GuestLog in

I remember the first Sailor Moon: Another Story translation. At a time when imports were hard to come by, and anime was heavily localized, playing it in English on ZSNES was a big deal. Fast-forward to today and the scene has so much has changed that its long-faded luster now reveals some ugly issues that were once easy to overlook.

This new translation is a much-needed breath of fresh air, and it hits all the right marks. Right from the start, the new title looks gorgeous, with thicker lettering that lets it stand out so much more than before. The typeface is still the same but it still looks great, so no complaints there.

Past that, the new script is just exquisite. The retranslated dialog is grammatically clean, and the language feels more like natural English than in the old translation. Japanese names are retained, while the new localization does away with a lot of the Japanese language conventions that would otherwise sound clunky in English. The cleanup of all of the old script's mistranslations also makes a lot of things way more clear than before.

The optional gameplay changes are a really nice bonus as well. I enjoy the fun and flashy combat, but the unmemorable monsters and shallow move pools get stale after a few grinding sessions, so the Grind-Be-Gone hack makes perfect sense, and the encounter rate is still enough to allow for some grinding. The Swiss Manicure hack is also great for making Mercury's long and drawn-out boss battles in Chapter 2 less so.

Overall, an excellent job by everyone involved. The script is beautifully done, the optional changes make sense, and both have made revisiting the game an absolute joy. Highly recommended.