Customer Reviews

Saga Frontier 2

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Any fan of role-playing games knows the name Squaresoft. Generally, their name is synonymous with great storylines, solid characterizations, fabulous graphics and a basic fun time. "Saga Frontier 2" doesn't do anything to tarnish that image at all, and just adds another notch on how high the graphics can get.

Most of Squaresoft's games, as of late, have focused on getting 3D graphics as clear and as detailed as possible, but "Saga Fronter 2" takes a big step back and, in doing so, makes a monstrous leap forward.

Check this - there are no polygonal graphics in "Saga Frontier 2" at all. Everything is meticulously painted, giving a very distinct feel to the entire game, as if you're watching it play out on oil paintings in front of you.

It's a look that's never been done on the Playstation before and, quite frankly, when I first heard about it, even I had my doubts if Squaresoft could pull it off - silly me, doubting the masters.

So instead of the 3D polygons of "Final Fantasy VIII," expect more of a return to those "Secret of Mana" days when everything looked lush and colorful.

Once you get past the beautiful graphics, you'll get into the meat-and-potatoes of the game, which is nearly as good as the graphics.

The idea of the original "Saga Frontier" was to give players a chance to play multiple, interlocking storylines that sounded better on paper than it was in execution. But Squaresoft's learned from it's mistakes, only presenting two main storylines this time, so as to not get the player lost in too much intrigue.

The first involves Gustave XIII, the exiled son of King Gustave XII, who was banished by his father for his inability to use magic. He and his mother move to another kingdom where they quietly live their lives until the boy starts to grow up and search for a life of adventure.

The other storyline focuses on Will, a young knight who will play an important part in the younger Gustave's life, although neither of them really know this at the start.

I don't want to give the plot away, because the storyline is often the best part of a Squaresoft game, but let it be said you won't be disappointed with it.

"Saga Frontier 2" is not a perfect game, however. It can sometimes be tough to keep track of when certain events happen and, while you can always save and know exactly what year it is, having the year accessible at the touch of a button would have been nice, especially since the game has such a heavy reliance on chronology.

The other problem is that the combat system is a little bit arcane at first. For a bit, it'll seem like things are happening by random until you start to piece things together on your own, but it still is a bit more confusing that the usual Squaresoft battle system. A few more things in the manual would have gone a long way towards easing this.

Finally, the game also tends to have long periods of plot followed by long periods of action, instead of a solid mix of the two, which means you may find yourself reading twenty minutes of dialogue before you get back to monster hunter, or doing eight hours of monster hunting before you find a plot point.

Still, I'm nitpicking at this point.

If you're finished the Final Fantasy games and are looking for a solid RPG to consume your free time, you won't go wrong with "Saga Frontier 2."

--Cliff Hicks

SaGa frontier 2 continues the amazing SaGa series, choosing to take much of the gameplay from its super nintendo counter parts. The art is amazing (2 years in the making) and the nicest ive seen on the playstation (having chosen to bypass the prerendered backgrounds). The story is much like final fantasy tactics in that it follows the historical aspects of the story. I cannot recommend this game enough, and would like to add that if you own a pocketstation it supports that as well.

SQUARE's done it again with another beatiful and well developed RPG (beats the heck out of SG1). Graphics are great, good fight system,unique character development. Two seperate storylines make for an interesting plot. A word of warning, though...this game is TOUGH! Much harder than the FF series ever was. I really recommend you get the hint book for this one; you'll really need it to navigate the maze like areas and figure out all the combo moves. The last battle of the gustave storyline is completely impossible unless you've found the 'winning element' in the Knight storyline. Enjoy!

Well, to be honest with all of you, this game is great, but not GREAT. First of all, lets talk about the good things about SF2, the graphics are extremely beautiful, I have never seen any game executed in a way like this before, also the music blends in very well with the emotional atmosphere, and the intuitive battle systems, (1 - a war simulation game type of battle, 2- your typical RPG style group battle, 3 - a one on one duel mode) Like the previous SaGa Frontier, each character will acquire new skills during a fight. Ok, now let's talk about the down side of this game, one word for the storyline,...confusing... there are times where the player will have no idea what period it is if they do not follow the game chronologically, and since you play by generations, players will have problems keeping track on who is killed, or whose son or daughter belongs to whom and so on...also the time sense is horrible, one click of a button can take you to seven years beyond, and finally the character developement isn't detailed enough... Anyway, buy this game only if you are really into Square RPGs and beautiful graphics. I personally loved this game, but it may be hard for everyone to feel the same as I did...But make sure all of you check out Vagrant Story coming out later this year!

Now then, this game rocks! I say this because you can have three different modes of battle, standard (with party) duel (1 on 1) and strategic (like FF Tactics). If you played the first game, it NEVER EXISTED, okay? This game had beautiful, hand drawn watercolor graphics, never before seen on any platform system. 2d at its best. Also, the non-linear storyline makes this game the most valuable and replayable game worth your money! Discovering new techniques in multiple fashions is the best game. (getting the best move in the beginning is very cool.) You can change history in this game! Gustave the 13...14...15... they can die or live on as monarch, depending what decisions you make. All in all, this game outshines FF8, which was... rahter bland and not too much replay. (well, it was good, but I don't like junctioning my characters longer than the boss fight would take >.<; bleck)

This is a great RPG game and the graphics are just stupendous. Each scene looks like something out of an extremely well-crafted children's book. The drawings are richly detailed and have a lot more artistic merit to them than many of the recent games in this genre. It just looks like a lot of effort went into each scene in this game.

The battle system isn't bad and is kind of interesting in a way. Though I do feel that the moves and noises made while moving gets awfully repetitive after awhile.

I do like the ability to choose what particular storyline I want to follow at any given time, but I regret the fact that if some of the story lines seemed biased towards action while others are biased towards more role-playing events. This means that when you first start if you follow the wrong story line for quite a while you might not get what you want. Of course you can always switch but there is no clear way to tell that this is the thing to do.

Overall the storyline seems richly detailed, and interesting, the graphics are beautiful and the battle system and interface is innovative if still a little quirky at times.

I rented this title since I had only heard conflicting information as to whether it was any good. After playing for a few days I can definitely say that is a great game.

I, personally, love the graphics. I'm not a big fan of the 3D, FF graphics, call me old school, but it's a game, it should look like a cartoon.

As for the battle system - yes, very confusing! I still haven't quite figured out how it works and what the spell arts are for . . . but I think that is a bonus. It's nice to be surprised when I figure out how to make things work! But better instructions would have been very helpful.

I don't find the timeline confusing - there's not that many different ones to follow at one time. I think it's a nice change to have different characters to play.

Since so many games seem quite cheesy these days, I feel this game is definitely a quality piece of work. Recommended for the RPGer!

This game is very fun, first of all. The special effects are cool to watch, But they are very hard to earn. Second of all, the menu let's you select different events any time you want, allowing you to take your own path. And third, The option to go one on one with an enemy is very cool.

The bad sides to this game does stick out. First, the story is wierd, but not bad, nothing compared to the Final Fantasy games, but the battles and graphics make up for it. Second, it is very hard to figure out how to get spells and arts to work, since the Instruction Book dosen't tell you much.

Even though it has bad sides, it is still a game worth the time you put into it. I haven't beat this game yet, so I don't know the endings and all that stuff.

SaGa Frontier II turns out to be a much better game than its predecessor. The game follows several elements that occur in the original, but fixes upon several problems that made the first less exciting. First, while the music could be better...it is good improvement. While not great compared to other games (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV/VI, Xenogears, FFT, etc...) it is still quite good. The water-colored backdrops look amazing, and the only problem with graphics is how the characters appear on the one-on-one battles. Gameplay works well, allowing players to develop different individual abilities for each different character (around 20 playable or so!). Characters can learn different types of magic, and become specialized with a certain type of weapons (i.e. spears, swords, bows, tree magic, fire magic, etc.). This allows for some customization and slight replayability. Characters are more developed than they were in the first SaGa game, and each character is presented wonderfully. The game revolves around two main characters at first, and slowly branches off to others as more of the plot is revealed. While choosing scenarios may seem annoying and confusing, the chronicle feature helps explains things much better. Also, things such as attackin and healing are fixed. Combos are still allowed in the game, and must be learned, but is achieved easier. Healing (a problem in the first game) is also fixed, while characters sacrifice a life point or use magic to heal themselves. Overall the game is a much needed improvement for the SaGa series, and is great RPG and certainly better than some other games around.

This game, after beating it, became my favorite.
I thought the story was excellent, although there were times during which it was confusing, primarily because the game is set in little chunks of time with different characters, and sometimes you will play events before the events that precede them. I honestly can't complain, since it's still fairly simple to get it all in a (for the most part) logical order. This, however seems to really annoy some people.
The battle system is complex. I played through the game twice and it wasn't until my second time through before the final boss that I even found out you could assign roles to your characters. I guess that's kinda my fault, though, for not reading the manual. The game is extremely difficult for somebody who was weened into the RPG world through Final Fantasy. I would not recommend this to anybody who has played nothing but Final Fantasy games, but rather for people who enjoy resetting their systems several times before getting through a boss. The bosses will surprise you.
The music and graphics are some of the finest. This game accounts for two of the six video game soundtrack related CDs that I have bought, and it's done in a piano-ish classical style. The graphics were almost entirely watercolor painted, and it has the most beautiful backgrounds I have ever seen in a game.