Returning to the Flower Division of the Imperial Combat Revue in Sakura Wars 2: Thou Shalt Not Die felt like a reunion with friends I hadn’t seen in too long. Set one year after the original game, the Flower Division once again defends its alternate 1920s steampunk Tokyo from a new enemy: the Black Demon Society. Much of the game revolves around keeping up the morale of the all-female theater troupe, now expanded with two new members, through conversations and time-limited answers. Although many of these conversations revolve around protagonist Ogami, the interaction between the troupe members feels natural and simply wandering the theater to see what everyone is up to is always a pleasure.
Where Sakura Wars 2 excels is in building on the solid foundation of its predecessor and giving the characters room to grow; I particularly enjoyed the evolution of Sumire and Kanna’s bickering and Iris’s attempts to befriend the emotionally distant Reni. Although the combat segments are a definite step forward compared to the original, the majority of the fights still offer little challenge and sitting through special attack with no means to skip through the animations can start to feel like a drag toward the end. That said, the game is the ideal sequel for those who enjoyed the character-driven story of the first game and were willing to put up with its combat segments. Your visit to the Grand Imperial Theater should be for the fantastic members of its troupe and not so much for their mech-piloting moonlighting.