[Summary by Robert DeLoura.. but please don't contact Robert for help.]

The basic plot is that there's a woman named Apusuu who has teamed up with 5 warriors (sailor senshi clones, mostly) and a young boy who has strange powers over time. Apusuu wants to change destiny so things come out the way she wants them to. Of course, your job is to stop her.

The general storyline is that the five warriors come after the ginzuishous, and they seriously wound Mamoru before escaping. The senshi have to go collect the four stones that represent the Dark Kingdom generals, plus the Rose Crystal (barazuishou), in order to cure Mamoru. Of course, the bad guys try to stop them, and make off with the Rose Crystal. In fact, they take it to the Silver Millenium, so you have to get Pluto's help to go chasing after them in a different time. You get to see Queen Beryl wipe out the kingdom on the Moon. :-)

You meet (and usually fight) most of the major bad guys that I can remember. Queen Beryl. The ayakashi (?) sisters... Cooan and such. Emeraude. Professor Tomoe. Mistress Nine. Black Lady. The Witches Five. Demando is there, but you don't fight him.... as is Sefiro.

All sorts of youma and daimons, too. The one with all the stars from the planetarium episode. The double-youma from the anime studio episode in the first series. (Oh, wait, maybe that was Witch #5.) Almost everything you meet is recognizable if you've seen through the end of Sailor Moon S.

Combat allows you to do a few interesting things. First, you can set up your party (5 at a time) into formations, where the people in front take more damage but also inflict more, and vice-versa. (You can put them in a straight line, a V, an inverted V, or a cross.) Each formation allows the use of a special formation attack involving all five senshi.

Speaking of senshi, they're all here. The original five, the outer three, Saturn, and Chibi Usa. (No, you can't play Tuxedo Kamen.) They have all of their special attacks through the end of S, as far as I can tell. A few may have come from the manga or elsewhere.... Mercury Aqua Mirage, Venus Wink Chain Sword, Jupiter Coconut Cyclone. Saturn has one called Death Reborn Revolution. Pluto has a special one... Time Stop. It costs all of her Energy Points (from maximum), but it paralyzes all of the enemies in a battle for about 3 rounds. Very very handy. Works on bosses too.

There are also 30 double techniques, that involve two characters at the same time. There are 5 triple techniques, too. These cost all of the involved characters a certain number of Energy Points (mana), but only take up the action for one of them. They're documented in the manual, and explained in the game.

Some of the bosses were really tough when I fought them... maybe I needed a few more levels before taking them on. Or maybe they were just supposed to be tough. It's hard to be sure. If you're not strong enough, a boss fight can easily go on for 10-15 minutes... and I beat on the final boss for 45 minutes before giving up and coming back with a slightly different approach that took it out in 15.

There are fuzzy voice clips for most of the standard special techniques. The combined ones don't have these.

It was a long game. It doesn't keep track of the elapsed game time, but I think it took me more than 20 hours (maybe because I got wiped out by a couple of bosses).

Overall, it was interesting. It was worth the rental I paid to play it. I don't think it would be worth $100 or whatever it originally sold for. But it's probably worth $30 or so if you find one and you're a fan of the show.

The game liked to give you puzzle pieces when you defeated certain enemies. Supposedly if you got all the pieces together (there was a guy in the Crystal Palace you'd talk to if you succeeded), you'd get something really nice. But the game stopped giving me pieces when I was 4 short of finishing the puzzle, so I have no idea what the item might have been. Nor do I have any idea why it stopped giving me pieces.

regarding the voices in this game

The move names I specifically remember *hearing* when they were performed:

Usagi

Moon Healing Escalation
Moon Spiral Heart Attack
Rainbow Moon Heart Ache
(for Moon Tiara Action she just makes a sound while she throws it)

Chibi Usa

Pink Sugar Heart Attack
Rainbow Moon Heart Ache (a double-technique with Usagi)

Ami

Shabon Spray
Shabon Spray Freezing
Shine Aqua Illusion
Mercury Aqua Mirage

Rei

Fire Soul
(She doesn't announce Fire Soul Bird.)
Burning Mandala
Mars Snake Fire

Makoto

Supreme Thunder
Supreme Thunder Dragon (I *think* she says this one.)
Sparkling Wide Pressure
Jupiter Coconut Cyclone

Minako

Crescent Beam
(She doesn't announce Crescent Beam Shower.)
Venus Love-Me Chain
Venus Wink Sword (or something like that)

Uranus

World Shaking
Space Sword Buster

Neptune

Deep Submerge
Submarine Reflection

Pluto

Dead Scream
Chronos Cyclone
(She doesn't announce Time Stop.)

Saturn

Death Reborn Revolution

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