Talk:Sakura Wars

New logo?

this is not so important. but I found this logo. is this the most up to date logo? [1] OR is this only used for one specific game? I'm sorry, I wish I knew more about Sakura Wars.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 17:55, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I found more evidence that this is indeed the logo for the series. The official website suggests that this is the logo that is used for the series as a whole found here: [2] however it has the "dot com" attached to it. I found another site that has it without the .com [3]. Does anyone think this is a better logo? Would anyone mind if I replaced the old one with the new one?Blue Pumpkin Pie ^{Chat Contribs} 16:01, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

I have no objections. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 02:32, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Animation studio for So Long, My Love

So, in the staff credits for Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, Production I.G is credited for animation production assistance while M.S.C was credited as the actual animation production studio, even though I.G's website says that they co-produced it. I tried to correct it, but it was reverted. WP:BRD, I'm taking the discussion to the talk page and see what we can do to work out a possible solution. Thoughts? Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 12:00, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

@Sjones23: Apologies if any offence was taken. I've done what I should've at first; done a search and actually brought up a source to confirm M.S.C.'s involvement. I've rewritten the article accordingly. The thing I was taking exception to was that the edits were made without any changes to sources. I was also a little put out by the addition of staff both without sources and in the main article. In the articles for individual games, it makes sense especially if the staff mentioned have articles. Otherwise it just looks like a Wikia page rather than Wikipedia. --ProtoDrake (talk) 12:15, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

@ProtoDrake: No hard feelings. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 12:17, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sakura Wars/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Red Phoenix (talk · contribs) 12:44, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I just did an FAC review for the first game not too long ago, and it seems like a very interesting subject. I'll be willing to have a look at the series article here. Hopefully I should have a full review for you by the end of the day. Red Phoenix ^talk 12:44, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Lead

• Sakura Wars is a Japanese steampunk media franchise created by Oji Hiroi and developed and owned by Sega. Does Red Entertainment not count as a developer? They're listed in the infobox to the right.
  • That was a later addition.
• While the series has seen continuity in the main actors who could both act and sing as well as composer Kohei Tanaka, several other designers, programmers and animation studios would be employed through a number of games. Confusing verb tense.
  • Rewrote this part in light of the current prose content.

Games

• The remake included additional voice acting, redone graphics and battle system based on later entries, and new scenarios. Two issues here: 1. the verb tense of "included" is wrong if the remake game exists today; use the present tense. Secondly, the addition of "and new scenarios" at the end makes this one sentence a run-on. I would rephrase to avoid this.
  • Both fixed, I hope.
• Sakura Wars 2: Thou Shalt Not Die was released in Japan in 1998. A 2006 Japanese PSP release of Sakura Wars and Thou Shalt Not Die was scheduled for release in North America, but was cancelled. Wait, I thought we said that both of the first games were ported to newer systems? Was this actually ported?
  • That was a later editor reworking the section and adding that. I've done another rework.
• I would link Windows in the second paragraph; I don't think this one use would constitute WP:OVERLINK.
  • Should be fixed with the rewrite.
• In addition to the main series, numerous spin-off games covering multiple genres were released, all with the "Dramatic" moniker of the main series. What does this mean?
  • I've removed the "Dramatic" bit.
• Why aren't the spinoffs listed in the release timeline? If we want to keep it as just main releases, the header needs to be changed to reflect this.
  • I've reworked it. Basically, since there's over twenty different spin-off games at a guess, it seemed silly to include them all. I've changed to a different list style.

Recurring elements

• Make sure we link the word steampunk at least once in the prose.
  • Done.
• The sequel expanded the number of actions to six, and included cinematic attacks. Actions per turn, or to select from?
  • Clarified.
• Link quick time event
  • Done.
• Choices made during LIPS sections directly impacted character performance in battle. Again, if the game still exists, they "impact", not "impacted".
  • Sorted.

History

• It's a minor nitpick, but when you have multiple references look at reordering them so they're in number order. It looks nicer and makes more sense.
  • That was a slip.
• Because of lack of interest from publishers, Hiroi shelved the project until he was approached by Sega vice president and Shoichiro Irimajiri approached Red Company about developing a new project for the in-development Saturn. You have two verbs here.
  • Sorted.
• Red Entertainment was bought by Chinese company UltaZen in 2011, with Sega regaining the Sakura Wars property. Do we have the right verb here? "Regaining" implies that Sega lost it and got it back. Did they "retain" it, where though Red was sold Sega kept the rights?
  • Rewrote it.
• Sega tried localizing the game at one point, but were stopped during the concept approval stage for unknown reasons. Avoid using passive voice if they are the ones who stopped it, and one would presume they were unless someone else stopped them.
  • Rewrote it.
• This was because Sony classed Sakura Wars as a text novel, making licensing for importation and translation difficult the initial rejection The last part of this sentence is confusing; please rephrase.
  • Done my best.
• A Hangul translation of So Long, My Love was published in South Korea by Sega in 2006. This is confusing; was the game translated into the Korean language? According to our article, Hangul is the Korean alphabet, not the language.
  • Fixed.

Reception and sales

• I'd try to do something with the table. Maybe at least call it "Famitsu and Metacritic review scores" in the table header. As it stands, it's nice to have some scores, but it's from so few sources that it should at least be noted. I understand why there are so few reviews available, but we should at least be up front that it's not really a broad cross-section of reviews in this way.
  • It's a template style I picked up from Ace Attorney, but since
• Sakura Wars 2 remains the best-selling title in the series, with over 500,000 copies sold on the Saturn alone, making one of the console's best-selling titles in Japan. I think there's an "it" missing in here.
  • Fixed.
• At the 1998 Animation Kobe event, Sakura Wars 2 was awarded in the "Packaged Work" category. What were they awarded? This reads a little odd.
  • Did my best to rewrite this.

No prose concerns in the "Related media" section

Images

• File:Sakura Wars V LIPS gameplay.jpg and File:Sakura Wars 3 gameplay 2.jpg need to be more specific in the "Portion used" and "Purpose of use" fields for their FURs. Both use the full screenshot and are used to illustrate that particular part of the gameplay in the game. "Illustrate Wikipedia article" is not a satisfactory fair-use rationale on its own.
  • Did my best here.
• The description in the article for File:Sakura-taisen-cafe.jpg should note this is a cafe pictured. It doesn't appear to be a store.
  • Fixed.
• Consider adding alternative text to your images so people with screenreaders or who are visually impaired can know what is in the images of the article.
  • Done.

Sources

• Is AnimeNewsNetwork a reliable source?
  • Yes, I've used it in other articles. It specialises in anime reporting, and is used in GA and FA articles related to the subject.
• Same goes for andriasang.com
  • The website was run by a reputable journalist, Anoop Gantayat, and has been accepted in other video game-related GAs and FAs.
• Be consistent with linking websites and publishers across all occurrences cited.
  • I've linked all the Anime News Network links, but Andriasang.com doesn't have its websites.

That should be it. Let's start there and see where we go. Overall, a nice job. Red Phoenix ^talk 13:35, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@Red Phoenix: I've done my best to address the issues you raised. Some of them were due to later edits, but many were definitely my bad. I hope the article looks better. I want to leave this series on a high note. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:59, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@ProtoDrake: It looks good, but now I have to raise objection to the way the Main series subsection has been handled. We now have a bulleted list with the games, with a box next to it with another bulleted list of the games. That's quite redundant. Furthermore, by putting the games with their prose material in a bulleted list, we wrecked the sentence fluency because just about every sentence after the first starts with "It was..." Per MOS:LISTBASICS, "Prefer prose where a passage is understood easily as regular text. Prose is preferred in articles because it allows the presentation of detail and clarification of context in a way that a simple list may not. It is best suited to articles because their purpose is to explain." The prose was actually a better way to handle this. I'm okay with the bulleted list in the box if we restore the prose of the section, but as it stands now, it doesn't make sense because it all seems redundant and repetitive. Red Phoenix ^talk 19:17, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@Red Phoenix: Apologies. I've reinstated the prose. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:35, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@ProtoDrake: No worries. I gave the prose a quick copyedit to remove minor errors. It looks pretty good now. Thanks for the quick responses, and I'm ready to pass the article. Nicely done. Red Phoenix ^talk 19:53, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

RED's involvement in the development?

Was Red Entertainment ever involved in the development (as in programming, production and playtesting) of the games. while all installments ST96-Dramatic Dungeon had Red credited as licensor (as stated in the opening logos for the pre-ST19-era games) and not as developer (while all the Columns spinoffs and STVE0 credit Red for the character design, STStory is an interesting case as RED had a "licensed & created" credit). VenezuelanSpongeBobFan2004 (talk) 07:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Localized Title for Sakura Wars: Atsuki Chishio Ni

Today a fresh account swept through the Sakura Wars franchise and related pages to revert the localized name of Sakura Wars: Atsuki Chishio Ni from the one used in the English localization for Sakura Wars V, "To My Heating Blood," to a fan-translated title, "In Hot Blood." I have reverted these changes, as they do not reflect the best information we have at this time on what the game should be called in English. The English title for Atsuki Chishio Ni can be viewed (in an emulator) in this screenshot:

https://preview.redd.it/05i7quvq4uu91.png?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=d3035e94f88b985f6f328e8042ff2fbf7501b103

This screen is not easily accessible because of region-locking on PlayStation 2 consoles, thus making it unlikely that the English release of Sakura V and the Japanese release of Heating Blood would have their save files on the same memory card, but the screen does exist. I recommend that until this localization is superseded by a newer source, we defer to this translation instead of falling back on unofficial fan translations. LordHuffnPuff (talk) 21:04, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I would beg to differ, here. The screen is very much using a placeholder title. Note the lack of copyright information that should exist for the title, and the fact that the game itself includes numerous such instances of unchecked translation errors. For example, referring to Hanabi as "Fireworks" in a bromide description.

That the screen is inaccessible without going through an emulator and hacking in save data should be more than proof of that. That this is being treated as an official, sanctioned translation of the title is specious. Maturra (talk) 21:35, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

I do not believe you need to hack with an emulator - PS2 memory cards are region-free. Furthermore, I'm not sure that even if this were to be the case that it would matter in this context. Generally all text strings are translated during a localization process irrespective of whether they will be exposed to the player, and indeed, the translation team (especially in older games) is often presented with lines jumbled up, in alphabetical order, in a spreadsheet, or in any other number of contextless or confusing scenarios, which is why you see errors like the Hanabi example you cite. Thus, we can't say that this is a placeholder title, or a wrong translation - somebody would need to produce some sort of interview or hard evidence to that effect; otherwise we have to presume that the string was translated as intended, given the context for where it appears in the game. Additionally, it would be odd to include copyright information tagged to in-game text in such a fashion - this is not standard practice for save import system text strings. I agree that in a subjective sense, "In Hot Blood" is certainly a better translation than To My Heating Blood, but this is the translation that we have, courtesy of NIS America working under license from SEGA, and unless we can produce a superseding document with an alternate title that either postdates the game's North American release, is sourced from SEGA directly, and/or indicates that this title is not meant to be the official title, it's the best we got. Which kind of sucks, but only one of the two titles under discussion actually appears in the code for a Sakura Wars game and thus meets the standards for Wikipedia's sourcing and citation.LordHuffnPuff (talk) 22:58, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay.

I've gone through my archives and numerous sources. The official English-language Google Play store page for Sega parent company Sammy's app "777 Town" mobile port of the Sakura Wars: Atsuki Chishio ni slot machine refers to the title as "Sakura Wars: In Hot Blood."

The most recent update was in September 2023. Maturra (talk) 02:16, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Failing that, Sega's 2003 financial report refers to the title as "To Hot Blood."

Both of these titles come directly from Sega and Sammy, at multiple points in time, offering a consensus and general consistency in their own internal naming for the title. Maturra (talk) 02:18, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

IMO "To Hot Blood" should be used due to the company using the name and the rather poor sourcing for "To My Heating Blood". Source #10 just gives "Hot Blood" as the translation. Source #95 on Sakura Wars (video game) also has the headline "Sakura Wars -In Hot Blood- Complete Music Collection". Jon698 (talk) 02:43, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

@Maturra: @LordHuffnPuff: Sources #136 and #137 on Sakura Wars also don't give the name "To My Heating Blood", but instead use "Atsuki Chishio Ni". Jon698 (talk) 02:46, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

The Google Play link provided above actually uses "In the Hot Blood," not "In Hot Blood" which offers a third translation rather than corroborating the fan translation or the NISA translation. The financial report offers a fourth option. Regarding @Jon698:'s reference, Source 95 on Sakura Wars (video game) is using the same fan translation, and is an import review, so should not be considered in this discussion of which translation is Official - it's just the reviewer's best guess, I would imagine. This gives us the following options, with sources:

1. In Hot Blood - popular fan name, but no official sources recommend this usage (though personally it's the "best" when it comes to natural English usage)
2. To My Heating Blood - Used by NIS America in their translation of Sakura Wars V. This is the only usage that has actually appeared in a Sakura Wars video game, to my knowledge.
3. In the Hot Blood - From the store page of [777TOWN] Pachislot Sakura Wars-In the Hot Blood- via Google Play Store.
4. Hot Blood - From the 777Town Pachislot site... but only if you use the site preview for the store page.
5. To Hot Blood - From Sega Corporation's Consolidated Financial Results for the Year ended March 31, 2003
6. Atsuki Chishio Ni - Just keep the Romaji and avoid this mess.

I would discard #1 out of hand due to lack of sourcing (bummer). 2, 3, and 5 are all stronger contenders, with 3 perhaps being the strongest due to it being the most recent. 4 seems like a goof. It's also maybe the worst grammatically, because of course it is. Romaji is always an option too, and maybe the best consensus approach, with a footnote about how it has been translated various ways over the years. LordHuffnPuff (talk) 03:22, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I wish to draw attention to policy Wikipedia:Article titles; which points out bluntly:

Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable, English-language sources) as such names will usually best fit the five criteria listed above.

— Wikipedia:Article titles

Further Essay: Wikipedia:Official names reinforces this position.

There is no widespread usage of the To My Heating Blood name. It's not a common name. The Google Play and Sega Crop financial doc information casts further doubts that this was ever intended as a title, as neither of them uses the word "heating".

Further evidence against official status is the lack of any 'trademark symbol'. Trademarks, both registered and unregistered are to be marked with a trademark symbol in most situations. (You can see examples of this on the covers of both official English and Japanese Sakura Wars covers.) If this was planned as and being treated as a title, it would have a trademark symbol. Legal would have been on them to put one there, because failure to properly identify a trademark can harm the ability to defend the trademark in court, especially an unregistered one. It would appear here, as this screen would likely be the only time the title would have appeared in Sakura Wars V.

My position is that we should continue with the revert to the Sakura Wars: In Hot Blood, as that name checks off all 5 items on article name checklist: recognizability, naturalness, precision, concision, and consistency.-- The Navigators (talk) 03:58, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Seconding this.

At the moment, we're picking from a bunch of non-ideal options, as Sega has never actually announced nor trademarked a formal title for the release.

"In Hot Blood," in particular, was born out of being a literal translation of the subtitle "Atsuki Chishio ni," which itself is an excerpt of an excerpt from a tanka in Akiko Yosano's Midaregami.

Beyond that, the only really ideal option would be to go with romaji, as "Atsuki Chishio ni" and "In Hot Blood" are both immediately recognizable and consistent, particularly among folks within the greater Sakura Wars community. It does fail the concision and recognizability clauses, though, as:

1. The title doesn't grok super well with folks not in the greater fan community, due to "In Hot Blood" being used almost ubiquitously everywhere from Giant Bomb to news sites like RPGFan.

2. "In Hot Blood" is known well enough that retailers outside of the fan community are labeling products with it. Maturra (talk) 05:38, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I won't stand in the way of consensus if a few more voices want to push hard on Option 1, but I think that this is a misapplication of that policy because we're not naming an article, which is explicitly what that article is about: Article Titles. This game has no dedicated article, only in-article references. I thing that preferring Atsuki Chishio Ni with a footnote that covers the naming situation is more ideal, and there is precedent - for example, the Tengai Makyō series (from the same developer studio, coincidentally!) uses the Romaji in an article title despite Far East of Eden being a widely-used and recognized English name for that series. LordHuffnPuff (talk) 10:55, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I'd also be fine with Atsuki Chishio Ni, as it's an official title. Maturra (talk) 02:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Given that this conversation has not been updated since 3/1, can we assume consensus? Maturra (talk) 03:38, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

@Maturra: I would say yes. Go ahead and make the necessary changes. Jon698 (talk) 18:31, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I was waiting for somebody else to weigh in, seems fine to me. LordHuffnPuff (talk) 21:02, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Although this thread is at least a month old, I agree that we usually go with the most commonly recognizable name. I've contacted the video games WikiProject here for their thoughts on the matter. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:36, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

The question as always is what the sources call it. The sources do appear to call it "In Hot Blood", so that is what it ought to be called. What is in the Wii game is largely irrelevant since we as video game article editors know that Engrish is rather common in localizations. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 05:33, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that we should go with the common name, but I wonder if any of the translated names are "common", or if the untranslated title is still the most recognizable? I'm not at all familiar with the sources so I'll defer to anyone who is. Axem Titanium (talk) 19:45, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

"In Hot Blood" has a bit more presence, to the point that some retailers use it for merch. Notably, it's been what Pacino dealers have used to sell machines for ages. Beyond that, it's the common name on news sites like RPGFan and VGMO.

Atsuki Chishio Ni gets a lot of play, but IHB tends to be generally known and referenced. Maturra (talk) 20:05, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• Outsider opinion: if it's this controversial and unclear what the English translation is, then use "Atsuki Chishio Ni" in prose, with a footnote listing the relevant translations. SnowFire (talk) 18:28, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

  That's what I suggested. We had consensus and a month of silence, no real reason to reopen this now. LordHuffnPuff (talk) 22:25, 12 April 2024 (UTC)