Romancing SaGa
Souls-like SaGaGenre: rpg - japanese
Publisher: Square
Year: 1992
System: SFC
Gameplay Score: 1
Gameplay Notes:
I could begin and end with a single statement - this game is stupid, stupid difficult. It has a number of interesting ideas, but they're absolutely buried by the impossibility of making any progress. I have no interest in getting gud, and I doubt that it's possible to play this game casually. The difficulty comes in three ways - extremely open world design, enemies that swarm you and respawn when you return to a screen, and enemies which always scale to exceed your current level. In other words, you will never know where to go, you won't be able to get there, and there is no point in grinding. I tried three of the 8 starting characters. With the first one (Gray) I was stuck in the first town with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Reset. I then tried Albert. I got a party and was told to go clear the enemies from a cave, but I could barely get to the cave, which was only a single screen from my starting point before being so low on health that I had to retreat and recoup. I spent 45 minutes walking to and from that stupid cave. Reset. Finally, I tried Claudia. After a very brief introduction I was given the task of fighting off a couple of monsters making trouble on the screen below. I walked down there, started the fight...and died. Power off. And it's a shame because the battle mechanics are actually pretty interesting. Your party is set up in a 3x3 grid. Swords and axes can only be used in the front line, spears can be thrown from the middle, and bows are useful in the rear. Not only are you in a grid, but so are your enemies. They can only melee attack when in the front, and may only attack those of your players who are also in the front. There's a fair amount of strategy that this could afford...if I could only play far enough to do anything remotely interesting. Ah well, maybe the sequels will remedy these problems.
Level Design Score: 3
Level Design Notes:
Clearly, this was the inspiration for Live a Live and Octopath Traveler. You choose from 8 different characters and have a tremendous amount of freedom on where to go and which missions to undertake. The freedom is a bit jarring when compared to the linear games in this genre. It's a great idea, but feels like an experiment rather than a fully fleshed out design.
Theme Score: 4
Theme Notes:
It's set in an ambiguous world. Each character has a solid backstory which I assume turns into plotlines which weave together. I wish I could play further into the game to explore it!
Art Style Score: 2
Art Style Notes:
This is an early gen RPG and it shows. Sprites are miniscule, and while I appreciate the simple, colorful graphics, there's no denying that this is not a good looking 16-bit title.
Audio Score: 4
Audio Notes:
Square knew what they were doing in the music department, even way back in 1991. The soundtrack isn't up to par with its contemporary, FFIV, but it's very nice all the same.
Overall Score: 41
Review ID: 1813
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