Sakura Wars Gets New Spiricle Fighter to Commemorate Upcoming Anime

Earlier this week, Sega updated the Japanese version of Sakura Wars on PlayStation 4 to Ver. 1.01 with a brand-new mecha suit that heroine Sakura Amamiya can pilot – the spiricle fighter Mugen. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

Usually, the Mugen is a new high-spec spiricle fighter only used by Floral Division captain Seijurou Kamiyama within the Imperial Combat Revue, while Sakura pilots the spiricle armor Sanshiki Koubu, which is an upgraded model of the Koubu used by the previous generation of Floral Division members. However, now Sakura can pilot her own ‘Sakura Amamiya Unit’ Mugen in the game as well.

The new ‘Mugen’ unit is being added as a sort-of crossover between the game and upcoming anime. In the anime, Seijurou is away on a transfer to Europe, and entrusts the Floral Division to Sakura as a result, only coming back to leave the Floral Division with a young girl named Clara, who’s said to be from the Moscow Combat Revue. The story is original to the anime, and it doesn’t seem like there will be much crossover between the anime and game’s story. The anime airs in Japan beginning next month.

As the Sakura Amamiya Unit Mugen isn’t part of the game’s main story, it’s only usable in simulator challenges that are accessed through the Ikusa-chan combat simulator.

Here are more screenshots of the new unit below:

Ver. 1.01 also adds in a dialogue history feature, an actual enemy lock-on mode, button reassignments, the ability to save and load from the settings anywhere, and also completely drops any streaming limitations. This addresses a lot of things that some Japanese players have complained about since the game’s launch last year.

Sakura Wars is immediately available on the PlayStation 4 in Japan and will come to the west on April 28, 2020. Sakura Wars: The Animation will begin airing in Japan on April 3, 2020.