"Not for everyone"

The 7th Saga, an RPG by Enix, certainly does not win over fans to the RPG cause. At first it shows great promise but soon degrades to endless level building.

First, some good things about the game. You do get to choose your character at the beginning of the game and eventually you will choose a partner. This does add a little bit of variety. The introduction scene (which will eventually come on if you just leave the game on at the title screen) is interesting storywise. The absolutely BEST part about the game though, is the little enemy radar that is in the corner. With this you can see where the enemies are at on the screen, which show up as dots. If you don't want to fight a lot of battles you can simply run from the dots on the radar. If you are hungry for experience just run into the dots and a fight breaks out. The enemy radar is one of the best innovations EVER in an RPG and it is a shame no one else uses it. Could you imagine how much better a Final Fantasy game could be if you knew where the battles were and how to avoid them?

Graphics:
For 1993, these graphics are pretty good, especially the cool animations during the battles. 8/10

Music and Sounds:
Some music was decent, some very annoying. I usually just turned the TV down and listened to tunes on my stereo and I urge you to do the same. 5/10

Gameplay:
Not even the awesome enemy radar can save the pathetic gameplay. You will fight battles upon battles upon battles to gain experience. To those of you who are used to the plot-driven gameplay of the Shining Force or Final Fanstasy games, you will think this game is very slow. When you gain a partner, the experienced gained is divided among the two of you, which makes the game take even longer! A 1/10 for sure.

Story:
It starts decent but gets dragged down since the plot never develops. The ending is terrible too. Take the cyborg Lux for example. He searches for the seven runes to find out who made his race of cyborgs and for what purpose. But as the game unfolds you never find out anything about his race or its creators, even at the end! But it doesn't matter since you will be too busy building levels to worry about the plot anyway. Sounds fun, eh? Yeah right. 1/10

Control:
This is an RPG and it doesn't take a genius to figure out the controls. Seriously, a score here is not applicable.

The Final Verdict:
If you going into solitary confinement for a few years, bring this game along and tell me if the ending really does change depending on who your character is. Overall, this games gets a 2/10. The enemy radar is just too good of an idea to give the game a 1/10.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 05/29/00, Updated 05/29/00