SaGa Frontier
Meeplelard, version 0.1
7/11/05
Table of Contents:
Version History
Legal Stuff
1. Overview of the Game
2. Basic Info
3. Characters
4. Tips for raising Characters
5. Walkthrough
6. Equipment
7. Frequently Asked Questions
8. Credits
Version 0.1: FAQ is created. I don't think I need to say much more.
Version 0.2: Long awaited update, walkthrough section finally started.
Legal Stuff:
This FAQ is a copyright of Meeple Lard. It can be found on GameFAQs and
only GameFAQs. If it's found anywhere else, then note that I did not
give permission for them to use it. People who wish to use information
from this FAQ for their own must first have my permission, and give
credit where Credit is due. If you wish to contact me for such
occasions, my E-mail is DbzFFlord@aol.com. My less used one, in case
you're curious, is MeepleLard@hotmail.com. If you wish to speak to me
directly, my MSN is MeepleLard@Hotmail.com and my AIM is
DbzFFLord@aol.com. That's about it for this boring legal stuff.
------------------------------
1. Overview of the Game
------------------------------
Some of you might be wondering "What is SaGa Frontier?" Well, if you
are, that must mean either you've never played the game and are reading
this FAQ because you are considering playing it, or you are randomly
bored. That, or I'm just making random assumptions, and thus am being a
jerk, but who knows? Anyway, SaGa Frontier is a role-playing game for
the Playstation made by Squaresoft, the company responsible for famous
RPG titles such as the Final Fantasy series.
SaGa Frontier is many ways a unique RPG. Like the rest of its series
(most of which is unavailable in the US), it takes the standard turn-
based system that many RPGs use, as well as other standard features,
and then puts a few twists on them, including a unique means of
leveling up and gaining skills. The game also has a different kind of
plot; instead of giving you one story to play through, with one main
character and a bunch of supporting characters, there are a total of 7
characters with unique stories, quests and characters to choose from.
Which one you choose to start with doesn't matter, since they are all
available from the get-go, and you can replay them as many times as you
want. Because of this, SaGa Frontier tends to be a game centered mainly
around gameplay, and replayability, instead of plot and character
development. Some quests you might like, others you might abhor, and
then there are those you might just plain not care about one way or the
other.
Well, that's about it for the basic overview of the game, if I go
further, I'd get into depth, so I probably should just get into the
next section.
-------------
2. Basic Info
-------------
This section will give you the heads up about basic concepts that you
might like to know about playing SaGa Frontier. I mean, if you didn't
know how to play the game, then beating the game might be difficult or
something.
Note that you can see explanations of a lot of this stuff in the game
by going to Config -> Menu Explanation.
Game Controls:
Control Pad: Moves the character, and selects options in menus
Circle: Action/Accept
X: Dash/Cancel
Square: Menu
Triangle: Displays character status in battle
R1: Brings up the "Defend" Command in battle
L1: Accept (in battle only)
R2: Shift battle camera to the right
L2: Shift battle camera to the left
Start: Pauses game, brings up battle speed menu in battle
Select: Nothing
STATISTICS
SaGa Frontier keeps track of 12 statistics for each character. They
are:
HP = Hit Points
LP = Life Points
JP = Jutsu Points
WP = Waza Points
Str = Strength
Qui = Quickness
Int = Intelligence
Wil = Will
Psy = Psychic
Vit = Vitality
Chr = Charm
Def = Defense
HP AND LP
Hit points are the old RPG standby – lose them all and you die. From
there, it gets a bit more complicated.
Every time a character loses all their HP, they’ll lose one Life Point
and be unable to act until they are healed (any healing item/spell will
work) or the battle ends. If an enemy attacks a “dead” character (and
multi-target spells count here), he/she/it will automatically lose 1
LP. If LP hits 0, the character won't restore after battle, and you
will be forced to heal their LP with special items or full-healing
locations like an inn.
WP, JP AND LP
There are two types of attacks in SaGa Frontier: physical techs and
magic spells. Physical techs cost WP, while magic uses JP (Jutsu
Points). This works exactly like traditional MP, if it was split into
two stats. If you don’t have enough JP/WP for a particular move, it
will be greyed-out in combat. In battle, move costs are displayed in
the upper-right corner of the screen. The first number shown is the
cost of the attack, and the second is how many points you have left. A
sword icon in that box means the technique costs WP, and a staff icon
means JP.
MENUS (AND STUFF)
When you open the menu, you'll see all characters you have in every
team; each column represents one team. You'll notice 4 numbers next to
the characters, which can be changed with the control pad, to cycle
through 3 sets of numbers. These are your characters stats, which I'll
get to later. The 3 sets are:
HP/LP/WP/LP
Str/Qui/Int/Wil
Psy/Vit/Chr/Def
For the first menu, after HP, it'll list 2 numbers. The first is your
current amount, the 2nd is the maximum for that character. If the
character currently has less than the maximum, the stat will be
displayed in yellow.
The Abbreviations for the last 8 stats are:
Str = Strength
Qui = Quickness
Int = Intelligence
Wil = Will
Psy = Psychic
Vit = Vitality
Chr = Charm
Def = Defense
What these mean, I'll brush up on later. To the right hand side, you'll
notice the menu itself. You can have this disappear to see characters
being covered by it by pressing the Triangle Button.
Going in order, each option on the menu goes as such:
Status: Shows the characters status you choose. The status menu will
look like this:
Name Magic/Physical dependency (Humans only)
Race: Human, Mec, Mystic, or Monster Sex:
HP: The character’s Max HP LP: Current LP/Max LP
WP: Current WP/Max WP JP: Current JP/Max JP
Strength: Base Strength + equip bonuses
Quickness: Base Quickness + equip Bonuses
Intelligence: Base Intelligence + equip bonuses
Will: Base Will + equip bonuses
Psychic: Base Psychic + equip bonuses
Vitality: Base Vitality + equip bonuses
Charm: Base Charm + Equip Bonuses
Defense: Defense
Race determines a great many things about the character, from what
skills they can learn to how many equipment slots they have and how it
affects them.
Equipment bonuses, if it’s not obvious, are the yellow number listed
next to the base stat
To the right of your stats, you can see your equipment. If you press Up
or Down, you can see what skills that character has equipped.
Item: Opens up a menu of all the items you have in your inventory, and
tells you what each do.
Position: Allows you to alter your team's setup. You have three battle
teams of up to five characters each, divided by columns in the position
screen. The first column is Team A, the second is Team B, and the third
is Team C. Before battle begins, you can choose which of the three
teams to send in. Your main character is fixed in Team A.
Equip Weapon: Opens up a list of items you can equip. For Humans and
Mystics, the first four slots are for weapons (Swords and Guns),
Shields, and Items, and the last four are for all defensive equips. You
can use any combination of weapons/items in the first four slots – if
you equip three swords, for instance, you’ll be able to use them all in
combat. However, you can only equip one of each type of armor – Body
Armor, Boots, Helmets, Shirts, and Gloves. If you equip a Suit, it
counts as Body Armor, Boots, Helmet, Shirt AND Gloves, so you'll only
be able to use that and any accessories you want to. Which symbol
represents which kind of equipment should be obvious.
Mecs can equip any item, weapon, accessory or armor they want to
anywhere with no restrictions. They can equip multiple armors of the
same type, including multiple suits.
Monsters have only 4 equipment slots, and they can only equip
accessories.
If a character’s equipment is displayed in red, it means that their
equipment is locked, and can't be removed or changed at all.
Equip Ability: Allows you to set up your character’s skillsets for
battle. No matter how many abilities a character knows, he or she can
only use the ones equipped.
To equip a physical ability, just choose the type of skill and then the
skill you want. To equip a magic spell, you must first choose a
“school” - Light, Shadow, Realm, etc. If you have the Gift for a type
of magic, it will be marked with a star. Only characters with Gifts can
learn magic naturally – otherwise, you have to buy new spells. Gifts
can be learned by completing side quests.
Humans, who have the most skills to worry about, have 8 ability slots.
To the right of the screen, you'll see your skills split into Swords,
Guns, Fighting, Magic, Special and Dodge. Swords, Guns and Fighting all
count as Physical abilities, and Magic counts as magic (Duh?) Dodge
and Special are totally neutral.
There is a small bar at the top right corner of this screen. As a
character equips physical skills, it fills with blue, and magic skills
fill it with red. If a character equips six skills of one type
(physical or magical) and NONE of the other type, the bar will have a
crown in the center, and all skills of that type will cost 1 less WP or
JP. This ONLY applies to humans.
Config: Brings up another submenu which has the following:
Menu Explanation: Sort of a tutorial to the game; explains how
you use menus and such.
Menu Items: Lets you switch the order things are displayed
in at the main menu screen
Display Color: Lets you alter the background colors for
different parts of the game
Other: Lets you change sound, game speed, and window
positioning
For Mystics, the first four slots are can be filled with whatever you
want, the same as Humans (typically, Mystics will use Magic). The 3
bottom slots are reserved for the Mystic Weapons (Mystic Sword, Mystic
Glove, and Mystic Boot) that all Mystics use automatically, and all you
can do is check what monster is absorbed into them.
For both Humans and Mystics, if you wish to clear room for more skills,
use the "Seal" command, and it'll de-equip the selected skill.
Mecs have a varying number of skills to work with based on their
equipment. To use them, just select the skill you want and equip it in
a free space. If you kill a Mec in combat, any Mecs in your party can
“download” it after the battle, with a chance to learn a new skill.
Monsters are more complicated. They don’t learn, abilities naturally,
by any method – instead, after you kill a monster in combat, monsters
in your party will be able to “absorb” it and learn a new skill (which
skill you learn. That skill will be placed in the eighth spot on the
monster’s skill list, regardless of what was there already. If it was
an empty slot, you got a free skill. If there was a skill there
already, you’ll lose it. Make sure to move any skills you want to keep
out of the eighth slot! That skill slot will be in red, for extra
emphasis.
As a fun fact, a way to remind yourself of what race each character is
that all Races will have a different colored backgrounds for their
Equip Ability screen. Humans are black, Mystics are red, Mecs are blue,
and Monsters are green.
Save: Lets you save the game. You can save on either of your memory
cards, or do a quick save. A quick save is a temporary save file stored
in the Playstation’s memory. You don’t need space on a memory card to
save one, and it can be loaded instantly, but turning off the system
will erase any quick save you’ve made.
At this point, you're probably wondering what I'm talking about with
all these "Humans" and "Mystics" and such, so…I’d best get into that
now.
SaGa splits its characters into four different races: Humans, Mystics,
Mecs, and Monsters. Each race is different.
Humans: Humans are the most common race in SaGa. They gain stats
naturally at the end of fights based on the actions they did in battle.
For example, using guns will increase quickness frequently, but loweres
strength growth. They also learn techs through their actions in battle.
They can learn any tech involving swords, guns, fists, magic, or
dodging. NWhen a character uses a gun skill or magic spell in combat,
there’s a chance he or she will learn a new skill when the battle ends
(only if they have the appropriate magic gift, of course). Sword and
fist techniques are learned randomly in battle based on what attacks
the character uses. When a human learns a new technique, a light bulb
appearing over the character's head, and he or she will immediately use
the new attack instead of the one you told him/her to perform. Dodge
techs are randomly learned when the character is hit with a specific
attack; for example, every time a human carrying a sword is hit with an
attack, there’s a chance he/she will learn Deflect. Every human has
different tech learning rates, so some will learn magic faster than
others, while others characters will be better with swords, etc. These
values are hidden.
Mystics: Mystics are the only class besides humans who can use magic,
and they learn it the same way as humans. However, they can't learn any
of the weapon skills, and none of their stats besides HP, WP, JP, and
Charm increase naturally. Instead, they have to absorb monsters to
increase their stats and learn new skills. Each Mystic gets three
Mystic weapons – Mystic Sword, Mystic Glove and Mystic Boots. When the
Mystic kills a monster with one of those weapons, the monster will be
absorbed into it, giving the Mystic a set of stat boosts and teaching
them a new skill. Note that on the status menu, the game treats
absorbed stats as equips, so they'll be listed in yellow numbers next
to addition to the base stats. A Mystic can have three monsters
absorbed at once – one in the sword, one in the glove, and one in the
boots. Absorbing a new monster into a weapon that already has one will
“overwrite” the old one, replacing both the stat boosts and the skill
from the old monster. While Mystics can't learn techs from weapons,
they can still use them like humans normal humans. They can also use
any skills innately attached to those weapons.
Mecs: Mecs have no natural stat growth whatsoever. Instead, their stats
are totally reliant on what equips they currently have on. Due to this,
Mecs have far more flexibility than any other race – they have no
restrictions on the equipment they can use, and each one can have
wildly different effects. Equipping an item on a Mec will have an
effect completely different than it would have on any other race. For
example, a certain item might give +10 to strength for a
Human/Mystic/Monster, but on a Mec it might have no effect at all on
strength and raise quickness by 5. For skills, Mecs often come with a
few innately learned moves, and then learn the rest by defeating other
Mecs, and absorbing them after battle. Each time they absorb another
Mec, they have a chance to learn a new move. Note that unlike the other
Races, each Mec is has a completely unique list of skills that it can
learn. Absorbing a Mec might teach your Mec a new skill, but that skill
will come from its own list, so two Mecs will often gain two completely
different skills from the same type of opponent.
Monsters: Monsters are a tricky race in general. They have very
restricted equipment, and absolutely no natural stat progression.
Monster's stats are based on what form they are currently in, which is
determined by the combination skills they have at the moment. Monsters
learn skills by killing other monsters, and then absorbing them, which
allows them to learn a new skill, depending on what monster was
absorbed. Because of how they learn their skills, and since their basic
stats are determined by their form and not anything unique to them, all
monsters are essentially the same except for their starting skills.
LEARNING MAGIC
As a final thing, allow me to explain just how magic works for Humans
and Mystics. First and foremost, a character will not learn any magic
unless you teach it to them, and they won't learn it naturally (that
is, at the end of battle) unless they cast a spell of that school
during the fight, AND have the Gift for that kind of magic. Every
school of magic has about 3 or 4 spells that can be bought, and the
others can only be learned through Gifts, so if you want a character to
learn every spell in a school, they must have the Gift.
Also, it is imperative that you know that every type magic has an
opposite, and a character can’t know two spells of opposite schools at
once. If the character has the Gift of one school, they can never learn
any magic of its opposite, let alone obtain the opposite Gift, even if
they don’t know any spells of that type.
The chart of opposing magic goes as such:
Shadow <-> Light
Arcane <-> Rune
Mystic <-> Realm
Evil <-> Mind
Space <-> Time
Life and Mirage have no opposing schools of magic.
Well, so much for all the boring stuff about basic gameplay info and
such, but anyways, onto something FAR more interesting!
COMBAT
If you hit an enemy in a dungeon, you engage a Battle.
The first option that pops up in battle is "Select Team." A team
consists of 5 characters, and you have 3 teams total. Once you select a
team, you'll use it to fight the entire fight, and if that team, no
matter who is in it, dies, it’s game over. The main character of the
story you choose does not have to participate in battle. However,
he/she/it will ALWAYS be in the first party, and cannot be moved - so
if you plan on using your main character in combat, you must use Party
1. Also, all boss fights force you to use Party 1, no matter what you
want, so it'd be a good idea to put your strongest characters in Party
1. You can change who’s in which party at will (besides the main) in
the menu by using the "Position" command.
After you select your party, you'll be prompted to enter commands. You
won’t be picking from just one list, though – the available commands
are divided into multiple lists, and you switch between them with the
left and right buttons. There’s one list for items, one for magic, one
for bare-handed attacks, and one for each weapon you have equipped, so
you can choose which one you use for your attacks. Here’s an example:
Let’s say you’ve got Gen, a human character, equipped with a
SamuraiSword, a LaserKnife, and some healing items. And, in addition,
he also knows a few magic spells. He’d have five lists, and they’d look
something like this:
LaserKnife
DoubleSlash
GaleSlash
SwallowSlash
This is Gen’s list of sword techniques he can use with the LaserKnife.
Picking a command from this menu makes Gen attack with the LaserKnife
instead of the SamuraiSword. Selecting the “LaserKnife” option would
perform a basic slash.
SamuraiSword
DoubleSlash
GaleSlash
SwallowSlash
ShadowCounter
This is the list of sword techniques Gen can use with the SamuraiSword.
Note that it’s got everything the LaserKnife menu has, plus the
“ShadowCounter” skill. ShadowCounter can only be used with katana-type
swords, so it won’t even show up on the LaserKnife’s menu.
Fist
This is the option to attack with a bare-handed punch. Any martial-arts
attacks Gen knows would also show up in this list.
StarlightHeal
SunRay
WindBlast
This is Gen’s list of magic. It’s pretty simple – pick one, target it,
and it gets cast.
SnakeOil
MagicStone
These are the usable items Gen has equipped. Again, pick one and target
it to use it.
After you choose an action, you'll be forced to choose a target. Every
attack has its own means of targeting, including single-target, multi-
target, hitting only a certain area, and hitting in a line. Each move
will hit either your characters or your opposition, but (generally) not
both. The X button is the cancel command; it undoes the action of the
last character you gave input to, After entering the last character's
action (typically, that'll be the fifth) the turn will play out. Once
all actions are finished, another turn will happen, assuming there are
monsters (and PCs) still alive. The display uses standard RPG
conventions - white numbers in battle are damage done, while green
numbers show healing. If a red number shows up on a character, then
they’ve lost LP, or life points. Usually you won’t see red numbers
higher than 1, but there are exceptions.
The object of battle is simple – kill the enemies. Well, except in
specific fights which require you to do special tasks, but those will
be covered later. Losing a fight can happen in a few ways. First is if
all characters are permanently incapacitated. This means if everybody
is dead (0 HP) or hit with the Stone status. You also lose if your main
character, whoever that may be, loses all of his/her/its LP. How this
can happen will be explained later.
SKILL LEARNING
When a human uses a fist or sword attack, occasionally you’ll see a
light bulb appear over his or her head, and the character will use a
new technique instead of what you told him/her to. To put it simply,
this is how humans learn new fist and sword skills – every time they
use an one, they’ll have a small chance to learn a new one (what skills
they can learn depends on the skill you tell them to use). Once a
character learns a new skill, they can use it at will (as long as you
keep it equipped). Learning new skills is an extremely important part
of building a human character, and each character will learn different
skills at different rates.
-------------
3. Characters
-------------
SaGa Frontier has a TON of characters to recruit, many of them hidden
away or available only in a few quests. Depending on how you like to
play, and which races you prefer, you can build a wide variety of
parties.
This is a complete list of characters in SaGa Frontier, their races,
some information on them, and how to get them. This is just going in
alphabetical order, if you're wondering. As for the ratings? That's
just what few friends and I agreed to give characters, rating it out of
100 since some characters just don't feel right having the same exact
numeric rank or something. Note that the rankings are relative values,
and not absolute, so having a high score here doesn't mean the
character is close to absolute, game-crushing perfection – they’re just
one of the best in the cast. Anyway, onto the actual characters!
Note: If a character's quest is not listed for a character, than that
quest can not get that character. If you see something like "All Other
Characters" than that states that all quests not specifically mentioned
can get this character in the same way.
Remember that you can only recruit 15 characters at a time. Choose
carefully!
~~~~~
Annie
~~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: Blonde hair, green outfit.
Rating: 60/100
Availability:
Emelia - Start the game off with her. She will be forced into your
party from time to time. To have her join permanently, speak to her
outside of the bar in Koorong at any point of the game.
Riki - When searching for the Hermit Ring, talk to Annie outside of the
bar in Koorong, and she'll join.
All other quests - After completing the other 3 sections of the Rune
Gift side quest, talk to her outside of the bar in Koorong.
Red's Alternative - In addition to the normal method, Red can get Annie
by giving her dinner and allowing her to take him into BlackX's base.
Comments: Annie is a fairly standard human who tends to do well with
swords. She's not a bad character, but she hardly stands out. Being
available early in Emelia's quest makes her decent, but she's probably
not worth building in other quests (besides maybe Red's) since it
requires going through the majority of a large quest. You can use her,
as there's no penalty, but don't expect stellar results.
~~~~~~~
Asellus
~~~~~~~
Race: Half-Mystic
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: Green hair, pink dress
Rating: 92/100
Availability:
Asellus - This is incredibly difficult. What you have to do is press
start, choose new game, choose Asellus as your main, and give her a
name.
Emelia - When you infiltrate Trinity's base for the first time, leave
the room when you finally have control of your character. Asellus
(along with White Rose) will be standing outside. Note that Asellus
will replace the character in the last slot (along with White Rose who
joins with her) if you had 15 characters already.
Red - When the Cygnus is under attack, find Asellus in one of the rooms
(along with White Rose), and she will join. Note that she is only
temporary though, and leaves when this sequence ends.
Comments: Asellus is one of the best characters in the game, no
questions asked. She's the only character in the game with a completely
unique race (the "Half-mystic"), which is actually a combination of the
Human and Mystic Race. In other words, she can learn all techs humans
can learn, she has natural stat growth like a human, AND she can absorb
monsters to increase her stats and use their abilities. Note, however,
that she can only gets those stat boosts in combat after she uses
"Mystical Change" in battle (activated by Asellus using one of her
Mystic Weapons). She doesn't start off as much, but given time, she can
be raised into quite a beast. Not a character to take lightly at all.
~~~~
BJ&K
~~~~
Race: Mec
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: Tin can moving on four little ball things
Rating: 70/100
Availability:
Red - When Cygnus is under attack, find it in one of the rooms. It will
join instantly.
Comments: BJ&K is quite helpful in Red's quest for the early game, when
he doesn't have many characters to work with, and could use some strong
back up (especially since he can transform into Alkaiser with Mecs in
the party). Beyond that, he's a solid Mec overall, with the unique Med
Kit ability to heal your non Mec friends. Overall, a solid Mec, and a
decent character, for all that better choices exist.
~~~~
Blue
~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Long blond hair, blue clothes
Rating: 100/100
Availability:
Blue - Start the game, and…well, yeah, do the math <_<;
Comments: Blue is ridiculous. He starts the game off fairly standard,
but after one part of the game, his stats (the relevant ones) skyrocket
to hell, and he gets almost every magic Gift in the game, breaking the
very balance of it. The variety he has is ridiculous, and then there's
the little Overdrive + Stasis Rune combo which makes losing boss fights
damn near impossible. All in all, the best PC in the game, quite
handily.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Captain Hamilton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: Greenish-grey clothes, blonde hair
Rating: 60/100
Availability:
Lute - Go to Owmi and talk to her in the bar. Then go to the port and
head to Nelson. The game will shift to you being on her ship. Head to
the captain's room and speak to her, and she will join.
NOTE: Speaking to her does NOT require continuing the plot; you can
still get off her boat after having her join by speaking to the
helmsman.
Comments: Captain Hamilton has good starting stats, and comes with the
ability "Two Gun," which is always nice. She's otherwise a very generic
human with nothing special about her who is available in only one
quest.
~~~~~~
Cotton
~~~~~~
Race: Monster
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: Purple and white fur with green, tentacle-like
things coming out of it
Rating: 2.5/10
Availability:
All quests - In the Bio Lab at Shrike, find the experiment room. You
will immediately engage in a fight, and once you win it, Cotton will
join.
Comments: Cotton is an utterly generic monster with nothing that stands
out. Not a character I'd really bother getting, unless you want an
easy-to-get monster in quests where you can't get Riki and don't want
to start the Rune quest.
~~~~
Doll
~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: A woman with light purple hair and purple clothing
Rating: 72/100
Availability:
Red - In Shingrow, on your second visit, you'll find her standing in
one of the rooms. Speak to her and agree to help her find her brother
and she'll join.
Comments: Doll is a human who starts with mystic magic, which is quite
an odd combination. Regardless, she has excellent tech learning rates
all around, and due to that, stands out compared to most other humans.
It’s a pity she's only in one quest, but she's worth using regardless.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Nusakan
~~~~~~~~~~~
Race: Mystic
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Pale with long black hair and a white lab coat
Rating: 83/100
Availability:
Blue - Get the Rune Stones from Devin and then head to Koorong and find
his lab in the bottom pathway to the alley (the first area of the
Koorong dungeons). Talk to the head, and you'll be able to enter the
room. Talk to Nusakan to have him join.
Riki - Go to the billionaire's house in Yorkland and fight the demon.
After the fight, Mei-Ling will tell you of a doctor in Koorong. Head
back there, and find him in his office and he'll join.
Comments: Nusakan is one of the best Mystics around. In a sense, he
feels like compensation for Blue and Riki not being able to get
Timelord, but that's another story altogether. A few main things make
Nusakan stand out though. First, he comes with Arcane spells, including
Death - a Gift spell - despite him not having the Gift. Next, he has
Mystic Wear as a fixed equip, not Mystic Mail like most other mystics.
This means he can use Armors and Suits but can't change his Shirt class
armors. This is more advantageous than it seems at first, since the
Mystic Wear has excellent elemental defenses, and can be as an item in
combat to restore HP to any party member, as many times as you want. So
he gets a very good shirt that’s unique to him, and doesn’t have to use
the (very bad) Mystic Mail. In turn, that frees him up to use the
game’s good body armor and suits, which no other Mystic can. He’s
definitely one of the best mystics in the game, and one of the best
characters overall. You should at least consider using him when you
play Riki and Blue's quests.
~~~~~~
Emelia
~~~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: Long blonde hair, green and blue clothing
Rating: 75/100
Availability:
Emelia - No comment…
All other Quests - Start the Arcane quest and head to Baccarat. Find
the blue bunny girl with blonde hair. Speak to her, and you'll be
forced to follow a gnome. After following him to the parking lot, try
to enter the manhole nearby. She’ll stop you. Talk to her again and
she’ll join.
Comments: Emelia is a respectable human whose main advantage is that
she's in every quest, so she's typically a good choice to use anywhere.
While she starts with guns, she isn't half bad with swords or fists
either. In her own quest, she'll be able to change costumes, which
effectively change her tech learning rates to match those of another
character (Which costume does what will be covered later), so it’s nice
if you want her to specialize in a specific weapon class in her own
quest. While standout character, she's defiantly not a bad one either,
and being accessible in every quest means she's always an option worth
considering.
~~~~~~~~~~~
EngineerCar
~~~~~~~~~~~
Race: Mec
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: Car-like robot with two guns on the front
Ranking: 50/100
Availability:
All Quests - Go to Shrike and talk to it with any cec in your team, and
it'll join instantly
NOTE: Asellus and Emelia cannot get any cecs in their quests, and thus
cannot get EngineerCar.
Comments: EngineerCar does a nice job of helping you tank out the
early game – it’s easy to get quickly, and like most mecs, it’s easy to
build him up with readily available equipment. Otherwise, it's hardly
an impressive mec. There’s no harm in getting him for the early game,
though, and he could end up actually decent if you put enough time into
him, but there's usually much better options around. He does have some
use in a two-Mec party, since his RepairPack lets you heal other Mecs
as many times as you want.
~~~~~~
Fei-On
~~~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Bald with a black braid, wearing a green gi
Ranking: 43/100
Availability:
Riki - After you get to Koorong, try to go to any dungeon you desire,
and you'll get swallowed by Tanzer. You'll eventually meet up with Fei-
On in a plot sequence. Follow him to his "town,” talk to him in his
room and let him join.
All other quests - After you get one Rune from the Rune quest, get on
your ship and go anywhere; you'll be swallowed by Tanzer. After a plot
scene, you'll be forced to follow him to his "town" where you talk to
him and agree to let him join.
NOTE: Blue cannot get Fei-on to join, so don't try.
Comments: Fei-on is an unimpressive human. His main schtick is being a
good fist fighter, but even then he's not that special. He starts with
decent stats, and a few skills, but there's one major flaw; he doesn't
learn DSC (the ultimate fist technique) all that easily. Given that DSC
is one of the main reasons to even consider using fist fighters, it
knocks his usefulness down quite a bit. If you want a good fist
fighter, stick with Liza or Fuse.
~~~~
Fuse
~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Long blond hair, greenish-black uniform
Fuse: 77/100
Availability:
All Quests - Start the Arcane quest, and head to IRPO. Talk to the
woman at the desk and you'll be sent to the Mosperiburg Mountain, where
Fuse will join temporarily. If you leave the mountain before finishing
his quest (he wants you to find a flower…don’t ask), he’ll leave your
party. Once the quest is complete, he's yours for keeps.
Red's Alternative – Fuse joins temporarily for the part of the game
where the Cygnus is under attack. He can be gained permanently simply
by speaking to him in Manhattan later in the game. Note that getting
him this way means you won't get to go to Mosperiburg Mountain. While
you can still complete the Arcane quest (Fuse will just give you the
card you need, no questions asked), you can't get the secret stuff on
the mountain; that means giving up the character "Suzaku" and a fight
with two optional dragons (and gaining the treasure they guard).
Comments: Fuse is one of the best fist fighters in the game. He starts
with the Mind Magic gift and a few spells, and one of those spells is
Awakening (a gift spell that can be a slight pain to get, so he gets a
great boost over most other physical fighters. He also comes with some
nice martial-arts techniques. If it’s not obvious, Fuse is a fist
fighter (you'd expect a cop to use guns, granted), and he's one of the
best in the game. He learns most fist moves, including all the DSC
moves, fairly fast, which is really nice. He’s a solid PC who you can
get in every quest, and an excellent choice if you want a fist fighter.
~~~
Gen
~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Tan skin, white bandana, brown hair, brown pants,
and a white shirt
Rating: 75/100
Availability:
Riki - When you get to Scrap early in the game, talk to Gen and then
try to leave; he'll force himself into your team.
T260G - Joins through a forced plot event early in the game
All other quests - Start the Arcane quest, and talk to the skeleton in
Koorong who normally talks about the guy who used a pipe like a sword
(he sits near the man who buys leather, and the in the same screen as
the entrance to the inn.) Head to Scrap, and find Gen in the bar.
Speak to him and he'll join.
Comments: Gen is quite possibly the best of all the swordfighters in
SaGa Frontier. He learns almost every sword tech fast, and he comes
with a bunch of useful skills. As an added bonus, he doesn't make a
half bad fist fighter either, for all that he probably should stick
with swords. He's easy to get in every quest (and joins very early in
T260G and Riki's), so he's always an option. Overall, if you want a
solid good swordsman, Gen should be your first choice.
~~~~~
Ildon
~~~~~
Race: Mystic
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Green Hair, pale skin, purple robe
Rating: 45/100
Availability:
Asellus – Nominally joins early in the game (meaning he's in your team,
but you can't use him in any battles), but leaves after a while. He’ll
join permanently later on in a forced plot event after you beat Lion
Princess.
Comments: Ildon comes in with a bang, so to speak. He has overall the
best stats of any Mystic, and comes with a few monsters already
absorbed (most Mystics come with none), so his stats are quite high
when you first get him. His downside? That's all he has. This makes
him really just a normal Mystic with better stats than most, which, for
a Mystic, isn't worth much. Use him if you want to, since there's no
penalty, but there's better options available, especially for Mystics
in the quest you can get him (Mesarthim, Timelord, and Zozma all come
to mind…)
~~~~~
Kylin
~~~~~
Race: Monster
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: Just imagine a poodle spliced with a flower and a
unicorn.
Rating: 50/100
Availability:
All quests - Finish either the Arcane or Rune quest, and get either the
Shadow or Light gift. Then, go to Devin and talk to the woman who tells
you about Time and Space magic. Ask about Space magic and you'll be
warped to Kylin's world. Complete his maze, and then ask him to join.
NOTE: Blue cannot get Kylin to join under any circumstances. If he goes
to Kylin’s world, he will fight Kylin and learn his Space magic.
NOTE 2: If Asellus recruits Kylin, she cannot recruit Rei later in the
game.
Comments: Kylin is probably the single best monster in the game. While
most monsters require work to be good in combat, Kylin comes in with
what can already be considered an ultimate form, and it’s a form that's
completely unique to him to boot. He also is noteworthy because he
comes with every Space spell (especially noteworthy since no monster
can learn any magic, ever, so him just having magic, let alone the
gift, says a lot.) Compared to other races he's not that great,
though; for starters, getting him means you can't buy Space Magic from
him for your other party members, and the gift spells of Space magic
aren't really that good, so there's no real reason to get him unless
you like monsters. Overall, he’s not a character I'd really consider
unless you desperately need the instant fire power (for instance, in
Riki’s quest).
~~~~~~~
Leonard
~~~~~~~
Race: Mec
Gender: Male (well, sort of)
Sprite Description: Yellow Robot with what seems to have a human face
painted on
Rating: 65/100
Availability:
T260G - After completing the section of the plot that requires going to
Shingrow, return to his lab and speak to him, and he'll join.
Comments: Leonard is a solid Mec. He gets a few nice skills, has the
usual easily-boosted stats of a Mec, and has only 3 fixed equips, which
means he's quite flexible by Mec standards. He's only usable in one
quest, though, and you get a lot of Mecs in that one, so he's not that
special in that regard. He also joins pretty late, while the other Mecs
can be recruited early, further hurting his use. A decent character,
all things considered, but wouldn't go as far as to call him great. He
does have the ability to restore other Mecs’ WP for free, which can be
extremely helpful in the long boss battles T260G has to deal with from
time to time.
~~~~
Liza
~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: Purple hair and a red blouse
Rating: 77/100
Availability:
Blue - Start the Rune quest, and recruit Roufas. Then head back to the
restaurant in Koorong and speak to Liza and she will join
Emelia - Liza will join temporarily in the beginning, and then be
forced into your team at certain plot events. To get her to join
permanently outside of those events, talk to her in the restaurant in
Koorong at any time.
Red - After Annie joins you and takes you to Shuzer's base, go back to
the restaurant in Koorong and you'll have the option of choosing
between Roufas and Liza. Choose Liza to have her join.
NOTE: Red can still get Roufas to join even if you don't choose him
here, whereas this is his only chance to get Liza.
Comments: Liza is the fist user’s answer to Gen. She starts with a nice
selection of fist techniques, and learns new ones like mad. She even
learns DSC easily. If you want a fist user, and are playing Red, Emelia
or Blue's quest, Liza is defiantly someone to consider, since it's hard
to find a better fist user (Fuse is probably the closest substitute).
Plus she's only available in a few quests, so you might as well take
advantage of her.
~~~~
Lute
~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Blue hair, red and white striped pants, and a lute
on his back…and a weird little hat.
Rating: 35/100
Availability:
Lute - No, you can't get him in his own quest. I'm sorry, it’s not
happening.
T260G – When you go to Scrap, speak to him in the pub and proceed to
the factory. Enter the bottom door there, fight some monsters, and
he’ll join.
All other quests - Speak to him in the bar in Scrap, and he'll join.
Comments: Lute is one of the worse humans in the game, if not the
outright worst. His starting stats are atrocious, he comes with no
skills but Stun Slash, and his starting equipment is very basic. He has
good tech learning rates, to be fair, but otherwise is not a very good
character at all, since while he's good at learning most things,
there's always a handful of people who are better - Gen with Swords,
Liza and Fuse with fists, etc. – he can become pretty good at just
about anything, with enough work, but without a lot of luck he won’t be
better than “pretty good.” My advice is don't use Lute unless you just
need to fill an empty character slot.
~~~~~~~~
Mei-Ling
~~~~~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: Purple hair, black and red clothing
Rating: 70/100
Availability:
Riki - She joins automatically in Scrap’s pub, before the quest’s first
dungeon.
NOTE: In Riki’s quest, Mei-Ling will leave you literally right before
the final battle. If she was in your party at this point, you will have
to face Riki’s final boss with only four characters. THIS IS BAD.
All other quests - Speak to her in Scrap's pub and tell her your story,
and she'll join.
NOTE: Red and Asellus cannot get Mei-Ling to join under any
circumstances.
Comments: Mei-Ling is a standard human and decent in most ways. Her
starting stats aren't much, but she's easy to get and learns techs
pretty well. She comes with a few Light Magic spells learned, too. Not
a bad human to consider, especially since you can get her very early in
the game, but she's not all that special either, and considering the
stunt she pulls in Riki's quest, she's a complete waste of time to
build up in that quest – pretty ironic, since she’s second only to Riki
in importance to the plot.
~~~~~~~~~
Mesarthim
~~~~~~~~~
Race: Mystic
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: A mermaid, I think that should be enough. No? Fine.
Blue fish's tail, grey skin, and white hair, and completely topless.
Happy?
Rating: 85/100
Availability:
All Quests (except T260G) - Find her in the Lord's Manor basement, and
talk to her with a Mystic in your team.
NOTE: Asellus does count as a Mystic in this case, but Silence does not
(probably because he doesn't talk; she’ll only join if a Mystic
convinces her to)
NOTE 2: Since T260G cannot recruit any Mystics in his quest, he can’t
get Mesarthim either.
Asellus' Temporary Alternative - Mesarthim will join for a short time
in the Lord's Manor basement part of Asellus' introduction, and leave
at the end.
Comments: Mesarthim is one of the best Mystics in the game, and the
only Mystic besides Dr. Nusakan who is not forced to use the terrible
Mystic Mail. Instead, she has the MellowRing locked on. It’s a standard
accessory, meaning she has full range of equips, and it grants her
permanent water immunity (she's a freaking mermaid, of course she'll be
immune). If that's not enough, Mesarthim also comes with the Rune Gift
automatically obtained (kind of a blessing and a curse, since it means
you won't have to go through that quest, but she also can't get Arcane
Magic if you want to give it to her), which is a nice bonus. Oddly
enough, what makes her REALLY stand out is one of her two unique
abilities; Liferain. At a cost of 1 LP, she can pretty much fully heal
your entire team, making her easily the game's best healer. All in all,
she's defiantly worth using if you want a Mystic, or if you just want a
good character in general. I’m not sure what's scarier: how good a
character she is, or the fact that she's not even the best Mystic in
the game.
~~~~~
PzkmW
~~~~~
Race: Mec
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: Looks like a green box on yellow legs.
Rating: 42/100
Availability:
T260G - Talk to him in the shop where you can get Hyper Blasters in
Koorong after Leonard joins. Note that once you do this, you can't
access this shop again.
Comments: A mediocre Mec. He has no skills that stand out, no really
special equipment, average stats, and only four equipment slots to work
with. What’s worse, getting him means you can't buy any more Hyper
Blasters for your precious Mecs in T260G's quest either, and it’s the
most Mec-heavy of the quests. I wouldn’t recommend recruiting him
unless you really want another Mec.
~~~~~~
Rabbit
~~~~~~
Race: Mec
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: A flying ball, basically
Rating: 70/100
Availability:
Red - Find him in Kyo and speak to him
Comments: Rabbit is a solid mec, all things considered. Satelite Linker
is his main quirk, and it gives him some good, if tough to set up,
damage. His equipment flexibility is fairly standard for a mec, with
five open slots, for whatever that's worth. Mind, he's only available
in one story, but if you happen to be playing that story, Rabbit
certainly isn't a bad option.
~~~~
Red
~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Light blue hair, white shirt, red pants
Rating: 92/100
Availability:
Red – Guess.
Comments: Red is a fairly good human all around, skilled with swords,
guns, and fists. However, that's not what makes him stand out. Red has
the unique ability “Alkaiser Change,” which he can use, for free, only
when all his allies are some combination of dead, blinded, messed
(confused), or mecs (since mecs have no personalities). That ability
turns him into the masked superhero Alkaiser, with a whole range of new
abilities and massively increased statistics – including HP! He’s also
fully healed by the transformation. Unfortunately, once you get a full
party it’s pretty tough to manipulate things so Red can transform, but
when you’re lucky – or when the plot forces Red to transform, which
happens every so often – Alkaiser is a powerhouse. The one downside is
that Red gains no stat points after battle if he transforms, so it’s
not a good idea to use the Change against weak enemies.
~~~
Rei
~~~
Race: Mystic
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: Purple hair, yellow shirt, pink pants
Rating: 40/100
Availability:
Asellus - While in Chateu Aguille, in the beginning of the game, go to
her room with White Rose but NOT Ildon, and White Rose will explain a
bit about Rei. Later, before White Rose leaves, go to Devin, and speak
to the woman standing in front of the temple. After White Rose leaves,
go back and talk to her, and Rei should join.
Comments: Rei could have been half decent if she only joined earlier.
As it stands though? She joins with HP you'd expect from someone who
joins at the beginning of the quest (yes, that bad), no absorbed
enemies, and next to no WP. Her stats aren't all that special either,
outside of her excellent INT. She does have unique magic in Mirage
Magic, but it’s basically just Phantasm Shot split into 5 different
spells, allowing her to control which status she hits enemies with and
that's really all she has going for her. I personally would stay away
from her; the rewards you get are just not worth the hassle, and she
requires quite a bit of training to get up to par.
~~~~
Riki
~~~~
Race: Monster
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: Looks like a little kid with Green Hair, and a
tail.
Rating: 20/100
Availability:
Riki - *whistles nonchalantly*
All other quests - Speak to him in Scrap's pub and tell him your
story, and he'll join.
NOTE: Red and Asellus cannot get Riki to join under any circumstance.
Comments: Riki is a generic Monster. He also has the WORST starting
form of any monster in the game, statistically speaking. The main thing
going for him is that he starts with the skill "Tail Hit," which is
required to get the Black Dragon form (arguably the best generic form
of any monster) but beyond that, he's not much. He's a fairly big
liability in his own quest with the low LP that most monsters tend to
have, as well as just being unimpressive before he turns into one of
the late-game forms. In other quests, there are usually monsters that
have better starting forms, so it’s probably better to just use one of
them. If you’re dead-set on turning somebody into the Black Dragon,
though, Riki’s your guy.
~~~~~~
Roufas
~~~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Blackish-green suit, blond hair, and sunglasses
Rating: 70/100
Availability:
Blue - Start the Rune quest, and then find Roufas in Mu's Tomb. Talk to
him and he’ll join.
Emelia - Roufas will join temporarily from time to time in different
parts of her quest. To have him join permanently, talk to him in Mu's
Tomb at any point in the game.
Lute - Start the Rune quest, and then find Roufas in Mu's Tomb. Talk to
him and he’ll join.
Red - Roufas can join temporarily when the Cygnus is under attack if
you talk to him in his luxury suite on the top floor of the ship. To
have him join permanently, you can either speak to him in Mu's Tomb, or
enlist him (instead of Liza) after taking care of the BlackX base that
requires getting Annie. I recommend that you go to Mu's Tomb, as that
way, you can still get Liza, since you can’t get her any other way.
Comments: Roufas makes a fine gunner and a solid swordsman. He comes
with good skills for both, along with the gift for Mind Magic. That
means he can fit into most offensive strategies from the get-go, so
he's good for filling a hole in your party as a mage or a fighter. His
starting stats are also pretty good by human standards, which doesn't
hurt.
~~~~~
Rouge
~~~~~
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: White hair, pale skin, red jumpsuit.
Rating: 80/100
Availability:
Blue - Lose the duel with Rouge, and Rouge will replace Blue as your
main character.
NOTE: Rouge does keep all of Blue's stats and spells, but he doesn't
retain Blue's LP loss (GOOD THING), or his non-magic skills (bad
thing). Just thought I'd throw this out.
All other quests - Talk to Rouge in Luminous and he will join. Note
that once Rouge joins, do NOT go to Magic Kingdom or he will leave, and
go to a randomly chosen town, where you will have to find him to
recruit him again.
Note: T260G and Riki cannot get Rouge under any circumstances.
Comments: Rouge is, simply put, the best human mage in the game, period
(except for Blue, but he doesn't count). If you want a mage, Rouge is a
very good choice, especially if you don't like Mystics. What's more,
Rouge makes an excellent gunner, and the stat boosts from guns are very
useful for spellcasting. For some unknown reason, he makes an oddly
good fist user, although generally it’s not worth giving up his magic.
It doesn't hurt that Rouge is one of the easiest characters to get,
even though you can't go back to Magic Kingdom afterwards (not that
much is there anyway), and he's one of the only two characters to have
the Gift of Realm magic, to boot.
~~~
Sei
~~~
Race: Monster
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: A skeleton with a red cape
Rating: 5/100
Availability:
Riki - Complete the trials in Sei's Tomb, and talk to Sei to get his
Ring. Sei will join automatically.
All other quests - Complete the trials of Sei's Tomb, and then talk to
Sei. You will be forced to fight him. After you win, you will have the
choice of taking the sword Kusanagi or letting Sei join. Choose the
latter (obviously) and he’ll join.
Comments: Sei is possibly the worst character in the game, period. For
starters, he's a monster, and while his starting form is relatively
good, it’s nothing to brag about, especially since by the time you’re
strong enough to beat him you should be able to train monsters to be
much stronger than Sei. What's worse is he requires you to give up some
very nifty items just to recruit him – the three treasures scattered in
Sei’s Tomb are useful, and the Kusanagi is one of the game’s best
swords. I definitely would NOT use him, especially since being a
monster with no particularly good starting skills makes him utterly
generic, and thus replaceable by any other monster.
~~~~~~~
Silence
~~~~~~~
Race: Mystic
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Orange hair, brown suit
Rating: 30/100
Availability:
All Quests - Go to Luminous and talk to Omble to begin the quest for
the Dark Gift. Find Silence’s his shadow in the first room. After
completing this dungeon, speak to Silence – he’s standing right outside
in the same room the person who sent you to Omble is in - and he will
join.
Note: T260G and Riki cannot get Silence under any circumstance.
Comments: Silence is, simply put, the worst Mystic in the game. To be
blunt, take Ildon, and remove his awesome stats, and make him a bit
more universal. Silence himself might not be that bad, besides being
the most generic Mystic in the game by far, but there are some things
that put him below the others. First off, he's the only Mystic in the
game who cannot recruit Mesarthim. Next, he forces your main character
to get the Dark Magic Gift, which means you not only can't give the
generally-superior Light Magic to your main characters (if you wanted
to), but you can't give the Dark Gift to anyone who joins later (like
Timelord, someone who really benefits from Dark spells). All in all,
just avoid Silence; he's usable, but not worth it by any stretch.
~~~~~
Slime
~~~~~
Race: Monster
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: A grey puddle of…umm…Slime?
Rating: 17/100
Availability:
All Quests - Start the Rune quest and find one rune. The next time you
travel between cities, you will end up in Tanzer. When you finish this
dungeon, Slime will join automatically at the end, with no message that
it does. I'm not kidding - it literally just appears in your character
screen with no warning.
Note: Riki cannot get Slime to join under any circumstances.
Comments: All things considered, Slime is just a variation of Riki,
with slightly better starting stats, and no Tail Hit. Something tells
me that's a losing trade…which is sad since there wasn't much to lose
to begin with. I'd stay away from Slime, if I were you.
~~~~~~
Suzaku
~~~~~~
Race: Monster
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: A firebird
Rating: 27/100
Availability:
All Quests - Start the Arcane quest, and go to IRPO. Talk to the
receptionist and you will be sent to Mosperiburg Mountain. On this
mountain, in the area with three wild boars, you may sometimes find a
snowman at the bottom of the screen (if it’s to the left, it’s a fake).
If he's not there, go back to the first area and fight the fairy
floating around there. Keep coming back to the snowfield and trying
again until the snowman appears, and then fight it. Beat it and then
find Suzaku in one of the ice-covered rooms in the cave and it should
join.
Comments: Suzaku is an obscure monster who’s a pain in the ass to get,
and not really worth the rewards either. Sure, his starting form is
impressive as starting forms go, at least stastically, and it is unique
to boot (yes, other monsters can get the Suzaku class, but this version
is special and unique). Unfortunately, this version has bad starting
skills, and learning new ones will eventually force Suzaku to change to
another form. Once he does, he can’t go back to his original one,
making that "quirk" little more than a novelty. I'd personally not
bother with Suzaku, as it's not worth the effort.
~~~~~
T260G
~~~~~
Race: Mec
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: A trashcan with a head and arms
Rating: 90/100
Availability:
Blue - Talk to T260G in the bar in Scrap, and it will join.
Lute - Talk to T260G in the bar in Scrap, and it will join.
Riki - T260G will join automatically early on through a plot sequence
in Scrap.
T260G - I'll let you figure this one out on your own.
Comments: T260G, not surprisingly, is the best Mec in the game. In its
own story, T260G can take on the form of any other Mec you choose,
getting all their special equipment, their stats, their weapons, and
even learning their unique skills (which can transfer to other forms,
letting you pick just about any Mec skill you want for T260G).
Furthermore, at the end of the game, it can unlock an extra unique body
called "Omega" which has amazing stats and the amazing "V-MAX" skill.
That skill increases T260G's stats incredibly, and allows it to use
Cosmic Rave, one of the most powerful attacks in the game. The only
downside is that after six turns of V-MAX, T260G is hit with V-END,
which weakens it tremendously. Outside of its quest, T260G is a Mec
with *seven* open equipment slots, more than any other Mec – in short,
you can throw more stat-boosting items onto T260G than any other robot,
and for that reason alone it’s a great character. It doesn't hurt that
its skill draw is quite impressive too. Definitely a worthwhile
character, especially in its own story.
~~~~~~~~
Timelord
~~~~~~~~
Race: Mystic
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: White-grey hair, red suit
Rating: 99/100
Availability:
Red, Emelia, Asellus and Lute’s quests - Complete either the Arcane or
Rune quest, and get either the Light or Dark Gift. Go to Mosperiburg
and ask Virgil (the androgynous person in the throne room) about Time
Magic. He will send you to Timelord's domain. There, examine the broken
hourglass, then leave and talk to Virgil again. He will send you to
Facinataru. Go to the shop, and buy a Sand Vessel – be warned, your
main character will have to pay for it by losing a point of *maximum*
LP. Then head back to Virgil, and he will send you back to Timelord's
domain. Gather the spilled sand by the hourglass, and then go around to
the top and examine it. Time will start again, and you can head to the
end of the area to find Timelord himself and speak to him. He will
offer to sell you Time magic or join your team, as you choose.
Note: In Asellus' quest, you must get the Sand Vessel in Facinataru
before leaving the first time or you will not be able to re-enter until
the end of the game. Other than that, the process continues as normal.
Note 2: T260G and Riki cannot go to Timelord’s realm at all. Blue can
go through the quest as normal, but instead of recruiting Timelord he
will fight him.
Comments: As far as I’m concerned, Timelord is the only character in
the game other than the seven mains who manages to hit the top tier –
hell, he’s arguably the best character in the game. His main skill that
he’s the only character – aside from Rouge and Blue in Blue’s quest –
who can use the Gift of Time, and that is an amazing set of skills. And
if you do the Arcane and Light quests before recruiting him, you can go
back and teach him Dark and Rune magic, getting him the same set of
spells – ShadowServant, StasisRune and Overdrive – that make Blue so
amazingly powerful in his own quest. Basically, in the four quests
where he’s available, Timelord is a must-have. The only exception would
be if you like making life harder on yourself, or you pity the game.
~~~~~~~
Thunder
~~~~~~~
Race: Monster
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: Giant orange ape with black shorts
Ranking: 35/100
Availability:
All quests - Find him in Yorkland and talk to him with Lute in your
team.
Note: In Lute's quest, you will have to leave Yorkland and return
before you can recruit Thunder.
Comments: Thunder is another standard monster. While his starting form
isn't much, he starts the game just one skill away from becoming the
very strong Trisaur. One of his early moves, Ground Hit, is fairly
strong to boot. This ends up making Thunder one of the better monsters
in the game (probably second-best overall, after Kylin), although he’ll
get steadily worse a sthe game goes on and your humans, Mystics and
mecs get stronger than he is. He's good for filling up a slot early,
but it’s probably better to ditch him for someone else later on.
~~~~~~
Turnip
~~~~~~
Race: Monster
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: …A Red turnip with a face on it…
Rating: 15/100
Availability:
Asellus' quest - When you get to the Dark Labyrinth, talk to him before
you finish it. Once you finish that dungeon, Turnip will join.
Comments: Turnip is…well, Slime with better stats (isn’t that
amazing?), but it joins much, much later. So much so that by the time
you can get him, he’s useless. Unless you really like the idea of a
turnip as a death machine (not that he really has potential to be one),
I suggest you ignore him.
~~~~~~~~~~
White Rose
~~~~~~~~~~
Race: Mystic
Gender: Female
Sprite Description: Brown hair, with a white rose hat and a blue dress.
Rating: 50/100
Availability:
Asellus' Quest - Joins automatically early on. She will leave
permanently after the Dark Labyrinth section of the game.
Emelia - When you infiltrate Trinity's base for the first time, leave
the room when you finally have control of your character. White Rose
(along with Asellus) will be standing outside. Note that if you already
have 15 characters, White Rose and Asellus will replace the last two
in the list.
Red - Joins temporarily (along with Asellus) when the Cygnus is under
attack. They will leave permanently after this sequence.
Comments: White Rose is an excellent character early in any of the
quests where she joins, mostly because she comes with a few Light
spells learned. She’s particularly good for Flash Fire, which is cheap,
effective multi-target damage early on. Unfortunately, as the game goes
on she doesn’t keep up with the rest of your party, and eventually
becomes one of the worst Mystics you’ll get. It also hurts that you
can't really raise her seriously in Asellus' quest since she's going to
leave permanently. If you're playing Emelia's quest, use her if you
want to, but again, note that there are likely better options
available.
~~~~
ZEKE
~~~~
Race: Mec
Gender: N/A
Sprite Description: Looks like a miniature jet
Rating: 68/100
Availability:
T260G - Find the robotic mouse in Sei's Tomb and bring it back to
Nakajima Robotics. They will let ZEKE join you from there.
Comments: ZEKE is a solid mec, all things considered. No real flaws,
and its main quirk, Kamikaze Crush, despite the fact that it drains one
LP every time you use it, isn't half bad – especially since mecs have
huge LP totals. Not exactly what I'd call "the best" or anything close
to it, but it's certainly not bad.
~~~~~
Zozma
~~~~~
Race: Mystic
Gender: Male
Sprite Description: Red hair that looks a lot like Akuma's from Street
Fighter, with a tan-ish suit.
Rating: 80/100
Availability:
Asellus - Get the sequence with Zozma in Asellus' room early on in
Facinataru. He will automatically join after the Dark Labyrinth
sequence.
Emelia – In Trinity's Base, search for a soldier in a room who is under
attack. If you recruited Asellus and White Rose, rescue him and he will
reveal that he's really Zozma, and join you.
Comments: Zozma is at first glance a standard Mystic. His stats aren't
that special, and he only comes with a few extra spells from the Evil
magic school. However, one of those spells is absolutely brutal: Sharp
Pain. It casts Stun on all enemies, canceling their actions for the
turn, it’s incredibly accurate (easily above 90%), it always goes
first…and it only costs 1 JP. With this, random encounters suddenly
become a joke, making him good for not only clearing dungeons quickly
but making it easy to keep weaker characters alive in battles with
high-level enemies, raising their stats faster. An excellent mystic
with a unique advantage over just about any character.
------------------------------
4. Tips for Raising Characters
------------------------------
I'll be dividing this up by races, since you raise each one more or
less totally differently. I won’t talk about specific characters, since
that'd take forever. If you're wondering how to raise a particular
character, just check the character in the FAQ and it'll tell you what
they are good at.
******
Humans
******
When raising a human, it’s important to decide ASAP what kind of
character you want. Which of the character's stats increase, and how
quickly depends primarily on what type of attacks they use in battle.
There are four kinds of human abilities:
Sword attacks
Gun attacks
Fist attacks
Magic
I'll say this now: it is NOT a good idea to raise a character in
everything. It’s better to have a few really high stats and the rest
mediocre or bad than to be average at everything and extraordinary at
nothing. Next off, if you use both magic and physicals, you can't get
the “crown” for either of them either of them. Crowning a certain area
will yield better growths for that type, along with a one-point
decrease in ability costs, so typically, you want to crown if possible.
That goes double for magic, since there are some 1 JP spells that are
pretty useful through the whole game, and those spells are completely
free after the crown bonus.
Also, note that despite the fact that they certainly look like guns,
cannons, lasers, bazookas, etc. don’t count as guns for stat growth or
tech learning. They give only HP and WP growth (possibly Charm too),
and can't learn techs. Other than losing a slot you could use on
another weapon or shield or something, there's no real downside to
using one of them as a supplement to another weapon. Just don't be
surprised if you're relying on them and you don't get any stats.
Anyway, you should generally pick one skill set per character and stick
to it. If you want to raise a character in two sets, I'd normally
recommend against it. There are pairs whose stat boosts work well
together, but you’re better off geting used to SaGa's battle system
first, and waiting for your second playthrough to build a dual-type
character. If you must dual raise, I suggest guns and magic, or swords
and fists, for reasons I'll explain later.
In any event, onto the advantages and disadvantages of each raising
method!
Note: When I note characters are good at something, this does not mean
ONLY these characters are good at it; it’s an example of a few good
characters good to raise that way.
~~~~~~
Swords
~~~~~~
Swords have the closest thing to a "balanced" skill set in SaGa.
They'll get good strength and vitality, a nice supply of WP, and
moderate growth in all other stats. Swords tend to be balanced for what
skills they'll learn. They have lots of single-target damage, some stun
moves, an instant death attack, some multi-target and area-of-effect
damage, and even a few defensive moves. Raising a character with swords
is often a good idea if you want them to cover several areas in combat.
Swords have two sub-categories with attacks you can only get in certain
ways. The first is double-sword skills. If you have two swords
equipped at once, they can learn moves that use both of them, like
Cross-Deflect and 2GaleSlash. They can only use those moves with two
swords, of course. Also, bear in mind that the strength of the attack
depends only on the weapon you're using the attack with; if you pick
2GaleSlash from a LasterKnife’s attack list, it would be a very weak
attack, even if your other sword was, say, Lord Heart – the second-best
sword in the game and a killing machine. You can equip two-sword skills
on a character with one sword, but they can't actually use them – it’s
a waste of a skill slot (those skills will still count towards a crown,
though).
The other type of unique sword skill is katana techs. Some weapons are
classified as katans; these weapons have a different look for their
basic attacks, will raise stats that normal swords don’t, and can learn
and use a few moves that normal swords can’t, including as Blizzard and
Tres Flores. The game won’t tell you which swords are katanas, though
(Aside from the Katana. That’s a katana.). For a list of all the
swords that qualify, check the "Equipment" section of this FAQ; if the
weapon is on that list, it can learn/use katana techs.
A sword user should equip six skills at once, leaving two slots open
for learning stuff. This way, you can learn up to two moves in one
battle (not that you necessarily will), and you’ll still always have an
active crown, so your learning rate increases a bit, and your skills
are cheaper. Of course, if you’re not worried about learning skills,
feel free to equip seven or eight.
Here is a list of some of the better sword techs to try and pick up
along the way. I’m not going to mention single-target techs that just
deal damage, since those are straightforward enough for you to judge
for yourself.
Deflect: In any turn where the character attacks with a sword, they
have a chance to block any single-target physicals targeted at any of
your characters. It’s a useful defensive feature, essentially an evade
boost to your whole team at the cost of one skill slot.
Kasumi: It’s basically an improved Deflect – when it activates (which
is random) the character will dodge certain moves (aimed at them only,
unlike Deflect) and counter them with a reasonably damaging physical
attack. It’s tough to learn, especially since it relies on your enemies
doing the “right” thing, but it’s worth considering.
Deadend: A decently powerful physical attack that randomly causes
instant death. Good for gunning down certain annoying enemies (most
notably Krakens) if you don't feel you can outslug them.
Double Slash: Not a strong move, but mentioning it mainly cause if you
Crown physicals, it'll cost 0 WP, so you can use it every turn instead
of your basic attack. It’s especially useful on weapons like Asura
consume WP just to use their normal slashes.
Wheel Slash: A decent area of effect attack, especially early on. Not
much else to say about this.
Gale Slash: Good multi-target damage throughout the entire game. The
damage will taper off compared to the higher-level skills, but it works
nicely with combos. If you’re using two swords, it can also lead to
2GaleSlash, which is a stronger multi-target attack with the same WP
cost.
Haze to Wheel: It’s the strongest multi-target sword attack. It’s also
learnable only by using Wheel Slash, and the odds aren’t good. Still,
it’s a great attack.
Life Sprinkler: It’s the strongest sword attack, period. It’s also
practically undodgeable, meaning it’ll easily hit enemies who use
shields or Deflect to cancel physical attacks. If you get this, you
have very little reason to get any other single-target sword skills.
Tres Flores: The katana equivalent of Life Sprinkler. It’s a bit
weaker, and doesn’t combo as well, but neither “weakness” is enough to
really matter. If you have a strong Katana this is typically a fine
substitute for Life Sprinkler.
Good sword users: Gen, Annie, Red, Lute
~~~~
Guns
~~~~
Raising a character under Guns is typically the other main way to go
for physicals. Raising them this way, they'll get amazing speed, and
excellent Will and Intelligence, but they'll have laughable strength,
and their Vitality won't be very stellar either. Gunners also won't get
as much WP as Swordsman or Fist users. However, there are several
advantages to using Guns. First off, you learn Gun techs by winning
battles with a Gun used, having a random chance to learn some skills.
Next off, Guns work beautifully with mages, since it boosts the same
stats that increase magic damage. It also improves speed, which is one
of magic's bigger flaws. Also, gun techs have several support abilities
that affect all gun attacks, such as Two Gun (which increases the
damage of any Gun attack if you have two guns equipped), or Quick Draw,
which lets the character always go first when using a gun. Gun techs
are somewhat limited compared to fists, magic, and swords, but they're
also cheaper overall, less redundant, and end up being easier to raise.
Also, due to a bug, guns will NEVER run out of Ammo (this does NOT
apply to cannons and the like, though), unless the gunner uses the
Overdrive spell.
Here's a list of some good gun techs:
Bound Shot: Typically the best damage a gun tech can get. It’s
especially reliant on stats, since the higher your stats, the more
"bounces" the shot will have, and the more damage it does. Combine this
with Two Gun for brutal single-target damage that's surprisingly cost
efficient too.
Total Shot: A gunner’s main, if not only, source of multi-target
damage. It couldn't hurt to use this.
Quick Draw: If you use a gun, you go first. Makes things die before
they can kill you.
Two Gun: I'll say this now: gunners aren't worth using unless you get
this move. The damage Gunners have will be somewhat disappointing in
the late game unless you get Two Gun and equip a second gun. You’ll be
able to see the skill working in combat – a character using Two Gun
will be shown with a gun in each hand in their “ready” pose. Note that
the damage increase isn't quite double – it’s more like 1.8 times the
normal damage (a significant increase nonetheless).
Cross Shot: If you can somehow get your gunner to have good strength,
use this instead of Bound Shot. It’s generally not that useful because
it does damage based off Strength, which guns don’t boost; most gun
attacks use Will to determine damage. If you have high enough Strength,
Cross Shot's damage can become ridiculous (my friend said he had it out
damaging Life Sprinkler, for example). Typically you won't get a high-
strength gunner, but it’s something to note if you somehow do.
Good gunners: Emelia, Roufas, Rouge, Blue
~~~~~
Fists
~~~~~
I'll be honest; I don't like Fists at all. I personally find them a
pretty bad way to raise a character, unless maybe you also raise them
with swords for a bit more speed and strength. Fists yield similar
boosts as swords (more strength and speed, less on the magic stats),
but their techs are far worse. For example, swords give the nifty
utility of Deflect as a defensive skill; the fist equivalent is Sway
Back, which can't guard your allies and won’t block every kind of
physical attack. However, there’s one big advantage they do get: Dream
Super Combo, or DSC. It’s one of the strongest (and most expensive)
moves in the game, and the huge cost is worth the damage it does. If
you want to raise a character purely in fists, your goal should be to
teach them DSC.
How to learn DSC: Dream Super Combo, by far the strongest pure-damage
attack in the game, isn’t learned the way normal techs are. It’s a
combination of four weaker attacks – Sliding, Suplex, BabelCrumble, and
GiantSwing. When you equip all four of those on a character, that
character will also be able to use DSC. The move won’t show up on the
status screen, but it will show up as a separate entry in their skill
menu in combat, and won’t take up a skill slot (so you can have up to
nine skills equipped on that character, instead of just eight).
It’s also important to note that the damage for DSC is random. When you
use it, your character will hit for anywhere from three to five
attacks. Even the three-hit version of DSC is strong, and the five-hit
version is absurdly powerful – more than twice as strong as other
ultimate moves.
You'll find a lot of the other Fist techs disappointing, or just
inferior clones of sword techs.
Fist techniques are learned the same way as swords’. Fist users, like
sword users, should aim to equip six skills at a time.
Here is a list of some good fist techs:
Kick: It’s more or less the same as Punch, the basic fist attack,
except that it can combo, and using it will learn more techs faster. I
suggest using this instead of Punch once you get it.
Air Throw: It’s a decent attack that can stun the target and it’s dirt-
cheap, if nothing else.
Sliding: If only because its one of the four DSC techs.
Babel Crumble: Same as Sliding, basically.
Giant Swing: See Babel Crumble. Also, it can instantly kill enemies.
Suplex: The fourth DSC tech, and that’s about it.
DSC: The strongest physical attack in the game. That should be all I
need to say about this move.
Sky Twister: The highest-damage fist tech, outside of DSC. Use it the
same way as you would Life Sprinkler for swords or Bound Shot for guns
(Although Sky Twister isn't nearly as strong as either of those).
Last Shot: An alternative to Sky Twister. Its elemental properties make
it stronger against a few enemies due to how SaGa damage works, and it
has a rare chance of instant death too.
Good Fist Users: Liza, Fuse, Fei-On
~~~~~
Magic
~~~~~
Magic probably wins the award for worst overall growth among the human
abilities. Not that this should discourage you from using it; magic's
main advantage over the other means of training characters is that it
is the most versatile of the options around. It covers multi-target
damage far better and more efficiently than any of the physical techs,
and has a bunch of fun effects like stat boosts, healing, status, and
more.
Unlike the above methods, you can’t teach a single character all the
magic in the game, though. One character can only learn half the spells
in SaGa because of the School system. For this reason, when you raise a
mage, you should decide which Gifts you want to give them ahead of
time, since there's no turning back. A Mage should exist mainly to
cover a variety of areas; if you just try to pump pure damage out of
them they won’t work as well.
For the most part, if you want a pure mage, it's usually better to
choose a Mystic for the job; you can create a good Mystic mage without
harming their stats like you do for humans, and they get all the
benefits of using Magic, except that they can’t use the Realm school
(all Mystics automatically have the Mystic Gift, which opposes Realm).
They can’t get the Gift for Mind magic either, but neither is that big
of a deal. One advantage to a human mage does have over a Mystic is
that they have more skill slots to work with, so you can be more
flexible. However, if you ask me, if you want a human mage, dual raise
them with guns; this gives them actual stats (most notably a good speed
score), and doesn't hurt the stats magic gives them at all. Also, most
humans tend to specialize better in one of the physical types than in
Magic, for whatever that's worth.
Magic is learned two different ways. You can either buy a particular
spell outright, or teach a character a Gift. If the character has the
gift, they'll randomly learn spells from that school of magic if they
use another spell of that school (so casting Arcane spells will let you
learn random Arcane spells at the end of battle, but no other type of
magic).
Good magic spells to look for:
(The word listed after the spell name in parentheses is the School it’s
from)
NOTE: Since magic is such a varied skillset, and there's a lot of
useful spells out there, I'm only choosing a handful. The general rule
with magic is to try every spell out and see how it works in your
strategy.
NOTE 2: Some of the most powerful spells are for Mystics or specific
characters only. I am ignoring them, since this is for general human
skills only.
Mega Wind Blast (Light): Generally the best consistent damage you'll
get from a spell, and it's multi-target to boot.
Awakening (Mind): Boosts your stats tremendously for a few turns. Also
doubles JP/WP costs. Typically a useful move, especially for characters
with no other way to increase their stats in combat.
Soul Rune (Rune): Effectively a variation of Awakening, but it makes
you lose LP every so often.
Tower (Arcane): Does damage based on your current JP score; this is
especially useful if you also give the character guns; Tower willdeal
massive damage, and you’ll still have attacks you can use with no JP.
Also, if you have a crown in magic, spells that cost 1 JP, like
StarlightHeal, will be usable even if you have no JP remaining.
Reverse Gravity (Space): A store-bought spell that does oddly good
multi-target damage. It’s not quite as good as Mega Wind Blast, but the
fact that it’s store-bought makes it arguably more useful, and easier
to get quickly too. As an added bonus, this move randomly inflicts
stun.
Good Mages: Rouge, Doll, Blue
So…now that you know about raising Humans, you should be able to decide
what you want to do with them. I'll get to the unique humans (like Red)
later, since it’s hard to apply general principles to them,
One last note regarding humans:
In the middle of battle, humans can randomly learn dodge techs
regardless of what they are using, as long as they have a free skill
slot. Dodge techs will make them immune to certain kinds of attacks –
for example, a human with DodgeGaze will always dodge any “Gaze”
attack. For the most part, dodge techs aren't worth it; they hit very
specific attacks (DodgeGaze evades the highest number of skills, and it
only hits four or five), so they tend to be a waste of a skill slot.
Unless you’re in a dungeon where a lot of enemies use that kind of
attack, I would personally just ditch the dodge tech ASAP.
*******
Mystics
*******
Mystics have far fewer options than humans, because they’re based
entirely around absorbing monsters. A Mystic has three mystic weapons;
Mystic Sword, Mystic Glove, and Mystic Boots. Those weapons are
actually more like Skills that cost 0 WP, and are automatically
equipped (once they’re learned; it takes a few battles). When a Mystic
kills an enemy with one of these weapons, they can absorb it into the
weapon (as long as it’s the right kind; bosses, and some non-monster
enemies, can’t be absorbed), and they’ll get stat boosts and special
abilities based on what enemies are in their weapons at the time. That
is the only way they’ll raise most of their stats – HP, WP, JP and
Charm may increase at the end of battle like a human’s, but their other
stats can only be increased by equipment and absorbing monsters.
Typically, the stronger the enemy, the better stats it gives. When you
absorb an enemy, its boosts will appear in the status screen in green
next to the Mystic’s base stats, the same as equipment bonuses – that’s
why Mystics appear to have stupidly high equipment bonuses.
The only techs a Mystic can learn without absorbing something is magic,
which they learn the same way humans do (and they all get the Mystic
gift, just for starters). Typically, magic will be a Mystic’s main
source of offense, since they generally get higher magic stats than
physical.
A Mystic's unique skills are learned based on what absorbed enemies
they have, and which weapons those enemies are absorbed in. For
example, if a Mystic Absorbs a Dullahan into his Mystic Sword, he’ll
learn the Griffith Scratch skill. But if he absorbs it with the Glove,
he’ll learn Crystalizer, and absorbing it into the Boots will teach
Assassinate. So when you absorb a monster, it’s important to plan which
weapon you’ll use to kill it, and not just what you are absorbing. And,
of course, you can only have one monster per weapon; absorbing
something new will “overwrite” whatever was in that weapon before,
replacing its stats and skill with those of the new monster. That makes
it possible to correct a mistake – say, replacing a super-powerful
Suzaku with a Slime – but it also makes it fairly easy to make those
mistakes if you’re not paying attention. For this reason, I strongly
suggest giving a Mystic at least one normal weapon to use against
enemies you don’t want to absorb or spend magic/skills on, even though
they won’t gain stats or skills from using it.
Mystics might not be as complex to raise as humans, but they are
arguably harder, especially since they have low HP, JP and WP. The main
advantage of using one is that you get one later, you can get their
stats and skills up to par fast, if you're willing to take a bit of
extra time that is, so don't worry about late game Mystics too much.
Also, note that Mystics will have only 4 open skill slots for magic
spells Magic (absorbed skills don’t consume a slot), so they’re not as
flexible as humans. As one last comment, all Mystics have a locked
defensive equip; for most of them, it’s the Mystic Mail body armor. The
exceptions are Dr. Nusakanm who has the Mystic Wear shirt, and
Mesarthim, who uses the MellowRing.
Noteworthy Mystic Absorptions:
Suzaku: The best absorption for raw stats, and it’s not all that hard
to get. When these things start appearing (likely in the Bio Lab), I
highly suggest absorbing one for each Mystic weapon immediately, even
if it’s a bit difficult (do NOT both trying to absorb the one in
Mosperiburg, though; it gives the same bonuses as a normal Suzaku but
has ten times the HP – it’s just not worth the time). Early on, those
stats are worth it. The skills admit aren't much, so use this on a
Mystic who has a good selection of Magic to draw from, or some good
weapon equipped like the Asura.
Dullahan: Probably best overall absorption for skills. It has good stat
boosts overall, and allows Mystics to learn their highest-damage skill,
Griffith Scratch, if it’s absorbed on the Sword. On the Boots, it
yields Crystalizer, a moderately accurate petrifying attack useful for
random battles, and on the Boots, you get Assassinate, a decent
instant-death attack with passable physical damage early on.
There are other fine absorptions out there, but these two are probably
the overall best. If you find ones you like more, by all means use
them.
For noteworthy magic…just check the humans, as Mystics are pretty much
the same in that regard (except that they can’t use the Mind Gift, so
strike Awakening from the list).
Good Mystics to look out for: Timelord, Mesarthim, Dr. Nusakan, Zozma
****
Mecs
****
Mecs are probably the least complex race to explain, since all their
stats are based entirely on the equipment they use. To raise one, just
equip a bunch of stuff, and see what yields stats most to your liking.
For weapons, you’ll want to give Mecs the non-gun projectiles, like
cannons and lasers. Mecs have high stats, and their better skills are
generally hard to get. High-end weapons like the Hyper Blaster or the
Hyperion Bazooka deal great damage with no skills, and yield excellent
stat boosts, which will push that damage even higher.
A mec's stats, including HP, are entirely based off what it has
equipped, and can equip any kind of equipment in any slot, with no
restrictions – a mec can use six weapons if it wants to, or seven pairs
of boots, or a suit and a piece of body armor (or five!). Each mec has
a few fixed pieces of equipment that can’t be removed, giving each one
a different number of slots to play around with, unique abilities like
MedPack and LightVulcan, and slightly different “base” stats (although
the difference is usually minor). They also have a set number of skill
slots which varies from mec to mec. That number can be increased with
“board” accessories, which can also unlock certain high-power skills.
All in all, while mecs are totally reliant on equipment, they're also
flexible beyond all reason, so take advantage of this. Afterall, two
Power Suits means you get double the defensive bonuses, letting you
make some really nasty tanks.
As far as skills go? Just absorb every single enemy mec in sight –
you’ll be prompted to at the end of every fight where you killed at
least one robotic foe. Every time a mec absorbs an enemy mec, it has a
chance to learn one of its innate skills. The only case not to absorb
one is if you are using more than one mec, and only have one to absorb
in a fight, since two mecs can’t absorb the same enemy. Even if it
doesn’t teach you a new skill, absorbing an enemy refills a mec’s WP,
so it’s always a good thing.
It’s hard to get into much detail about mecs, since their stats are
completely customizable and their skills are completely unique. Just
say play around with them until you find a setup you like. They're the
easiest to work with in that regard, since nothing beyond the way they
start is permanent, and they can change on a whim.
********
Monsters
********
Raising a monster is the polar opposite training up a mec. Mecs can do
fine if you just throw good equipment onto them and wait for their
skills to show up, but monsters need good skills IMMEDIATELY to become
remotely good in combat. The only equipment monsters can use are
accessories, which they have four slots for. They’re all totally
generic, beyond their starting form, and maybe a unique starting skill
here or there (or in Kylin's case, coming with the whole Space Magic
set), so there’s really not much to distinguish one monster from
another. It’s more a case of using who you feel like.
A monster’s stats are based on what form it is currently in, and their
forms are based on the skills they know. Each form has certain lists of
skills it uses, when a monster learns all of those skills, it will
change into that form. All of its stats will change to fit that shape –
a frail mage with high JP can easily become a powerhouse physical
brawler at the drop of a hat. To get new skills, monsters must absorb
other monsters at the end of a battle. Each monster type has a
different list of skills it can teach, but you won’t know which one
you’ll get until you absorb it. That skill will be placed in the eighth
spot on the monster’s skill list, regardless of what was there already.
If it was an empty slot, it’ll just be added to the list. If there was
a skill there already, you’ll lose it. Make sure to move any skills you
want to keep out of the eighth slot! That skill slot will be in red,
for extra emphasis. If you already know the ability, you won’t learn it
(even if it’s not in the eighth slot).
Absorbing a new kind of enemy for the first time will increase a
monster’s maximum WP by five, permanently. This is their only permanent
stat growth.
Some good skills for monsters to get:
NOTE: Means of getting these skills to appear in update.
Magnetic Storm: Excellent multi-target damage for a monster, which is
rare since Monsters aren't very good on damage in general.
Life Rain: Monsters in their better classes tend to be tankish but a
bit lacking on damage, so they're better off being used as healers.
Naturally, with Life Rain they can heal an entire party rather nicely.
They also tend to have low LP, so don’t use this too liberally.
Monster forms worth noting:
Means of getting these monsters to appear in an update.
Black Dragon: Arguably the best form in the game. It’s a great tank
with good stats to back it up. Try to get this ASAP.
Dullahan: A bit less tanky than a Black Dragon, but has a free Dullahan
Shield to compensate, giving them extremely high evasion. The only
monster generally agreed to rival a Black Dragon.
Kylin Jr: This form is Kylin's starting form and it’s a darned good one
too. The only monster who can get this is Kylin himself, so I suggest
you take don’t change it if you use him.
*****************
Unique Characters
*****************
This is far a few unique characters who deserve "Special" raising
treatment.
~~~~~~~
Asellus
~~~~~~~
Asellus's unique race lets her have the best of both worlds, human and
Mystic. Raising her human side is easy enough; just treat her like you
would any other human. However, her quest has three endings – “Human,”
“Mystic” and “Half-Mystic”, and raising her Mystic half cuts you off
from seeing the human ending.
Anyway, first, to raise her Mystic side you must have a Mystic weapon
equipped on Asellus; she starts with Mystic Sword in Emelia and Red's
quest, and needs to learn the others like any other Mystic would. In
her own quest, she gets the Mystic Weapons from plot events, so you
can’t just fight battles and learn them. Normally, though, even after
she absorbs enemies into her weapons, she won’t get stats and skills
from them like full Mystics do. In every fight, she’ll start off as a
normal human, with no boosts from her Mystic side. When she uses one of
the Mystic weapons, she’ll perform “Mystical Change,” and get access to
her Mystic abilities and stats for the rest of the battle. Until she
changes, Mystic weapons will be treated like normal weapons, and won’t
absorb enemies or perform special attacks.
Unlike normal Mystics, Asellus has to equip her Mystic weapons, instead
of always having them available. However, she does NOT need to equip
all three at once; if she equips just one, she'll get all the benefits
of everything she’s absorbed. Of course, you can’t absorb something new
into, say, the Mystic Boot if you don’t have it equipped. If you want
Asellus to use her Mystic side, you should use only one slot for a
Mystic weapon (after absorbing monsters into the other two) and use the
other seven for weapon skills and magic spells. This will make it hard,
if not impossible, for Asellus to get a skill crown, so I'd make her a
Gunner/Mage, since the Mystic absorption gives her the raw stats to
make her effective that way, and she isn't half bad with either weapon
class. Even so, Asellus works well for most weapon classes, since her
Mystic stat bonuses mean she doesn’t get hurt by bad stat patterns.
That makes her one of the few characters who can be really effective
with two (or more) skil types, although it’s still a pain to learn all
the useful ones.
***
Red
***
While Red is a normal human, he does have a full set of unique skills
that no one else can use, namely the Alkaiser abilities. Raise Red as
you would a normal human, only try to get his Alkaiser skills too.
Alkaiser skills can only be learned and used when Red is in Alkaiser
mode. Until the end of the game you won’t be using Alkaiser much
outside of boss fights, so teach him as many abilities as you can when
you do have him transformed. Alkaiser learns new skills like a normal
human, with a few exceptions, and has both sword and fist abilities.
Anyway, your first goal should be to get Bright Fist, which is randomly
learned from Ray Sword (Alkaiser’s unique weapon). This should happen
very fast, possibly in the game’s first fights. From there, use Bright
Fist a lot to get a bunch of the other skills. Most aren't really a big
deal, beyond being quick damage boosts, but the one you want to try to
get is Al-Phoenix. Not only is Al-Phoenix strong, but very late in the
game it can evolve into Re-Al Phoenix, one of the most powerful attacks
in the game. The best way I found best to get Al-phoenix was to get Al-
Blaster quickly, then start using that whenever possible. Once you have
that, be sure to have it available so you can learn Re-Al Phoenix.
As noted above, if Red wins a fight as Alkaiser, he can't gain any stat
boosts. Try to win as many fights as possible without Alkaiser, and
only use Alkaiser as a last resort, or if you need to learn new
Alkaiser attacks.
******
Emelia
******
Emelia, like Red, is almost a totally normal human. Her twist is that,
in her own quest, she gets the ability to change costumes, lets her
change which skills she’s likely to learn. Specifically, each costume
gives her the tech learning rates of another character. Here's how it
breaks down:
Normal: Emilia’s normal rates, as she appears in the seven other
quests. Emelia's normal growths are the same as Asellus' and Mei-
ling's, as a note. This tends to be an overall balanced form for
learning skills (though most people train her in guns, not that she
does badly with them.)
Cat Fighter: Copies Liza. Basically, use this form if you want to train
Emelia as a fist fighter, especially if you want DSC.
Bunny Costume: Identical to the normal one in every way. This is a
purely aesthetic change.
Dancer: Copies Annie. Best for training Emelia in swords, if that's
what you want.
Commando: Copies Roufas. Best for training Emelia in guns.
*****
T260G
*****
T260G in any other quest is a totally normal mec. However, in its own
quest, T260G can use different bodies, each changing what its fixed
equipment is, and what skills it can learn. Each body copies the
equipment and skills of another mec. Note that it can use any skill it
learned in other forms after it changes, so you can learn another mec’s
unique skills, and then switch them over to a better body. The only
body that doesn’t copy another robot is the Omega Body, which is the
best mec in the game. Check a later update to see exactly which Model
is what.
--------------
5. Walkthrough
--------------
This will be ordered alphabetically, cause its easiest that way! >_>
Anyway, note that I myself didn't write these walkthrough. Frankly, I
suck at those kinds of things, and very few people can survive THAT
much "Meeple" writing, let alone comprehend it. So I had friends who
were willing to replay the game again write those. These people should
be commended for their efforts and time put into it. Also, note that
cause its different authors, the writing style and layout may vary, so
yeah, don't expect complete consistency.
Also, I've told these people to avoid describing actual plot events,
for spoiler purposes. There are some spoilers that are impossible to
avoid for an in depth walkthrough, unless you want vague titles for
bosses which can add to some confusing situations given the non linear
nature of SaGa Frontier. As such, expect SOME spoilers, though the
major ones we've made an attempt to avoid.
=======
ASELLUS
=======
Written By: OblivionKnight
Welcome to Asellus's part of the walkthrough section! This is a very
short preface, but I figure I should get it out of the way: there are
spoilers, as mentioned earlier, but they will be kept to a minimum.
I'll note plot triggers to catch characters, as well as "one chance"
things in the actual walkthrough (one-chance meaning, "do it now or
it's gone"). It's generally up to you to choose which characters you
want to use, though I will make a few suggestions. Asellus has a solid
draw of characters (Mesarthim, TimeLord, Zozma, etc.), so you really
can't go wrong in most instances. Anyway, that should do it, so on
with the show!
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chapter 1: The Awakening
++++++++++++++++++++++++
*Note that these chapter names are just things I came up with, so don't
take them too seriously - the game doesn't actually name the sections
you progress through*
Checklist of Important Stuff:
[] Went to Rei's room with White Rose
[] Went to Asellus's room and met Zozma
[] Exchanged LP for any items you wanted with the ugly green goblin guy
Once you have control, head south to the next screen. Watch the little
scene, then keep going south. Go down the stairways until you get to a
split path. Go left here, as going right is a waste of time for the
moment.
(If you take the right path and go all the way until you get into a
room you'll find Harmonium Armour, PowerBelt, SilverMoon(Katana),
HarmoniumEarring and LightRifle. Unfortunately, Asellus really needs
to work out a bit more, so she can't lift them. Save this room for
later.)
After heading left, you'll look like a midget - you're outside of the
castle, and there are many stairwells you can follow to get around.
First, go to the upper right, towards the tower. You should end up on
a bridge of sorts. Follow that bridge until you see a man with red
hair. Talk to him and watch the scene. Return to the left, and to the
midget screen again. Head to the far left (past the door you
originally came out of), and up the winding stair case to the northwest
tower. Enter it and walk into the blue pool of water at the centre of
the room. You'll be teleported to a new room. Exit to the south.
You'll see a scene where Asellus compliments the master of the castle
on his decorating skills. It becomes apparent, now, that the master of
this castle is none other than the Fab Five! Unfortunately, before you
can realize this masterpiece of deductive reasoning, someone will
appear in the room with you and give you a new perspective on the
matter. Watch the short scene, then, once you regain control, head to
the right and you'll *gasp* come across that special someone from a
minute ago! Well, apparently Asellus is part dog, because you'll have
to listen to him when he says to "leave". Head back to the pool of
teleportation, and exit this tower. Head down to the very bottom of
the area (go down past your room), and enter the door. You should
appear at the top of several descending staircases. Follow them all
the way down to the next screen. From here, head right into the
somewhat open area (the main hallway), then directly north through the
open door.
Well, get ready for some exposition! You'll learn who you are, why
you're here, and much more! Yay! Anyway, after this fun-filled
episode, Ildon will join you in your quest to buy a dress. Head south
out of the throne room, and further south out of the castle. You'll be
in Rootville (which is pretty damn small). Head to the house to the
far south, with the yellow lights above it, and enter. Asellus will
proceed to get naked and change her clothes. Sadly, for all you
perverts out there like myself, this is done entirely tastefully
offscreen. DAMN! Anyway, when you've watched the little scene, you'll
have control of Asellus once more. Now, with the dress on, she runs
normally. Proceed to practice your new running ability by heading
north back to the castle. Once you enter the main hallway, head to the
right, all the way up the staircase, and to a rose platform (gee, a
flower? who would have guessed?). Now, you'll enter your first
battle!
There's no tutorial, but it should be pretty simple. You can ignore
the "choose team" feature for the moment. Hit circle, and just attack
the beast with the knife you now magically have equipped. You should
kill him in round two with no problems. If you need a refresher on the
battle system or a bit more help, check the beginnings of the FAQ.
Anyway, this will continue for a bit (yeah, battles are bit boring now,
but they'll get better). Once you get your ass kicked, you can leave.
If you return to the rose platform, you can fight some more, but for
now, I'd suggest you take the time to do some other things.
First, return to the main hallway, and head to the left, up the flights
of stairs until you reach midget mode again. Go to the upper right
tower (over the bridge where you met the red-headed man earlier), and
head to the interior room. Search the coffin, and out pops a princess!
Damn, if only Prince Charming knew it worked this way too. Anyway,
White Rose now joins you. Leave the tower and return to Asellus's room
(i.e., where you began the game). White Rose and Ildon will leave you.
Return back to the upper right tower and talk to White Rose. A scene
or two later, and she'll be in your party.
--------------------------
!!!!!ONE CHANCE ALERT!!!!!
--------------------------
With White Rose in tow (and only White Rose), head to the lower left
tower on the midget screen. Enter the main room with the single coffin
(like you did when you met White Rose), and a scene will play out.
Talk to White Rose and you'll hear a little bit of plot detail. ***THIS
IS REQUIRED IF YOU WANT TO GET REI IN YOUR PARTY LATER IN THE GAME***.
There's more to it, but that's it for now.
------------------------------
!!!!!END ONE CHANCE ALERT!!!!!
------------------------------
With that out of the way, return to the training room (the room with
the rose platform) and talk to Ildon so he returns to your party. This
time, exit to the midget screen and head to the lower right tower. Go
to the main coffin room and you'll hear about the Lion Princess. Once
this is over, return to the main hallway, and exit the castle to the
south. Back in Rootville, head to the top centre house with the white
flower stems in front of it. Enter it, and you'll find someone who
looks like a goblin (green skin and what appears to be a hard hat).
Talk to him for a quick scene, after which you'll receive a
CharmNecklace (+1 DEFENSE! GODLY!). Talk to him again, and he'll
offer to sell you some nice items at the cost of your max LP. Yes,
buying these will lower your LP permanently. However, at least two of
them are genuinely worth it:
***Asura - 3 LP
***SandVessel - 1 LP
Tao-TeihPattern - 2 LP
ShadeRobe - 1 LP
The Asura is a sexy sword and well worth the LP loss. The SandVessel
is required to get TimeLord on your team later on. Note that if you
don't get it now, you CANNOT RECRUIT TIMELORD UNTIL THE END OF THE
GAME. You can still recruit him, but not until you basically enter the
last dungeon. So you should definitely pick up the SandVessel right
now, and the Asura is also a solid pick-up at this point. Leave the
Tao-TeihPattern and ShadeRobe - they're not worth it. If you head to
the upper right house, you can also buy magic for real money, but
unless you've been training incessently, you won't have enough. Skip
it for now and return to the castle. In the main hallway, you'll see
Rastaban (the only other guy in the castle, who is apparently
constantly happy) standing around. Talk to him for a quick scene.
After that, you're free for a bit.
--------------------------
!!!!!ONE CHANCE ALERT!!!!!
--------------------------
Another!? Yep, but this one's a bit easier. Return to Asellus's room,
and you'll meet the red-headed guy from earlier! His name's Zozma.
You'll see a quick scene with him, where he tells you he is teh
aw3s0m3. ***THIS IS REQUIRED IF YOU WANT TO GET ZOZMA IN YOUR PARTY
LATER IN THE GAME***.
------------------------------
!!!!!END ONE CHANCE ALERT!!!!!
------------------------------
Anyway, with that done, return to Rootville (sans comrades) and enter
the dress shop again. Head to the second floor and speak to the girl
in white standing there. Follow her up another floor and speak to her
again. The girl's name is Gina. After the short conversation, return
to the first floor and talk to the man behind the counter. Once that's
done, return to the castle, and as soon as you enter the main hallway,
Ciato will stop you and give you a spanking...er...talk. Ciato will
give you a bit of information for some random reason, so, as is your
duty in any RPG, you must do exactly as the random guy says. Yep.
Head back to Rootville, and head to the far, upper left house (past the
ugly green guy's house). Talk to the guy at the table, and the plan to
escape Facinaturu will be underway! Return to White Rose's room, and
watch the short scene. You now have GOLD! Yay! Anyway, White Rose
will join you again.
Now, if you want to train a bit, head to the hill behined Asellus's
room. To get there, head to midget view, and look at where the bridge
from the upper right tower leading left stops. Head north from there,
into the area behind the main tower where Asellus's room is, and you'll
find the hill. Run up and down, training a bit. Note that if you're
using the Asura, do be careful: it will eat up some WP, so keep that
knife equipped for weaker enemies. Train all you want (but be careful
not to head too far up the mountain - there's a boss that will probably
kill you at this point - big, giant white thing standing in the space
between two stairwells a fair ways in), but when you're ready, return
to Rootville. At the lower left corner of the "town", there's a small
house. It was locked at the beginning of the game, but now it's open,
so head on in there! Talk to the slime, and proceed through the path.
I'd give you directions, but there's not anything to actually direct
you around, so just head on forward down the only path ("Follow the
only road! Follow the only road!" If you're familiar with South Park,
you know what I mean >_>). Enemies here are...pretty weak. Hit them
with a knife attack twice and they'll die, and techs tend to kill them
in a single go. Once you reach the end of the "dungeon", watch the
scene, and then you're out of Facinaturu! Yay! Hopefully you've done
everything you wanted to do. With that out of the way, it's time for
Part II of Asellus's walkthrough.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chapter 2: Not So Little Mermaid
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You'll end up in the town of Owmi. Thankfully, the goddamned
repetitive music of Chateau Aguille is gone for a long while, so enjoy
what you've got now. Anyway, you'll be in a room with the pilot who
brought you here. Talking to him yields nothing important, so head
south out of the building into the city proper. Enjoy the new, pretty
surroundings. There's not much to do on this first screen, so head
left over the bridge, and White Rose will pop out and explain to you a
bit about Water Mystics. Obviously, this will have some bearing on
your quest. Anyway, after crossing the bridge, there's not too much to
do. The people of the town will tell you that about, *gasp*, a Water
Mystic being cared for by the Lord of the town. See, I'm psychic?
Anyway, the first building over the bridge, with the fountain outside
of it and girl with the red hat standing outside is the inn. Staying
here heals you, like in most RPGs. It's free and quick, so do it
whenever you need. If you talk to the girl in the red hat, she'll tell
you that "the Lord's Manor is this way". While she won't be very
helpful and point, she has this staring problem, and so, if you follow
the way her head turns, and head off straight north after crossing the
bridge (off to the right side of the inn) and past the fire hydrant,
you'll come to the Lord's manor. Wow, big.
Anyway, enter the house uninvited and you'll be greeted by the Master
of the House ("Master of the House, isn't worth my spit, comforter,
philosopher and life long"...uh...ahem). After a bit of a verbal
argument, he'll lead you up to the room where he's keeping the Water
Mystic locked up. Walk up to the bed/water she's floating in and talk
to her. You'll talk a bit, and then the Water Mystic (named Mesarthim)
will join you! Exit the room and talk to the Lord standing in the
hallway. Don't leave the house, mmm? Guess what our next mission is,
my friends! But before we start that, we have some looting to do!
From the exit to Mesarthim's room, head all the way to the end of the
hallway to the upper right, and then into the "doorway" exiting out to
the right (it's hard to see, but look for a small indentation in the
wall). You should be in a hallway with 2 statues standing in front of
a large door. Go past them, straight down the hallway to another
"doorway". From here, circle around up the stairs to your left, and
you'll end up in the attic. Head up the stairs and pick up the
GhostCannon and KrisKnife (not to be confused with a CrysKnife) in the
brown chests. Return to the hallway with the two statues in it, and
enter the large door they're standing in front of. Talk to the Lord
and he'll tell you that the basement "isn't safe! Don't go there!".
Obviously, this is our next destination.
From Mesarthim's room, head out down the hallway, but not all the way
to the end. Go straight across from the painting on the left wall down
the staircase to arrive at the entrance to the house. Circle down the
staircase and veer down to the right to enter another "doorway".
Follow the path up and around to a large opening. Go into that
opening, head down the stairs, and head left when you reach the bottom
through a door. Ignore the boarded up door with the lock on it, and
instead run straight to the end of the hallway and turn north past the
Menorah and up the stairs. In here, grab the two chests containing a
RubberSuit and MaxCure. Now, return to that boarded up door, search
it, and you'll be in the basement. First real dungeon time!
From the entrance, run down the stairs and into the giant open doorway.
In the room you enter, run around, fight if you want, but make sure to
grab the Magi-Water and SanctuaryStone (note that the "chests" in this
dungeon look like pirate booty, gold with a sword sticking out of it).
Note that you might want to fight the gunfish enemies a bit, as they
have a chance of dropping the PearlHeart, which nullifies water
attacks. If you get one, it'll come in handy soon, but it's not
necessary. Anyway, to continue on, head into the "doorway" near the
platform where you found the SanctuaryStone. In the next room, grab
the RottenMeat and JetBoots. The exit to the next screen is to the
right, above the platform where you found the JetBoots. However, you
should save before you head that way (what? just a good idea >_>).
Also, I'd suggest taking Mesarthim's BlueElf armour off and equipping
it on Asellus. Equip a PearlHeart, if you have it, on White Rose.
Head to the next screen, and you'll see a giant squid! Run down into
him and prepare for your first boss fight!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOSS FIGHT: DEVILSQUID
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Note that I'm not listing boss HP; it varies based on party HP, so
there's not much of a reason to list it, as, considering the nature of
SaGa Frontier, party stats will differ widely.
I like calamari. It's one of my favourite seafood dishes. Nice and
tender, lightly breaded...absolutely delicious! Ahem...anyway, despite
the lack of any type of fitting boss music (w00t! random battle
music!), this is your first boss. If you have a PearlHeart on White
Rose, this battle is pathetically simple. Without it, he's still not
tough, but might actually kill someone. His worst attack is Maelstrom,
a powerful water attack that strikes all allies, which probably will
kill anyone in your party at this point...except for the fact that you
have at least two water-nulling equips at this moment: Mesarthim's
locked MellowRing, and her BlueElf armour (which you should have put on
Asellus, as White Rose can't equip it). With these equipped, Maelstrom
shouldn't scare you at all. His other attacks are pretty tame, as
they're all single-target: Ink and Feeler are pretty weak, and while
MightyCyclone is decent, it still only hits one character. White
Rose's StarlightHeal revives downed characters, so make use of it if
someone drops. If you got the Asura like I recommended, Asellus can
kill this thing by round 3 all by herself. You probably learned
DoubleSlash by this point. Use it on the beast to inflict 1000+
damage, which is a huge chunk of his HP all at once. White Rose and
Mesarthim probably don't have too much in the way of damage right now.
Mesarthim's LifeRain is godly if you need it, but you probably won't.
If either Mesarthim or White Rose have a decent absorb, they can do
decent damage (with something like Lance or Blade), but the majority of
the pain will be dished out by Asellus. Since you can kill him so
fast, there should be little problem even if White Rose dies - he'll
likely only get one more attack off, and it's not likely it'll kill
anyone.
*Note: if you exit the room and return, DevilSquid will also respawn,
if you wish to fight him again.
So, with that out of the way, aren't you proud?! First boss: dead!
Badass! Now, to finish up this dungeon. First, don't go near the
"chest" in the room the DevilSquid once inhabited - it's a trap that'll
drop you down a few levels. Instead, go past the "chest", and into the
large door near it. Here you'll find a load of treasures: to the right
of the entrance is a MaxCure, for starters. Head to the left, then up
at the intersection to acquire an ArmourGlove. Now, off to the left,
you might notice a raised platform. Run on to it and head left until
you can't see Asellus anymore. Search, and you'll get the JackalSword.
Now, keep going up to another platform to grab a ShellBracer. Now,
head directly south through the "double doorways" to new room. Head
south while hugging the eastern wall, and you should end up on a path
heading east that leads to another MaxCure. Now head all the way west,
and you should see another "chest". Grab it for RubberShoes. Now,
exit the room you came in. From where you come out, head directly west
to a new screen. Head west, then south up onto the raised platform to
pick up a PearlHeart. Then head west to a "chest" with LeatherBoots.
That's everything!
Return to where you fought the Devil Squid. Unequip Mesarthim of
everything (except her MellowRing, which you can't remove). Run to the
far left, and you'll go through another of those blasted "doorways".
Run up to the water, and watch the scene. Mesarthim is gone!
Nnnnooooo!!!! You'll next be treated to a scene with Orlouge and Ciato
(as well as some hinted lesbianism between White Rose and
Asellus...ooooohhhhhhh yeah!), where Orlouge tells Ciato to capture
White Rose by "any means necessary". Ominous, ain't it?
Anyway, you'll be back in Owmi. Head to the inn if you lost any LP,
especially on Asellus (and especially if you spent some early on).
Then, head to the far southeast of town, past the house with the green
door, to return to the pilot. Choose "Board the plane". You'll be
taken to Shrike, where Asellus grew up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WALKTHROUGH NOTICE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At this stage in the game, you can technically start the "Interlude"
section, as I call it. Basically, now you can start recruiting
characters, building up your stats, going on quests, etc., if you so
desire. If you want to do so, skip down to the Interlude Section
(Chapter 3 of this walkthrough). I don't typically do this, as the
plot flows better going straight to this next area and fighting a boss,
but it's totally feasible. The choice you make is up to you. I'm
going to assume you don't, but as I said, feel free to skip down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
END WALKTHROUGH NOTICE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Exit the area you're in by heading to the lower left. Save (yes,
another major hint). From where you are, walk down a bit, following
the curve of the road, then up to the brown little house. Text should
appear saying "My House". Enter it by pressing accept. Watch the
short, but kick-in-the-balls scene. Ominous music begins to play, and
you'll be thrust into a battle against the first of Ciato's warriors!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BOSS FIGHT: FIRESAGE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yay! Boss music! Real boss music! Now for another battle. FireSage
has less HP than DevilSquid, and no cheap mass death trick (Maelstrom).
You'll instead be dealing with straight-up damage, which shouldn't
threaten to kill you at all. HeatSmash is his strongest, but you
should easily be able to take at least 1, probably 2 at this point.
Once more, if you got the Asura, this boss is a pushover: DoubleSlash
from Asellus with the Asura will obliterate him, dealing around 1000
damage to him per hit. White Rose should use StarlightHeal if needed,
or any other attack if no healing is needed (MysticSword, or any
absorbtion she might have; WaterCannon is good for around 250 damage).
Not too much strategy here - just beat him up.
After defeating the FireSage, you'll see three lines of text, and then
be thrown back to the world map. Congratulations, Chapter 2 is done.
Now, the long part this way comes...
++++++++++++++++++++
Chapter 3: Interlude
++++++++++++++++++++
Checklist of Important Stuff:
[] Recruited Characters
[] Did Quests
[] Went to Devin and spoke to the woman in front of the temple ***WITH
WHITE ROSE IN THE PARTY***
[] Decided on which ending you want
And now we get to SaGa Frontier's main feature: the open game! There's
a whole bunch of stuff to do right now, and it's my job to explain it
to you. So, here's an explanation of some important things you should
do, then an analysis of your options.
1) First thing's first, to get it out of the way, head back to the port
(where you started after coming to Shrike) and talk to the man at the
counter. Go to Devin. Exit the building you start in (and enjoy the
music!), and head to the right, where all the signs point. Keep
heading right, exiting this screen in the lower right corner. You
should see a giant staircase - guess what you need to do here? Yep!
Run up it! You'll come out in front of the temple area (it's also
apparently Fall here), with a girl standing off to the left. Talk to
her for a short scene. ***THIS IS REQUIRED IF YOU WANT TO GET REI IN
YOUR PARTY LATER IN THE GAME***. After that, head back to the Devin
port.
2) Ok, character recruitment time! Lots of stuff here. Asellus has a
decent draw of solid characters she can grab, and you'll want to pick
up at least 4-5 of them. Note that Asellus can't pick up any Mecs in
her quest, so they're all right out. Also, if this is your first time
through the game, I wouldn't recommend trying to train any monsters
(and heck, even if this is your 2nd or 3rd time through the game, I
wouldn't suggest doing much with monsters >_>). So, here's a list of
the characters available to you in Asellus's Quest. Who you choose is
entirely up to you in the end, so go with what you want:
My Favourites:
*Gen - Human
*Emelia - Human
*Fuse - Human
*Rouge - Human
*TimeLord - Mystic (See Below)
Other characters:
*Annie - Human
*Cotton - Monster
*Fei-On - Human
*Kylin - Monster (See Below)
*Lute - Human
*Riki - Monster
*Sei - Monster (See Below)
*Silence - Mystic
*Slime - Monster
*Suzaku - Monster
*Thunder - Monster
Special Characters:
*TimeLord - Mystic (see the Time Magic Sidequest section)
*Kylin - Monster (see the Space Magic sidequest section)
*Sei - Monster (see the Sei's Tomb sidequest section)
Ok, that's the whole list! Now, for a bit of extra exposition! You
can have a max of 15 characters (your main + 14 others). Since you
have White Rose and Asellus forced right now, you can pick up 13 more.
I do not advise you pick up 13 more characters, unless you really want
to put the work into 15 different characters. There's a list of how to
acquire the characters earlier in this FAQ, so I'll just default you
there to save space (granted...I might add to this in the future).
Regardless, make sure you pick up at least 4 more characters. Why 4,
you might ask? Well, you'll want to replace White Rose later. Use her
now, but once you've got 4 more solid characters, unequip her and bench
her, as she'll be leaving 80% of the way through the quest. For
characters, I recommend grabbing Rouge (grab him immediately), Emelia,
Fuse, Gen (all of whom can be grabbed on the same quest in quick
succession), and TimeLord (the latter will take a little work, but is
well worth it - ***YOU MUST HAVE THE SANDVESSEL FROM THE BEGINNING OF
THE GAME TO RECRUIT HIM***). If you can't grab one of them, Annie is a
decent replacement if you need someone else, and Lute, Kylin or Fei-On
will work in a pinch.
3) With new characters, you need equipment! The easiest way to do that
at this point in the game is to head to Scrap (where you'll find Gen).
Once you hit midget mode, head to the lower right building, called
"Junk Shop". There's an explanation of the Junk Shop Trick later in
the FAQ, but for now, here's the rundown: Buy your way into the junk
shop (cost varies, but should be affordable right now), grab 3 items,
return to the shopkeeps, go to Sell, click on the HyperionBazooka like
you'd want to sell it, cancel out, then go grab 7 more items. Repeat
ad nauseum. The "chests" you're looking for are the barrels and other
assorted junk in the top centre of the screen (there are 6 different
places total: 1 for a junk weapon, 2 for junk guns, and 3 for junk
armour). There's some good stuff here: WarlordArmour, ExcelShield,
LethalGun, etc. Make sure to sell any RepairKits you get, as selling
them increases the quality of the items you pick up over time. An hour
of this should net you plenty of equipment and a bit of money for
later. This should equip your characters for the trials to come.
4) Quests! Things like the Arcane Quest, Rune Quest, quests for the
gifts in several magics, etc., are available now. If you want to get
TimeLord (above), then you'll have to finish one of t