The 7th Saga

"The hardest RPG you will ever play"

If you’ve ever felt the need for an extremely challenging RPG, look no further. The 7th Saga is a forgotten classic in the realms of RPG’s that will have even the most seasoned RPG veteran scarfing down humble pie by its end. Anyone you will ever ask who is familiar with this game will make dead certain above all else to mention the game’s challenge factor, but the truth of the matter is that there is actually a pretty good game there, as well, if you can somehow manage to look past it.

The 7th Saga delivers a sizeable dose of old-school RPG action with an interesting twist- it's really Goddamn hard. Seven runes of great power exist in the cheap Earth knockoff known as Ticonderoga and seven different characters of varying races, strengths, and levels of personal hygiene have been gathered, each with their own motives, to collect them. Naturally, the person who ultimately collects all of the runes will become lord and ruler of the world. And also naturally, this riveting outset of the game is more or less almost all of the plot the game has to offer before you are set off on a tremendously huge adventure, the majority of which will be spent aimlessly wandering from town to town on a ridiculously huge and highly innavigable map in aimless search of the runes. Let's take a closer look at the various aspects of your quest for the seven runes, shall we?

Sound: 9

The sound in the 7th Saga is surprisingly good. The dungeon theme is particularly rousing, the battle theme is above average (though it tends to wear a bit thin after about the seven billionth time you've heard it), and a nice variety of various overworld and town music helps to set a notably dark mood for the game. Make no mistake, the 7th Saga is not your ordinary cheery, upbeat RPG, and the music strongly reflects that. That being said, the music is for the most part muchly enjoyable, though with so many different towns present in the huge world of the 7th Saga, I personally would have preferred a few more different town themes than the three or four existing ones.

Sound is a bit of a different issue. For the most part, as long as sound effects in a video game are not obnoxious and repetitive, they've more or less accomplished their task. The 7th Saga achieves this almost flawlessly, but unfortunately, those of you playing as Lux will find the ''clang clang'' noises he makes with each step driving you to kill people you love within two hours of gameplay. This effect can be so bad that it tends to actually either make people not want to play as Lux, or turn down the volume if they do, thus missing out on what I consider to be some very good music (as I stated above).

Aside from the aforementioned annoyance issue, the sound effects of the 7th Saga do somewhat of a decent job of adding to the feel and mood of the game. Somewhat is the keyword in the above sentence, as I'm not quite sure how much of the sound is adding to the overall feel of the game, and how much of it is just the nostalgia talking. The 7th Saga gets a 9 out of 10 in the sound department, but it's almost entirely on account of the music.

Graphics: 9

Taking into consideration the year and system the 7th Saga was made on, the graphics are actually pretty damn nice. The overworld is lush and colorful, yet still maintaining an overall ''dark'' mood about it. The monsters themselves are all not only quite pleasing to the eye, but are actually animated (which was still a fairly novel concept in RPG's back in 1994). The character sprites are kind of a mixed bag. They're still kind of primitive and ugly by today's standards, but again aren't that bad for 1994 standards, mainly because they're larger than the ones used in games like, say, Final Fantasy 3. The good news is that all of the playable characters have separate, larger and much more detailed animations used for battle that look very nice. So, on the surface, there's not much going against the graphics at all.

Unfortunately, the 7th Saga is a very large game. There are more dungeons and towns present than I can even count (or remember, for that matter). The obvious result of this is that a lot of the towns and dungeons look a hell of a lot alike with very few of them standing out much above the rest at all. What worsens this effect is that the world and particularly the dungeons, though nicely drawn, lack a great deal of detail. This will be most noticeable in the dungeons, where finding your way around will be made all the more difficult by the fact that everywhere looks exactly the same. After awhile, you'll start to think that the game was specifically designed that way, just to torture you. The graphics are nice, and its flaws serve only to make a hard game even harder.

Gameplay: 9

As far as gameplay is concerned, the major issue that has to be addressed is the difficulty. One must go into this game expecting to die several, if not many times during the course of it, lest frustration quickly get the better of a cocky player who gets his or her ass handed to them in rapid succession. The sad truth is that if you're not willing to face up to a good challenge, then the challenge factor alone will single-handedly override every other aspect- both good and bad, of the game. Even the most kickass background music will still murderously infuriate a player already gone mad with frustration, and there will still be a burning in the pit of your soul commanding you to destroy and obliterate even the most beautifully rendered creature after it wipes the floor with your ass about ten or twenty times.

The 7th Saga is playable, and yes, even beatable. But incessant leveling-up alone will not win the day here. The game forces you to strategize and put some actual thought into your actions, which frankly is what a lot of players seem to want. A select few battles, namely some of those where you must fight one of the other playable characters, are almost entirely unbeatable and can be won through either a great deal of luck or resorting to what some might consider to be cheating (there is a well-known trick that can make these fights much easier, which in some cases is still very hard). But, fortunately, for the most part, battles in this game are excruciatingly difficult but easily overcome with the proper experience level and the right strategy.

The game mechanics are mostly those of a typical RPG, but with a few innovations. Most noticeable would be that rather than a set party, you choose from the outset of the game which of the seven playable characters you want to play as, and will eventually have the opportunity to team up with only one of the other six. Having this option adds a pleasant feel of customability that very few mainstream RPG's possess, as well as a decent amount of replayability to an already-huge game.

An example of one of the innovations the game had that doesn't work out so well would be the crystal ball on your screen which displays enemy locations, presumably so you can avoid getting into fights. Only the enemies move a lot faster than you do, and avoiding getting into battles is more a matter of luck than anything else. After awhile, given how constant and incessant battles in the 7th Saga seem to be, it'll just seem like another way the game programmer's decided to make you suffer.

Overall: 9

In conclusion, the 7th Saga is not a bad game by any means. It's actually a very good game. The only real problem is that the challenge factor is so high that it doesn't matter what the other components of the game are like- it becomes the single most dominant issue in the game. A game of this caliber will only appeal to a limited group of gamers, but those that it does appeal to will more than likely very much enjoy it.

if you're looking for a challenge, and you're actually up for one, then look no further. If patience is something you don't have a great deal of, then odds are your 7th Saga experience will more than likely end 30 minutes into the game with a controller hurled at a high velocity through what used to be your TV. Both the inexperienced and experienced players will die time and time again while playing this game, but only those who are willing to accept the challenge will be able to persevere enough to actually beat it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/31/04