I Got to Play the Card Captor Sakura Animetic Story 1 (Here’s my Review!)
Ah the late nineties. Most of us (well, okay, I won’t say most of us. I can’t say most of us anymore because we millennials are now getting our feet fully planted in the realm of our 30s -shudder-) were being introduced to our favorite anime during this glorious time in our childhood. I can’t even remember my first episode of Sailor Moon or how I started watching Card Captor Sakura (I feel like Toonami probably had a hand in it but I genuinely don’t remember) . What I do remember, though, was that those two and the early Pokemon pretty much made up my entire personality as a kid.
If you were a fan of Card Captor Sakura back in the day and you were in the US, you probably don’t remember a cute little PlayStation 1 game called Card Captor Sakura Animatic Story 1 (and because of my font I’ll just say this now. 1 = one). This game was originally a japan-only release Or at least I think it was Japan only, since I can only find its August 1999 release date and usually when its released in Japan and America they have to different dates.
Anyway, the point is, I think a lot of us blossoming magical girl anime fans had no idea this game even existed.
Over the weekend I was scrolling on my Pinterest next to my husband on the couch. He looks over just as I’m scrolling past a cute anime pixel gif. He leans over and goes “What are you looking at? Is that pixel art? Is that pixel art and you didn’t show me?!” (jokingly, of course, because that’s how we play and he loves pixel art). I scroll back up and I show him and somehow from there we fell down a rabbit hole of trying to figure out where the art came from. I kind of assumed it was just someone’s cute fanart, but oh ho no Dear Reader! This turned out to be the Card Captor Sakura Animetic Story 1 game!
So here’s the basic idea of the game:
It’s a retelling of the first season (well, actually half the first season. I think that’s why they called it “Animetic 1”. We’re guessing they were going to make another one but never did) using cute little pixel art. They allow you to play through a lot of the parts and then others, ones I imagine they thought might’ve been too big of a pain in the butt to try and reanimate with pixels, pulled straight from the anime itself. The game even opens to the main menu with the iconic Card Captor Sakura opening.
You know the one I’m talking about.
A lot of the gameplay consisted of moving Sakura (or at one point, Tomoyo) around and playing little plot-specific mini games like trying to guide the water card into the freezer. It’s not really complicated because they give you button prompts, but there’s still a small sense of anxiety when the time comes to do it, which kept the game fun even when it started to get a teensie bit repetitive.
My one critique as that they used a touch too many anime scenes. Like yeah I know the point is to play through the first season but I would’ve liked to have, like, squared off against the Fly card but they just play the anime sequence during that part instead.
Overall, I give the game 7/10 stars! It’s cute and a fun way to spend an afternoon (And I do mean an afternoon. It’s incredibly short. I started at like 10:30 and ended it by 2 and that’s with frequent snack breaks) but there were a few things that bugged me a little about it. They weren’t glaring problems that made it unplayable, though, so I can’t be too picky about it.
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See you guys next time! If you play this game, let me know what you think!
