The save-anywhere system even makes it possible to get trapped in an impossible-to-win endgame scenario, caught off guard by the brutal difficulty spike. It’s not a very forgiving system, and those new to the SaGa formula face the risk of burning out on it. It takes a focused plan of attack starting in the early game to reach an end swiftly, or else hours and hours of further grinding (and perhaps a guide). The last boss, however, is more than capable of wiping the floor with any player that has been exploring rather than grinding, swapping newly-recruited players into the party frequently rather than building up a core stable of combatants. The final dungeon can be taken on fairly early, about twenty hours into the game. Of course, players won’t know which the case will be until they actually get to each boss, so there’s a good bit of trial-and-error in store.Ī particularly grievous example of this is Romancing SaGa 3′s endgame. The exception to this are dungeon bosses with set power levels that mean players could very well be woefully under-leveled for the encounter. Most areas can be handled at any point, as most enemies scale with the player party, so that entering a dungeon may lead to entirely different, still challenging encounters at different points in the game. With its open-ended design philosophy, the game frequently feels far too aimless, the pacing rarely ever satisfying. This is, unfortunately, par for the course with just about all of the game’s events, making them feel as if they’re happening in a vacuum. Even the town’s other citizens seem to have forgotten all about this episode once it’s passed, as it is never referenced again. A vigilante crime fighter makes for an interesting break from standard genre character tropes, but whether he is recruited after the scuffle or not, this scene is the first and last bit of development he ever gets, despite there being some fertile ground for an interesting story to tell. One particular town features an event that lets the player witness a masked caped crusader become overwhelmed by some of the local thugs, and intervene on his behalf. Among the recruitable suite of party members are a martial artist lobster, a sentient snowman, and a blue bipedal elephant. That isn’t to say they’re cookie cutter in design - far from it. Outside of the eight starting choices, there’s a rogue’s gallery of over twenty optional party members to find and recruit, and the overwhelming majority of them are woefully underdeveloped and, therefore, far too uninteresting. This lack of development is especially felt in the characters. The Rat Mischief boss is arguably one of the more interesting, at least design-wise. A few cursory text boxes serve to introduce the conflict as well as conclude it, and that’s it a reward might be gained, a party member might join up, but other than that the episode is never referred to again, and is of little to (usually) no consequence to the main quest or world in general. There is no intriguing web of interactions to build up lore and backstory a situation is encountered (often by accident) and dealt with, generally by defeating some monsters in a certain location. Unfortunately, the side quests aren’t very fulfilling, and often far too brief and underdeveloped. There is, of course, an ultimate goal consisting of standard “stop the bad guy and save the world” JRPG trappings, but over the course of most of the adventure, this is largely pushed aside unless the player decides to abandon the current course and steer toward the endgame. Occasionally, this will result in stumbling upon one of numerous side quests, often triggered by talking to the right person or being in the right location. There are towns to visit, caves and dungeons to explore, and people to meet. Instead, after a fairly brief linear intro chapter that varies by character, the world opens up to explore as the player sees fit. One should not expect a complicated and intriguing narrative from a SaGa game being able to choose from eight starting characters, each with unique story elements, might sound like there’s some deep connective tissue to delve into, but that’s never been the case in this series. For all others, however, this game is a plunge which shouldn’t be taken lightly, particularly since this remaster marks the first time it’s been available outside of Japan, expanding its audience. ![]() The game features the same open-world, non-linear storytelling and free-form character progression as its predecessors, which is good news for series veterans. This was the best summation of Romancing SaGa 3 that I could find, given as advice to a SaGa series newcomer.
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