Sailor Moon Another Story chapter one does a pretty good job at introducing characters, enemies, and stakes. It's quickly paced and concise, thrusting you to the multi-part chapter 2.

Mercury's part of chapter 2 is weird. Within a level up you can quickly use a spell that targets everyone to OHKO all random encounters. Encounter rates are super high, but there's zero challenge... until...

When I first encountered the Nabu, the Oppositio counterpart to Mercury, she gets defeated quickly within a few rounds. After a lengthy cutscenes she fights again, poisons me, barely takes any damage, and I die.

So I grinded up a few levels, bought a ton of items, and challenged her again. Her first form is defeated in 2 moves. Ok, maybe this will go well. Round 2 takes almost an hour. She was only taking 12 damage per hit with my best spells and I quickly ran out of MP restoratives.

Ok, Mercury's section is down. I'll use the lesson I learned to make Mars's section not so bad. I decide to stop grinding pretty early at level 16 and take on Nergal, Mars's Oppositio, to see where I'm at and hoping not to over-level so there's still good challenge.

Nergal is defeated in one hit. I don't know what lessons I should take from this... Maybe the game isn't quite as good as I remember. Hopefully Jupiter's section is better. She is my favorite. I'll try not to grind I guess.

What's up with all the casual sexism from NPCs? I get that this was made in the early 90s, but Sailor Moon should be a bit more girl power especially in the 90s! Gimme some Riot Grrrl!

EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME?!‽ I'M SORRY, CASUAL SEXISM, CASUAL RACISM, AND THIS GROWN ASS CANADIAN MAN IS MAKING A PASS AT A 15 YEAR OLD?! OH MY GOD, IS THIS THE TRANSLATION'S FAULT OR WAS THIS IN THE ORIGINAL?!

Ok, so this seems to be a Romeo and Juliet story that takes place across to hidden villages inside a Canadian National Park. Appropriate for the love hungry Jupiter. I love her, I am her.

At first none of the girls in the village talk to you thinking that you're going to get in the way of Romeo and Juliet... I mean George and Mary. Militant devotion to their OTP.

I liked it better when they didn't talk

I think Marduk is my favorite of the Oppositio. Hey design is cool and she works well as Jupiter's counter. This chapter is really weird though.

I once again OHKO the boss and what I thought was going to be a love story grinded to a halt since the big twist is George and Mary are cousins unbeknownst to them. I love we're at least getting some good back story on the Oppositio motivation and drive.

Oh yeah, they're Canadian. I forgot. Well, let's celebrate a mission well done with poutine and a cheap beer!

Despite some real cringe moments Jupiter's section of chapter 2 is my favorite so far. The plot of it was fun.

While I have played through this game before I haven't done so since high school and I'm using the new translation that dropped last year, so a lot of this feels fresh and new. The new translation so far reads naturally and I would say it's a really good.

I'm going to continue this thread, but from what I've played so far even if you have already played through this game in the past I think you should play it again with the new translation. I mostly think it's for sailor Moon fans to enjoy, but it's an ok RPG.

A lot of the flaws would have been more excusable had it come out early in the SNES life, but this game came out in '95. In the US we got Chrono Trigger and Earthbound that year. While it never got an international release I don't think it would have reviewed well.

But it would have been a good idea to localize if only for the fact that Sailor Moon was airing stateside and as I recall was marketed to hell and back. Anyway, I'll be getting back to playing and reacting now.