Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S: Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen or simply Sailor Moon S, is a 1994 Fighting Game based on the Sailor Moon franchise for the Super Famicom. The game was published by Angel with the development work secretly done by a then unknown developer named Arc System Works.
Released only in Japan, the game was one of a number of fighting games based on licensed properties that was released during the genre's golden age in 90's. However, unlike most of these, it turned out that Sailor Moon S was actually a pretty good game. Partly because it was one of the first fighting games to come with an honest to goodness training mode, but mostly because it was just that good (this was Arc System Works after all).
The video game gives some of the Sailor Senshi original attacks not seen in the manga or anime - for example, Sailor Mars' Fire Heel Drop and Sailor Jupiter's Double Axel. Some of these attacks would carry over to future BSSM fighting games. Naturally, the characters are all voiced by the original Japanese seiyuu as well.
During the 2000s, import copies of the game made their way to the west and into the hands of the Fighting Game Community. This resulted in the game getting played in gatherings and tournaments.
Finally, at the Evo 2018 tournament, Arc System Works eventually admitted to having developed the game after years of not saying anything.Thanks to word of mouth and the efforts of the game's fans, the tournament scene around Sailor Moon S has become a rather decently sized one by the 2020s and is a staple side tournament in many fighting game competitions, including Evo.
A follow up game exists called Sailor Moon SuperS Shin Shuyaku Soudatsusen for the Super Famicom, and later Sega Saturn, which adds Sailor Saturn as a playable character. However, this version is generally seen as inferior to the original due to a number of gameplay changes. This game is also not to be confused with the Game Gear version, while it shares the exact same name, is a very different game in a different genre.
- Sailor Moon
- Sailor Mercury
- Sailor Mars
- Sailor Venus
- Sailor Jupiter
- Sailor Neptune
- Sailor Uranus
- Sailor Pluto
- Sailor Chibi Moon
- NOTE: The Outer Senshi (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, plus Saturn in the SuperS version) are playable only in versus mode. In story mode, they serve as boss characters.
In the Name of the Moon, these tropes will punish you!:
- Apologetic Attacker: Sailor Mercury's reaction to defeating an opponent is to bow with her hands folded, as if to apologize. Some later fighting games even add a voice clip: "Gomen nasai."
- Desperation Attack: Each of the senshi has a super move they can only pull off when they're low on life.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- Sailor Uranus's infinite combo requires the player to quickly forward dash in between her attacks.
- Sailor Moon's full screen fireball mix up. This requires that the player backdash to get her just ever so slightly into the air so she can throw her air fireball close to the ground. This allows her to land and then immediately do her long range forward dash to overtake her fireball and cross up her opponent.
- Chibi Moon can make herself completely invincible through the use of a frame perfect back dash, making her unable to be hit with any attack in the game.
- Energy Ball: Each of the Senshi has at least one projectile attack, and some have more than one - i.e. Sailor Moon has both Moon Tiara Action and Moon Spiral Heart Attack, which was replaced by Moon Gorgeous Meditation in the SuperS sequel. The sequel kept some of them (i.e. Sailor Moon's Moon Tiara Action and Sailor Neptune's Deep Submerge) and replaced most of the rest (i.e. Mars Flame Sniper replaces Fire Soul Bird, Venus Love and Beauty Shock replaces Crescent Beam, and so on).
- Excuse Plot: Why are the Sailor Senshi fighting each other? Because each of them thinks that they'd be a much better leader than Usagi. They don't really follow up on this, of course...
- Game Mod: Sailor Moon Fighter S
is a hack of SuperS that translates all the text into English while also providing gameplay tweaks, a few more alternate colors for each character, and even two guest fighters such as...uh... Aoki Marin from Genki's Seifuku Densetsu Pretty Fighter and Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, for some reason... - Hit Stop: Standard for any fighting game. However, like most nineties fighters, it doesn't really have a lot of this.
- Lethal Joke Character: While most of Chibi Moon's attacks are quite weak, the little spore can dodge most projectile attacks easily, and her SuperS desperation move - Twinkle Yell, in which she summons Pegasus to attack her adversary - is pretty powerful. She is also the only character that can make herself completely invincible albeit through the use of a frame perfect back dash.
- Magic Skirt: Mostly played straight (the intended audience is young girls, after all), but a few attacks do provide some panty shots, such as Sailor Moon's HK or Mercury's desperation move.
- The One Guy: In the hack, Sailor Moon Fighter S, the single male character isn't even Tuxedo Mask, but Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, of all people! He's also the Token Non-Human, the only male mutant turtle.
- Shotoclone: Surprisingly enough, not Sailor Moon, but Sailor Neptune who has a projectile (her Deep Submerge) and a "Shoryuken" style uppercut.
- Shout-Out: Several special moves are inspired ones from other fighting games, such as Mercury's Reverse Break Step basically being Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick (minus the "Bird" part, since she does a hand-stand), and Mars's Mars Snake Fire and Fire Heel Drop being Terry Bogard's Power Wave and Crack Shoot, respectively.
- Shoryuken: Sailor Neptune's uppercut, which also happens to be her defining attack for players of the game, thanks to how safe it is on block.
