the events of Sakura Wars 4. For So Long, My Love, the lead protagonist was changed to Ogami's nephew Shinjiro Taiga, who is sent in place of Ogami to train the New York Combat Revue. The 2019 soft reboot of Sakura Wars takes place in 1940, twelve years after an event called the "Great Demon War" saw the destruction of all three original Flower Divisions. New divisions were created across the world and began competing with each other, with the newly reformed Tokyo Flower Division being the main protagonists. Gameplay The gameplay of Sakura Wars incorporate role-playing, dating sim and visual novel elements. This blend of genres and styles resulted in it being labeled as a new genre dubbed "dramatic adventure" in its marketing. The original combination of narrative and tactical role-playing gameplay was inspired by the Fire Emblem series. The gameplay is split between adventure-style segments where the player explores environments and interacts with cast members; and battle sections where choices during the adventure segments come into play. With the main female cast, the protagonist can pursue a romance. Romance options can be carried between the first four titles using save data. Throughout the series, the games have used different battle systems. The first Sakura Wars and its sequel made use of a traditional turn-based battle system on a tilted two-dimensional grid-based battlefield. Each unit has two actions from a selection of five. The sequel expanded the selection to six, and included cinematic attacks. The leader could also issue commands to the entire squad to take specific battle formations. Sakura Wars 3 introduced the "Active & Realtime Machine System" (ARMS), which takes place in three-dimensional battle arenas. Under this system, units have an allotment of Action Points (AP). AP are used up by moving around the battlefield. Units can perform one of six actions, with two actions per turn as in earlier titles. Each unit has special abilities, and attack ranges based on their weaponry. For the 2019 Sakura Wars, the battle system was redesigned to use action-based combat, focusing on free movement within large arenas. Central to all the games and most spin-off titles is the "Live & Interactive Picture System" (LIPS). During conversations with characters and key story sections, the player is faced with critical choices with an imposed time limit. The concept behind LIPS was to maintain player engagement while making narrative rather than freezing time