Product description
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The plot of SaGa Frontier takes place in a science fantasy
universe called "The Regions", a group of worlds with varying
degrees of culture, unique races, technology, and magic. The game
allows the player to follow the exploits of one of seven
protagonists, each with his or her own storyline and goal. The
game's "Free Scenario System" offers a large a of non-linear
gameplay, allowing the player to freely travel between many of
the Regions, interact with other characters, and take part in
turn-based combat. - Wikipedia
From the Manufacturer
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Enter a vast frontier where seven quests are taken one hero at a
time. A wizard's dark destiny a woman's revenge even a robot's
search for his soul. Seven amazing adventures that weave into one
- yours.
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Review
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In theory, SaGa Frontier seems to offer more bang for the buck
than any RPG ever created. After all, this newest installment in
the Japanese Romancing SaGa series gives you seven separate
adventures for seven different characters (whom you choose at the
quest's outset). For the most part, this
seven-games-for-the-price-of-one approach works fairly well - as
long as you don't go into SaGa Frontier expecting to play seven
Final Fantasy VIIs.
Although Square cls SaGa Frontier packs more than 140 hours of
gameplay, each of the seven adventures lasts no more than 15
hours in length. These separate plots are surprisingly different
from each other, thanks mainly to the game's enormous world
(which packs everything from castles to cyberspace). Yet the
quality of the individual stories ranges from gripping to so-so
(the robot and superhero characters have particularly good
plots). Unfortunately, the huge world needed to contain all these
stories is the big culprit here, giving rise to gameplay that's
too nonlinear and plots that are sometimes unfocused. I got
sidetracked a few times when I battled through a dungeon that
turned out to be only useful to another character's story. The
difficulty varies wildly between characters, too.
Although Saga Frontier's combat system may be nothing special to
look at (except for plenty of obligatory flashy spell effects),
it is refreshingly novel for an otherwise traditional RPG. As in
a few ancient role-playing games such as Earthbound and Final
Fantasy: Mystic Quest, you can see enemy parties scurry about in
the dungeons, thus letting you avoid them and dodge a
time-consuming bout of turn-based combat. (Nevertheless, some
enemy parties spring from nowhere and engage your party before
you can escape.) You don't have to worry as much about hit points
during combat, either, since they recharge automatically between
battles. Instead, you must conserve weapon points, which you
spend to unleash powerful attacks. You can also chain the attacks
of your party members together to unleash spectacular and
devastating combination strikes. Learning these will take some
trial and error, though, and you'll hit on many combos by simply
experimenting and mixing up your attack strategies.
Graphically, SaGa Frontier is a mixed bag. It packs plenty of
well-done pre-rendered backgrounds, their quality approaching
those in Final Fantasy VII. At the same time, the sprite-based
characters don't mesh well with their environments and could
definitely use a few more frames of animation during combat.
You'll also run into the where-the-hell's-the-exit problem
occasionally encountered in Final Fantasy VII, in which it was
sometimes hard to discern a path through the background clutter.
All in all, SaGa Frontier is a solid, if not exactly stellar, RPG
that'll certainly keep you busy for a while - or at least until
you tire of its occasional lack of focus. With more-engrossing
role-playing titles like Breath of Fire III on the way, however,
you can certainly live without this latest from Square, or at
least keep it and its seven quests as standby mini-RPGs between
the major releases. --Crispin Boyer EGM
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