Hello, and welcome to the second article in my new series on The Story Arc: Make a Musou. I love Dynasty Warriors, the number of times I bring it up, and the multiple Musou related articles I’ve written should be proof enough of that. However, I am currently in a Dynasty Warriors drought as I have no interest in Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires, so I thought it was time to flex some creative writing.
But what could I do? When it comes to Dynasty Warriors content you can find whatever you want online already. For the past twenty years, the internet has been filled with character analyses, essays on the storytelling, and gameplay deconstructions. I don’t have much to add when talking about Dynasty Warriors itself. However, there is one question that everyone has had at one point in time: “What if ___ was a Musou game?”
That’s right, it’s time to pretend we’ve gone back to the Tumblr days when imagining your ideal game and talking to people about it wasn’t cringe! I have asked my friends to give me a list of franchises, and I will make a Musou roster out of each and every one of them. In my previous article, I highlighted how I would pick and design a roster for a Batman Musou. Today, we’re going to do something that may be described as the complete opposite.
So, what’s the second franchise on the list? It’s a video game series near and dear to my heart and has been the subject of many articles on this site. That’s right, today we’ll be designing a Sakura Wars Musou Roster.
How we’ll be designing the movesets!
Now we must discuss how Musou Movesets typically work if we are going to create a wide variety of them. If you have already read my piece on making a Batman Musou you may skip ahead to when we start talking about how many characters our roster will have First let’s go over the basics of each character’s normal attacks. You all likely know how Musou movesets work on a basic level, you string together combos consisting of light attacks and heavy attacks. However there is a pattern that movesets typically follow that I feel needs some explaining.
Pressing light attack once and then heavy will knock enemies directly in front of you in the air allowing for a juggle or for you yourself to transition into an attempted combo.
Pressing light attack two times and then a heavy will perform an attack that while not super powerful will hit enemies close to you, generally on your left and right.
Pressing light attack three times and then heavy will perform an attack that while not your strongest will hit a wide range of enemies.
Pressing light attack four times and then a heavy will perform an attack that is either straight forward or will move you slightly forward
Finally, pressing light attack five times and then triangle will perform an attack that does plenty of damage in a short range, the perfect attack for enemy officers.
These are the foundations of a basic Musou moveset however there is more to explain and think of for our roster.
The bar you have been seeing below or next to the health bars in this footage is the Musou gauge. Once it is full you are able to unleash your most powerful attack: a Musou attack. So we’ll need to think of a Musou for everyone.
Next we have the trickiest part of our roster, the R1/RB button. The R1/RB button is used as a weapon switch in mainline Dynasty Warriors but various spin offs have used it as a button that activates a unique skill or attack for a character. These attacks can span from being very average to something atypical so thinking about each character’s unique will be hard.
Finally we’re going to incorporate a mechanic that many modern Musous such as Pirate Warriors 4 and Warriors All Stars as well as Musou clones like Utawarerumono Zan have: skill attacks. Holding down a button will give you an option of activating a skill. Most of these are just buffs like increased attack or speed, however several of these Musous give characters extra moves via skills. As we want to make this hypothetical game seem as appealing as possible we shall come up with 3 skill attacks for each character.
And that’s everything! 5 Normal combos, a musou attack, a unique skill, and 3 skill attacks for each character. As we go into this I won’t describe what each and every character’s individual combos will be but rather just how we imagine them playing with a few combo examples. I will mostly focus on describing every Musou, unique, and skill attack we come up with. A fair warning as well that I won’t talk about some characters as much as others, thinking of a variety of different movesets is difficult
With everything about how we will go about this explained let’s move on.
Our Roster Size
Before we get into picking our characters we first need to figure out how big the roster could be. While a true dream would be everyone playable we’re going to have to be realistic with this. Other licensed Musous started with rosters of these sizes
Berserk Musou – 8 characters
Arslan Musou – 16 characters
Dragon Quest Musou – 13 characters + 1 DLC
Touken Ranbu Musou – 15 characters
One Piece Pirate Warriors – 15 characters
As we are currently dealing with Sakura Wars, a series that was once incredibly popular but has petered out in recent decades we shall go for a roster size in the middle to lower end of the spectrum. I can pick 11 characters, no more than that. This feels like a generous amount for this series. These 11 characters will be a mix of characters from the main six games, sadly I will not be including anyone from Sakura Kakumei.
And now, finally, we can start discussing the roster
Character 1: Sakura Shinguji
Sakura Shinguji! There’s no use hiding this pick till later. Anyone who has ever heard of Sakura Wars has heard of Sakura herself. She is the poster girl. As for a moveset she’s made that job easy for us as well. Katanas are some of the easiest weapons to make a moveset for, hell Touken Ranbu Musou is entirely katanas.
I imagine Sakura’s moveset and normal combos being refined with strikes that look precise, similar to characters like Ranmaru in Samurai Warriors. She may be a silly country girl but as we’ve seen time and again that when the going gets tough she’s nothing if not a serious fighter. Unfortunately I don’t really have any basic combos to describe for her, as being a katana user also means there’s not much interesting to describe there.
Now while we’ll have her basic combos focus on her more refined swordsmanship we’ll be able to have some more of her personality show in her attacks skills as I propose these three.
First off, Tripping! Sakura is a clumsy girl, we see her mess up sets all the time throughout Sakura Wars media. We need this aspect of her to be represented somehow so I propose one of her skill attacks be tripping into a group of enemies and damaging them.
Next is a skill I want to be devastating to enemy commanders, one where Sakura jumps into the air and stabs her sword behind her as she did in the first episode of Sakura Wars Gouka Kenran.
For a third attack skill we’ll be referencing Yaksha, the evil Sakura Shinguji, from the sixth game. Sakura will duplicate into 3 and charge forward, her sword having a purple and pink dark aura to it.
Sakura Wars as a franchise has made picking Musou attacks for each character easy. As the games already have big super attacks for each character. For Sakura she will do her Haja Kensan Ouka Houshin and swing her sword forward causing a pink energy wave to cut through enemies.
With Sakura done let’s move on to our next character, a character who you all knew would be on this roster so we may as well say her second.
Character 2: Erica Fontaine
Our second character is the main girl of Sakura Wars 3, Erica! Aside from being one of the series poster girls, Erica is insanely popular among fans. She had a guaranteed place in this roster from the start.
As for how she’ll play, Erica will be our most ranged fighter in the roster, as her main weapon in the series is two machine guns shaped like crosses. Her light attacks will all involve shooting in various directions. However, this shooting won’t be standstill like you’d expect from a professional. Erica will be constantly moving in her combos and throwing her arms in various directions with her eyes closed. She’s the clumsiest of the Sakura Wars heroines and thus will have the least elegant fighting style.
For his third heavy combo to hit a wide range of enemies, I want Erica to spin in circles while firing her weapons.
For her fifth heavy combo, I want Erica to do something that we saved for Sakura’s skill attacks. She’ll trip right into an enemy commander only for an angel to pick her back up.
Erica’s musou attack was a bit tricky to think of. See, unlike most character’s special moves in the games, hers was a healing move. While Dynasty Warriors has given characters healing musou attacks before (Pang Tong from DW7 for an example) in a crossover title like this, it doesn’t feel right. So we’ll instead take influence from Project X Zone for her Musou
Erica will quickly throw her dress toward the camera and reveal she is dressed in a catsuit. She’ll then pull out a comically sized hammer and slam it down on the enemies in front of her before he dress falls back on her
For Erica’s special skill, she’ll do what is actually her special move from the games. She’ll enter a prayer pose and grow wings; those wings will then disappear, and she’ll have regained some of her health.
Out of the four main heroines picking Erica’s skill attacks was the easiest. This girl is wacky with a capital W, which leads to many fun things we can have her do.
For her first skill attack, I want Erica to do what is probably the most iconic aspect of the character. She’ll pull out a pair of maracas and do a little jig. Enemies around her will dance along before collapsing.
Erica’s second skill attack will have her hold up her cross as beams of light rain down and blast enemies around her.
For her final skill attack Erica will also clumsily trip like Sakura, however as Erica is much, much clumsier than other Sakura Wars heroines she will for some reason explode as she trips before getting right back up.
Now for our third character I’m going to be adding someone who I wouldn’t consider necessary for a Sakura Wars roster but because crossover games often include him I couldn’t exclude him if I want to keep this roster realistic.
Character 3: Ichiro Ogami
Yes, for our third character, we’re going to include the man you’re actually playing as for the first four games. Shocking, I know.
Ogami’s moveset is a bit difficult to think about, not because his weapon would be hard to think of attacks for but rather because of what I want to do with him. Ogami will be our opportunity to represent characters who did not make the cut for my roster. Similar to the Project X Zone games, his attacks will involve using the weapons of Flower Division girls who weren’t included.
For Ogami’s light attacks, he’ll be attacking with his dual swords in a rapid fashion, but each of his heavy combos will involve pulling out a different weapon.
For his third heavy combo to hit a wide range of enemies, he’ll pull out a bow and fire a few arrows around him in reference to Hanabi from the third game.
For Ogami’s fourth heavy combo, which will move him forward a bit, he’ll pull out a lance like Reni’s and charge forward.
For his fifth heavy combo to do devastating damage to enemy commanders, he’ll pull out Glycine’s axe from three and slice sideways in front of him.
For Ogami’s Musou, he will clash his swords against each other, and the blue silhouette of a wolf will appear and charge forward at enemies.
For Ogami’s special skill, we’ll be referencing Iris from the first two games. After pressing R1, Ogami will be surrounded by teddy bears to protect him from damage for a few seconds.
Now, let’s move on to his skill attacks. For his first skill attack, he’ll pull out a pistol and shoot one shot at enemies in front of him. Referencing Maria from the opening of the first game.
For his second skill attack, he’ll pull out a bazooka that explodes in his face and rolls him into enemies to hurt them, referencing Kohran’s from the first episode of Sakura Wars Ouka Kenran.
For his final skill attack, an elephant shall appear from out of nowhere and stomp on some enemies. This will be our reference to Colquiecot from game 3.
Ogami’s moveset was easy to think of because we had an entire pantheon of unused characters in the Tokyo and Paris Divisions to pick from. Sure would be a shame if I put two other men on this roster with a significantly smaller number of characters to reference.
So anyway, moving on to our next character.
Character 4: Gemini Sunrise
Those of you more in the know about the Sakura Wars franchise will know there was a time when Sega themselves tried to create a Musou style game with Sakura Wars as the basis. I’m, of course, referring to Sakura Wars V Episode 0 on the PS2. This game starred Gemini Sunrise and her horse, Rally. We’re going to homage this game completely and have Gemini’s entire moveset be on her horse.
By default, this will make Gemini the fastest fighter in our roster; she’s riding a horse around for god’s sake! We’re also going to want her attacks to primarily attack to her left and right to encourage the player to never stop moving as her. Episode 0 gives us very little to work with in terms of attacks; she just has basic sword slashes. However, the game actually had many different equivalents to Musou attacks for her. So, for this moveset, we’ll be converting those Musous into normal attacks!
Gemini’s second heavy combo Gemini will pull on Rally’s reins and begin to spin in circles, kicking up dust that damage surrounding enemies.
For her third heavy combo to hit a range of enemies, Gemini will swing her sword around, and three meteors will appear from it, flying at enemies in front of her.
For her fourth heavy combo, Rally will begin jumping forward as Gemini slashes, with lighting bolts appearing wherever they land.
Gemini’s Musou attack shall be the Tyrant of Texas from Episode 0. She’ll jump off of Rally into the air, and an aura will surround her. she’ll then spread her limbs, sending energy flying at all nearby enemies before landing back on her trusted horse.
Gemini’s special skill, as well as her skill attacks in general, will all be following the theme of fire. Whether it be Project X Zone or SRW, games love having Gemini set things aflame. As such, for her special skill, her sword shall be set aflame for a short while, producing a fire effect that will chip away at the health of enemies.
Now, let’s move on to Gemini’s skill attacks. For her first skill attack, she’ll throw a flaming baseball forward to hit a group of enemies.
For Gemini’s second skill attack, she’ll do what was the equivalent to her first Musou attack in Sakura Wars V Episode 0. Larry will kick his legs up as Gemini holds up her sword, and a wave of fire will spread around them, damaging enemies.
Gemini’s third skill attack will be comparable to on-horse musous in the main DW series but with her own flair. Rally will be set aflame and charge forward, crushing any enemies in his path.
Gemini was one of the most fun characters to think up a moveset for because I effectively had to rework a mediocre musou moveset into one that would fit a modern game. With her out of the way, let’s move on to the second New York character in our roster.
Character 5: Shinjiro Taiga
Our fifth character will be the protagonist of the fifth game, Shinjiro Taiga! Shinjiro will have a similar gimmick to his uncle where a lot of his attacks will reference characters who couldn’t make the cut for our roster, but unlike his uncle who had nearly the entire casts of the first three games to pull moves from we only have a small handful of unused girls in the fifth game to choose moves from for Shinjiro.
So, for Shinjiro’s light attacks, he’ll attack with twin swords like Ogami; however, in order for his attacks to be different from his uncle, he will be holding one of them backwards. His heavy combos will also mainly focus on this dual sword style, with one exception:
For his third heavy combo to hit a wide range of enemies, he will pull out Rosarita’s gold and silver guns and fire rapidly at enemies.
Shinjiro’s Musou attack will reference his special attack from Sakura Wars 5 but not the same thing; he will yell out, “Tiger fang!” and hold his swords to his side, the silhouette of a tiger will then appear and claw at enemies in front of him.
When pressing R1 and activating his special skill, some birds shall surround Shinjiro and allow him to recover a small amount of health, a reference to Diana’s healing from the fifth game
For his first attack skill, Shinjiro will pull out some throwing knives and toss them at enemies surrounding him, in reference to Lachette. The first captain of the Star Division.
For Shiniro’s second attack skill, we’ll have a motorcycle drive by and crash into enemies. This will be our reference to Sagitta’s from the second chapter of the fifth game.
His final attack skill will be something relatively simple. His fist will glow white and he’ll fly forward at enemies with a punch in a reference to how he beat the antagonist of the New York OVA.
Shinjiro wasn’t as hard to think up a moveset for as I anticipated, but him having the same weapon as Ogami definitely forced me to be creative and describe another way to wield two swords….there’s going to be another two swords character later.
Anyway, moving on to our sixth character!
Character 6: Sakura Amamiya
Our next character is the main girl of the sixth mainline Sakura Wars game, Sakura Amamiya! Amamiya’s whole thing is that she wants to be just like Sakura Shinguji so that would give us a convenient excuse to just clone her moveset, however we won’t be doing that!
While Shinguji’s moveset is going to look really refined, Amamiya will be significantly less so. Her strikes will look like random slashes in an attempt to imitate Shinguji but not quite getting there.
For her fourth heavy combo to move her forward as she attacks, Amamiya will be propelled forward by pink spirit energy and slash at enemies as she does.
Amamiya’s musou attack will be the one attack in our roster that actually calls upon one of the mecha of Sakura Wars! For her Musou she will call upon the mech that her and Klara co-piloted in the anime to fly over the area and blast enemies.
When pressing R1 and activating Amamiya’s special skill she will pull out a plate of omelet fried rice and eat it all in a second. She will then have a brief period of time where her attack strength is doubled
For Amamiya’s first attack skill she will pull out what I have affectionately nicknamed the broom of doom. She pull out her broom and smack around nearby enemies
In her second attack skill Amamiya will pull out a metal drum full of water from nowhere and roll it toward a pack of enemies
As a final attack skill Amamiya will do something similar to her Musou attack, instead of summoning her mech to do an attack she will instead summon Klara herself in her demon form. Klara will do a few scratches at enemies before disappearing.
Despite the fact that half of you reading commented “but the 2019 cast already has a Musou” knowing full well I meant something different from that, Amamiya was the hardest character to think up a moveset for and probably the one I’m least proud of in this roster.
Oh no, it’s time for not only our third man on the roster but also our third dual sword user!
Character 7: Seijuro Kamiyama
And we have our final male in the roster with Seijuro Kamiyama, the captain of the 2019 Flower Division.
Why do all 3 captains use dual swords? It feels like they do only so they can make my job at making them feel unique harder! Seijuro is going to play similar to Ogami and Shinjiro in our roster but he has even less calling upon references to other characters as the 2019 Flower Division is the smallest.
For his light attack and a majority of his heavy attacks he’ll use his swords, but there is one heavy attack where I want him to reference someone who didn’t make the cut for our roster.
For his first heavy combo he’ll launch an enemy in the air and then jump after them. Once in the air, if you press the heavy attack button again, Seijuro will come spinning down with his blades.
For his fifth heavy combo he will pull out a large hammer and swing it down on whatever enemies are in front of him. This will be our reference to Hatsuho from the sixth game.
Seijuro’s Musou is going to be pretty simplistic as the source material doesn’t give us much to work with for him. His swords will glow blue and he will let out a bunch of rapid slashes, devastating enemies
For his special skill I want Seijuro to perform a dodge-like animation and gain a double speed buff. In the sixth Sakura Wars game there was a perfect dodge mechanic which slowed down time and this is the closest thing I could think of to represent that.
For Seijuro’s first skill attack whirlwinds will surround him briefly and damage any enemies that are near him for that brief period of time, in reference to Claris from the 2019 team.
For his second skill attack he’ll launch a bullet from a gun into the air and surrounding enemies will become frozen. This will be our homage to Anastasia from the 6th game.
Picking the first seven character was easy as we were able to pick the main girls of each team and the captains. However, that leaves us with four character slots left. With our final four slots I decided to pick based on two metrics. Character popularity and weapon variety. Popularity is important of course however for making a roster having characters with different weapons is invaluable. So I needed to make sure our final four characters all used different weapons.
With all that said, who was our eighth character?
Character 8: Sumire Kanzaki
Sumire is one of, if not the most, popular characters in the series. If we’re making a roster that is meant to represent Sakura Wars as a whole, we need to include her. She also has a weapon that no one else in our roster has, a naginata, which would make her feel unique.
In order to get proper use out of her naginata while also portraying Sumire fighting the way she does in anime and OVAs, we wouldn’t just clone naginata movesets from Samurai Warriors. Instead, a lot of Sumire’s moveset will involve spinning around.
For her second heavy combo, Sumire will spin her Naginata in circles while passing it between her two hands to hit enemies around her.
Sumire’s third heavy combo will involve her slashing her weapon in front of her, then spinning around behind her to hit enemies in that direction as well.
Then, for her fifth heavy combo, I want Sumire to stab her naginata at whatever enemy is in front of her and then use that momentum to spin herself to the other side of it.
For her Musou attack, Sumire will stick her naginata in the ground and do her Kanzaki Fujin-ryu, which will result in pillars of fire spreading in multiple directions to devastate enemies.
Sumire’s special skill was hard to think if because I didn’t want another character to set their weapon aflame because spoiler: our next character will be doing that! So this is what I came up with. When pressing R1 as Sumire, she will let out an “Ohohoho” and her ego will give her a defense boost for thirty seconds.
Sumire’s first attack skill will be a reference to a nickname given to her by Kanna: cactus lady! Sumire will pull out a small cactus and throw it at enemies in front of her
In her second attack skill, Sumire will offer up some of her bad cooking to the enemies. When no one accepts it, she will instead throw it at them in a rage
For a final attack skill, purple spirit energy will burst from Sumire and damage nearby enemies. As she had some of the highest spirit energy in the Flower Division before it burned out, this excess shall be an attack.
With Sumire on our roster that brings us to 2 original Tokyo Division members, 1 Paris Division, 1 New York Division member, and 1 new Tokyo Division member. We’re going to round things out to 2 girls from each division for our final 3 characters.
Character 9: Lobelia Carlini
One Dynasty Warriors trope we’re missing right now is a fist fighter with slower combos. In a series full of people with weapons we have only two fist fighters to pick from, Lobelia and Kanna, and as we’re using Sumire as our second Flower Division rep we don’t have Kanna. So for a first fighter we’ll be going for Lobelia from the Paris Division. However Lobelia isn’t just a hand me down, we can craft a good moveset for her that would feel wholly unique with her prison chains and her fire powers.
Lobelia is going to be the slowest character in our roster, but all of her attacks will look like they have a huge impact. For her light attacks she’ll throw out various punches but for her heavy combos she’ll move around the prison chains on her arms which will have longer reach.
For her second heavy combo to hit enemies nearby she’ll stretch her arms left and right so the chains smack enemies near her.
For her fourth heavy combos to move her forward a bit we’ll have her stretch her arm forward and pull her toward the enemy she hits.
For Lobelia’s Musou she’ll be using the weapon her mech actually uses: claws. When activating her Musou, Lobelia will stare at the enemy in front of her before quickly stabbing forward. This Musou will only damage one enemy but will be one of the most devastating in the game damage wise.
Thinking up a special skill for Lobelia was pretty easy, she has fire powers so when you press R1 we’ll have her ignite her chains. Now for a brief period of time her heavy combos will inflict a fire status effect that eats away at enemy health.
For Lobelia’s first attack skill we’ll do something similar to Erica’s musou. Lobelia will quick change into her dancer outfit, which will charm any nearby enemies and leave them unable to attack before quickly changing back to her normal outfit and laying the beat down on them.
Lobelia’s second attack skill will have her stretch her arm forward and fire will come from her hand like a flamethrower, the same way she destroyed the Mona Lisa in SW3. Which is a sentence I’m only including to confuse readers who haven’t played the games.
Finally for her third attack skill we’ll be referencing another important aspect of her character: money. Lobelia is greedy, half of her CGs in the games involve her counting stacks of bills she’s earned. For her third skill attack we’ll have her pull out a fad wad of cash and smack the nearest enemy with it!
And that covers both of our Paris Division reps! Let’s move on into our second New York Division girl!
Character 10: Subaru Kujo
Picking a member of the New York Divisjon was hard for me personally as unlike Sumire and Lobelia there wasn’t an obvious choice. However there is a trope among Musou games that our roster is missing, a cool headed strategist. That’s right, Subaru is going to be the Zhuge Liang of our roster. As for what weapon they’ll be using in their moveset They can have a moveset where they uses their dual fans to create wind to hit enemies
Subaru’s moveset will involve swinging their fan around and creating whirlwinds to damage enemies. With her light attacks involving smacking them with the fans themselves and the heavy combos will create the wind itself.
For their first heavy combo Subaru will knock enemies in the air and jump after them allowing you to smack them a few times in midair
Subaru’s third heavy combo will have them smack the enemies around her before creating three whirlwinds that fly off in various directions.
When activating Subaru’s musou the moon shall shine down on her like a spotlight, she will then open both of her fans and have vortex will appear in front of her to devastate enemies
For Subaru’s special skill they’ll throw one of their fans forward and it will spin in place for a few seconds, similar to Xiaoqiao’s weapon switch skill in Dynasty Warriors. While it’s spinning in place it’ll damage enemies however your combos will only be half strength until it returns to you
For one of their attack skills I want to reference the times Subaru attempted jazz in the fifth game. However I can’t just have them pull an entire piano out of their pocket. Instead they’ll pull out a saxophone and the resulting music will damage enemies.
As a second skill attack Subaru will sit down and begin to meditate for a second. If any enemies attack them during this second they will be hit with an aggressive counter attack.
Subaru’s final skill attack will have them close their fans altogether and just smack an enemy on the head with one of them.
I love Subaru and I know a few friends reading this do as well, so there was a bit of bias putting them on the roster. However, they didn’t have nearly as much bias as our final pick. If you have ever talked to me, you know who I picked for our final character.
Character 11: Azami Mochizuki
Azami Mochizuki is easily my favorite character in the franchise. She is here via bias and I won’t even attempt to argue otherwise. However I will still try my best to give her an interesting moveset.
Azami is a ninja so she needs to be one of the speediest characters in the roster, as for her weapon we’ll be giving her the weapon that her mech uses, an arm gauntlet. It’s an odd weapon for a Ninja to use but Azami is anything but a typical ninja character.
For her light attacks she’ll run around kicking things but for her heavy combos she’ll use this gauntlet to launch enemies around.
For her first heavy combo she’ll attack straight ahead and throw enemies into the air, allowing her to begin juggling them with her kicks.
For her third heavy combo she’ll point the gauntlet various directions and bombs will launch out of it, damaging a wide range of enemies.
Her fifth fourth heavy combo will be the only one that won’t feature the gauntlet at all. Instead she’ll do a kick that send her flying forward.
Azami’s Musou is once again a super attack used in the actual SW games. she’ll multiply herself tenfold and rush toward the enemies, with her clones vanishing after the attack
For Azami’s special skill she’ll do hand gestures and then for a short while a wind-like aura will surround her, giving her double speed for her attacks.
Her first two skill attacks will involve the type of thing that you’d expect from a ninja based character. For her first skill attack she’ll throw a ton of kunai ahead of her at high speed, doing light damage to a large amount of enemies
Her second skill attack a large frog will appear out of nowhere and land behind Azami before disappearing, referencing the animals summoned during her chapter of the sixth game
Her third skill attack will reference an aspect of Sakura Wars 6 that we have to have in our game. She will summon Peanut the elephant who will spin on his platform, moving around and hurting enemies as he let’s out a loud “BWOOOT!”
Conclusion
And that makes 11 characters! Our roster has a distinct lack of villains but to be blunt there are no Sakura Wars villains who are interesting enough to give a place on the roster that could instead be taken up by one of the girls.
If I wanted to be less realistic and make the roster incredibly huge I would have probably put Aoi Satan from the first game, Kongou from the second, Ciseaux from the third, Ranmaru from the fifth, and Oboro from the sixth. However, our roster size didn’t allow room for villains. But how would the game’s plot go without villains? It’s not my job to think of plot but rather a good roster, but let me try to spin something together.
Either the game would have giant bosses that the characters would need to fight but wouldn’t be playable or the plot could be about a new, unplayable, villain who hypnotized most of the combat revues and thus Sakura, Lobelia, and Subaru need to fight their friends and free them one at a time from mind control. Like I said, just throwing out ideas.
Thinking up this roster was incredibly fun. For my previous Batman Musou piece, I needed to do a lot of research to get a good idea of how most of the cast would play, but this one? I live and breathe Sakura Wars, most of this came to me in an instant, but I did have help in the form of asking questions to veterans of the SW community like Samantha Ferreira, Lettuce, and Kori Maru.
I still have plenty of Musous left to write, so join me hopefully two weeks from now where I will be putting out a Pokemon Musou roster! I will be posting constant updates to Twitter, so if you want to know my progress, follow me there!
that or phantoms of the cast seeing as 6 did that and DQH did a lot without char fighting