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Post by Warlock on Jan 9, 2012 21:37:49 GMT -5
Anyone else familiar with the SaGa series? It's probably my favorite bizarro series that nobody else likes.  - HC |
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Post by Vireo Gilvus on Jan 9, 2012 22:49:13 GMT -5
I like it too, but in small doses. It's far too easy to screw yourself over permanently in the mid-to-late portions of each game. (In Romancing SaGa 3 and beyond, the enemies are automatically upgraded after you fight a certain number of battles, so the tried-and-true RPG strategy of grinding is pretty much out of the question.)
That being said, the character/enemy/area designs and soundtracks in these games are always top-notch (the Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song soundtrack is my current Winamp playlist), and there are some interesting gameplay ideas at the core of the series. It's just a little too punishing for most RPG players, which is why it never took off internationally like its sister series, Final Fantasy, did.
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Post by Kalisiin Kumaki on Jan 9, 2012 23:10:01 GMT -5
"Grinding" never bothered me...but it WOULD bother me if I did grinding...and was only rewarded with harder battles!! The point of "grinding" is to make harder battles easier, because you go up levels...lol
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Post by Warlock on Jan 18, 2012 20:16:42 GMT -5
Well, I didn't really sell the series all that well above, so I wanted to post a followup.
The SaGa series is interesting in a lot of ways because it pitches a lot of the standard conventional wisdom about how RPGs are structured and approached by developers. While many games approach RPGs as a story to be told to the player, SaGa approaches them as a puzzle to be solved by the player- they shake up a lot of the standard conventions and tropes. Where modern design tends toward games that hold your hand, SaGa- for better or for worse- leaves you to figure things out on your own more often than not. They're games that are about assembling and developing a party strong enough to finish the game, with normal last bosses often at the same level of difficulty that you'd expect to see from the optional super-enemies of other games.
The first two SaGa games were released on the Game Boy and localized under the title "Final Fantasy Legend". They're probably the most 'standard' games in the series; they're more linear than most of the others. The hook of the games is that they feature a number of different character 'types' with vastly different ways of getting more powerful- i spent many hours as a 6th-grader figuring out how to construct and develop the best party in SaGa 2. I recommend the second if you're interested in the series- the first has a lot of rough edges that the second smooths out.
The third game in the series was developed by a different team, and although I know people who are fans, I feel like it loses a lot of the flavor of the first two.
The Romancing SaGa series was released on the Super Nintendo a couple years later; I'm not as familiar with these, because they never left Japan and haven't been popular fan translation targets; no complete translation of the first two exists. There was a PS2 remake of the first that currently resides in my Pile of Shame, but I haven't done more than scratch the game's surface. These games were known for nonlinearity, and also added the series' trademark "spark" system- you learn special attacks in battle at random, based on what you already know, what you're attacking with, and the amount of risk your party is in. I've always wanted to play the second one (which I guess had a Phantasy Star 3-esque 'generational' gimmick), but it seems that no translations or FAQs exist for it.
Romancing SaGa 3, which did see a full fan translation, was great fun- I recommend playing through with a FAQ in hand due to the obliqeness of many of the quests. It's far more of an excercise in resource management than many other RPGs, and making sure your party is well-constructed and you've kept up with equipment and techniques is often as or more important than simple grinding. The game doesn't pull it's punches at later stages, but that just makes solving it feel all the more epic. While the game does have more 'one-way doors' than i'd like to see (Keep multiple save files. Trust me on this one.) and the difficulty can be uneven at times (normal enemy difficulty scales with your party's strength, but bosses don't, so it's not uncommon to meet punishing bosses in cake-walk dungeons), it's a rewarding and enjoyable game once you get into it.
SaGa Frontier, on the PSX, has a lot of similar strengths and weaknesses as Romancing SaGa 3, but moves into a more sci-fi setting and throws some of the alternate character types back into the mix. Although it has a special place in my heart because I met most of my online friends in a forum dedicated to it, I don't feel that it was as good as Romancing SaGa 3. Both games featured a number of different main characters, but Romancing SaGa 3 was a lot more upfront about being eight characters on the same quest- SaGa Frontier had seven different characters on seven different quests, each with a separate storyline, but a huge amount of material overlapped between them- it felt like seven different slight variations on basically the same thing. SaGa Frontier also had fewer meaningful weapon and equipment choices- RS3 had something like eight or nine weapon types, with associated advantages and skills, which SaGa Frontier collapsed down to three (or maybe four, if you count Katanas as separate from Swords). Also- and you know this must be pretty bad if I'm saying it- the game had horrible art direction.
SaGa Frontier 2 was structured as a series of vingettes about two families in a political intrigue-laden kingdom battling an evil, sentient artifact. It had a beautiful art style, but there were a lot of things about the game that never exactly clicked- they reintroduced weapons that would wear out and break over time, but did not provide a reliable way to get the money or access to shops needed to restock yourself. The difficulty level was typically high, as well. I've known people who swear by this game, but while I've played through it once, I can't say I really see the attraction. I kind of appreciate the attempt at an epic storyline and I do really love the art and music, but the game just doesn't quite gel for me.
I consider Unlimited SaGa to, in ways, be more of a puzzle game than a traditional RPG- it throws out almost everything about a traditional RPG, and replaces it with a set of strange, undocumented gameplay and battle systems. There's a type of player that I can picture getting very into the game in the right situation- I witnessed the spreadsheet-involving gusto that my college roomate used to attack Legend of Mana's weapon forging system- but I'm not one of them.
Legend of Mana, incidentally, isn't a SaGa game in name, but it has so much in common with the series that I consider it to be something of an unofficial entry- it's even got many of the same trademark attacks and techniques as the Romancing SaGa games. You can definitely see the influence of Romancing SaGa on the game's weapon forging and monster raising systems. The Last Remnant, on the 360, reminds me a lot of the SaGa games, too, although I've only played the demo of it thus far.
Anyway- has anyone else had experience with the series? As I've said before- a lot of them buck current design trends toward "accessibility", but in ways it makes it more rewarding to experiment with and master them. There's something to be said for a challenge- particularly when the solution is not just "grind more".
- HC
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Post by Vireo Gilvus on Jan 19, 2012 17:52:57 GMT -5
Ever hear of Gamma World? The Final Fantasy Legend was supposedly heavily influenced by this post-apocalyptic tabletop RPG. Read a further explanation on this GameFAQs post. Also, the reason why Legend of Mana shares so much in common with the SaGa series is because the SaGa and Mana teams were merged for a brief period in the late 1990s. (Mana series creator Koichi Ishii was a co-director of SaGa Frontier, while SaGa series creator Akitoshi Kawazu was a co-director of Legend of Mana.) That's why there's a modified flying version of Rabite, the Mana series' signature monster, in SaGa Frontier. |
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Post by Warlock on Jan 19, 2012 19:29:46 GMT -5
Interesting... I know of Gamma World, but I've never played it and didn't know any of the specifics.
- HC
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Post by Kalisiin Kumaki on Jan 19, 2012 21:58:39 GMT -5
Ever hear of Gamma World? The Final Fantasy Legend was supposedly heavily influenced by this post-apocalyptic tabletop RPG. Read a further explanation on this GameFAQs post. Also, the reason why Legend of Mana shares so much in common with the SaGa series is because the SaGa and Mana teams were merged for a brief period in the late 1990s. (Mana series creator Koichi Ishii was a co-director of SaGa Frontier, while SaGa series creator Akitoshi Kawazu was a co-director of Legend of Mana.) That's why there's a modified flying version of Rabite, the Mana series' signature monster, in SaGa Frontier. Well, if we're gonna talk tabletop RPG's, anyone interested in a discussion on Dungeons and Dragons? Or Vampire The Masquerade...which could be done tabletop or live-action...as could D&D. |
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Post by shokushuko on Jan 21, 2012 7:32:42 GMT -5
I've played some of Romancing Saga 3... but it kind of annoyed me. Think I might of tried some Final Fantasy Legend game too, but gave up on it quickly.
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Post by Warlock on Jan 21, 2012 11:03:34 GMT -5
Well, if we're gonna talk tabletop RPG's, anyone interested in a discussion on Dungeons and Dragons? Or Vampire The Masquerade...which could be done tabletop or live-action...as could D&D. Probably not necessary- we're not really "talking tabletop RPGs", just kind of mentioning one in reference to a console RPG. - HC |
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Post by Kalisiin Kumaki on Jan 21, 2012 12:05:48 GMT -5
Well, if we're gonna talk tabletop RPG's, anyone interested in a discussion on Dungeons and Dragons? Or Vampire The Masquerade...which could be done tabletop or live-action...as could D&D. Probably not necessary- we're not really "talking tabletop RPGs", just kind of mentioning one in reference to a console RPG. - HC OK, just saying I could if we REALLY wanted to discuss tabletops. I mean RPG's are RPG's, right? |
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Post by Vireo Gilvus on Jan 22, 2012 5:45:03 GMT -5
Probably not necessary- we're not really "talking tabletop RPGs", just kind of mentioning one in reference to a console RPG. - HC OK, just saying I could if we REALLY wanted to discuss tabletops. I mean RPG's are RPG's, right? You could always start a tabletop RPG subforum.  |
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Post by Kalisiin Kumaki on Jan 22, 2012 7:57:40 GMT -5
OK, just saying I could if we REALLY wanted to discuss tabletops. I mean RPG's are RPG's, right? You could always start a tabletop RPG subforum. That was sorta what I was asking. Was there any interest here in that? Because, if there is...I can certainly add it. Those also are RPG's... |
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Post by Vireo Gilvus on Jan 22, 2012 10:57:01 GMT -5
Well, I have zero experience with tabletop games (except for that Community episode where they play D&D and Abed is the dungeon master), but if you want to, go ahead.
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Post by Kalisiin Kumaki on Jan 22, 2012 12:50:49 GMT -5
Well, I have zero experience with tabletop games (except for that Community episode where they play D&D and Abed is the dungeon master), but if you want to, go ahead. Doesn't matter what I want. I was putting the question out there to gauge if there was any community interest in doing so. This board is here for the members. If it were all about me, it would probably have nothing but DW/DQ...and Phantasy Star...LOL - as you might have noticed several games I'm not even familiar with are being discussed here, and with my blessing. I create boards and sub-boards for any game or subject that seems to have enough interest among the members of the Board. |
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