is a cross-genre video game developed by Red Company and Overworks and published by Sega for the Dreamcast. The third installment in the Sakura Wars series, it was released in March 2001. Defined by its publisher as a "dramatic adventure" game, Is Paris Burning? combines overlapping tactical role-playing, dating sim and visual novel gameplay elements.
Taking place after the events of Sakura Wars 2: Thou Shalt Not Die, Sakura Wars 3 follows protagonist Ichiro Ogami as he joins the newly formed Paris Combat Revue and trains the "Flower Division", an all-female unit dedicated to fighting supernatural threats against the city while working as a cabaret act. Alongside Ogami's training, the Paris Division must prevent Salu and the Paris Phantoms, the game's main antagonists, from threatening Paris.
The concept work for Sakura Wars 3 began during development of Thou Shalt Not Die. Most of the original staff returned, including series creator and general producer Oji Hiroi, writer Satoru Akahori, artists Kōsuke Fujishima and Hidenori Matsubara, and composer Kohei Tanaka. Newcomers included director Akira Nishino and executive producer Noriyoshi Ohba. While retaining the basic systems of the Sakura Wars series, the engine and gameplay were rebuilt for the Dreamcast, with a new battle system being designed. The anime cutscenes were produced by Production I.G, blending traditional animation with computer graphics. It received positive reviews from journalists and sold over 300,000 units. A direct sequel, Sakura Wars 4: Fall in Love, Maidens, was released in 2002.
Gameplay
Sakura Wars 3: Is Paris Burning? is a cross-genre video game in which the player controls Ichiro Ogami and the all-female "Flower Division" of the Paris Combat Revue, who must defeat Salu and the Paris Phantoms before they threaten Paris. Dubbed a "dramatic adventure" game and taking place across 11 episodes, the gameplay segments incorporate tactical role-playing, dating sim and visual novel elements. Gameplay is divided between adventure segments where Ogami explores Montmartre, and combat sequences governed by a turn-based battle system across a three-dimensional (3D) area allowing full range of movement.
During the adventure segments, Ogami navigates Montmartre and the Paris Division's base at the club Le Chatte Noir starting from his apartment. During these sequences, when talking with both members of the Paris Division and supporting characters within the Paris Combat Revue, conversations rely on the traditional Live & Interactive Picture System (LIPS). When faced with critical choices in the course of a conversation, dialogue options are displayed with a time limit for the player to select a response. Depending on the type of response, the character may react positively or negatively, impacting their relationship and future interactions with Ogami. Other actions within LIPS include holding the cursor over parts of a character's portrait to trigger internal monologues and varying responses from the characters.Sega, pp. 22-23 The version used in Sakura Wars 3 is dubbed Analog LIPS; certain choices allow for use of the analog stick to adjust the intensity of a single answer, which can in turn elicit further variation from characters.Sega, p. 24 An additional "dinner mode" has Ogami taking dinner with the other protagonists, with whom Ogami initiates a conversation with and how that conversation develops affecting later interactions. A version of this mode, dubbed "Elegant Day in Paris", is dedicated solely to navigation and LIPS-based interactions.Sega, p. 46
During combat segments, the Paris Division fights monsters in the streets of Paris using machines called Kobus. This game uses a real-time battle system called the Active & Realtime Machine System (ARMS), where each unit has a full range of movement, with their distance limited by an Action Point meter.Sega, pp. 32-34 They have their own turn, with each turn allowing two actions. These actions include "Attack", "Defend", "Move", "Deathblow" (a critical strike that kills an enemy in one hit), Charge (store energy for a more powerful action during the next turn), and Heal (which restores health points to a chosen unit). Different units specialize in different skills, such as support actions, melee attacks, or distance attacks—along with their range of movement, each unit also has an independent range in which they can perform actions.Sega, pp. 35-38 Actions taken during LIPS sequences with members of the Flower Division directly impact battles; skillful performances during LIPS segments raises a character's Trust, granting status increases and improving combat ability. LIPS interactions can also unlock Combination and Coalesce attacks, where two characters perform a joint attack to deal high damage to a single enemy. If certain conditions are not met or if Ogami's unit is destroyed, the game ends.Sega, p. 31
Minigames can be played during adventure segments, with each minigame being themed around one of the main characters; these include a top-down arcade-style shooter, a chess-style tactical game, score-based games where Ogami must hit targets, and a simulation where Ogami and another character pick locks within a time limit. A dedicated casino allows Ogami to play poker, blackjack, and on a slot machine. When in his apartment, Ogami can access a device called the Kimenotron, allowing audio communication with characters from earlier Sakura Wars games. A portable version of this called the Mobile Kimenotron is also available for players who connected the Dreamcast console's Visual Memory Unit, which relays text messages at random intervals.Sega, p. 26
Synopsis In 1926, Imperial Japanese Navy Lieutenant Ichiro Ogami arrives in Paris to train a new fighting unit established by the government to combat supernatural threats. Dubbed the "Paris Combat Revue" and modelled on Ogami's original group from Tokyo, the all-female group maintains its cover as a cabaret act at the nightclub Les Chatte Noir. Their main fighting unit is called the Paris Division, its members acting as both cabaret stars and magically-imbued warriors able to pilot mechas called Kobus. Its initial members are clumsy nun Erica Fontaine, and cold French noble Glycine Bleumer. In his efforts to build the group, Ogami helps recruit three more members—Coquelicot, a Vietnamese traveling circus performer; French-Japanese widow Hanabi Kitaoji; and Romanian master thief Lobelia Carlini.
As the Paris Division grows, Paris is attacked by a group of black magicians dubbed the Paris Phantoms, many of whom torment members of the unit in attempts to break them. The Paris Phantoms are revealed to be controlled by the clown Salu; the last of an ethnic group who communed with Paris' dead and were hunted to near-extinction, Salu intends to use the Great Oak Tree, a god-like being which guards Paris, to resurrect his people using Paris' population as sacrifices. Using their united spiritual power, the Paris Division are able to defeat Salu, restoring Paris and the Great Oak Tree.
Alongside these events, Ogami experiences Parisian city life and culture while training the group to function with the same ability as the Imperial Combat Revue's Flower Division alongside their roles as cabaret performers at Les Chatte Noir. During his interactions with each member, he has the option of pursuing a romance with them. The flow of events is broken slightly when the Flower Division arrives in Paris during summer holidays, and demonstrates their comradeship and unity to the Paris group during a dance competition. Following Salu's defeat, Ogami decides that the group is able to fend for itself and leaves for Tokyo. The final scenes alter depending on whether Ogami pursued a romance with a member of the Paris Division.
Development Concept work for Sakura Wars 3 began during the development of Sakura Wars 2: Thou Shalt Not Die, with the ending of the second game leading directly into the events of Sakura Wars 3. The game was produced by Red Company and Sega's Overworks division; Overworks was one of Sega's nine semi-autonomous studios when the company restructured its arcade and console development teams in 2000. Series creator Oji Hiroi returned as general producer, along with director Akira Nishino and series writer Satoru Akahori. Regular series character designers Hidenori Matsubara and Kōsuke Fujishima devised the visuals for the new characters, while mecha designs were handled by Mika Akitaka. Noriyoshi Ohba, who produced the last two games, was the executive producer. New staff members included producer Ryutaro Nonaka.
While the previous two titles had been developed for the Sega Saturn, the console was soon to be replaced by its successor, the Dreamcast. Due to the game being for a new platform, the engine and systems were rebuilt from scratch to take advantage of all the Dreamcast's planned features. The more comprehensive "Analog LIPS" system was born from the team's wish to add variety to Ogami's individual responses. The Kinematron communication device—first introduced in Thou Shalt Not Die—was redesigned to take advantage of the Dreamcast controller, in addition to playing a larger role in the story and potential romances by keeping Ogami in contact with the Flower Division in Tokyo. The team also aimed to reduce loading times between the adventure gameplay segments; the revamped system was dubbed "Seamless ADV".
So as to properly portray Paris in the 1920s, Hiroi and other staff traveled to Paris to research its culture and setting, consulted with French natives who could speak Japanese, and made reproductions of adverts from the 1920s. During the course of development, Hiroi estimated that around 80% of the early planning material went unused in the final game. Producing the cutscenes was an exhaustive process, requiring 200 different cuts, storyboards equivalent to a half-hour original video animation (OVA), and 4000 sheets of character movements. The cutscenes included a technique dubbed "Neo CGI", which blended 3D computer graphics with traditional 2D animation. The anime segments were directed by Shinji Takagi and produced by Production I.G, which had first worked on Thou Shalt Not Die.
A major theme of the game is talking with people, which was amplified through the use of Paris as a setting, as during the game's time period Japan had little contact with the outside world apart from its navy. The idea of moving the setting from Tokyo to Paris was suggested to Hiroi by Akahori. The premise drew from the short story "The Dancing Girl" by Mori Ōgai. The nightclub where the Paris Division were based was inspired by Le Chat Noir, one of the early venues of modern cabaret. Commenting on creating the game's character design drafts, Fujishima called the experience both exciting and difficult. An unusual addition to the cast was Lobelia, who was brought in on sufferance due to her power. The game's subtitle was taken from the title of a book of the same name by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, which had been made into a 1966 movie. The phrase made reference to the instructions given by Adolf Hitler to Dietrich von Choltitz to destroy Paris before the Allies of World War II arrived.
Audio