Browsing through either the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store almost always takes you on a journey through familiar territory. Especially in the case of more experienced and veteran mobile gamers, scrolling or swiping across various game titles will give you a good enough idea of its genre and gameplay. To some extent, some games that are new to you will even be comparable to a game or several games you have played before, and then there are those titles intriguing enough to look into as you have zero clues as to what it is all about, just like SAKURA School Simulator.
SAKURA School Simulator is currently the only app from Garusoft Development Inc. and, 2 years following its release, has already earned more than 10 million downloads from the Google Play Store alone and maintained largely positive average user review ratings on both mobile platforms. Although categorically a simulation game, which is a genre that offers the broadest variety in gameplay, SAKURA School Simulator provides a wide range of gaming experiences that are unique and hard to compare to any other game on mobile.
As the title suggests, SAKURA School Simulator centers around school life in a town called Sakura. You can expect that the adventure set before you is not all about academics and extra-curricular activities as there are more than enough bizarre factors that make it a more immersive and exciting virtual experience. Progression is not as linear as one might expect from a mobile game as the actions towards other people and the activities you engage in has an effect on what may happen next. You can collect friends, lovers, and enemies as you move forward in your journey and each day is bound to be an experience like no other.
SAKURA School Simulator offers simple and intuitive controls as well as a very liberal gameplay. You can freely explore on your own and discover what the entire city has to offer. It can be easy for anyone to get lost in the huge open world or even dive in and have no sense of where you need to go and what to do. Despite not having tutorials, though, there is a help menu available to you as soon as you start your adventure.
If you just started playing the game and want to jumpstart your adventure or if you have spent some time exploring Sakura Town and would want to learn more tips and strategies, then read our SAKURA School Simulator beginner’s guide below!
1. Master The Basics
SAKURA School Simulator is packed with tons of features and activities to engage in and offers you utmost liberty in fully immersing yourself within its world. There is plenty of fun to have exploring the vast town of Sakura on your own and, of course, venturing blindly into the unknown is a journey we go behind as well. Considering everything, it helps to have an idea of some basic features and game mechanics built into SAKURA School Simulator as there are still an abundant supply of things to discover on your own moving forward.
For starters, choosing which main character to choose and how you decide to dress up is not as critical. There are 2 main characters available and you can unlock 3 more after watching a short video ad for each of them. While that in itself is already cool, what makes it even better is the fact that you can instantly shift controls across all 5 characters.
Starting a new game will have you control Rina Tamaki. You can immediately change to a different character by clicking on the menu button at the upper left side of the screen and choosing a character on the bottom left side of the window. Each character has a different starting point, which is their home, where several items can typically be found. You can choose to customize your character’s appearance before diving into the game and can edit as much as you want within their residence, indicated aby a circle on the floor of the designated areas.
There are plenty of clothes, masks, and glasses to choose from and while the plethora of choices is more than enough to fill your needs and wants as far as customizations go, there are plenty of outfits and costumes that are beyond mere cosmetics. An excellent example of this is the Alice in Wonderland dress that you can unlock after watching a video ad. This dress comes with a special ability that can increase or decrease your character’s size.
There are clothes that also change your appearance drastically like the baby costume and the ranger outfit. There are costumes like the kunoichi that increases your movement speed, a witch costume that comes with a wand that can shoot off fireballs, a police officer armed with a baton and a revolver, or even a shrine maiden with a unique supernatural ability.
On the game screen, a lot of the icons are self-explanatory although some require a bit of understanding for complete beginners. The virtual d-pad used to control the character’s movement is invisible and appears only when you touch anywhere on the left half of the screen. You can adjust your view by touching and swiping on the right side of the screen as well.
There is an action button on the lower right side of the screen for all your interaction needs as well as an attack and a jump button. The button on the lower right corner show what you will use if you attack. You will start off with just your fists, which are quite fierce on its own but you will have plenty of weapons to acquire later on.
You can tap on the zoom button to change the perspective on the go and SAKURA School Simulator also comes with a jetpack button that lets you levitate and fly across town. When using the jetpack, moving will constantly glide you down. You need to use the jump button on its own to move upwards and hold it while moving around to keep you in the air. A Dash button also appears above the action button when using the jetpack. This is a very useful tool to get you places faster as well as flee from danger when you need to.
You can see your life bar at the upper right side of the screen. There is a camera you can click on for a quick screen capture and a save button that you will have to use from time to time. Keep in mind that not saving your game will make you lose all progress. It is best to save as often as you can and especially when taking on a difficult quest or planning to do something that will negatively impact your progress.
As much as everything with a life bar in SAKURA School Simulator can be killed, including yourself, no one actually ever dies in Sakura Town. Reducing the life bar to zero only causes the character to faint. In your case, you can always choose to play a video ad to continue where you left off as fainting and regressing can be a hassle in some situations. For all other NPCs, fainting will bring them back again the following day.
There are 5 basic icons on the left side of the screen to take note of: the “thumbs up” icon shows the degree of your popularity; the coffin counts the number of people you fainted for the day; the heart is for the number of lovers; the win person symbolizes the number of your friends; and the frown represents the number of people who are pursuing you. Note that these statistics are separate and distinct for each character, giving you more reasons to switch from one character to the next just in case one is in trouble.
You can access your inventory through the item icon at the upper left of the screen and there is a radar as well to give you an idea of where you exactly are in Sakura Town. By using the map, you can also call on friends and lovers and they will come to you if possible. The mission and help buttons are self-explanatory and needs to be check out especially when you have just started your adventure.
The menu button holds a variety of options. In addition to seeing your status and being to control the weather as well as teleport to any location at will, you can also move forward in time through the system settings. As some of the events only take place within a certain period of time, you can opt to fast forward time instead of manually waiting for the next cycle in instances where you miss an event.
There are way too many options in the menu to discuss in full detail but other than the ones we mentioned, perhaps one important configuration you will find useful relates to the quality settings of the game in case your device is struggling to run the game on very high settings.
2. Avoid Fights For Easier Missions
Considering the plethora of activities to engage in as you take a dive into any open world game, you can basically categorize the sets of actions you choose between being good or evil or simply being peaceful or not. There are no judgements, though as SAKURA School Simulator comes packed with an attack button as well as tons of weapons to collect and use.
There are plenty of missions to accomplish ranging from school activities and explorations as well as hunting tasks that require you to attack. Beyond that, all other NPCs or creatures with a life bar on them can be attacked as well, with repercussions, of course.
One feature in SAKURA School Simulator to take note of is that once you attack someone and they start to pursue you, they will continue doing so wherever you go. Even teleportation will not help them forget about revenge, making it very difficult for you to accomplish most missions, as pursuers may pop up at any moment.
Attacking any NPC may sometimes not result exclusively in that NPC attacking you back. What can happen is that the police will be alerted to your misdeed and police everywhere will start chasing you around. Sometimes, not doing anything wrong can also result in people pursuing you. Stepping into a Yakuza territory, for one, can lead all Yakuza members to start chasing after you.
Regardless of which part is pursuing and attacking you, one neat cheat you can do is to lure your pursuer to a position where another NPC would be between you. If he or she attacks and hits the other NPC, the next fights will continue to revolve around them.
This is actually a fun and effective way of getting either the Yakuza or the police off your backs. If you are being chased by the Yakuza, heading over to a police station and strategizing to let the Yakuza member strike an officer of the law leaves you free of their nuisance. On the other hand, you can also lead the police officer or officers towards the Yakuza headquarters for an enjoyable brawl to watch.
3. Improving Relationships And Love
Beyond the quests and adventures in the huge world within SAKURA School Simulator, one of the most intricate feature involves the relationships you build with the people around you. Again, your actions, how varied it may be, categorically classifies you as being a good or bad person and in SAKURA School Simulator, you can choose to be good to some NPCs and be bad to others.
Getting in close proximity with any NPC brings up a “talk” button above the action button. Choosing to talk actually opens up a wide range of actions, from saying hello and goodbye, choosing what to say, and even hugging, holding hands with, and kissing a person. You can even edit some features of the NPC and check their status as well.
A simple hello can go a long way as it is fairly easy for any NPC to become your friend, positive actions toward any NPC increases your popularity and the specific NPC’s mood. As their mood increases, their fondness of you grows as well. From friends, you can become close friends, and reinforcing positive gestures can lead anyone to becoming your lover. Once an NPC becomes your lover, you can take them anywhere with you, kiss the, and even sleep in bed with them.
Relative to this, it is also important to consistently keep yourself well-groomed and hygienic. Taking a shower may seem like an unimportant activity, but refusing to do so for days may leave some NPCs repulsive towards you and result in a decrease in your popularity. The more friends and lovers you have, the more help you can get whenever you call and there are numerous reasons that calling on some friends can be very helpful.
Increasing fondness can be instantly done by buying a love potion from the Sakura Corporation if you have 10,000 yen on you that you are willing to spend on it. There are plenty of cool items you can purchase here as well.
4. Accomplishing School Missions
The missions you have, which can be accessed through its icon at the upper left side of the screen can seem puzzling especially for newbies. There is a very long list of feats you can accomplish and more are unknown until after you have accomplished a prerequisite quest. Some may seem obvious while others require exploration and adventuring. There are plenty of quests doable only within a certain period of time and most quests also need to be done in specific locations.
For starters, taking on quests within the school premises seem to be the easiest ones. In essence, these missions are the most basic tour of the activities you can engage in Sakura Town and are centric to the game concept of being a school simulator.
The first class is Chinese Characters, which starts at 8:40 and ends at 9:30. Before you proceed, you should check on your character’s status to see his or her assigned classroom. If you teleport to the school (1F) facing the school entrance from the inside, you should run towards the left until you see the class signage of your assigned classroom. Once inside, pick a seat and the achievement will pop up shortly after the teacher comes in.
You can skip time towards the next class, which is English, which goes from 9:40 to 10:30. You may have to stand up and sit again once the new teacher steps in and starts giving lessons. Once the trophy pops up, you are free to leave.
You can head over to the school yard anytime between 10:40 and 11:30. There is a circle that lets you change clothes into something more suitable for running. Feel free to run a certain distance at the track and the relevant trophy will soon be yours.
After running in a marathon of sorts, you should visit the gym between 11:40 and 12:30 where you can change outfits once again to a swan ballet suit that can let you twirl around within the gym using the action button. Again, once the trophy pops up you are free to change back to your normal outfit and leave the gym. There is a piano on stage as well that you can play with.
After 40 virtual minutes of lunch break, it is time for some cooking lessons. Your Home Economics class is from 13:10 till 14:00 and if you teleport to the second floor of the school, the Home Economics class takes place on the rightmost side of the floor (last 2 doors). Like the other classes, you simply need to find a sit and wait for the teacher to start teaching.
Between 14:10 and 15:00, your computer class takes place just to the second room to the left of the Home Economics room. It is the only classroom filled with computer monitors on the desks and you should again find a seat and begin working on the computer using the action button. After some time, the trophy will pop up and you are free to go.
While within the school premises, you can also visit the pool anytime, change into your swimwear, and take a swim at the pool. This will unlock another easy trophy for you then you can change back and pursue other missions.
5. Hunting Missions
Hunting missions offer way more challenges than just sitting in school and partaking in all sorts of activities. There are risks of being hurt yourself and, if you are not careful, can also lead to hurting innocent people or unintended civilians. In any case, these types of missions make it very important for you to save your progress before initiating and may also require arming yourself with some weapons, although your fists can be suitable in some cases.
After starting the game, you will be prompted to borrow some weapons from the Yakuza Office Himawari. As it may easily fill you with overflowing excitement to nab your first weapon, keep in mind that it comes with a price. There are a pair of Yakuza members patrolling the vicinities of the building and even if you time your infiltration into the main entrance, all of them will start chasing after you once you have opened the door and receive your first weapon.
You can still manage to get away and head into a more viable area manually or you can use the area move for a quicker escape. They will still follow you wherever you go so might as well lure them into the police and eliminate as many members without much effort.
As one of your missions is to defeat the Yakuza leader, you can go inside the Yakuza building and search for the leader. There is a largely linear path towards the inner room in the building where the Yakuza leader stays. Once he and his cohorts start to chase you, you can opt to relocate again into a more open area where you can fight at an advantage or utilize the police force again.
You should accomplish this before midnight as fainted NPCs will respawn the following day. Once the building is clear, be sure to do some exploring as there are tons of weapons to earn here as well as large sums of cash that you can take.
One of the categorically weirder quests to take on is exterminating moths and you can only encounter them at the convenience store close to the center of Sakura Town. The moths will start to appear at 16:00 and will be around for quite some time. At 17:30, though, there will be more of them making it a lot more challenging to exterminate them and complete the mission.
As the moths will be flying all around the convenience store, you can opt to increase your relationship level with the NPC inside Mami Fujitsu, enough for you to be able to carry her to safety away from the store until you exterminate the moths. The moths have no way of hurting you or the NPC but given how quickly they move and their numbers may lead to you accidentally hurting the NPC.
You can complete this quest using only your fist and you can use a jump attack or your jetpack if some moths stay above you. Do not let the mess you make bother you as it cannot be avoided. There is no penalty for messing up some merchandise in the pursuit of exterminating the giant moths.
From 19:00 to midnight, skeletons and stalkers begin to appear. If you have yet to visit the third floor of the school, then this period of time is the best time for you to do some exploring. As far as the 5 skeletons mission is concerned, you can check the right side of the third floor after teleporting to it, or left if you are coming from the stairs.
The second room from the right will have 4 skeletons sitting around the small table. They will not do anything against you until you come close enough. The fifth skeleton is on the second floor, inside the room between the Home Economics class and the Computer class. Take note that you have to kill all 5 skeletons within one shift for the trophy to be yours.
As there won’t be any students within the period of time skeletons come to life, you are free to engage them within the school premises. On the third floor as well close to where the 4 skeletons are sitting, there are 2 rooms home to both the bronze statue and the plaster figure. You need to eliminate both to earn a trophy.
Another weird and challenging quest sets you towards killing 5 monkfishes. You can visit the Home Economics Classroom any time outside of your class but within the school hours to see monkfishes suddenly appear. This is rather difficult because there will be lots of people in the class as well. You need a good enough level of precision to kill 5 monkfishes and remember to save before engaging. Use ranged weapons, of course.
6. Other Missions
Perhaps equally or even easier than the school missions, are a set of missions you can easily accomplish with a quick visit to the amusement park, among other unique locations. There are trophies to earn from riding the tea cup, the free fall, the Ferris wheel, the roller coaster, and the swan boat. There are other rides in the amusement park as well but these are the ones with trophies.
When you teleport to the amusement park, you can use your jet pack to fly towards the roof of the building to your left. There is a small mushroom house you can visit if you have your Alice in Wonderland costume on and shrink your size. Relative to shifting sizes, be careful when choosing to go giant mode in the costume. Simply running will let you trample on innocent bystanders.
Another easy trophy can be earned from the sushi bar. The sushi bar opens from 9:00 to 21:00. You only need to order the Chef’s Choice and to earn an easy trophy. You can choose to eat it as well.
There are still plenty of available missions to conquer in SAKURA School Simulator that can test your skills and patience. There are UFOs, robber bears, annoying people, a corrupt tax office chief, an octopus, and many others waiting for you to defeat them. Beyond creatures and people you need to defeat, there are also some unique interactions and experiences you can have with several cast of characters in the game.
There are also plenty of different locations you should explore as well that offer unique experiences that do not necessarily earn you a trophy. Exploration leads to a lot of new weapons, free items, cash, and just happenings that make you wonder about the limits of what SAKURA School Simulator has to offer. As new updates come, you can expect as well for even more content, features, and missions to be added in the game.
And that concludes our SAKURA School Simulator beginner’s guide. Although what we covered is but a small fraction of the adventures and discoveries that lie within Sakura Town, we are confident enough that the tips, cheats, and strategies we shared with you in this article should serve as a stepping ground towards your achievement of the other missions. If you happen to spend a lot of time playing SAKURA School Simulator and have your own unique tips, cheats, or strategies to share, you are very much welcome to drop us a few in the comment section!
Layci
Monday 1st of November 2021
How come there is a huge underwater city in Sakura School Simulator when I cannot go to it? There is a invisible force field around it! Help!