SaGa Frontier
- January 01, 2000 00:00 AM PST
SaGa Frontier takes you back to the old days of RPGs: lots of battle time, cool spells and weapons, and a fairly mysterious but engaging story line. SaGa will cure your I've finished FFVII and have nothing to do blues.
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Gaga for SaGa? SaGa Frontier looks and plays like most standard RPGs, but a couple of unique features help the game shine. First, there are seven separate quests with seven diverse characters (you can choose from a male, a female, a cyborg, and a monster), each with a fully playable scenario.
Another feature is the ability that certain members have to absorb and transform into the opponent they're fighting: You may start the match as a harmless bird and end up as a snarling dragon. You can change as many times as you want at the end of a match and carry your new abilities into the next fight.
Square Deal Graphically, SaGa uses a few scenic tricks from FFVII; namely, lots of pre-rendered backgrounds. The characters are reminiscent of those in Final Fantasy III, with small sprites, large enemies, and flashy spells.
The sounds are better than those in most RPGs; the standard Square fare. The good, steady soundtrack and heroic battle music are slightly diminished, however, by the low-key monster growls and groans.
Getting used to the game's controls takes practice, but in general they work well, with the exception of when you're using cure potions. To use these in battle, your character must equip either the cure potion or the backpack-if you forget, and no one in your party has a cure spell, you're SOL. And unlike most RPGs, not all your characters are allowed unlimited access to their item inventory during battle.
SaGa is also unbearably tough at times, which further differentiates it from other recent RPGs. Since there's a huge environment to explore, you'll often find creatures that seem incredibly hard to beat or that wipe you out in one round. And there's little direction in the game-you may find yourself battling a group of creatures before you realize (with a little exploration) that you need to find other party members first.
A Final Frontier All that aside, SaGa Frontier takes you back to the old days of RPGs: lots of battle time, cool spells and weapons, and a fairly mysterious but engaging story line. SaGa will cure your "I've finished FFVII and have nothing to do" blues.
