The 10 Best Sailor Moon Games, Ranked: Super Famicom and Arcade Classics Scored Across 4 Categories

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The first Sailor Moon retro game you should play is the Super Famicom’s Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story. Released by Angel on September 22, 1995, it’s the only RPG the series ever got, and it runs on a completely original story written for the game by the manga’s creator, Naoko Takeuchi. This is a licensed tie-in that calmly steps over the fence most licensed tie-ins never get near.

Sailor Moon games were mass-produced across a span of just five years, from 1992 to 1996, and they hit almost every major platform of the era: Super Famicom, Game Boy, Mega Drive, PC Engine, Game Gear, 3DO, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, arcade, Playdia, and Pico. So “a Sailor Moon game” doesn’t actually describe anything. The genres are all over the map: side-scrolling beat-’em-ups, one-on-one fighters, an RPG, a puzzler, adventure games. Which one you pick changes the entire experience.

So for this article I picked the 10 most representative Sailor Moon games released on retro hardware and ranked them by scoring each one out of 100 on four axes: Playability, Graphics, Brutality, and Replay Value. Release dates, publishers, developers, and period-accurate specs have all been verified before writing. And while we’re here, I’ll admit I’m the kind of person who used to fish licensed games like these out of clearance bins because they were cheap, so I have a certain confidence in my nose for landmines.

And at the end, I’ll settle the question every retro-game article should answer. Can you actually play these 10 games on modern hardware as of September 2026? I’ll give you the conclusion with hard numbers in the second half. Fair warning up front: it gets rough.

The ranking is ordered by total score, but if you look at the breakdown across the four axes you should be able to spot the one that fits you almost immediately. Start with the full scoreboard for all 10 games.

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Score Comparison: All 10 Sailor Moon Retro Games

Each game is scored out of 100 on four criteria. “Brutality” means the higher the number, the harder and more punishing the game; a low number means it’s gentle. The Total Score is the sum of all four axes.

The interesting part is the difference in personality between #1 and #4. Another Story takes the top spot on the strength of a 95 in Replay Value, while the arcade game claws its way to fourth on a spiky 95 in Graphics and 90 in Brutality. At the other end, last-place Sailor Moon R lands at 58 Brutality and 52 Replay Value, because its thin content, just four stages total, shows up directly in the numbers. From here I’ll go through them one at a time and pin down exactly what separates them.

#1 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story | The Series’ Only RPG, and It’s Fully Realized

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story for the Super Famicom is an RPG released by Angel on September 22, 1995. Development was handled by Arc System Works and TNS. It was the sixth entry in the Super Famicom line, and the only RPG in the entire series. The simple fact that exactly one game here plays by different rules tells you most of what you need to know.

Its greatest asset is that the story is a fully original one written by series creator Naoko Takeuchi. The enemy organization, Hell Destiny, is built around the theme of “destiny,” and Takeuchi even drew the original artwork for the new villains. This isn’t an anime episode reenacted in sprite form; it’s a story built for the game, and the Sailor Guardians run it end to end. Joji Yuno served as producer.

On the combat side, the game makes the extravagant choice of putting all 10 Sailor Guardians in your hands as playable characters. The three Outer Guardians, who were restricted to versus mode in the series’ fighting games, are full party members here, moving under your own control. Licensed RPGs usually end up with one strong lead and a supporting cast padding out the roster, but everyone has a place here. Early print runs shipped with a special original card packed in, and if you bought the game specifically for that card, be honest and raise your hand. Mine’s up.

#2 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S: Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen | A Real Fighting Game Wearing a Licensed Face

Released on December 16, 1994, Angel’s Super Famicom fighter Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S: Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen (roughly, “Brawl Outside the Ring!? The Fight for the Lead Role”) is the one game in the series that actually gets respect as a fighting game. Development came from Arc System Works and TNS, the same pairing as Another Story. That combination is a big part of why Sailor Moon games of this era hit as often as they did.

The standard roster is six Sailor Guardians, and versus mode adds the three Outer Guardians: Sailor Uranus, Sailor Neptune, and Sailor Pluto. Under the hood you get link combos that demand precise timing and a backdash with invincibility frames, which turns matches into genuine guessing games. This is not a fighting game coasting on cute character art.

There’s also a touch that’ll make you grin. Clear the game and the title itself changes to the name of whichever Guardian won, so it becomes something like Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Mercury S. Exactly as the subtitle promises, the winner walks off with the lead role. That kind of small, precise flourish would still land in a modern game, wouldn’t it?

#3 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (Super Famicom) | The Two-Player Beat-‘Em-Up Everyone Played

The series started on Super Famicom with Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, released on August 27, 1993 by Angel, a Bandai subsidiary. Arc System Works developed it, and the genre is side-scrolling beat-’em-up. Its five stages can be cleared with two players at once.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (August 27, 1993 / Angel). When it came to go-to titles for playing with a friend, this was it. I only realized it as an adult, but there’s something genuinely forceful about Sailor Guardians mowing down the enemies in their path with punches, kicks, and the occasional headbutt. Also, the enemy designs are quietly creepy.

Source:4Gamer.net

That “go-to title for two players” reputation captures the mood of the time exactly. You choose from five Sailor Guardians, and the performance gaps between them are clear-cut. Sailor Mercury moves fast, Sailor Jupiter hits hard, and Sailor Venus uses a chain. Your pick determines your role, which is what gives two-player pairings actual meaning.

The art carries real weight too. More than 300 pieces of original artwork by Kazuko Tadano were used, and on top of that, series creator Naoko Takeuchi designed three original rank-and-file enemies exclusively for the game. That’s the manga’s author sitting down to draw extra monsters for a licensed tie-in. For the record, the game never came out in North America; Europe got it from Bandai in 1994. A discount-bin licensed game in Japan turns into a collector’s item once it crosses an ocean. That’s just how the world works.

#4 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (Arcade) | The Best-Looking Game Here, and the Meanest

Banpresto’s arcade Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (Banpresto is now Bandai Namco Amusement) hit cabinets on March 22, 1995, and nothing else in this top ten looks this good. The character art and backgrounds are in a completely different class from the console games, and the credits explain why: Kazuko Tadano as animation director, Seiichi Sakurai on music, Hiroyuki Fujimoto directing.

It’s a belt-scrolling brawler like the Super Famicom game, with the original five Guardians playable and two-player co-op supported. But all eight stages are hard. That’s the arcade for you, of course, yet walk in with console reflexes and your wallet gets lighter fast. The key to surviving is the crystal dropped by the blue Thetis, which powers up all five special moves at once.

Deep-cut time: there are three board revisions (95/03/21, 95/03/22 and 95/03/22B), and the earliest one has a bug that softlocks the game if you kill Tuxedo Mask with the crystal before he barges in. The enemy roster includes Oniwabandana from episode 43 of the anime, plus a masked man created for this game. Learn details like that and the cabinet looks different the next time you stand in front of it.

#5 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS: Zenin Sanka!! Shuyaku Soudatsusen | Sailor Saturn Joins, and the Roster Is Finally Complete

Released March 29, 1996 by Angel for the Super Famicom, the fighting game Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS: Zenin Sanka!! Shuyaku Soudatsusen builds on our #2 pick, Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen, and adds Sailor Saturn. The graphics and movesets were overhauled too, so this is no lazy roster patch.

Saturn also shows up as the final boss. “Zenin Sanka” — everyone participates — means exactly what it says, and this is where the series’ fighting games peak. Like its predecessor, it still pulls the trick of changing the title screen once you clear it.

I ranked it below the #2 game because the underlying system is an extension of that one. Flip that around, though, and if your motivation is “I want every character,” this is the right pick. Rebuilding and re-releasing a fighting game in the same slot between the end of 1994 and the spring of 1996 is genuinely impressive turnaround.

#6 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS: Various Emotion | Brand-New Animation, Sega Saturn Only

Angel put Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon SuperS: Various Emotion on the Sega Saturn on November 29, 1996. It’s a port of the PlayStation game SuperS: Shin Shuyaku Soudatsusen, but parts of the content differ. In other words, calling it “just a port” doesn’t cover it.

The headline attraction is the new animation in Story Mode. Above all, a Sailor Saturn transformation sequence that doesn’t exist in the anime itself can only be seen here. I’ll say it flat out: that alone makes this one worth hunting down. As a card-carrying Saturn kid back then, let me be loud about this one.

There are smaller refinements too. The Outer Guardians’ victory poses gained planet symbols, and Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn each picked up one new move. The fighting-game skeleton carries over from the PlayStation version, with extra showpieces bolted on top.

#7 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S (3DO) | The First Game in the Series with a 3D Opening

Bandai released Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S for the 3DO on March 17, 1995, and it’s the first fighting game in the series to open with a 3D animated intro. The character graphics are hand-painted cel art, and being on CD, it packs in the full set of answering-machine messages, character profiles and BGM.

There are five modes: Super Battle, VS, Team Battle, Options and Database. Nine characters are playable — everyone but Sailor Saturn — and the depth of that Database mode makes this feel like a game that doubles as a sourcebook. Choosing the 3DO is already a collector’s move, but the content itself is serious work.

It matters historically, too. Its system differs from the two Super Famicom fighters, and this is the system that later carried over to the PlayStation and Sega Saturn games. Meaning the ancestor of #6’s Various Emotion lives right here. Exactly one kid in my class had a 3DO, and it occurs to me now that he may have been the one who won.

#8 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S: Kondo wa Puzzle de Oshioki yo! | Mouse Support, and Not a Falling-Block Puzzler

Bandai’s Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S: Kondo wa Puzzle de Oshioki yo! arrived on the Super Famicom on July 15, 1994, and it’s a puzzle game built on SameGame. Development was handled by Tom Create and Electronics Application. The fact that it supports the Super Famicom Mouse made it quite a luxury for the time.

You clear blocks of the same color SameGame-style, pick one of ten characters, and play across three modes. It doesn’t score well as a licensed tie-in, but as a pure puzzle game it has been praised in print — and that split verdict says everything about what this game is.

Put simply, it isn’t for people who want to play Sailor Moon; it’s for people who want to play a puzzle game. The click-click rhythm of clearing blocks with the mouse still holds up today. Buy it expecting an anime adaptation and you’ll come away disappointed. That’s the kind of game this is.

#9 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (Mega Drive) | A Single-Player Beat-‘Em-Up That Only Looks Like the Super Famicom Version

The Mega Drive Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, out July 8, 1994, is a belt-scrolling brawler that matches the Super Famicom game in broad strokes while running different special moves, different stage layouts and different enemies. Which means there’s a real reason to play both. Aki Hata handled the music.

The publisher line is the fun part. This one was published by Ma-Ba, a Bandai/Mattel joint venture, because Bandai’s third-party contract with Nintendo meant the Bandai name couldn’t be used here, so Ma-Ba served as publisher of convenience. They literally couldn’t print “Bandai” on the box — the era is baked right into the packaging. Learn that and you’ll want to flip over every used copy you find.

There are six stages, running from the Juuban shopping district all the way to the Dark Kingdom. The thing to note is Hard difficulty, where a Queen Metalia fight is added after you beat Queen Beryl (the ending doesn’t change, though). I ranked it lower because it’s single-player only, which costs it the two-player co-op that makes the Super Famicom version shine.

#10 Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R (Super Famicom) | You Can Play as Chibiusa, but There Are Only Four Stages

Released by Bandai for the Super Famicom on December 29, 1993, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R is a belt-scrolling brawler that arrived a mere four months after the previous game. Arc System Works handled development again, and this time Chibiusa is playable, which effectively functions as the game’s easy mode.

The feel is genuinely improved. The difficulty and sense of speed both went up, and the controls are tighter. The boss roster pulls in Prince Demande and the other senior Black Moon Clan officers, so the R storyline is properly represented. Two-player simultaneous co-op is supported as well.

I still put it at #10 because the thin four-stage runtime and the glaring gaps between character stats are exactly what dragged its reputation down back in the day. The first game had five stages, so the sequel actually lost one. This is a cartridge that wears the sheer commercial speed of the era right on its sleeve: another game, four months later. …Yeah, I still bought it. Of course I did.

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How Many Sailor Moon Games Were There? The Full 1992-1996 Lineup by Platform

From the Game Boy release in December 1992 through the end of 1996 — roughly four years — more than a dozen Sailor Moon games hit consoles, handhelds, arcades and even toy hardware aimed at small kids. Beyond the ten in this ranking, here are the other titles worth knowing.

On top of those, there were four Playdia games, three for Sega’s Pico and one for the Terebikko Cordless, so the franchise pushed into preschool hardware too. After the domestic series went quiet in 1996, a Nintendo DS game called Sailor Moon: La Luna Splende (developed by Open Sesame, published by Bandai Namco Games) launched in Italy on March 21, 2011, and the smartphone title Sailor Moon Drops (Bandai Namco Games) went live on September 3, 2015.

Line them all up and the density between 1994 and 1996 looks insane. Six games on Super Famicom alone, fighting games across four platforms, three puzzle titles. Speaking for the SpotGeeks team, this lineup is a specimen of just how rough — and how gloriously energetic — the licensed-character game market was back then.

Which One Should You Start With? How to Pick Based on What You Want

The short answer: go with ANOTHER STORY if you want story, the 1993 Super Famicom game if you want to play with a friend, and Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen if you want to test your skills. Here is the breakdown by goal.

The one thing to avoid is picking a puzzle game because you want to “play the Sailor Moon anime.” Kondo wa Puzzle de Oshioki yo! is a perfectly serious puzzler, but as a licensed-character game it landed poorly even at the time. Just matching your goal to the game’s actual personality changes your satisfaction more than you would expect.

Can You Play These 10 Sailor Moon Classics on Current Hardware? The Complete Platform Guide

(1) Titles Available via Subscription or Free

Neither the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack nor any other subscription service includes a retro Sailor Moon title.

(2) Titles Available as Standalone Purchases

There is no standalone digital release to buy, either. The arcade game is the most obvious candidate for an Arcade Archives release (the standard price is 838 yen (about US$5; converted at 153 yen = US$1) each on Switch and PS4), but its name is nowhere in the lineup.

(3) Titles Available as Remasters or Remakes

No remaster or remake exists for current hardware. Since the domestic game series stopped in 1996, none of these retro titles has ever come back in reissued form.

(4) Titles That Are Hard to Get on Current Hardware

Which means all ten games in the ranking land in this bucket. Hunting down the original hardware and used cartridges is the only route. Below, I have noted the closest genre equivalents you can play today.

With that out of the way, here are the games you can buy on current hardware to get the same feel. Every price is the Nintendo Switch listing shown on Nintendo’s official software search, as of September 2026.

For the record, the availability information in this article was checked through four channels: Nintendo’s official software search, the Steam store search, the official Arcade Archives lineup and the App Store (Japan). The realistic move is to start with the 200-yen Final Fight, confirm how a belt-scroller of that era actually feels, and then decide whether to wade into the used market. As someone who prowls the secondhand shelves in Akihabara once a week, I can tell you the two Super Famicom games still turn up. The 3DO version? Steel yourself.

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Final Thoughts: Pick Your Retro Sailor Moon Game by “RPG or Fighter”

The number one pick in this retro Sailor Moon ranking is Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon ANOTHER STORY (Super Famicom, September 22, 1995, Angel), number two is Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon S: Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen (Super Famicom, December 16, 1994, Angel), and number three is the Super Famicom Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon released on August 27, 1993. Their total scores are 337, 331 and 320 respectively, so the entire top three lives on the Super Famicom.

Viewed through the four axes, the choice is obvious. For story and long-haul depth, ANOTHER STORY (Replay Value 95). For competitive mind games, Jougai Rantou!? Shuyaku Soudatsusen (Playability 90). For art and challenge, the arcade game (Graphics 95, Brutality 90). At the other end, the four-stage Sailor Moon R finished last with 276 points.

And to repeat the key point: as of September 2026, not one of these ten games has been ported to current hardware. Nothing turns up on Nintendo’s official software search, Steam, Arcade Archives or the App Store (Japan), so playing them means assembling the original hardware and software. The closest things you can buy on current hardware are the Switch versions of Capcom Arcade Stadium: Final Fight (200 yen (about US$1)) and Arcade Archives Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun (838 yen (about US$5)).

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