Romancing SaGa

by Square Enix

Product Features

• Free-roaming scenario system - Romancing SaGa brings back the free-roaming scenario system, allowing for the ultimate in open-ended adventuring
• Eight playable characters, with each player pursuing their own subplots and stories
• Learn multiple weapon skills and various combination techniques and magic spells, with the open-ended battle system
• All characters abd background rendered in vivid 3D graphics, to make Mardias a truly enjoyable place to explore
• Powerful, stirring background music by composer Kenji Ito, produced by Masayoshi Yamazaki

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0009A4ETY
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches ; 5.6 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: September 8, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,526 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #13 in Video Games > PlayStation 2 > Strategy
  • #40 in Video Games > PlayStation 2 > Role-Playing
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

A thousand years ago, Saruin was imprisoned. Now the barriers are weakening and his foreboding shadow threatens to envelop the world of Mardias once again. Who will rid the world of Saruin's scourge? The player must decide. Occupying a prominent place in the story, a mysterious minstrel sometimes guides your party to adventure, shields it from adversity, and occassionally forces grave choices upon you.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Awesome game - For those who like the style., February 23, 2007

By 

Thaddeus Foudray - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Romancing SaGa (Video Game)

This game is everything it promises to be, and more - But what it promises is not for everyone. There are several points that are extremely well done, but only a certain kind of gamer will enjoy.

Firstly, the world itself. It is rather large, but moreover, it is ~alive~. It changes. The various characters in the world follow their own paths, and events will happen in the world, whether or not you are present. This is great, the world feels like it's a changing place. However, it has the disadvantage that you cannot complete all of the quests in the game in one (or even several) play through. If you're the kind of person that needs to complete every quest and side quest, probably shouldn't play this. If you like the living world, you'll love it. I remember completing one quest to help someone do some grave robbing, and from that point forward, he followed me from town to town, trying to sell his Mummy. :-D

Scaling. The monsters automatically scale to the relative power of the party. It makes "power leveling" a non-issue. If you like becoming the most powerful party on planet, you'll be disappointed. Furthermore, the time spent 'grinding' means you'll miss that many more quests. That said, bosses seem to not scale in the same way, so you have to gauge how much time you spend leveling with the difficulty of the bosses. You can walk straight to bosses way too difficult for you, though, so you have to be careful (I got juiced by a massive hydra deep in some dungeon after less than 3 hours of play)

You can't do everything. Seriously, you can't. Even with a party of 5 uber characters, you just can't do everything at once. The Proficiency system in R.S. forces you to only have a subset of your adventuring abilities accessible at once. For example, you're going to a dungeon, so you want to have the 'find chests' skill, and since you're concerned about locks and traps, you need 'pick lock', 'find traps', and 'disarm traps'. You also think there might be some walls to climb, so you equip 'climb' as well. That's it. You find a treasure map, or a rich vein of ore, or a pit you want to jump over, and you'll have to go back to the dungeon again later with a different set of skills to handle it. It makes you want to do more in the world than you possibly can. If you decide that the reward on the other side of the pit is worth getting, that means that the game world will have continued on while you made another trip back to the dungeon.

Quest Notes: Quests are extremely open in this game. You don't get a map pointer that tells you where to go or what to do. you have to figure it out. Sometimes, you won't know where to go, or what to do to complete a quest, and you'll fail it - the game won't wait, events in the game continue whether you join in or not. Still, if you just want some action RPG with a linear or well defined system to tell you what to do next, you'll need to look elsewhere.

Complexity: This game has a lot of complex features. Proficiencies, Techniques, Abilities, Classes... there's a lot of stuff for you to look at. It can be pretty overwhelming. If you prefer relatively simple Action RPG esque stat systems, you won't find it here. There's just a vast amount of information about each character, and tons of ways to advance each one. Fortunately (or so I think, anyway), you don't have to fully understand it to enjoy the game - Progression is more or less automatic as you're fighting, and you can easily just pick a couple of skills for each character to train up without losing anything. I'm not the kind of RPG player who makes in depth technical guides for games and considers them a necessary tool to play the game. (on a side note, have you seen the one someone did for all of the formulae and stuff for FFXII? some people have WAY too much time on their hands!) Lots of complex stuff, if you want to study it, but it really isn't necessary to understand it all to play.

So, in Summary, you need the following to enjoy the game: 1) some experience in playing an RPG. It's complex enough that this should not be your first jump into the genre. 2) an appreciation for a world that's vast enough that it doesn't let you do everything. Tangent to that, a tolerance for missing out on large portions of the game the first time through, because you certainly will. 3) Ability to enjoy a game without needing constant direction. I know I like a mindless Action RPG as much as the next guy, but this certainly is not one.

That's it. you have those 3 traits, I bet you'll really like this game. If you're not sure you qualify on any of those accounts, you may be disappointed.

Oh, one more thing. If you remember Romancing Saga 3 for the Super Nintendo (available only as a fan translated ROM, I seem to recall), this game is extremely similar in it's scope and style. If you liked that, you'll definitely like this.

39 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you liked Saga Frontier....., October 13, 2005

By 

Douglas R. Gustafson "Suikoden --------- Star... (Kent, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Romancing SaGa (Video Game)

If you liked Saga Frontier, you'll like this as well. The game is pretty much set up in exactly the same way. You start out the game, you can pick between 7 characters, and each has an individual story. Unfortunately though, the story is like saga frontier, good for some of the characters (BUT THE GAME DOESNT GIVE YOU A DAMN CLUE AS TO WHERE TO GO NEXT). However, the reason I rated the game 4 stars is because of its other qualities. I thought the battle system was awesome, I love the learning new attacks randomly, with the little lightbulb just like saga frontier. Also, combination attacks are really cool as well. The point is that the battle system isnt bad. Also you can see the monsters which is a plus.

~I'd recomend this game to anyone who just wants to have a good playing experience, but isnt looking for TOP OF THE LINE. I hope this review was helpful, all the reviewers out there giving it 5 out of 10 or 6/10, its much better than that, ive seen some pretty crappy games in my time, and although this one isnt the best, its by no means, the worst.


-ONE LAST NOTE: If any of you played "unlimited Saga" (which was the saga game that came before this) This one is nothing like it fortunately, square brought back classic style and it suites the game well.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SaGa as it should be, January 14, 2006

By 

Corum Seth Smith (Hendersonville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Romancing SaGa (Video Game)

This game is far more faithful to the SaGa Frontier series than Unlimited Saga. Romancing SaGa features eight possible players, each of whom is eligible to do nearly all the sidequests before attacking the game's final boss.

As any good video game sequel does, Romancing SaGa (RS) keeps the best features of the previous games and revises potential weaknesses. There are eight possible main characters, like in the first SaGa. The play is amazingly open-ended, making it incredibly different from the typically linear RPG. So in essence, many of the advantages of the first game have endured.

Also, the game has good graphics, some good sound/music, and an in-depth form of character progression. Using a "gems" system, the player buys certain skills that make them better using certain weapons or spells, or finding treasure, or climbing mountains. Unlike the first SaGa, any skill you have discovered with a player can be used in battle.

There are different habitats and sometimes the game has the potential for a little redundancy that can plague any dungeon-crawler. However, the use of Proficiencies, battle skills, and the tempering of weapons and armor keep you guessing and make the game's strategic elements more prevalent. Calculating the remaining uses you have with a weapon and the remaining Life points of a character in a dungeon maintains a significant degree of excitement in the quests and adventures.

The game has potential for literally hundreds of hours of play and also has replay value as each character's journey may have similarities, but also significant differences as well. Each character has a different type of development and no two games are the same. If you are looking for a sound RPG investment, this is it.