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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 8:33:15 GMT -5
Post by Justinzero on Dec 22, 2008 8:33:15 GMT -5
The Playstation SaGa stuff is not very good, but looking at the series as a whole, I wouldn't call it flawed. I was able to play through Romancing Saga 3 without any problems. The game was hard as shit, and you did have to talk to every NPC, but they always had different things to say, and each play through is different. Square dropped the F-Bomb by calling the first 3 games "final fantasy" which is FAR FROM THE TRUTH. If you expect that kind of game, your going to be disappointed. I never felt like the graphics were sub-par, as they were ripped right off a FF sprite sheet half the time. Plus the music is awesome
Your totally right, one man's garbage is another treasure. Thanks for the great expanded explanation, and I really appreciated the honesty.
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 9:36:55 GMT -5
Post by Strider on Dec 22, 2008 9:36:55 GMT -5
Well, as I was trying to get at with the quoted post, I think that SaGa is a game that bucks a lot of conventions in ways that turn off most gamers. To respond to some of Jason's specific complaints:
1. Lack of direction: This kind of varies from game to game. The GB SaGa games are pretty good with this, and I managed to muddle my way through all three in the days before the internets and FAQs. SaGa Frontier 2 was much better about giving direction; what little I could stomach of Unlimited SaGa was, too. I haven't played RS1&2 or the RS1 remake.
2. "Lousy art": I don't really know where you're getting 'lousy art' from- the only games in the series that really bothered me artistically were SaGa Frontier & Unlimited SaGa. The gameboy games weren't particularly pretty, but each was more-or-less competitive with other games released at about the same time (again, there was a lot of improvement on this front between SaGa and SaGa 2). The Romancing SaGa games, again, weren't great but were roughly competitive with other games released at the time- particularly Romancing SaGa 2 and 3.
3. Spark System: The Spark system is really just a matter of taste- it can be frustrating at times, yes. For what it's worth, the balance is better in SaGa Frontier and later. On the other hand, whether I'm grinding an hour to get money and experience or whether I'm grinding an hour to learn attacks isn't really relevant to me.
I'm not sure where you're getting this from my observations above. There area couple of faults with RS3's gameplay, but I would generally classify the balance as 'wonky' rather than 'completely broken'. What I was really saying above is that you can't snooze through the game and expect to have everything handed to you- I had a lot of trouble in the late game because I tried to hammer through the early game by wandering around on fast-forward whacking weak monsters for HP upgrades, and having high HP alone won't cut it in the endgame.
The thing with the SaGa games is that, on the most part, you have to be a specific type of player to enjoy them- the surest way to not enjoy SaGa is to go into it expecting Final Fantasy. I think that like so many other cult series, they're fun but need to be approached in a way that's counter-intuitive to most players.
- HC
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 10:03:59 GMT -5
Post by derboo on Dec 22, 2008 10:03:59 GMT -5
Your first point (from the post I quoted) was what set me off big time. It sounded like the game doesn't give you any hints what to do next, but if you don't do things in the right order, you have no chance of winning. Character development in RPGs should always be about preferences, not "good" or "bad" upgrading, where wrong decisions render the game unplayable, only to be noticed thirty hours of gameplay later.
And of course, the third one. Dead-end one way streets (where you can save the game!) in games are always major flaws.
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 14:17:22 GMT -5
Post by Jave on Dec 22, 2008 14:17:22 GMT -5
I'm with Derboo on this one, my game of RS3 was halted prematurely by a dead end, before anyone had explained to me that I need to make multiple saves. It's one thing to have an open ended style of gameplay, with some quests that require stronger parties than others, but for a game to allow an underdeveloped party to wander into the wrong place to early, and allow them to get trapped there by way of the save feature, that's just sloppy.
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 15:52:41 GMT -5
Post by Justinzero on Dec 22, 2008 15:52:41 GMT -5
See I never had that problem. I was able to play through the whole game and not get stuck. The end bosses were stupid hard though.
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 17:02:19 GMT -5
Post by derboo on Dec 22, 2008 17:02:19 GMT -5
With or without a walkthrough?
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 17:07:25 GMT -5
Post by Justinzero on Dec 22, 2008 17:07:25 GMT -5
With the aid of a walkthrough when I was pretty stuck, but this is a common practice for me now. I did have a friend that played through the game back in the mid nineties, and he had a terrible time finding what to do, and he didn't know Japanese. He was able to eventually complete the game, but he was totally exaused on the series by that time. He and I shared a huge passion for the official art though, and it eventually got him started on drawing as a hobby.
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 17:40:27 GMT -5
Post by Strider on Dec 22, 2008 17:40:27 GMT -5
Well, to get into specifics, the two places I feel are really big 'sticking points' that come to mind offhand are:
1. The 'Rat Cave' quest, where you have to rescue some girl whose name I forget from being sacrificed. This is a set of three or four pretty specific things you need to do to solve this quest the 'right' way, and they aren't all obvious, particularly if you don't speak Japanese.
2. The endgame. Once you enter the last section of the game there's no way out save to win and the enemies there are all fairly weak and difficult to level off of or learn new techs from. The mitigating factor of this is that they do tell you pretty clearly that there will be no turning back from this section and first thing you do in the last section of the game is fight a boss- if you have any trouble at all with this boss, it's a solid indication that you're not strong enough to make it through the endgame.
The first time I played through the game, I quit because I couldn't figure out what to do after defeating the Abyss Lords the first time- for some reason the game wouldn't let me through the desert. I think in retrospect that I had not spoken to the astrologer after I did so (I don't recall if I had Sara in my party or not when I fought the fourth Abyss Lord; I'm pretty sure I did not get Shounen). That you can get into this sort of situtation where you have no clear idea where to go next is a flaw of the game- but I guess see this as more of a rough edge than a systemic break.
Well, that's kind of what I was getting at- Romancing SaGa 3 is Not That Kind Of Game. It is a combat-driven game, like Dragon Quest or FF5 or the Bard's Tale, not a story-driven game. Think of it as a sort of resource-management puzzle- you've got a certain set of quests you can do, which will yield specific characters and items, and your goal is to plot a course through them which will give you the most powerful possible party in the endgame. It is a game for min-maxers, not those who want to be able to do whatever and still win. It is not a game for those who called it a day after beating Sephiroth, it is a game for those who went on to figure out viable strategies to use against the Weapons, too.
For what it's worth, until you enter the endgame, there is nothing you can do to shaft yourself 'unrecoverably'- it's just a matter of how much effort you will have to put in to get the levels and stats you need.
- HC
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 17:50:49 GMT -5
Post by Ganelon on Dec 22, 2008 17:50:49 GMT -5
Freedom is one thing, but these games just throw you out to the wolves and pretend that it's all in the spirit of open-ended gameplay. How many empty zones do you have to visit in SaGa Frontier before you accidentally stumble across a quest you can actually take? Actually, for half the cast in Frontier, it should be very clear where you're supposed to go. You don't think RS3's graphics were excellent on the SFC? How about FFVI, which has pretty much the same look? And can you name a PS RPG at the time with better visuals than Frontier (excepting FFVII)? Pretty good? Well, at least I think so now. Back then...not so much. Anyway, I guess we're just on different wavelengths. I'll agree that SaGa is definitely one of the more polarizing RPG series, esp. when it gets to Unlimited.
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 18:17:06 GMT -5
Post by justjustin on Dec 22, 2008 18:17:06 GMT -5
I like the graphics in Romancing SaGa 3 and SaGa Frontier 2 (the GB games are fine as well). However, I would seriously describe the graphics of the first Frontier game as "****ing gross" and the sprites of the first two Romancing games as "mind bogglingly atrocious, at best." The actual character designs/artwork are fabulous, but, wow, my brain can hardly comprehend how graphically uneven the series is. Half the games look like alarmingly dangerous fits of diarrhea. Sorry, various graphics people who worked at Square...
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 19:11:02 GMT -5
Post by Strider on Dec 22, 2008 19:11:02 GMT -5
I dunno, I guess I still don't really see what you're complaining about with the Romancing SaGa series... I mean, if you compare Romancing SaGa side-by-side with Final Fantasy 5, released the same year, SaGa looks more primitive but I'd hardly say '****ing gross'. Making the probably-fairly-safe assumption that SaGa was lower priority than the FF games developed at the same time, I can't really complain... But to each his own, I guess. SaGa Frontier I'm not going to defend on that front- I like the attack animations but the rest of the graphics were... ugh. I guess the overworld graphics were okay, but they pale compared to a lot of games released around the same time (Final Fantasy Tactics and Breath of Fire 3 both come to mind...). As a sidenote that's pertinent to the article: The "Japanese box screenshot" given for SaGa Frontier is actually from SaGa Frontier 2. - HC
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SaGa
Dec 22, 2008 21:35:53 GMT -5
Post by Isao Kronos (BANNED) on Dec 22, 2008 21:35:53 GMT -5
Glanced at the article out of boredom, noticed an error--all characters have access to the business game, not just Thomas. It's just that it's shoved in your face in his quest.
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SaGa
Sept 14, 2009 7:33:45 GMT -5
Post by kaoru on Sept 14, 2009 7:33:45 GMT -5
Reading through the article, I noticed that there are a lot of dead pictures in it now.
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SaGa
Sept 14, 2009 23:42:28 GMT -5
Post by Shellshock on Sept 14, 2009 23:42:28 GMT -5
Reading through the article, I noticed that there are a lot of dead pictures in it now. Yeah, double check the text, too. There's some misspellings.
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SaGa
Sept 15, 2009 15:27:49 GMT -5
Post by derboo on Sept 15, 2009 15:27:49 GMT -5
Reading through the article, I noticed that there are a lot of dead pictures in it now. The Final Fight article shares this fate (too lazy to look for / make its own thread).
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