Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story^[a] is a role-playing video game developed and published by Angel exclusively for the Super Famicom in Japan on 22 September 1995.^[1][2][3][4] Based upon Naoko Takeuchi‘s Sailor Moon shōjo manga and anime series, the game takes place between the third season and fourth season of the anime series, which adapted the third and fourth arcs of the manga respectively, as players take control of either the five Inner Guardians or the four Outer Guardians in order to protect Crystal Tokyo by fighting against a group of rebels and several of their previously defeated enemies once again that were resurrected by the sorceress Apsu.^[5]

Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story was developed over the course of two years by most of the same team who worked on previously released titles in the Sailor Moon franchise for the Super Famicom at Angel and featured an original plot written by Takashi Ikegaya and Yoshijirō Muramatsu, however multiple issues were faced during production before its eventual launch to the market.^[6] The game has never been officially released outside Japan, although fan translations exist.

Gameplay

Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story is a role-playing game (RPG) that takes place from a top-down perspective similar to other games in the genre such as Chrono Trigger, where the player controls the protagonist and her companions in the game’s two-dimensional fictional world that consists of various locations.^[7] Areas are depicted as realistic scaled-down maps, in which players can converse with locals to procure items and services, solve puzzles and challenges, or encounter enemies. Enemies ambush the party with random encounters on a field map and initiates a battle that occurs directly on a separate battle screen.^[7]

The player and enemies can use physical or magical attacks to wound their respective targets during battle encounters, and the player may also use items to heal or protect themselves. Each character and enemy has a certain number of hit points, which can be reduced with successful attacks that decreases their hit points, although it can be restored during the next turn. During battle, compatible Sailor Guardians (2 or 3) can use “Link Techniques”, which are unique team up attacks with various effects. All ten Sailor Guardians are playable, though only five members of each Guardian team can join the player’s party at one time. On certain occasions, the plot dictates which Guardians are playable but the player may choose to build their party, however certain characters are still required to be in the party during certain story points.