Project Sakura Wars First 50 Minutes Revealed in New Gameplay

Iyane Agossah December 5, 2019 9:25 AM EST

New gameplay and screenshots for Project Sakura Wars, revealing the beginning of the game.

As we’re getting nearer to the Japanese release of Project Sakura Wars (tentative title) more and more gameplay is getting revealed. The game is featured on the streams of all the biggest Japanese outlets. Famitsu most notably revealed the first hour of gameplay, which you can watch below. Shin Sakura Taisen begins in the same way as its ongoing weekly manga adaptation, with a short flashback showing Sakura Amamiya as a kid being saved by Sakura Shinguji:

Famitsu Live is one of the multiple weekly streams organized by Famitsu. The streams are MCed by Yuka Otsubo, a seiyuu who most notably voiced Kyoko in Yuruyuri. Project Sakura Wars Producer Tetsu Katano was present on stream as well. I only skimmed through the gameplay myself. I’ve read and reported everything Sega revealed about the game already. As we’re only one week away from the Japanese release now, I’ll just wait and experience it myself.

Project Sakura Wars was also featured on another regular Famitsu stream, with another seiyuu, Mayu Yoshioka. She actually voices Itsuki Saijo in the game, so she chatted about Itsuki with Producer Katano. She also played through the demo, but the comments and chatting are by far the most interesting part. Well, assuming you can understand what they’re saying. I sadly don’t have the time to summarize it, for once.

Dengeki featured the game as well. On the Dengeki PS Live 68, brand new gameplay was revealed, showing Claris piloting her Mugen for the first time:

Lastly, Sega published multiple new screenshots showing the Koi Koi Taisen Hanafuda mini-game, the Smartron’s functions, and the battle simulator. We explained each of these things in a previous article, so I’ve simply included the screenshots below.

The next Shin Sakura Taisen stream will happen on December 11, from 19:00 to 21:00 JST (click here for time conversions). It’ll be held at the Hanayashiki Amusement Park in Asakusa. People part of the Sakura Taisen Ouengumi can participate in a lottery to get to attend the event live. We’ll cover it as usual. You can access the youtube page here.

Project Sakura Wars launches on December 12 in Japan and Spring 2020 in the west, exclusively on PS4. A demo is out on the Japanese PS Store and we’ll be publishing our own playthrough of it soon. Meanwhile, you can read our latest coverage on the game:

New character introductions, screenshots, explanation of the tournament battles

Introduction for Hakushu Murasame designed by Shigenori Soejima, new character design videos

More Gameplay, new commercials, staff comments, collabs, swimsuit DLC teaser

How Chisa Yokoyama (Sakura) and Michie Tomizawa (Sumire) initially turned down their roles in the game