SaGa Frontier 2

"It could have been much better"

SaGa Frontier II is one of the most beautiful games ever made, though if you are a hardcore 3D fan, you'll hate it. Unfortunately, the gameplay and the Multi Scenario system do not live up to this high standard.

The first thing that you will probably notice about this game is that the manual isn't much of a help. That being said, gameplay is learned mostly through hands on experience-which isn't always a good thing.

The main battle system is rather straightforward-a lot of variety in actions but not a lot of variety anywhere else. Characters can use just about any weapon and any combination of other items. The type of weapon and item you equip is very important, allowing characters to use different special abilities between them. It is important to note that many of these special abilities can be combined, though combos are almost pointless, considering that it is just like performing both movies at the same time.

The second type of battle is the one on one fight. This can be either manually selected or forced upon you depending on party size. The one on one battles are much more interesting than team battles (as well as easier-some of the enemies in team battles are really cheap), though you will either need to memorize the actions that make up a special move (like Charge+Charge+Slash etc.) or write out some form of cheat sheet.

Finally, the strategic battles, while few and far between, are interesting, though nothing special. Individual teams of characters are moved around. When you move one team into a space occupied by another, a battle ensues, using the regular party battle system. Both sides get one round of attacks and the game continues. These battles can be tough as you need to both protect important units and attack enemies. Defeating a specific enemy or a specific number of enemies will win the battle. While the gameplay isn't necessarily bad, it does suffer from some frustrating flaws. As I said before, some enemies are really cheesy, having thousands of hit points when your party combined has only 1000 or so or doing 300 damage per attack. Also, the battles aren't all that exciting most of the time it's just Delta Petra, Cross Slash, repeat again and again. This game, more than any other, is characterized by the ‘one spell/attack is so good that you'll just give it to everybody' syndrome (think Ultima in FFVI). A final note: there are absolutely no in battle items in this game (like Potions or Ethers), which is a first.

The aforementioned graphics are truly amazing. Everything is rendered in detailed watercolors and the character sprites put Star Ocean 2 and Grandia to shame, though they lack the animation of those in FF Tactics. Spell effects are not quite as breathtaking, but still above average. Music, on the other hand, is largely forgettable, though not bad. It's just nothing to write home about.

The Multi Scenario system is innovative in some ways and a step back in others. Instead of simply traveling through a large world, you select scenarios by clicking on their names on the map. You will usually have one or two scenarios to choose from at a time, though optional ones abound in some sections of the game. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. The story, while good, is told poorly and you can actually play scenarios with characters after you have already seen them die. Many scenes are very short and apparently there is much to be missed by not doing things in a certain order. Aside from this, the game spans a large block of time, encompassing entire lifetimes of many characters. But still, due to the way the story is told, most of what I knew about the characters was told, not shown. For example, maybe it was just the way I played the scenarios, but I never once figured out why Wil was called Tycoon Wil later in his life. And once the initial characters start to age, the story just falls apart do to the way it is handled. A very annoying flaw in the system is the lack of a feature along the lines of the Brave Story in FF Tactics-this game really screams for such a feature.

SaGa Frontier II isn't really a bad game (as evidenced by the 7 I gave it), but it has its share of flaws. It's worth at least a rental, though the only way I could justify a replay would be to see all the stuff I missed due to the quirks in the Multi Scenario system. I strongly suggest at least watching someone else play it. If nothing else, you absolutely need to see the breathtaking graphics in action.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/11/00, Updated 04/11/00