In 2006, the anime series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya aired in Japan. Based on a popular series of light novels by Nagaru Tanigawa, the series was an immediate hit. On June 11, 2006, an episode named “The Day of Sagittarius” was aired. In the episode, Haruhi and her friends (the “SOS Brigade”) are challenged by the Computer Club of the school to face them in a game they created.

From seeing it in the anime, it looked like a fairly standard space battle simulation game. You command ships and have them attack enemies. When I saw this episode, I wondered if such a game actually existed, and thought it would be interesting to play it. Today, iPhone and iPod Touch users can do just that with The Day of Sagittarius III app, available for $1.99 in the App Store.

Upon starting up the game, you have two options: “Start” and “Turtorial.” It’s a good idea to go to the tutorial first, because the game is more complex than it seems… perhaps a bit too complex.

Umm, what?

A big problem with this game is the lack of adequate directions. It seems the people who translated this game wanted to translate as little as possible. So, rather than explaining things with words, most of the explaining is done through pictures, which can get quite confusing. It doesn’t help that the few words that are in the directions don’t really make much sense, and are poorly translated.

If you can manage to decipher the instructions, then you’re ready to start up the game. Your objective depends on the level you’re playing. For example, in Level 01 your objective is simply to destroy all enemy ships, while in Level 02, you are to only take out the enemy’s admiral ships. Doing these tasks is actually quite challenging, and can make for a rather frustrating gaming experience.

Upon starting a level, you’re given 5 groups of ships to command and send after the enemy. Each level starts up with the game paused, and you can actually use this opportunity to issue commands to your ships. You can select each of these groups by tapping them on screen or by selecting them from the list on the left side. You can then command that group to go somewhere by tapping that location. You can also change the formation of the selected group by tapping the icons at the top of the screen. Your ships’ formation and the angle at which they approach the enemy are factors in determining who wins the battle.

Once you set your initial commands, it’s time to unpause the game, and the battle begins. Your ships will move to the designated areas, and will automatically attack any enemy ships they run into on the way. You’re given a mini-map in the bottom-right corner of the screen, which you can tap to scroll to a particular location on the map. You can also scroll by tapping and dragging the main screen itself, but this doesn’t seem to always work, and thus is very awkward. The controls, overall, are very flawed, and this is where most of the challenge comes in. Personally, I feel it would have been much better to implement this game on a platform with a point-and-click interface. These kinds of games just don’t work well on the iPhone.

Things get crazy in the heat of battle

If you’re someone who doesn’t mind getting frustrated and has nothing better to do, then go ahead and pick it up. If you’re buying this simply because it’s based on an episode of Haruhi, you’re going to be disappointed, as the game doesn’t really have much to do with the series. Overall, the game is enjoyable in some aspects, but that doesn’t make up for the frustration that will likely ensue upon playing it. But hey, it’s only $1.99, and at that price, I can’t really say it’s not worth the money. So if you wanna give it a try, go ahead and pick it up, for you may enjoy it more than I did.