Sakura Wars

In 1990, Oji Hiroi at Red Entertainment (formally Red Company) decided to create Sakura Wars. Hiroi drew inspiration from Japanese stage shows when creating the project, initially titled "Sakura" (桜). Because of a lack of interest from publishers, Hiroi shelved the project until he was approached by Sega vice president Shoichiro Irimajiri to develop a new project for the Saturn. Successfully pitching his project to Irimajiri, the game began production under the title Sakura Wars.

While the scenario and gameplay went through multiple redrafts, Sakura Wars always made use of a steampunk setting, a female lead and mecha combat. Development lasted three years, double the original estimate, and was Sega's most expensive project at the time. Many within both Red Company and Sega were skeptical of the game's success, but Hiroi remained confident. Following the critical and commercial success of Sakura Wars, Sega and Red Company expanded the original premise into a franchise, starting with Thou Shalt Not Die.

Between the series' debut in 1996 and 2010, the series has sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. Each entry on Sega hardware rank among the best-selling titles for their respective hardware. The original Sakura Wars was an immediate success, with several stores being sold out of copies within hours of its release. Sakura Wars 2 remains the best-selling title in the series, with over 500,000 copies sold on the Saturn alone, making it one of the console's best-selling titles in Japan. So Long, My Love is the worst-selling mainline entry to date, and was a commercial failure in the West.

Japanese website 4Gamer.net described the series as a "legendary" property connected to Sega, citing several elements such as the anime-style presentation and blend of genres that were hardly seen in gaming at the time. Jenni Lada of TechnologyTell wrote a retrospective on the series in 2009, calling Sakura Wars "an odd series ... that defies genres". In a 1999 IGN article on the franchise following the announcement of Sakura Wars 3, journalist Anoop Gantayat described it as "probably the greatest series of games to never make their way stateside", citing its unprecedented success when compared to other games on Sega hardware at the time.