Sailor Moon Should Get the Next Video Game Treatment

The last time I made an article like this, Geoff Keighley knocked my socks off with an announcement for a Wonder Woman game at the Game Awards. So, in the hope of wishing a game into existence, let’s talk about Sailor Moon. Magical Girl anime rarely gets the video game treatment, especially outside of genres like puzzle games or mobile gaming.

However, anime franchises like Dragon Ball Z, Demon Slayer, Naruto, One Piece, and Inuyasha have had action/adventure/RPG games for ages. I remember playing several over the years, including an Inuyasha RPG that I played on the Game Boy Advance. Why not share the love with Usagi Tsukino and the rest of the Sailor Scouts?

This year is the perfect time for a Sailor Moon video game announcement. This year marks the 30^th anniversary of Sailor Moon, and there was an announcement for Sailor Moon Cosmos, a film that covers the Stars Arc of the manga, which will release in 2023. This year would be a great time for an announcement of a Sailor Moon game, even if it didn’t release during the anniversary year.

It could be an RPG that has you build a specific party of Sailor Scouts as you move through each arc and story. Alternately, it could be an all-new story or an adventure that has you exploring both Usagi’s life as a student, and perhaps her time as Sailor Moon. They could even dabble into the bits of lore from Crystal Tokyo, and see Usagi and her friends take on threats to the city as Neo Queen Serenity and her guardians.

Another possibility could be a game similar to the Avatar: The Last Airbender game tie-ins or the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games, where you form a party and use their powers in conjunction with one another to fight enemies. This could leave room for environmental puzzles, exploration, and all sorts of interesting things.

If the Dragon Ball Z franchise can spawn a thousand games, some of which are sprawling RPGs with exploration, then there’s no reason Sailor Moon couldn’t get the same treatment. In fact, with it having a shorter series of storylines (especially with Sailor Moon Crystal) there is even more reason to be able to make the game into digestible chunks and quests.

With the amount of anime-to-game adaptations there are, I think there is definitely room to revisit some arguably older IPs. Even if Sailor Moon doesn’t get the treatment this year, it should eventually. Games have evolved quite a bit since Sailor Moon was created, so this would be a perfect time to really get a chance to dive into the world. Plus, who wouldn’t want the chance to actually kick butt as Sailor Moon for once?