Never ask me why I keep playing games in Square-Enix’s SaGa series. They’re generally very different from their more famous franchises, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The emphasis is more on gameplay and on letting players explore the setting while taking on quests with minimal guidance as if they were playing a Western-style sandbox CRPG dressed up as a JRPG.
The first title in this franchise that I ever played was SaGa Frontier on the PlayStation back in the late 1990s. It didn’t really make sense to me, but I liked the world-hopping science fantasy setting and the notion of playing as one of several protagonists in the same setting through intersecting plotlines. But the character progression was radically different from what I was used to. Characters did not get experience points or gain levels. Stats improved at random, depending on what sort of tactics you used in battles. Characters learned new moves by using existing ones, most often in boss fights. And the game discouraged grinding through its hidden battle rank system. In fact, none of the game’s underlying systems were particularly well-documented.
I eventually learned that the utter madman behind SaGa, Akitoshi Kawazu, had first experimented with this sort of gameplay in Final Fantasy II, a NES title that did not get localized until Square-Enix (then Squaresoft) got tired of fielding questions about why Final Fantasy went from III to VII in the US. This is wild speculation on my part, but I suspect that after FFII and later The Final Fantasy Legend (originally Makai Toushi SaGa in Japan), somebody at Squaresoft decided that Kawazu should be given free reign to experiment with gameplay designs in a franchise that wasn’t Final Fantasy. Because SaGa is, quite frankly, an acquired taste. I acquired that taste not only because of the gameplay and setting, but because of the music composed by Kenji Ito and Tsuyoshi Sekhito and artwork by Tomomi Kobayashi (who isn’t as famous for doing art for Square-Enix as Yoshitaka Amano or the late Akira Toriyama).
I mention this background because SaGa still doesn’t get nearly as much promotion in the US as Final Fantasy does. More importantly, the newest title — SaGa Emerald Beyond — strongly reminds me of SaGa Frontier. We’re back to world-hopping through over a dozen regions with various cultures and levels of social/political/technological development. We’re back to a variety of protagonists, including a robot and a vampire. And we’re back to storylines that one might not necessarily expect from a JRPG, like a couple of government agents trying to prevent the assassination of an important official.
But my experience of the PlayStation 5 demo with protagonist Tsunamori Mido (whose story draws upon Japanese folklore and would fit nicely into a Megami Tensei game) suggests that the battles are where this game shines brightest. There’s a strong emphasis on manipulating both your own characters’ timing and that of the enemies to set up combo attacks on your side while preventing the enemies from executing their own combos. This requires the player to learn the game’s systems, which still aren’t quite as thoroughly documented as I’d prefer (though the in-game manual is more informative than in previous titles like SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions), and exploit them to the fullest at every opportunity. The gameplay is surprisingly unforgiving of mistakes; even regular enemies can wipe your party if you’re sloppy.
I wouldn’t expect much of the English voice acting, however. If you’re used to the English voice cast of Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XVI, you will be sorely disappointed.
The PlayStation 5 port retailed at $50 and is out now, but I had refrained from ordering a copy despite enjoying the demo because, frankly, I would like to see the various divisions at Square-Enix to do a better job of coordinating release dates. Perhaps somebody who makes these decisions had thought that Americans who play Final Fantasy XIV wouldn’t necessarily be into SaGa and vice versa. Therefore, such players would either order copies of the Dawntrail expansion or SaGa Emerald Beyond so it wouldn’t matter that Emerald Beyond dropped in April 2024 when Dawntrail releases in early July.
However, I am into both FF and SaGa. Not that anybody at Square-Enix is getting paid to worry about me, nor should they. I am merely indulging, on my own website, in a relatively benign form of the entitlement I loathe in other gamers.
My problem, which is wholly self-inflicted, is that I had already jumped on the hype train for Dawntrail and ordered the expansion when I heard about SaGa Emerald Beyond, so I will let the latter wait a while. It doesn’t help at all, incidentally, that PlayStation is getting a director’s cut of Shin Megami Tensei V in June 2024, either. Not to mention the expansion for Elden Ring, which I still haven’t finished, Shadow of the Erdtree. I’m lucky there isn’t an expansion for Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, too. But there’s a 3D remaster of Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord coming out on May 23rd? Fuck me and marry me young.
gaming as an adult
Like I said, these are self-inflicted First World Problems. I’m confident that these other games will still be there when I am done with Dawntrail; I can play them in between the patches that get periodically released while Naoki Yoshida and his crew work on the next full expansion.
Character Trailers
I had considered interspersing these between paragraphs but that sort of thing annoys me when other websites do it.
Tsunamori Mido
Tsunamori Mido is the only character available in the demo. He’s a cocky little shit, and his English voice actor conveys it in his delivery, so maybe the voice acting isn’t completely terrible? The need to collect spiritual power using his puppets reminds me Blue’s quest in SaGa Frontier.
Ameya Aisling
OK, so in SaGa Frontier we had Red, whose story was a parody of Japanese masked superhero shows like Ultraman or Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. In SaGa Emerald Beyond they’re going for a magical girl parody, and purrhaps an homage to Kiki’s Delivery Service. Because every witch needs a cat. Especially a snarky black cat.
black cat = best cat
Bonnie & Formina
Looks like this is a take on American buddy cop movies like Lethal Weapon and Bad Boys. For some reason, this setup reminds me not only of Emilia’s story in SaGa Frontier, but of Fuse (who was cut from the PlayStation release but appears in the remastered version).
One of the characters, Formina, covers her hair in a way that suggests to me that she might be Muslim, or the equivalent in the game’s setting. I wonder if her characterization follows through on that implication or if there are other reasons. If she is meant to come across as Muslim, that’s a rare bit of inclusion for a JRPG and I approve.
Diva No. 5
This one looks like full-on sf since the protagonist is a robot. The obvious comparison for SaGa Frontier fans would be T-260G’s quest, but this might be different. It also reminds me of “No Woman Born” by C. L. Moore, but Ms. Moore published that in 1944.
Siugnas
Unlike Asellus in SaGa Frontier, Siugnas appears to be explicitly written as a vampire. Looks like one of his fellow vamps did him dirty but forgot how to make sure a vampire stays dead:
- stake
- sword
- cleansing flame
Further Reading
If you want to read more about SaGa, here are some links: