Romancing SaGa

"The Minstrel's Song is One Epic and Mesmerizing Adventure!"

I've been playing the Romancing Saga series since the 1st installment on SNES, I absolutely loved it back then but I never got around to find a copy of the new one. So when I found out my friend's got RS:MS I immediately borrowed it and it's been a grandiose and wonderful experience since the first minute I popped it in.


(1) Graphics/Music:
There's no surprise here, as always Square Enix nailed the presentation. The environments are beautiful, music is alluring, and character and monster designs are fantastic. Although one could argue that spell/special move animations are not as fancy as the FF series, but personally I find it better cuz it doesn't distract me away from the battle action for too long.

(2) Storyline:
The real distinguishing feature of the RS series is its player freedom in a gaming genre defined by linearity. I remember back in the days when I had no understanding of Japanese playing the original game on SNES, I had to GUESS what's gonna happen and run around trying to get stuff done. But really, with the brilliantly translated US version now there's really no excuse not to like the open world concept. You basically start by talking to the very limited number of NPCs to get quests and one leads to another, opening up more areas and dungeons, once you get the hang of it you get to choose your own path and rewards. Come to think of it, it's the same concept with MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and such, where you are thrown into a big open world creating your own legend.

(3) Gameplay:
It's a long journey and half of the time you'll be fighting battles in this game, but it's also the best part of the game IMO. You define your entire team, from which characters to recruit out of the 30+ possible heroes, to which class and weapon/magic skill you want them to train and master. There're many aspects that make the battles interesting. Your character learn new moves with their weapons based on probability (glimmers) and every time they learn it in battle it's the most gratifying moment. Also, your team perform 2~5 men combos and the powerful vortexes depending on the moves you set them to do and the order of performing them. Enemies could be a bit more challenging IMO, by the end game monsters are led by a group leader and the rest are all real weak making it sort of a no brainer. But I guess the real challenge would be after the 1st playthrough when you could fight some crazy bosses.

(4) Replay Value:
Having played through it once is the requirement to unlock additional and better things, and with 8 mains you could be spending quite some time with it... There's that hardcore RPGer in me telling me to collect all the best weapons and armors in the game (I've only got like 3 best weapons out of the 15 or so in my first 65 hours of playthrough...), and because a lot of times things are based on luck, that's where the hardcores will be sinking in their hundred of hours doing multiple playthroughs dungeon crawling, side questing, and resetting to get the best stuff in the game.

Lastly:
You get out of the game depending on how much you put into it. It could be a nice adventure and it could be an epic tale. As an old time RS fan, I'm happy with this installment.. It's a perfect embodiment of all the best features from the other games in the series and it's brilliant! Now only if they make a new one...

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/09

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