About a year ago, I decided on a whim to begin collecting all the Sakura Wars games.

I’m close to completing that project now, having tracked down a copy of Sakura Wars: Hanagumi Taisen Columns for the SEGA Saturn in Japan earlier in the month. (Only ¥980, and it has its original obi intact – good purchase.)

But without an emulator and the various fan translation packs installed, it can be tricky to play these titles on modern consoles.

Speaking with Famitsu, as translated by Gematsu, longtime SEGA producer Akira Nishino says it’s something the publisher is trying to change.

He said:

“Of course, we would like to [bring the original games to modern consoles] as well. However, there are various circumstances involved, so it’s not something we can easily move forward with. Still, we want to find a way, and we’re working hard each day.”

Nishino didn’t really elaborate on what those challenges are, but these are text dense titles, considering they blend visual novel, dating sim, and tactical RPG elements all at once. I guess they would probably be expensive and time consuming to translate.

There are six main games in the Sakura Wars series, with the most recent entry – named New Sakura Wars in Japan – released for the PS4 in 2020.

The west wouldn’t get its first taste of the series, however, until Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love was localised on the PS2 in 2010 – long after the PS3 had launched. Amusingly, that game had first debuted in Japan five years earlier, in 2005.

Speaking further with Famitsu, franchise Oji Hiroi said he had written a scenario for a new game as “there had been discussions about making” it. But he later clarified that just because there were ideas it doesn’t mean the title’s actively in development.

I know there have been some efforts to bring SEGA Saturn games to modern consoles lately, so I would kill for some kind of official ports of the originals.

The publisher says it will be celebrating the series’ 30th anniversary with various pop-up shops and stage shows in Japan, and that it’s also “preparing something else big”. Unfortunately it wouldn’t clarify whether that’s game-related or not.