Saiyuki: Journey West

"Another Final Fantasy Tactics, or is it?"

Story
Saiyuki is, well, if you haven't know, a really old Chinese story. Kinda like a legend, it was about the journey of a priest from China, Genjo Sanzo is the name, went to the west to get the sacred book. Along in his journey, he will then be accompanied by many inhuman friends, like the monkey king Son Goku, the pig Cho Hakkai, or the kappa Sa Gojo. After a long tiresome journey, they eventually reaches the west, which is India, and eventually ascended to heaven. I guess most of us already know this story, but if you haven't, you coulda check it in any place, this thing is famous, I tell you.

However, don't get confused here. Son Goku in this story is the real Goku, not the one who could turn into a blond sharp-spiked hair saiyajin. Toriyama Akira, the maker of DragonBall, did get an inspiration from this Saiyuki legend. And if you're an advanced anime-fan, remember this one is just Saiyuki, without any Genso Maden in front of it, so don't expect gun-holding Sanzo or smoking Gojo. Really, this is just the pure Saiyuki, although with some modern conversation and style-of-speech...

Gameplay
When I first get my hand on this game, it was a surprise I'm grumbling, ''man, this is Final Fantasy Tactics...'' You see, this game is a strategy-RPG, much resemblence of the well known Square's masterpiece. There are a LOT of similarities between these two, the battle system, turn-based mode (so don't worry it's not as hard as Vandal Hearts), the way you move-and-hit or hit-and-move, the fact that you could damage your enemy more if you hit them from behind, the world map, or the getting-job feature in a town. As for level up, you do need 100 exps per level-up, just like in FFT. And it was linear-exp system, if I could say that. No matter what level you're in, you will always need 100 exp to get your level up. One clear example of this system is like in FF8, as well as in FFT. So don't worry it's unlike in FF9's growing-exp system where you need more and more exp for each level you're crawling in. Also, if your Sanzo get killed, it's game over, just like if your Ramza get killed in FFT. And there are many more similarities you should see yourself.

However, Saiyuki isn't that complicated as FFT does. As an example, you don't get to be able to do any counterattack whatsoever, and so does your enemy. The battle map is mostly narrower than the one in FFT, so cheers if you want. There is no job system, everything is but a priest (the main character) or the friends (you see, Goku, Hakkai...). Your enemy, however, could be an archer, swordman, lancer (well, kind of), or just a monster with ability to scratch and cast some magic. No job, means less abilities. You cannot invite an enemy, no Blade-Grasp, there are no Job Points or Ability Points system, and you don't have to change weapon for any character. And, I don't know how to say it good or not, there are NO random encounters on world map, unless when you're going for a job side-quest. Really, no matter how hard you try, you won't get any encounters from old places you've visited before. Even in a job side-quest, it will be more likely that you still won't encounter nothing. You will still have to move around first before you get someone to stand on your way.

Somehow you can tell that this is the simplified form of Final Fantasy Tactics. But, this game is somehow enhanced in some ways. Like the getting-job feature. In FFT, you just left some character to do the job, wait for some days and get them back again. You get the report, just plain simple story, and you get the reward together with the experience points your characters get. In Saiyuki, you have to do the job by yourself. Mostly you have to bring something and go somewhere. You will then have a real event in the place, in which mostly followed by a battle you should attend, and there is another event in the end to close the side-story, and back to the town to get your reward.

And there are some original systems they made for Saiyuki. One clear example, is the Were system. All of your character excluding Sanzo are the one people called as were. These character could turn themselves into a gigantic monster during a battle, within some limited time of course. Like Son Goku, he will be able to turn himself into a Great Ape. In that form, he will get more HP and better stats (kinda like turning Ryu into a dragon in Breath of Fire IV), and he will (only) have one type of attack, namely Wereattack. Wereattack consists of some different huge-damaging spells, which you could choose as you wish. The limitation, however, is that you will also have a Werepoints, some kind of meter you could see on the upper-left part of the screen. This meter shows how long you could have a character in Were condition. Each turn will take one point, and the Wereattack also needs some points, not MP. However, as long as the Werepoints isn't empty, you could choose Werechange again, return to a normal form, and then have the other character to change into a were too. Remember, there are some valuable treasures hidden inside things like trees or rocks, and only Wereattacks could destroy such things to found the treasures. In the end of the battle, you will get a report about how many turn it takes for you to beat it, and then you will get Were experience based on that report. If you have 100 Were exp, your Were level will get level up as well. At some points it will increase your Werepoints, and sometimes your Were will get some new spell too.

Sanzo, since he is not a were, will get another kind of ability. In his journey, he will get some Guardians accompanying him, in which he could summon during battle. By summoning the Guardians, Sanzo will get better spells and special abilities like stronger physical defense or a constant group healing per turn. However, summoning will takes up MP, and each Guardian will leave after three turn, so you have to summon them again if you want them back.

You might then asked, how do I get leveled up if there's no random encounter? Well, in some city, you will found a Dojo which you could always go there for some training. The exp will remain if you get it from there, and no game over even if all your characters get fainted (just like Simulation Mode in Front Mission 3). However, by fighting in a dojo you don't get any Were exp, neither do money. You couldn't Werechange in this battle as well, but you will still be able to summon Guardians.

As for human form magic, you couldn't learn it naturally. You have to buy or find magic scrolls and then equip them on a character. There are limited amount for you to equip spells, and you will also need to be wise because not only spells, you will need to use the space to equip accesories as well. Each magic has five different elements, which are Life, Earth, Fire, Water and Gold. Each character has their own special elements, like Goku with Fire. So, if your Goku cast fire spell, it will make greater damage and since he is not pretty good with water, then that kind of spell would be less useful. You know it, some usual RPG things...

The control is easy, if you have played FFT you will see the similarities as well, and the difficulty of the game itself is about average-hard, as usual as any other strategy-RPG (but not Rhapsody ^_^).

So that's it about the gameplay. You should learn it more naturally by playing the game. Don't worry about computer AI. As usual they will target back-attack, since it deals more damage, or else they will just chase Sanzo, since his dead means game over for you. And one more thing, just because I don't know where to put it, you could choose whether being a male or female Sanzo. So if you wanna try something new, have a female as well. There are no actual difference between the stories of each choice, but at some point you might realize it. I do use female character, and perhaps the difference is that I get less random encounter than my friend that uses male character :)

Audio/Video
First, yes, you have FMV's. It was a mix between anime style with some computer generated graphics. Not as great as Square's of course, but they have voice-act as well, even only during FMV. The hand-drawn of the character is pretty nice. You could see them when someone's talking (like in Xenogears), but this one is unusually bigger and sharper. In battle, you will see the usual deformed character (FFT, Xenogears, Vandal Hearts), but Saiyuki's sprite is somehow bigger than in FFT. As for magic effects, what can I say, it was poor. Fine, there might be great looking effect during Werechange or some great spells, but some of them are just plain simple, sometimes different magic has the same old look, and some others are even worse than BoF II's effect in SNES. Really, they could have make it better in this part. However, they have tried. In this case I still say FFT is better, but don't worry it won't hurt your eyes.

Since it's a Chinese story, that will be the obvious choice of music. Not bad, sometimes it will get your feeling better in some strange way, but don't expect too much as well. I'm not a good man in musical area, so I guess I couldn't say much better. It was nice, especially the ending song (gotta love the drum part!) but if you really want some serious music then play FF or just listen to classical music concert ;)

Replayability
One good reason is that there are male or female character. You might want to check the differences between those two choices. As for secrets, there are some, and perhaps more importantly is there are lot of side-stories in this game. In case you left them in your first game, you might want to replay it to know them all.

Overall
You, Strategy-RPG fan, this game is a must. Okay, this might not on par with FFT, Vanguard Bandits, Ogre Battle or Vandal Hearts II, but KOEI really does make a great game. You know there aren't many Strategy-RPG nowadays, so this one might be a nice oasis for your thirst whilst waiting for FFT II (even though we never knew when). And if you have know some of Saiyuki story, even the Genso Maden one, you might want to know how KOEI brings up the tale for you this time...

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/12/02, Updated 01/12/02