The 7th Saga

"Evil. Consider before dropping, though."

Before you play this game, you must seriously listen to the reviews-all of them-and see which one convinces you which way to go-play or burn? Listen to the ones that convinces you the furthest, because this game is something that MANY people have regretted buying, and some people have regretted NOT buying it. Needless to say, if you look at the reviews, you will notice that MANY people hate the game, and some people love it. Bottom line: Ponder carefully before touching it. You may end up loving it, or you may end up hating it. Read on, and discover my opinion on the game.

GRAPHICS (5/10)
Very, VERY ''eh''-ish. Notice that, though the characters actually look very good while they are moving around, the backgrounds suck, royally. Also, the enemies are scary (scary being VERY freaky), and the background during battle will make you want to kick the screen in. The back of the characters during battle also is horrible. And this was released in 1993, much after Final Fantasy IV came out with its wonderful backgrounds. Even if the characters looked nice, this was NOT up to date with its time.

SOUND (3/10)
Oh my God. This is even worse than the graphics. Almost all of the songs are crap. Within the first five minutes of playing, you will grow tired of Lemele's theme, and the battle/overworld music will make you want to take your baseball bat and crash it into the Super Nintendo to make the horrible noise end. Even Rabelsk's music sucked. Further along, you will get some fairly ''eh'' castle themes, as well as, so help me God, THE most generic boss battle theme ever. If you have a CD player, get it out. You are going to need it.

STORY (12/20)
Ah! Even with its tons of cliché, the background story was fairly decent. You play as one of Lemele's disciples, trainees, or whatever, out to collect the seven runes. Whoever finds all seven runes will be crowned the new king of Lemele. In the beginning, it shows great potential. Unfortunately, after you get the wonderful beginning, the story keeps on going. After this, you get NO DEVELOPMENT at all. Some bounty hunter, potentially hired by one of the other characters, is after you. You can fight other characters to gain experience and sometimes runes. You learn a little bit about the race of Tejuin (sp?). But that's it. After that, nothing interesting happens. The ending shows nothing. YOU HAVE NO STORY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SEVEN CHARACTERS WHATSOEVER. That is simply terrible. Kudos for the wonderful idea, but no. I am sorry. Not worthy.

PLAY CONTROL
Like all RPGs similar to it, The 7th Saga has wonderful Play Control. However, this is expected of the game. If a Role Playing Game has bad Play Control, I will note it and rate the problem VERY high. However, this game has great Play Control, as does almost all RPGs. So don't worry if you fear bad Play Control.

GAME PLAY (24/30)
And now, the BEST area of The 7th Saga, that gets a ''wonderful'' 8 out of 10! The game, despite whatever the other reviewers say, does not get so old that you will want to turn it off. You will want to keep playing. I don't know how it happened, but you will want to keep playing. There are some risks, though. First of all, you might want to play as Lux. Don't. If you do so, you will have to put up with a clanging sound whenever you walk ONE STEP with him. You will hate it. Terribly. Next on the agenda is the repetitive battle system. Not much to do here. The game's true saving grace is the ''crystal'' system. This crystal shows towns, ENEMIES, and runes in the area around you. This feature is so excellent, with so much undeveloped potential and so much developed potential, that I can NOT give this game a bad game play area.

CHALLENGE (10/15)
You WILL become frustrated. You will become frustrated IMMEDIATELY. You will want to GRAB THE SYSTEM AND THROW IT OUT THE UPSTAIRS WINDOW. If you like a good challenge, don't get this game for that purpose. If you like an INSANE challenge that will FORCE you to spend HOURS levelling up and MAKE you use the (very good!) walkthrough on GameFAQs or some other source just to GET THROUGH the evil thing. IT IS SOMETHING YOU MUST DO, or else you will become so FRUSTRATED that you WILL want to turn it off. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.

REPLAY VALUE (12/15)
I HAVE played this game multiple times. SO HELP ME GOD, I have played this game multiple times. And I enjoyed both tries equally. The game does not lose any of its ''feel'' the second time through, even though that's because it had no real ''feel'' in the first place. The reason I played this game through multiple times is the challenge it gives me. I ENJOY the challenge the game gives me. If I didn't, I'd throw it in the trash or sell it after the first time through.

OVERALL (64/100) (64%) (6/10)
Beware this game. The Graphics are not so good. The Sound is royal CRAP. The Storyline could have been done much better than it was. The Gameplay is decent enough. The Replay Value is okay if you like a challenge. The Challenge is OFF THE SCALE, it is so high. Watch out. Ponder every single area before buying the game. If you are up to an INSANE challenge, then go ahead and try it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/01, Updated 04/20/01