SaGa Frontier

Seventh Game in the SaGa Series, although only the fourth to see a release outside Japan. (The Previous Three being the Final Fantasy Legend games for Gameboy).

SaGa Frontier recieved many bad reviews after its stateside release, due to it's high learning curve and weak storyline. While it wasn't a truly bad game, it was far different from the story based linear game most people expected from a squaresoft title.

The player had seven different scenarios to complete, each with a different main character, and a different storyline. Parties were gathered by the player during the course of the scenario. Four different types of party member were available: Human, Mec, Mystic and Monster. Each class had it's own unique set of skills and method for leveling up.

Graphics were all prerendered, and looked quite nice, a given for a Squaresoft title.

SaGa Frontier can be considered a fusion of the two earlier branches of the SaGa family tree, which had very little in common with each other apart from the name SaGa and being developed by the same studio (namely Square's 2nd Division).

The SaGa series, also known as "Final Fantasy Legend", appeared on the Gameboy portable console. The two SaGa games (yes, there was a SaGa 3, but it was not developed by the 2nd Division and thus was not a "real" SaGa game, just as Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest is not considered a "real" FF game) had two distinguishing characteristics.

First, they took place in a "world of worlds": instead of a single world map, there were many small worlds connected to each other, each world with its own flavour (one world in SaGa 1 was mostly ocean, with its inhabitants living on scattered islands; another world in the same game was a post-apocalyptic urban wasteland)

Second, the player character "classes" available were... unorthodox. While most console RPGs of that era had characters based on some variation of the D&D archetypes of Fighter, Mage, Cleric and Thief, SaGa's four classes were actually four entirely different types of lifeform: Humans, Espers, Monsters and Mecha (SaGa 1 had only the former three; Mecha didn't appear until SaGa 2)

The Romancing SaGa series, which appeared on the Super Famicom and only in Japan, was totally different. The Romancing SaGa games took place in quasi-medieval sword-and-sorcery worlds and had only humans as player characters. The Romancing SaGa games had two highly distinguishing features. First was the Free Scenario System. Unlike most console RPGs in which a scripted story constrains the player to visit the game's locations in a preset order, in the Romancing SaGa games it was possible to explore the game world more or less freely. This system gave the games a greater resemblance to PC RPGs such as Ultima than to other console RPGs such as Final Fantasy. Romancing SaGa 1 and 3 even allowed the player to choose from eight different main characters, each of which began the game in an entirely different location, with different scenarios and allies available.

The second distinguishing feature of the Romancing SaGa games was the weapon skill system. Unlike the vast majority of console RPGs (and pen-and-paper RPGs for that matter) in which different weapons are distinguished only by having more or less "attack power", the Romancing SaGa games featured eight different weapon types (sword, two-handed sword, axe, mace, spear, rapier, bow, bare hands) each of which had a variety of special techniques. These special techniques could be learned spontaneously and randomly in the middle of a battle: a "eureka" lightbulb would flash over a character's head just prior to their turn, and the character would announce and execute their newly-learned technique. These weapon techniques tended to look quite flashy and gave the Romancing SaGa games the same whizz-bang appeal that summoning magic gave to the Final Fantasy series. There was also a defensive counterpart to this lightbulb system. Occasionally a character would "see through" ("mikiru" in Japanese) an enemy's attack; a lightbulb would flash, the character would dodge the attack, and from then on that character would be totally immune to that particular attack type.

Anyway, SaGa Frontier attempted to fuse the best parts of both worlds. Like the Gameboy games, it had a "world of worlds" setting and four different player character types (Humans, Mystics, Monsters and Mecha) Overall, SaGa Frontier retained the goofy "anything goes" atmosphere of the GB games over the "serious" medieval fantasy of Romancing SaGa.

What SaGa Frontier took from Romancing SaGa was the Free Scenario System (including seven different main characters to choose from) and a complex skill system which combined Romancing SaGa's lightbulbs with some entirely new mechanics. The lightbulb system was still in place, but was exclusive to humans. The other character classes learned their skills by different means. Mystics "possessed" enemy monsters, making one of that monster's skills their own. Monsters actually ate enemy monsters, absorbing the victim's powers and sometimes causing the monster to transform into an entirely new form. Mecha downloaded "programs" which increased their offensive or defensive abilities or gave them entirely new powers.

Because the other two nodes are lacking;
Platform: Playstation
Release Date: 03/31/98
Developer/Publisher: Squaresoft
ESRB Rating: T

In many video games, there's a character, or group of characters, who are far more powerful than they have a right to be.

In SaGa Frontier, this character is Blue.

Storyline
PROTIP: This section is naturally full of spoilers. If you don't like that, skip the section.

Blue's quest begins at his graduation ceremony at his school. I'm assuming that this is a school of magic, because A: He starts the game with the gift for Realm magic and 4 spells, B: His home region is the Magic Kingdom, and C: He gets awarded the title of Master Magician from his school. Good choice, mates, you have no idea what kind of magician he turns out to be. ...Well, maybe you do.

But anyways. Before he can leave, he has to talk to his headmaster. He says things like "you are our best magician", and "go out into the world and get the gift for other types of magic". Oh, and "kill your brother.". Blue decides to do this, probably because he was separated from his brother at birth and thus never really got to know him. I guess he doesn't have any real moral qualms about killing people, either.

So he goes out into the world. He then chooses three types of magic to follow (the players choice, obviously). There's Light and Shadow, Rune and Arcane, and Time and Space. We'll assume he chooses from those three groups in the order they were presented, because that's the best way to do it in the game.

A side note sort of thing here; Blue comes into the world with the insanely cool item, the RegionMap. Basically, he can pull up the RegionMap anywhere, and travel to any region he's already been to. This saves you a lot of time traveling to regions to get to others, and is just a much more interesting kind of transportation to boot.

So Blue uses his RegionMap, which for some reason has Luminous and Devin already on it, and teleports to Luminous. There he can either choose Light or Shadow magic. So he chooses Shadow, because I like that better. I'm just going to say that before he does that, he picks up some companions, and then enters Omble, the shadow region. There he passes through, fights his shadow, and gains the gift for Shadow magic. Note that the gift means that he can learn spells simply by using that type of magic, can get higher level, unbuyable spells, and gets a pretty gold star next to the the respective magic folder in the ability menu.

Now he heads to Devin, and starts either the Rune or Arcade quest. He chooses Arcane, once again because I'm telling the story and his choice doesn't matter. He gets four blank cards, and then must find the four arcane cards to transform them into the useful cards that give him the gift. He goes to Wakatu, and gets the Saber card by hitting the O button when the right shadows appear on the wall. He travels to the IRPO (Inter Regional Police Officer) headquarters, and then gets sent to a mountain to find a flower. He finds the flower, kills a giant flaming phoenix type bird that tries to kill him, and then goes back to get the Shield card. He moves on to Yorkland, where the inhabitants get him drunk and send him into a swamp full of monsters. He makes his way through and hallucinates that he finds the Grail card (and, strangely enough, he does actually get it). He completes the set of four by buying four slabs of gold and going to Baccarat, a giant casino. He jumps down a manhole in the parking lot, travels through some caves, and finds a cave full of gnomes, who absolutely adore gold. He tosses them the gold bars, they toss him the Gold card. Hello, Arcane gift.

So now we have a choice. Time or Space magic. I choose time, because the BG Music in his region makes me cream myself and I like the Time Lord more than Kylin. So Blue goes to Mosperiburg, and gets teleported to the Time Region by some infinitely powerful guy named Virgil. He finds that time has stopped in the region, and sees a giant cracked hourglass. He teleports back to Mosperiburg, and talks to Virgil. Virgil tells him that he should go to Facinaturu, the region of the mystic lords, and talk to a guy called Gozarus. So Blue gets teleported there, too. He ends up landing in the little peasant town next to the giant castle, but that's fine because Gozarus lives in the village. He sells some of his flesh (Life Points, in the game) to get the SandVessel, and then some more to get the Asura. The Asura isn't at all required, but it's so insanely cool (It's own innate attack ability, counterattack ability, third highest sword attack power, and plus seven to the holder's stats) that Blue's going to pick it up anyways.

So he goes back to the TimeLord's Region, starts the hourglass, time, and the totally awesome music, and goes to visit the TimeLord.

"Why did you restart my clock?"
"I have come to take your gift and everything for Time magic."
"...Okay. Do your worst."

So we enter battle with the TimeLord. Because the AI is stupid, Blue casts a spell on him that makes his magic backfire on him repeatedly, while his friends pummel him into nothing. The TimeLord casts his spells anyways, and occasionally hits someone with his staff, but it doesn't do much. So Blue wins, gets the gift and all the time magic spells, and decides that he'll go duel his brother now.

We find our hero and his party on a bunch of rock pillars, with Blue high above, facing his brother Rouge. There's a big crescent moon in the background, just to add dramatic flavor. So they duel.

The duel battle was pretty neat, but doesn't have much to do with the story, so you can skip this paragraph if you really don't care about it. Blue and his brother cast spells, jumping around the battlefield onto different pillars as they do. Meanwhile, there are giant floating crystals in the background, which randomly strengthen one type of magic and weaken its opposite. When Blue or his brother lose all their HP, they don't die, they just lose one LP and get instantly revived, a-la Auto-Life. Rouge will have 7 LP, and Blue has 3, assuming he bought the SandVessel and the Asura. The battle continues until one of the brothers runs out of LP.

Now, Rouge was a pushover in the game, so I'm going to say that Blue won, although it doesn't matter. He jumps down off of his pillar, and gets confused. "Who am I? Am I Blue or Rouge? I know, there was never two of us, it was just me all along. But why was I deceived? I must go back to the Magic Kingdom and get answers." Well, his RegionMap opens, and the Magic Kingdom is now available (it wasn't before, and Blue refused to fly there from any port). Of course, you don't have to go there, but we're going there because there's no plot extension everywhere else.

He comes in to find the city in ruins. There's a demon standing in his way, so he slaughters it (he's just ascended into god-dom, by fusing with Rouge), and continues through the city. He finds a giant sort of pipe that leads down into the ground behind the ruins of a giant wall, so he climbs down. He sees several dead men and women lying there, but one is barely alive. He asks the man what happens, and he says that the 'seal' was broken and demons attacked. Before Blue can ask anything else, the man dies. So Blue continues on his way down, and eventually makes his way down to a giant statue of three fake goddesses. While he's climbing down them, he is pulled into a secret room. There are two people, and a bunch of children that are suspended into the air in this weird ring of bubbles. Blue realizes that he was divided into two here. He asks the people why they did it, and they tell him that they needed a magician so powerful he could even kill himself. They tell him that they need him to save the city by fighting the demons. He tells them to fuck off at first, but eventually decides to do it and save the children (aww...). Before he leaves, more demons attack the room, wounding the people he was talking to. He leaves the room, and continues down the statues to level ground. He finds the gateway into Hell, and enters.

Hell looks like what heaven should. It's full of angels running around, all white and beautiful. Of course, if Blue runs into the angels, he has to fight them, and they turn out to be demons. He travels through Hell, fights the DragonLord (although this isn't required, the DragonLord's blocking you from the second most powerful sword in the game), and then comes to the final chamber. There sits a giant black egg sort of thing, which transforms when Blue gets too close. He and his companions enter battle with HellsLord.

When he strikes the 'final' blow, the entire game stops. The screen fades into gray, and the words "The End" appear.

Fuck you, Squaresoft.

Okay, so here's what happened. While Blue was down in Hell killing demons and the HellsLord, the people above were working to re-seal Hell. While Blue was still in it.

Fuck you, townspeople.

Now, this wasn't in the game, but the book 'The Essence of SaGa Frontier' (which was produced by Squaresoft) says that Rouge won the duel, and escaped Hell with his Space magic. Now, there is no difference between Blue and Rouge except appearance, so if Blue won, he keeps his sprite, but otherwise they're the same. So I'm going to say that Blue won in my story, and escaped with Space magic too. Hooray for Blue.

Whatever happens after he gets out is anyone's guess. The book doesn't go on to tell about that, and obviously the game doesn't. He probably leaves the Magic Kingdom, and does whatever the hell he feels like in the world.



Character Info

Now I get to explain why Blue is a god in SaGa Frontier.

Even at the beginning of the game, Blue is the best spellcaster you can get. Well, he's tied with Rouge, but other characters don't get to have Rouge duel his brother. His mental stats (INT, WIL, PSY) all start in the 30 range, making his spells do more damage than anyone else you can get. He begins with a MasterRobe (Raises PSY by 5) and MagicWear (Raises WIL by 5), which add together to make 14 DEF. He also gets the standard item pack the other characters get, the Backpack, Cures, and MagicStone. He begins with 4 Realm magic spells, EnergyChain, Implosion, PsychoArmor, and Gate, along with the gift for Realm magic. The icing on the cake is his 1000 credits, which is 10 times the amount all the other main characters get. Thus, it's easy to buy two more spells, and give him a Magic Crown (all his spells cost one JP, or MP, less to cast).

This makes him probably the best off at the beginning of the game, out of the seven main characters. He doesn't get any special characters that only he can get, but he can get all of the non-special characters in his party (except Rouge, obviously). The only side quest he's excluded from is the Furdo's Workshop quest, because it's in the Magic Kingdom. He can't get the gift for Mind magic until after he duels his brother, but otherwise he can do all of the magic quests.

But that's not what makes Blue so powerful. He ascends into his all-powerful self when he beats his brother Rouge.

See, when Blue jumps down from his stony spire, he gains a whole lot of new shit. His INT, WIL, PSY, and JP all DOUBLE. This means he can very easily get 99 in all of his mental stats, which is damn near impossible to do normally. He also will have something near 150 JP, so he will have no problems casting spells. He also gets the gift and all the spells for the 3 kinds of magic he didn't choose to master, as well as Life magic, which just sort of appears. This is otherwise impossible to do in the game.

When Blue beats his brother, he doesn't even have to be a mage. Give him a gun. Shoot something in battle. At the end, he will learn an ability. By the time you finish 10-15 battles, Blue will have learned all 10 gun abilities. Give him a sword. He will learn insanely fast! I had him physically attack with a katana and he learned Tres Flores, the most powerful katana ability. He learned over half the sword abilities just by physically attacking. His physical stats aren't even all that difficult to level up. I didn't encounter much dificulty getting them above 70! He can do anything he wants, because he's so insanely smart.
But his magic is still godlike. Blue is the only character (other than TimeLord, who isn't as useful) who gets the gift for Time magic, and thus the only character who gets Overdrive. Overdrive gives Blue 7 turns in a row, with no interruptions. Blue can kill pretty much anything outside of HellsLord (and even then, it's fully possible) with seven turns. His magic will utterly destroy enemies, because his mental stats will be 99. No other character comes close to having all of these advantages in the game. Not even Red, who's a SUPER HERO, would be able to stand against him. Blue is the most powerful character in SaGa Frontier.