly overleveled turns your enemies into easily-squashed bugs, and vice versa.
- Dead All Along: Faregg
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? : Every one of them from the first three seasons of the show (with the exception of Al and En who are not in the game), the R movie, and the Original Generation Big Bad Apsu.
- Empty Room Psych: Most of the rooms in the school, hospital and university.
- Fan Translation: It has two fan translations in English by the same group. The first one is passable, but has several problems with naming conventions, English grammar, and being overly literal (like Venus' Mixed Metaphor near the end). The term "fin de siècle"" is translated as "FenDoSheckle". The translation was also made for older inaccurate emulators and would not display text properly on modern ones without a patch. A newer, better translation patch was released in 2019 (with several updates since, the most recent one on September 2021), which standardized names and corrected most of the above errors and gaffes, as well as correcting several bugs.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Many specific terms are left in romaji, mainly to match the Japanese anime's subtitle. Most of these were reworked in the newest fan translation.
- Feuding Families: The mayors of Medias and Mishii Village.
- Find the Cure: When Mamoru is injured, the Senshi search the world for the Shitennou's Hi stones, which have the power to bring forth the Barasuishou, which can cure him. Also, while in Switzerland, Mercury must find some halyomoss to cure a character's mother of a rare illness.
- Girlish Pigtails: Worn by Oppositio Senshi Sin.
- Global Airship: Turns out Sailor Venus owned one in her past life. You get to fly it.
- Good Hair, Evil Hair: Except for Nergal (who has a ponytail instead of wearing her hair loose), the Oppositio Senshi have hair in styles similar to the Sailor Senshi.
- Not to mention the Opposito Senshi mostly resemble what most of the Sailor Senshi would look like with different hair and Evil Costume Switch.
- Guide Dang It: Many players get stuck in Medias Village/Mishii Village because it isn't exactly obvious that you have to talk to a minor NPC (George's mother), probably again before you can advance the plot.
- The game features a sort of quest where you pick up puzzle pieces around the world and from defeating monsters as you play through. Completing the puzzle will get you a reward later on. What they don't bother to tell you is that some puzzle pieces are "hidden" in normally-uninteractable scenery sprites like barrels and jugs.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Super Beryl initially before weakened in the cutscene. Before, her offense and defense stats are actually higher than Demon Apsu's.
- Improbable Accessory Effect: Wearing jewelry increases your stats.
- Heel Face Turn: The Opposito Senshi, towards the end.
- Face Heel Turn: Sailor Saturn temporarily, but this is so the Season Three retraux can play out normally)
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Most healing items are comestibles, including nigiri, pork chops, chocolate, and orange juice.
- Level Grinding: Insane amounts of level grinding are required if you want to live. The fan translation group released a "Grind-be-gone" patch who mostly alleviates this.
- Level Up Fill Up
- Lost Forever: the best equipment in the game can be easily missed. You're also screwed if you happened to miss one hidden puzzle piece.
- Magikarp Power: Sailor Mercury's Shabon Spray, which is generally considered to be the most useless attack in the anime, has a hidden secondary effect that reduces the attack power of enemies in-game. Infinitely useful for Boss Battles if you aren't strong enough.
- Medieval Stasis: After traveling back in time, you can re-visit the villages you visited earlier during the Hi stone quests. The people are different, but other than that they're exactly the same.
- Mineral MacGuffin: The Hi stones and the Barazuishou.
- Minion with an F In Evil: Anshar. Of course, he was technically just tagging along with his big sister.
- Monster of the Week: Subverted. Old monsters of the week from the anime have been turned into common enemies.
- Mr. Exposition: The Shitennou come back just to be this.
- Multiple Endings: There's two ways that the game will end. If Sailor Moon defeats Apsu, you get the Golden Ending, but if she loses and has Chibi-Moon defeating Apsu instead, you get the Bittersweet Ending.
- No Export for You: The game was never released outside of Japan, though thanks to a fan translation, many English-speaking players have gotten to experience it anyway.
- Psycho Rangers: The Opposito Senshi are basically a Babylonian mythology theme named Evil Knockoff version of the Sailor Senshi (who are Roman theme named). Also, each character on the Opposito Senshi Team is a Darker and Edgier reprise of each member of the Inner Senshi team (save Ishtar, the Sailor Venus knockoff, though her outfit is just as dark as the other Opposito Senshi's)
- The Not-Secret: Major characters get portrait sprites alongside their speech boxes. For the first part of the game, Apsu's portrait is drawn to conceal her appearance by making her look like she's in the shadows. This is a bit undermined by the fact that her character sprite is fully visible the whole time.
- One-Gender Race: One gender villages, actually. The village of Rias is inhabited only by men. The village of Sariel is inhabited only by women. The two are forbidden from having contact with each other. One must wonder why they haven't died out yet...
- One True Sequence: Averted, surprisingly enough. The heroes and villains start searching for all of the Hi stones simultaneously.
- Purple Prose: Let's just say that the Shitennou's overly-long exposition could have been cut down and simplified a lot, and it would have made much more sense.
- Random Encounters: With youma, cardians, daimons, and droids.
- Recurring Riff: Recurring riffs from the anime were modified for the game's music score.
- Reality Warper: Well, since anime and manga continuity are snarled in a gigantic mess (see Continuity Snarl above for the details), the only possible explanation the game gives you for why everything is jacked up basically boils down to the villains screwing with time and space in such a way that events from different Alternate Universe canons (the anime and manga) have basically amalgamated together, resulting in the Continuity Snarl mentioned above.
- Screw Destiny: Opposite Senshi Team and Apsu's purpose on invading the past.
- Ship Tease: Mars, Venus, and Mercury all get one.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Inverted, both Professor Tomoe and the Ayakashi Sisters (who die in the Manga but live in the Anime) are killed; it's implied that this was their "fate" all along and that the anime sparings were deviations.
- Spotting the Thread: Chibi-Usa realizes that Pluto isn't who she appears because Pluto never called her "Princess."
- Star-Crossed Lovers: George and Mary. Turns out they're cousins. Awkward....
- Anshar and Chibi-Usa, if you beat Sin with Chibimoon's team.
- Standard Status Effect
- Status Buff: Sailor Moon and Sailor Chibi-Moon can use the Holy Grail to unlock a more powerful attack in battle.
- Taken for Granite: In Sailor Venus's side of the Hi stone search, a curse turns the inhabitants of the village of Rias to stone.
- Time Travel
- Video Game Characters: With a playable cast of ten, all the RPG character types are represented.
- Fragile Speedster: Sailor Chibi-Moon, whose other stats and single technique are so sub-par that she almost qualifies as a Joke Character.
- Glass Cannon: Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Uranus, and especially Sailor Venus.
- Lightning Bruiser: Sailor Saturn is a borderline example. She's medium speed, but with very high attack and defense.
- Master of None: Sailor Neptune is all-around average.
- Mighty Glacier: Sailor Mars, whose attack rivals those of the above three Glass Cannons but is much slower.
- Stone Wall: Sailor Mercury. Her skills will barely do above Scratch Damage even late in the game.
- Support Party Member: Sailor Moon; her defense and attack make her a lesser Stone Wall, and her link techs are geared towards healing and status buffs. Also Sailor Pluto, who has mediocre to terrible stats...and the Time Stop ability, which more than makes up for that. Finally, Sailor Chibi-Moon has some useful link techs with other characters despite her own attacks being completely worthless.
- Video Game Geography: Type 2; neighboring villages are just short walks away from each other.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Nabu has blue hair; Anshar's is green.
