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SaGa Series Discussion

TigerKnee

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Feb 24, 2012
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latest
 

Grampy_Bone

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Playing as Katarina, I'm trying to avoid using any characters I've used in previous runs. So no Julian, Mikhail, Black, Sharl, Boston, Wood, or Robin.

Right now party is Thomas, Nora, Sarah, and Wood. Wood just for his quest, I'll ditch him soon. Thomas is shaping up well and Nora is a powerhouse but Sarah is trash. I'm thinking of putting in Undine when I get her, plus Muse and maybe Monica; I just got Sharl for the dream quest and dammit he's so good with his stats and skills, it's hard to not use him.
 

Grampy_Bone

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As a side note, having to shuffle characters in and out of your party for quests is the most annoying thing about these games for me. I can handle all the other bullshit but efficient party management drives me nuts. At least with this game you have the 6th slot, with Minstrel Song you're stuck with a revolving 5th party member pretty much no matter what.

I wish every game would do the SaGa Frontier thing and let you have 15 people.
 

Hobo Elf

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I don't see much appeal in Muse either. Yes she's a blank slate, but so what? There are tons of characters for almost every imaginable niche. Using her just means that you have a lot more grinding to do. The low LP is kinda crappy too. But, hey, at least it's a possibility.
I've closed the Fire Abyss Gate so far. How far have you other doods gotten?
 

Grampy_Bone

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There's nothing good about her, her stats aren't anything special, her LP is low, no skills or aptitudes.
How do you know what aptitudes she has for sparking skills?

https://romancing-saga-3.blogspot.com/p/rs3-techs-waza.html#techlearnsheet

The only appeal to Muse I can think of is her ability to get a magic crown, which most characters have a hard time achieving. But I already have Undine who is better in every way, and I prefer more versatile fighters like Sharl and Black to pure mages.

I haven't done any gates yet, wrapping up side quests. I'll head into the water gate soon though.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I don't see much appeal in Muse either. Yes she's a blank slate, but so what? There are tons of characters for almost every imaginable niche. Using her just means that you have a lot more grinding to do. The low LP is kinda crappy too. But, hey, at least it's a possibility.
I've closed the Fire Abyss Gate so far. How far have you other doods gotten?
I've barely had time to play. I beat Khalid's first area. 27 minutes of play time. Fuggin real life, getting in the way.
 

Grampy_Bone

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:shunthenonbeliever:
Looking it up is clearly cheating!

Hopefully you're not being serious, but I've played this game a bunch of times already, including blind, so STFU.

I like to know how the game works to play more efficiently, helps avoid a lot of wasted time. Plus it's fascinating to see how deep the mechanics of a 20 year old SNES game are.
 

Tigranes

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Jan 8, 2009
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Alright, picked this up completely blind, did the intro - then immediately picked up two party members that are apparently impossible to kick out for a long while, and one of them looks utterly useless? Reloaded for now because I didn't want to be locked in that early.

Do I need to know anything besides - play with formations, use skills you want to improve on, 'spark' new skills in combat then somehow 'learn' them to bake them in, a gazillion joinable NPCs but your party caps at 8 or something??
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I'd say that post #120 in this thread covers the general things one needs to know. This game is a bit more forgiving than other games in the series.
 

Grampy_Bone

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Alright, picked this up completely blind, did the intro - then immediately picked up two party members that are apparently impossible to kick out for a long while, and one of them looks utterly useless? Reloaded for now because I didn't want to be locked in that early.

Do I need to know anything besides - play with formations, use skills you want to improve on, 'spark' new skills in combat then somehow 'learn' them to bake them in, a gazillion joinable NPCs but your party caps at 8 or something??

Who did you recruit? If it was the pink haired girl you can get rid of her by going to Ryblov. Party limit is 6 but most people can re-join if you kick them.

My advice would be to not neglect magic, try teaching the basic spells to a few people and work to level it up early.

OTOH, leaving 1-2 characters as pure weapons users (0 MP) makes it easier for them to gain skills. Skill mastering is random, just use the skill enough times and it should become available to everyone.
 

Tigranes

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Grampy_Bone Started with Katarina, then picked up Minstrel and ... Candy or whatever her name was. Now I reloaded, and as Katarina picked up Sarah, then ran into Thomas and some other dude who joined the party to go rescue Gon.

I'm totally fine with going in relatively blind, but I know you can unintentionally make life a pain for yourself with innocuous early choices in these older games. Would be cool to just hear general stuff like "check out X town/weapon type" or whatever.

I tried buying a Solar spell for Sara and it raised her max MP from 0 to 5 - but buying another spell on top didn't seem to do more?
 

Grampy_Bone

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I tried buying a Solar spell for Sara and it raised her max MP from 0 to 5 - but buying another spell on top didn't seem to do more?

Yeah, you get 5 mp free when you buy your first spell, you have to cast spells in battle to get it to go up after that. Characters can learn two schools of magic, one of either solar/lunar and one of the four elements.

Thomas is good spear fighter and healer, you're on a good track with the Gon quest since that opens up some more stuff later. Also be sure to check out the whole city of Pidona and the weapon shop with Nora, the workshop is a source of free equipment.

I won't say exactly why but I do not recommend using Sarah long term.

Talk to everyone in every town, many of them will unlock new locations and it's not real obvious when it happens.

All weapons are viable for the whole game, the only one that's a bit weak is Epee/Shortsword, and Martial Arts kind of sucks unless the character has the aptitude for it. Great Wheel is a spear tech that is very useful, good enough I put it on all my fighters even if they use a different weapon type.
 

Expon

Scholar
Joined
Sep 26, 2015
Messages
169
Started with Katarina, then picked up Minstrel and ... Candy or whatever her name was
The sweets girl starts with an epee but is really only good at sparking with spears or bows. I don't recall, but her growth and potency with elemental magic depends on her name. Candy:sun Eclair: moon
 

Grampy_Bone

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This fricken game sometimes.

Get to a four-boss rush, ends with a dragon who spams fire breath for 400 damage every round. Tactics? Try three times and win when he randomly doesn't use the breath weapon more than once. Lol.

Triones sword is stupid, why change 7 Star Sword? Dumb translation.
 

Hobo Elf

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Did some of the extra dungeon today. Got an item that halves MP cost by half. I guess it's kinda cool? My Monika has almost 130 MP tho so it's not like running out of mana is ever going to be a thing, but now I can be even more liberal with my Reviver spam I suppose, if such a situation would ever even come up. The most interesting thing about the dungeon is that it adds actual character development for some of the characters. Was able to do 2 floors but now it locked me out since I need to finish the Sinistrals first, so I guess I'll go close the final Wind Abyss Gate.

Edit: The ring that halves MP cost by half also increases Magic by 5. I'm guessing that you can do some ridiculous damage with spells now?

Edit Edit: Now I got a similar ring but for SP and it gives +5 STR. GG.
 
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eric__s

ass hater
Developer
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Jun 13, 2011
Messages
2,301
To anyone who's got the Minstrel stuck in your party, it seems like you have to
kill Forneus (or maybe any Abyss Lord)
before you can kick him out of your group.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
I ran around with Nora and Thomas, bumbled around figuring out how to kill the Cranium Rats, then picked up Wood. So far the game feels a bit like... almost like an Uncharted Waters or something in terms of how you wander around towns picking up a quest or hint or two? Hell, I lost track of my macguffin thief in Pidona. All good. Plenty of places to visit.
 

Hobo Elf

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Finished the additional dungeon. It was quite good. I enjoyed the extra characterization they gave to some characters. One of them was even closure to what was originally cut content. Now I'm just trying to Spark some of my last skills so I can move on to the final boss. So far I've learned all the best Sword, Martial Arts and Hammer techs. Need to get one more for Axes which is the hardest one, but we'll see.
Edit: There we go, Reverse Orbit is received.
 
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Hobo Elf

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Feb 17, 2009
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Platypus Planet
Finished the additional dungeon.

How many bosses were there? 8?
Just 4. It was very short and sweet.

Edit: Victory! Beat the game. Even if the game is a lot less punishing than other Saga games, it's definitely not a pushover either and requires that the player pays attention to how they are building and using their team. I played this game for the first time on a SNES emulator, probably exactly 20 years ago. I played a bit but decided that I'd wait for a proper western release before I'd finish the game. It has been a long wait, but it was well worth it!
 
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