Even though I know absolutely nothing about Sailor Moon (other than it exists), I went into this one with high hopes. Licensed beat 'em ups seemingly grew on trees in the '90s and many of them were quite good. Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon was released in 1995 for arcades and as far as I know, it has never received any sort of home port or digital re-release.

On offer here is a mostly by-the-numbers beat 'em up that felt awfully similar to Final Fight. The controls are your standard punch / kick / jump and you'll use them constantly against the seemingly endless supply of enemies that will come your way. There are eight levels and they each end with a boss fight, as is typical for the genre.

Although mechanically the game is very similar to Final Fight and the like, it does have a pretty nice graphical style. The characters look great and the backgrounds are detailed and varied. There are crystals you can use to perform special attacks and in doing so, you'll see an anime-style portrait of the character overlay the screen. These help the game pop a little more and I'm sure for fans of the anime, it's a nice bonus to see. There are also a couple of cool anime-style cutscenes throughout, but they're very short.

Despite the nice graphics, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon is ultimately still another beat 'em up in crowded genre. I'm sure this game would hold more appeal to me if I was familiar with Sailor Moon, but as it stands, it's just an "okay" beat 'em up. It feels a little dated as a 1995 release, but it's not bad by any means. I'd say it's worth playing for fans of the manga / anime, but otherwise, there are plenty of beat 'em ups to try out before this one.

Played On: Arcade (MAME)
Completion Date: 2/9/23
Time: 53 minutes
Rating: 5/10