Romancing SaGa

"Why make it?"

Introduction - There's really nothing special about this game. You can pick from one of eight characters, play their "story" out, finish the game, and continue on to another story. Romancing Saga originally came out for the Super Nintendo way back in the day. I actually just heard about this game about a month ago when I went and bought it, thinking it was going to be another great RPG...but what I got in return, was definitely not what I was expected.

Game play - The game play comes down to using a strategy guide. There is no exact course you can take, no detailed explanation of your next quest, you just have to go out and figure things out for yourself. The main thing you do is battle monsters by running into them, which brings you into a turn based battle that most of the attacks look exactly alike. There are some aspects of this game that are interesting however. The fact that you can wield more than one weapon at a time is definitely a plus compared to most RPG's, and on top of that, you can wield multiple types of weapons. This is due to how the battles flow out also. You have to keep track of four different things. Health Points (HP), Life Points (LP), Battle Points (BP) and Durability Points (DP). Each weapon has a certain durability, and some moves use up some of the DP and also sometimes a lot of BP. You regain BP at the end of each battle round. You really don't have to worry about your HP though because at the end of the battle it automatically shoots back up to 100%, but your LP however, you need to keep a close watch on that. Once you run out of LP, you can't use that character for the rest of the game, and you don't regain that at the end of battles. You can only fix that by staying at inns. The game it's self is not that hard at all...if all you want to do is run around in an open field and kill things. The game is based off of thousands of side quests, which can get kind of annoying at times seeing how a lot of them don't guide you on what to do. It's more along the lines of, I want a chicken, but I'm not going to tell you how big it needs to be, where you need to get it from, and what color it is, and if you fail your first time your out of luck. I just couldn't get into that very much. The control of the game itself isn't that bad. The buttons aren't that hard to learn at all, and since you're repeatedly doing the same things, you get used to them really fast.

Story - This game really doesn't have a set story line, especially since you have to play eight different parts. To keep it short and simple, the story is, you have eight characters, all with different pasts, who's paths cross very quickly in the game, and all heading for the same goal, to save the world. Most, if not all, of the characters have a set story in the very beginning of their quest, and the very end. The big gap in between that time is completely wasted on nothing but petty side quests. If you're looking for a story, you have the wrong game.

Graphics/Sound - The graphics and sound make up for the lack of interest in the no story plot. The towns all have their own unique music and distinct look, and a lot of the characters you can talk to...and they are all equipped with voices. Most RPG's don't have voices for most of their NPC's, so this was definitely a change for the better. The only graphics I didn't like was the look of the monsters that you would face changed only in color. There really wasn't that many distinct looking monsters and that was kind of a turn off to the game. I'd have to say the graphics and sound were the best part of the game though.

Play Time/Replay ability - The game takes a long time to complete, a very long time. If you go through, get everything, complete every side quest, it'll take you a minimum of 40-50 hours...per character. The replay ability isn't all that great because once you choose a different character, it's pretty much the exact same as the one you played before, only some of the quests are slightly different, and appear at different times.

Final Recommendation - All in all, I don't think anybody should waste their time on buying this game if their looking for a good plot and story line. It is a good game though to kill some time when there's nothing else to do, for that's really all your doing in this game anyways.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/07

Game Release: Romancing SaGa (US, 10/11/05)