SaGa frontier: TOP MODEL TURNED CONVICT

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Sigh been sometime since I last made a thread especially a mini review you know

Part 1/7


Opening SaGa we are presented with the epic intro music of SaGa as each character is shown one by one leading to the reveal of the game name in the most epic way ever the game is basically ROARING the name "SaGa frontier"

At the main menu i press new game and here you can select one of 7 protagonists all of them have gathered in some remote location and each one is doing their thing blue is reading a book lute is playing music and my first character ever (emelia) is sitting in a hot way

Emelia story starts as she visits her fiance house just to find him murdered getting charged with murder emelia gets put in jail

Not long to get approached by "Annie" who plans to escape the prison with her friend "Lisa" the prison jailer challenges prisoners to reach a room that contains "freedom rune" if reached you out of jail
We tag along with the 2 girls as they do the job at fighting monsters present in the less populated parts of the prison we (emelia) are useless! Emelia only good stat is "charm" which as the name suggests has to do with charming opponents which requires a special spell from a specific zone that you can't get to at this stage of the game and as such we conclude that we are useless i also had to fight enemies that come in the form of monsters present in the dungeon roaming around SaGa doesn't include random encounter system soon we find a rocket launcher! finally something useful

With RPG in hand along with Lisa fisting techniques and Annie sword skill we reach the rune chamber and we get attacked by a giant centipede BOOM our first boss fight and it where i truly focus for the first time on the battle theme that absolutely SLAPS it's energetic and keeps you motivated to continue fighting
Hit after hit either it be by a sword a fist or a rocket the enemy goes down and we enter the chamber to get freedom

we return to our fiance home and on the way there we get attacked by a mysterious man "the joker" we get saved by a man named "roufas" forcing the joker to retreat we faint and roufas takes us to an Italian restaurant? Well that's unusual WAIT that's Lisa and Annie! They are agents that work for roufas who commands a group of vigilantes called "gradius" bent on stopping the villain of our story and the murderer of our fiance the joker!

Wanting to take revenge emelia joins gradius

our first mission is patrol accompanied by Lisa we're told to gather money bag however i don't gather any and randomly find my way back to base (the Italian restaurant) weirdly enough roufas deems it a success after some gun practice and shopping in Manhattan mall we head to luminous where i go through the labyrinth of light to get the light magic gift what's the gift you ask? It's ability to learn all spells from a magic type by practicing said magic type
with some magic learned i go on to start a journey becoming SaGa frontier most powerful spellcaster

our first real mission is in "shingrow" we get to participate in the wrestling tournament and acquire our first new clothes "pink tiger" outfit a pink masked emelia manages to win 2 rounds with the 3rd round lost due to the cactus foe powerful kicks that knock us out fast , the cactus in question turns out to be joker who we're after! With Lisa and Annie by my side we chase the madman through the palace but at the last moment a minion of his engages us in a vicious battle that give him enough time to escape


boarding a ship to the region Manhattan the ship gets swallowed by a monster called "tanzer" we find ourselves inside the beast
approached by infamous criminal "nomad" a woman who's cruel to children and beautiful women another figure that approaches us is "Fei-on" let's just say Fei-on is a karate master
You have WP/JP magic and LP (life points) you can restore your points by resting
i almost softlocked myself here as i used up my JP along with Annie and Lisa WP , only Fei remained with 40 WP! the problem is we can get the vitality rune only inside Tanzer and can't leave without rune i try for 2 hours straight but the slimes protecting the rune are tanky so i grind a little
there are no "levels" for characters it's each individual stat that goes up if conditions are met like using sword = +1 strength or using a spell = +1 intelligence , by luck i get a sanctuary stone (tent) now having rested it's time to defeat the slimes and get out of here!

The fight difficult but with my JP full i can use "starlight heal" spell to keep the party healthy , after a hard fought battle i manage to touch the rune signaling victory!

that wasn't great now off to mission 2 you start missions by approaching roufas first he gives you "campagin funds" and 2nd he starts the mission
We travel to gambling region of baccarat
we are given an attractive outfit with bunny ears the task is simple use the outfit to get people attention and receive answers about joker whereabouts

after asking around a bit we spot the joker , a hot pursuit ensues as we reach the underground parking lot we descend a sewer hole and now we're in a cave? No matter joker won't esca-ah where to go? I'm lost in the cave as the entrance to the next section is hidden in a wall and i find it by mere coincidence

speeding through the tunnel we fall in the joker trap and have to fight another powerful monster it takes sometime but eventually goes down and the joker escaped again

With the 2nd mission finished i go around exploring regions fighting a little and on the way i discover "king mu tomb" inside the tomb none other than roufas is there looking for the victory rune , with roufas joining the party at last i complete my first party
i come across the rune chamber but right before approaching it a skeletal dragon reanimates , it doesn't take long to fell the monster and BAM victory rune acquired! Only 1 rune remains

After that i return to koorong i get some food and discuss matters with Lisa by I'm feeling slee..py ah...where am i? And why I'm wearing a dancer outfit?? , sigh turns out roufas put sleeping pills in our food and as we fell asleep roufas sold us to the harem of a perverted military commander why is that? The joker is a friend of this pervert and visits him often and that's why we are here , Lisa and Annie are mad at roufas but someone gotta do it for the "cause" and our beauty is what's needed

part of Emelia story is how she uses her beauty to accomplish certain tasks and these tasks are dangerous it's not the blessing it may be


having infiltrated "trinity" base and in the process of showing the commander our dance along with the joker who is sitting beside him power goes out! gradius are attacking the base and in the midst of chaos we need to locate either joker or the commander
we meet asellus and her friends they help us in our search for the commander and eventual escape
that was one hell of a mission time to relax a bit , i go around getting the 4th rune (hide rune) in koorong
time to do mission 4 and we are back at trinity base as a new commander was appointed , we unlock the commando outfit in this one we sneak past the guards and reach the commander with gun in hand we threaten the man who seems unfazed eventually we are told of the joker whereabouts along with getting a special item from him
Guy tells us everything we need to know he is aware of gradius hunting the joker

Reaching the final mission at nearly 800 HP and 70 intelligence we go from pathetically weak to the strongest light magic caster in all the regions not only that but a grizzled gunslinger
our last mission joker is looking for a powerful artifact "cube" ascending mountain we reach the top and find the church where Emelia and Ren were going to hold their marriage
we are told to wear the wedding dress by Lisa who proceeds to roast her boss by saying "you don't understand women" after roufas "we don't have time for this"

In the church we get attacked by a deity under the joker control , this "Diva" doesn't go down easily having to use the most powerful light spell "megawindblast" that costs up to 9 JP or 8 JP if you have mastery in magic this mastery can be acquired by assigning the character magic abilities ONLY and it needs around 6 abilities to achieve mastery NO physical abilities AT ALL to get a mastery in magic or vice versa , you know a character got mastery in something once a crown is visible in the ability bar

Now now back to the final boss fight my team is

-Emelia
-Annie
-Lisa
-asellus
-roufas

Diva has 2 forms that she switches to periodically , the battle is long but with the right order of combinations and heavy usage of light magic to the point i exhaust my JP Annie low on WP Lisa knocked out and asellus on her knees only party member still unharmed is roufas , the situation is starting to look grim but in the last moment asellus deliver the killing blow

With Diva dead joker comes out hesitation strikes fast and nervousness makes things worse as joker draws closer and closer each word he says is engulfed in venom we draw our gun but can't pull the trigger and just as he says "you know who I'm" we pull the trigger killing the joker

left with the inability to fight anymore as roufas says to us "i can see it in your eyes" leaving gradius we take one last picture to remember the times and return to normal life


Emelia is by far the best of the main cast both character and story wise not built or well equipped for this vigilante thing as reflected by her stats but she chooses the path of peril and danger

Her gameplay gimmick is changing clothes these don't have any effect on gameplay it reflects her character well

 

[Graw]

Are you playing the original version or the remaster?

I didn't really get into SaGa Frontier as much as the other SaGa games I've played. The first time I tried it, I tried the character that starts at the casino, I can't remember which one that is, and dropped the game pretty quickly. I gave it another chance later on and I started a playthrough as Emelia and never ended up finishing it. Whereas with Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song I played through it three times in a row back to back and Romancing SaGa 3 sucked me in pretty good once I figured out what the hell was going on.

I didn't like the way the mechanics were done as much in Frontier and the way everything was structured. Minstrel Song felt like a living world that progressed around you while you went on an epic adventure and had a really deep and complex character system. RS3 felt like a jrpg that had been chopped up and scattered and also had a fun and decently complex party and character build system with at least one fun mini-game added on.

Frontier's mechanics felt like a step back from RS3's and even from the original SaGa games and I just didn't really like the separate, mostly disconnected short story format.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Are you playing the original version or the remaster?

I didn't really get into SaGa Frontier as much as the other SaGa games I've played. The first time I tried it, I tried the character that starts at the casino, I can't remember which one that is, and dropped the game pretty quickly. I gave it another chance later on and I started a playthrough as Emelia and never ended up finishing it. Whereas with Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song I played through it three times in a row back to back and Romancing SaGa 3 sucked me in pretty good once I figured out what the hell was going on.

I didn't like the way the mechanics were done as much in Frontier and the way everything was structured. Minstrel Song felt like a living world that progressed around you while you went on an epic adventure and had a really deep and complex character system. RS3 felt like a jrpg that had been chopped up and scattered and also had a fun and decently complex party and character build system with at least one fun mini-game added on.

Frontier's mechanics felt like a step back from RS3's and even from the original SaGa games and I just didn't really like the separate, mostly disconnected short story format.

I played the original , it's my first entry to the SaGa franchise and my last bloody hell it took me 2 months to beat this game.

I like the game , i found it's mechanics be quite fun while i didn't explain much above due to wanting to include story and other elements....i will go more in detail as the series progresses about gameplay mechanics.

Some characters have rather fascinating mechanics and others offer less impressive stuff , every protagonist has a gameplay gimmick that sets them apart from other protagonists.

The remaster got an 8th character , fuse who we meet throughout the original game but his story was cut back then and it got included in the remaster it's such a cool thing to restore cut content.

Just be patient as i uncover more of the game mechanics in the coming parts , Emelia was my entry to the game and i consider her the tutorial character cuz oh boi there is a lot to do in this game and a lot of abilities to unlock that i missed as Emelia.

I'm exhausted from SaGa as of now i will take a look at frontier 2 sometime later maybe then look into the SNES games.