It would have been more fun, if it hadn't been so repetitive.

It would have been more fun, if it hadn't been so repetitive.

It would have been more fun, if it hadn't been so repetitive.

Er… I think you get the idea. While this may seem annoying to most of you, it should ring true and familiar to those who have played SaGa Frontier before. This has been the major complaint among most gamers who bothered to play more than three hours of SaGa.

"The Premise."

Or should I say, all seven of them? Not that I can tell the difference from one to another. Suffice it to say that there's an amnesiac robot, a fashion model, a monster, a young wandering man, a "super hero" (shudder), a half-mystic woman, and a mage. The gimmick here is that each has his or her own quest. Well, I'm not sure that they really have their own quests, but they DO have their own outfits.

At the beginning of the game, you choose a character. You'll get a brief intro with maybe one or two lines of dialogue, which explain the premise of the game. You are now in control. In most cases you're provided with enough plot to introduce you to the game, along with a battle or three. When the game is done holding your hand, you're left to your own devices with little-to-no clues as to what is supposed to happen next.

"It's a wide world after aaaaaall!"

You can travel around the huge world of SaGa Frontier by going to air-ports and choosing your next destination. I would have liked this feature more if we were also given the chance to explore the paths between areas in a fashion similar to that of Grandia before getting access to the airports. There's a multitude of places to see, though, all with an interesting look to them. Some places are bright and colorful, full of energy, while others are dark and moody. A few are just plain goofy.

There was a lot of variety in the dungeons, despite how many there were, with interesting things to look at and plenty of new challenges everywhere. This is the sort of level design I would like to see in many more games. It even helped to ease the pain caused by having to visit each dungeon seven different times with the same goals every times, but it still didn't heal it. In the end, you'll still have to visit each dungeon seven different times for the same reasons with the same effects. Not only was this an abuse of some obvious genius put into the level design, but it was a bad concept born from a bad gimmick.

"What are you talking about? I took three years of singing lessons!"

The music of SaGa Frontier is perhaps negligent in its concept. The most important job of music in an RPG is traditionally to help (and some times brutally force) the player to feel things through a sort of sound which is simple and affordable enough for the developers to be able to create and the machine to be able to process. Sound is a very important part of emotion, and being as simple-minded as many of us are towards music, we're not likely to analyze it and it therefore gets free reign with our feelings.

The problem here is that there's nothing to feel, thanks to the lack of any kind of plot or character development. Once the purpose of emotion is removed, we see how truly mediocre the composition and instrumentation is, and the music is simply not up to speed with the settings as far as atmosphere is concerned.

In short, the music and sound in SaGa Frontier is not even quite functional, strictly mediocre. Quite a disappointment to those of us who have been spoiled by Nobou Uematsu or Idaware's music. Average at best.

"All systems functional!"

And boy-oh-boy, there are a lot of 'em to check off. SaGa Frontier has some very interesting and subtle innovations which improve upon much of the average RPG battling experience, not to mention removing some of the old dead traditions that have been proven time and again to be annoyances not worthy of our attention.

The first thing to mention is that there are four different "races", each with their own special abilities. Humans, who are pretty much the standard, are capable of learning new abilities by using old ones and can use magic. Mystics, the "Jack of all trades" class, are capable of everything humans are along with being able to absorb the abilities of monsters they kill. Monsters can absorb the abilities of other monsters, but are not capable of learning them the way humans do. This is the only way they can improve themselves aside from some very limited sorts of equipment. Robots are similar to beasts, in that they get new abilities by taking hardware and software from other machines. You can also buy them equipment to improve them. This is, once again, the only way to improve their stats.

Which brings us to the next "system", the character growth system. It's pretty much an assumption in RPGs that the character's growth will be gauged by how many "levels" they have gained, starting at 1 and ending at 99. The major problem I have with this system is that it normally takes far too long to gain a level for each battle to feel quite satisfying enough. In SaGa Frontier, this problem is solved, or at least there's a better way of dealing with it. Humans and Mystics get random stats raised at the end of each battle. Considering how long some of the battles can last, this is a good thing. I always felt a little leap of joy when I found out about how much more powerful my characters had become.

Yet another improvement upon the RPG standards can be found in the "Life Point System". In most RPGs, you fight, you heal, you fight some more, then you heal some more. This is meant to force you to manage your resources carefully, but fails. I've never really worried much about how much MP I have left for curing, I always have enough as long as I keep a clear head. One more annoyance I don't need. In SaGa Frontier, your HP and such are completely refilled after each battle. But at the same time, when a character is "knocked out" during battle, they lose a life point. They lose another life point every time they get hit while they're knocked out. Once the amount of life points your character has is reduced to zero, the character is actually dead. Life points cannot be recovered. This allows for more focused and challenging battles, whether you're fighting minions or bosses. I found myself challenged, which is a rare thing in RPGs which don't capitalize mainly on time for strategy.

The battle system is a great improvement upon many from the past, too. The placement of characters matters quite a bit, as many attacks will only affect certain areas or will go across the screen in straight lines or, or, or, just believe me, it matters. Sadly, this was not taken full advantage of, as there was no way to run around the battlefield as in the Lunar games or Grandia. The menus are streamlined and very comfortable, removing much of the tedium found in your average RPG.

Last of all (I hope) is the combo system! One of the coolest features to ever be seen in an RPG, the combo system allows for weaker characters to pull off powerful attacks together, and is comfortably simple. The way it works is: You choose your attacks. Eep! IT'S SO SIMPLE! HOW CAN IT BE FUN OR STRATEGIC?! Wait, wait, there's more! You hit on combos by choosing attacks which are timed properly. While most will happen upon them by chance alone, some people may actually take the time to figure out which ones will work ahead of time. I pity them. It's truly rewarding, and often awe inspiring, though, to see the combos unfold on your screen, full of gaudy flash and action, kind of like a Bond movie.

It all comes together to create a fun but not quite fantastic gameplay experience. You'll find it to be addictive, that is, until you've played so much that you can hum the battle theme in your sleep.

"Ooooh.shiny!"

The gigantic world of SaGa Frontier is represented by smooth 2D CG backdrops. While I normally would have preferred hand drawn backgrounds, it was a nice effect in this case, seeing the streamlined and interesting world of SaGa Frontier. If you want an idea of how the maps look on a normal TV screen, think of a cartoon with depth and shading. Somewhat like a dumbed-down version of Grandia's CG FMV.

In and out of battle, the characters are well drawn and animated, though somewhat Super-Deformed. While the enemies are disappointingly lacking in animation, most are impressive in their design and a few are even interesting to look at. Think of SNES characters with much more color and shading depth.

In battle, the spells are not up to par with FF7 or 8, but they look darn cool and fit the game perfectly. My personal favorite attack was "Rosario Impale."

Those who have been spoiled by Square's fantastic FMV may be a little disappointed to find that there is absolutely none present in SaGa. However, those who like good quality art will probably be pleased to see what's featured in its stead. When you complete an event like a quest, you are treated to some of the BEAUTIFUL Manga art seen on the packaging, featuring one character or another. Wonderful.

"The aftermath."

Sadly, Square went and slapped a gimmick on what could have otherwise been an ingenious piece of gaming art. I find it saddening that due to the commercial failure of SaGa Frontier, it will probably not be taken as seriously as something to get ideas from by developers in the future. In the end, this game is worth buying only if you can find it for twenty dollars or under, and even then I suggest renting it first. It's good, to begin with, very good, but you'll tire of doing the same thing over and over and over again. Which you most definitely will have to do.