If you’ve been into visual novels for a while, you’ve probably heard of Da Capo. Even if you’ve not, you may have heard of the upcoming remake D.C. ~Da Capo~ Re:tune, which is Japan-only as far as we know, but I’m personally really hoping it gets an English release. But have you heard of T.P. Sakura ~Time Paladin Sakura~? It’s a Da Capo spin-off which is only available in Japan and comes in two parts.
Using ZenMarket, who have kindly sponsored this article, is how I bought this. They’re an import service that focuses on helping to order items from Japan, consolidating packages to keep the delivery costs down, and sending items worldwide. We’ve given an overview of our experience with their service and how to use it in a previous article.
While I’ll be offering more of a brief look than a review, I thought it’d be interesting to share some impressions of part one of this Japan-only title by CIRCUS.
Mahou Shoujo Sakura
T.P. Sakura ~Time Paladin Sakura~ launched shortly before Da Capo 3. It’s fitting in a way since both titles include magic more explicitly than those before.
In this short all-ages spin-off, Sakura Yoshino features as a time-traveling magical girl. It’s set in a world where her grandmother runs the local branch of a worldwide agency aiming to protect the timeline, assisted by several characters who Da Capo fans may or may not be familiar with. Interestingly, most of the more prominent ones are Aisia Tsukishiro, Alice Tsukishiro, and Erika Murasaki, who featured in the expanded versions of Da Capo I and II which never got localized in English.
Another major difference is it lowers the age of many of the characters. Sakura, Kotori, Jun’i’chi, and others spend their days at elementary school and enjoying their time as kids, at least until danger occurs.
With that said, T.P. Sakura ~Time Paladin Sakura~ is a fairly relaxed story. Suginami plays the villain and true to character, he’s more mischievous than evil. It also plays things a little sillier than normal, like giving a certain android girl the ability to shoot beams from her eyes.
Temporal Crime
Most of Sakura’s missions are to stop the Time-Travelling Thief Suginami, who as well as stealing historical artifacts, performs such horrid crimes as saving a puppy. These actions are such that while they may cause trouble for the timeline, they can easily be understood as coming from a person who is good at heart. As well as their fights, they also end up competing over a barbeque and falling into other comedic situations.
I enjoyed a lot of these situations for the comedy and even found myself interested in the historical references made during Suginami’s heists. Many of the cases are connected to famous figures in Japanese history.
While the situations are mostly fairly laid back, it does lead up to a slightly more serious situation where values clash. Unfortunately, Part 1 does end in a cliffhanger mid-action scene. If you enjoyed the first part of T.P. Sakura ~Time Paladin Sakura~, you’ll likely want to go searching for part two right away.
T.P.S. Shooting
As well as the visual novel portion of T.P. Sakura ~Time Paladin Sakura~, the game includes a shooting game called T.P.S. Shooting. This includes a small story. It has rather basic shmup gameplay, but it was a fun bonus.
Impressions
While characterizations are a little different due to the reduced ages and situations, I enjoyed T.P. Sakura ~Time Paladin Sakura~ as a Da Capo fan. It’s interesting to see the characters I enjoyed when I was reading the original visual novel and watching the anime series in a very different situation but with many of their core personality traits still shining through.
Considering that this is a 2011 all-ages spin-off, and at least as of the time I’m writing this, there’s no news of localizations of even the mainline visual novels beyond Da Capo 3, I can’t ever see it coming out in English. So if you’re interested in getting your hands on it, you might have to pick up a physical Japanese copy. It was a nice, if somewhat niche, addition to my collection.
Thanks again go to ZenMarket for sponsoring this article. If you’d like to purchase the physical version of Kanon, please consider checking out their service and don’t forget to use code NOOKGAMING when signing up for 800 Yen worth of ZenPoints toward delivery.
If you are looking for another visual novel, you may enjoy Da Capo or Angelic☆Chaos RE-BOOT! We have also covered a wide variety of visual novels both original to English and localized from Japanese, which you can check out here.
A gamer since the days of Amstrad and DOS and someone who has dabbled in a variety of professions. He enjoys a wide variety of genres, but has been focusing on visual novels and virtual reality in recent years. Head Editor of NookGaming. Follow him and the website on @NookSite.
