The 7th Saga

"This game was SO close to perfection"

With Enix's release of ''7th Saga'' in 1993, the RPG barrier of perfection broken by ''A Link to the Past'' was almost broken again. Almost. Every aspect required to make this a great game was there. However, the difficulty level of this game was its tragic flaw.

GRAPHICS: 8/10

When reviewing games I always try to rate the graphics in terms of the title's release date, while at the same time using the very early released ''A Link to the Past'' to set the bar. The graphics in ''The 7th Saga'' are about par for its 1993 release date. Images from the world map could have been copied verbatim for ''Final Fantasy 6''. The towns and sprites were nothing special, while the spells in battle were a little less pixilated than other games at this time. One of the very remarkable qualities of this game is the way that the actual world map view is used for the background in battles that take place there. This phenomena is repeated in later SNES adventure RPGs, but this is the first instance of it that I have seen on the SNES.

SOUND: 9/10

Not very surprisingly, the sound for this and many other Enix titles was very good. All of the tracks had a very medieval feel to them and did not sound very synthesized at all. Each town and dungeon presented a different musical experience that never felt repetitive and was always very suiting to the specific atmosphere. The world map music remained fairly constant, but it was never a real problem. Battle music, which was heard quite frequently, was the factor that prevented this game from getting a 10/10 in this category. The sound effects in battle were not the problem and, on the contrary, were very good. Spells and sword slashes sounded exactly as they should. Background music in battle was the real problem. This music was very constant and very repetitive. It also didn't help that 75% of the game was spent listening to this one track.

CONTROL: 10/10

''7th Saga'' had simple control, but it is very hard to screw this up in an adventure RPG. All of it was just standard walking and menu selection, which was all very easy. The one problem I had with the game was that choices made in battle could not be retracted. If you made a mistake in selecting a move for the first character, this could not be changed. But, even this was not the game's real problem.

GAMEPLAY: 4/10

With a game that I would call ''SO close to perfection'', what could possibly be so wrong with it that it would merit a 4/10 in gameplay? The answer to this is the difficulty. Normally, I applaud games which offer more of a challenge than the average RPG. However, this game had a different sort of difficulty. This ''different difficulty'' sprung from the fact that it was very common to die in a random battle. At no point in the game did the random battles really get any easier. So, the game's one true flaw is the fact that every time a player comes to a new area of the game, said player must level up 3-4 times just to deal with the average random battle. EVERY TIME YOU GO TO A NEW AREA. This means that a game which should only take about 20 hours to beat will take about 32 hours to beat. That's right, you will probably spend around 10 total hours just leveling up.

Having said this, the rest of the gameplay was not only perfect, but almost revolutionary. From the onset a player will quickly realize this, due to the fact that you may choose your own party. A player may select between 7 different characters of which there are 6 different races, including an elf and a dwarf. Then, at many different points in the game, a second character may be picked to join your party, and later replaced by one of the game's other characters. This gives a player tremendous freedom for how they want to play the game.

The other difference that ''7th Saga'' offered was the radar system. This consisted of a radar at the top right of the screen which was used to show proximity to towns, treasure chests, and monsters while exploring outside of towns. And, while it was also fairly difficult, this made it possible to avoid unwanted random battles. The only problem with this system came from the fact that it was very hard to look at the radar and gauge where you were going at the same time. But even this is insignificant next to the game's difficulty.

Besides these two factors the rest of the game was pretty standard. It followed the system of [town, dungeon, cave, town ...]. The battles were also very standard and had all the normal battle commands. Different characters had different spells, but there were no special abilities to speak of.

STORY: 9/10

If I had rated this category at the beginning of ''7th Saga'' the score would be much lower. It starts off fairly simplistically in that the 7 characters have been trained for years by some random king. The king then tells them to go off and search the world for the 7 magic ruins which will grant the wielder ultimate power (do you see the 7 trend going on?). So, they set out on a search for the 7 ruins and adventure. This part was stupid, but the later explanation of the 7 ruins and some cool plot twists made this story much more worth while. And, above all things, it was pretty original.

So, the difficulty of this game turned it from a perfect title to slightly above average. By no means would I advocate buying it, but it may take too long to beat to rent it. Maybe borrow it from a friend or something. I can guarantee that you won't want to play it twice.

Recap:

GRAPHICS: 8/10
SOUND: 9/10
CONTROL: 10/10
GAMEPLAY: 4/10
STORY: 9/10

TOTAL: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/15/03, Updated 11/17/05