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36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
If you liked Saga Frontier....., October 13, 2005
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
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.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome game - For those who like the style., February 23, 2007
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
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.
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28 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Non-Linear Madness, December 29, 2005
Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars
Squaresoft (or Square-Enix) has had a long-standing habit of releasing a majority of its titles on a certain console right before its major release in Final Fantasy. They follow tradition again, and release Romancing Saga, Dragon Quest VIII, Radiata Stories, and Kingdom Hearts 2 (soon to come) only a few months before FF 12 will hit stores. In the past, this hasn't been a bad thing. Square has always been able to put originality in all their games, to try things that other games haven't. With this formula, they've been able to stay on top of the RPG market. Now, though, that's fading. Since PS2 released, only about half of the games Square has released has been any good, and the releases are too far between for anyone to really follow Square.
Romancing Saga is one of those titles that just isn't that good. Or, to be fair, it isn't up to Square's usual standards. Though visually it's a beautiful game, the story is difficult to follow because of just how non-linear the game-play is. After the first few quests for each character, you can go in nearly any direction you want, and more than fifty percent of the quests actually advance the plot of the game. They are simply ways to get what is needed to progress. Plus, actually finding quests can be difficult. Talking to everyone gets hints and will unlock some quests, but knowing what to do after that can be very irritating.
The in-game features, such as the battle system, are recycled from previous games. The actual battles can get so difficult that even minor creatures are bosses, and you can't avoid fighting them or else your characters will stay weak or won't have the abilities to compete with the even tougher enemies to come. There are ways to make your characters stronger, but that involves spending either money or jewels, things you only get from quests or battles, and quests are long and with small rewards, while battles reward so little as to seem almost pointless. I will say, however, that gaining the new abilities and finding newer, more powerful characters to recruit can be fun for a while. Once you get a good party together, though, do everything in your power to keep it that way, because it can be frustrating training weaker characters to fill the place of your older characters. To be honest, I'd recommend picking up a Gameshark or an ActionReplay to play this game, because the constant battling and building becomes tedious and boring. Usually, I hate using these cheats, but since I did so I was able to find enjoyment in the game.
Though this formula worked well for the other Saga games (at least one, the original Saga Frontier), it no longer works here. It seems to me it was a quick money-maker for Square, as they know that Square fans are loyal. But constant mediocrity has left me a little jaded of this powerhouse company. Likewise, I can't recommend this game to the average gamer. Only veterans of the Saga series will find anything in this game worth playing.
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