Sailor Moon was all about using her supernatural abilities and, uh, moon powers to defend the solar system and protect its inhabitants from the invasion of evil forces. Teenaged girls put on their tiaras and mini-skirts and suddenly they have the ability to defeat demons and such. But every once in a while, when the costumes are still in the dryer or the Gatorade supply runs low, the Sailor Senshi have to resort to other, more drastic measures. Those measures, my friend, are answering miscellaneous trivia questions.
Quiz Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (with the lovely subtitle of "Chiryoku Tairyoku Toki No Un" just to make things lengthier than necessary) follows our girl heroes as they make their way through various themed areas in order to get to the evil Professor Tomoe, the ultimate antagonist of this lovable romp. But instead of engaging in fights with the various crudely-covered lady foes you'll encounter on a frequent basis, you must engage in... a battle of knowledge! Banzaiiii!!!
After selecting your girl of choice, you'll find that each stage plays like a board game: you roll a die (which, for some reason, is almost as big as your character) and move that many spaces. You'll probably land on an enemy space where you'll be forced to answer trivia questions to defeat them. And believe me: you'll encounter MANY bouts of trivia. If you're lucky, you'll land on a space that either has no effect (similar to a "Roll Again" freebie) or you'll find a cute item -- typically a kawaii doll version of one of the Sailor Senshi -- that will help you out with the next batch of questions, such as Sailor Mercury providing her expertise on what she thinks is the right answer (complete with percentage amount of confidence). Doesn't that girl supposedly have an IQ of 300? She should know all the answers. To EVERYTHING.
Not exactly sure what they're saying, but at least Sailor Jupiter looks happy. That's a good sign, right?
Usually tucked away in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen are four cards with various symbols on them, representing the symbols of each Sailor Senshi. Your goal is to have all four of them match up, reviving one of the Senshi to join you as you stumble through each stage and occasionally provide the necessary assistance to survive (or have to insert another token, as the case may be). After each bout of trivia with an enemy, you get the opportunity to flip over one of the four cards so that it changes symbols, hoping that it will match one of the others. When all four eventually match, some weird green-haired fairy brings back a Sailor Senshi (or, if she's already revived, a doll version as a bonus). After each stage, you'll get bonus points for those that you have rescued; the nice thing is, when you bring back a Senshi, she'll remain with you for the rest of the game. No need to repeatedly raise the dead.
There is the occasional mini-game where you race against a giant cat head (representing that talking feline, Luna), getting bursts of speed by answering simple YES/NO questions correctly. (Failing to provide an apt response results in your character falling flat on her face for a brief moment.) And, sitting in seemingly random locations, are shops run by Sailor Chibi Moon, but I'm not sure what I was buying. Or if I was buying anything. She just stacked her inventory in a huge messy pile. Learn how to run a business.
The game is pleasant enough to look at; characters are rendered with an impressive amount of sprite detail. The Sailor Senshi all suffer from some sort of incurable disease: they have relatively small bodies and pumpkinesque heads on the map screen. Everywhere you look, vivid splashes of colour paint the scenery. Close-ups of enemies are drawn quite well (and really, really strangely -- why would a demon wear a giant shoe as a shirt?), and there are even some animated sequences wedged in for good measure. The music is nothing to wave a flag about, though it is adequately cheerful. There is, however, no shortage of voice clips from the Senshi and their adversaries, so if you're feeling lonely, you can pretend they're talking with you.
Quiz games were fairly popular in Japan, and there were plenty of them lining the walls of arcades in the 1990s. There really isn't much to them beyond the asking and answering of questions, not unlike a game of Trivial Pursuit. Unfortunately, for most of us, the text and speech are both entirely in Japanese, making the attempt of this game an effort in futility for those not versed in the language. For Sailor Moon fanatics in Japan, I'm sure it's a fun experience. For the rest of us, it's a curiosity at best, but certainly one that deserves more than a quick glance.
