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Unlimited SaGa

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
This game has always fascinated me. I've replayed it recently and I definitely love it. I even took some notes and that Sigourn mentioned it on another thread makes me want to detail.

Many people hate the game, but some reasons are the reasons why I like it (hard difficulty, board game presentation). Many mechanisms are obscure, I never use second hand info and I probably missed things and could say some wrong things here but hopefully not too many.

Overall it's the game with pregenerated character that feels the closest to P&P to me.

Here are some of the reasons why I love the game :
- missions, save between missions, regain LPs between missions (apart from rare items) (also save & quit option available),
- board game aesthetic, atmospheric texts,
- atmospheric scenarii, the game has super cool haunted houses, cemeteries ... you collect log parts in underwater cities. All these places are full of melancholia. I think the game has some of my favourite writing/stories in a game.
- The missions which concern your characters are rare, and often don't even concern them that much. The characters you control have a personallity based on what they look like and a small background but also don't talk a lot, that's very likeable to me (generally, I like walls of texts but I don't like party character talking).
- Many non-combat abilities, classic and less classic, free to use or more specific. It takes some time learning to make use of all of them at the right moment. And it's not just they're there, time passes, critical failures are cleverly taken into account. Chests can explode at your face, you can miss some chest content, you can't access some occasional optional chest without the appropriate navigation skill (swimming, obstacle crossing), which can often makes you gain some time. Breaking chests will get you the money if money there is but if not what's inside is broken, which is a good system. Because of the game structure where you can't save during missions, the game uses one of my favourite implementations of non-combat skills in an RPG.
- Lots of traps and such.
- Various time limits, from very tight to very large, occasionally I need to restart more than thrice a scenario just not to reach the time limit, and that's very cool, but that's also cool that it's not common to most scenarii.
- That can be generalised to the overall difficulty, some missions can be very hard, and I like that some missions can go from hard to easy with more characters, and that fortunately not all of them become easy then. I am almost sure there are some missions you can enter, then leave and you won, but of course you probably missed something cool, that's fun.
- At the end of a mission you'll get to choose your upgrade from a list and put it on a grid. The two reasons I like this system are that you get new non-combat abilities, you'll have to do without some of them (at all or at a level where the character is efficient), and that your grid also determines your stats so you need to keep a balance between good stats and available abilites (since good stats are obtained with axe proficiency, punch, kick, sword proficiency, not things that you need, sword proficiency alone would be enough).
- Monsters don't always attack you, attack you when you interact with a chest, sometimes you can try diplomacy ...
- the overall player's progression curve is high. I talked about using non-combat abilities, you'll get to learn when trying diplomacy is worth it, when trying to disarm a chest or to open it is worth it, that resting is not always useful after a fight but it can be useful before trying to disarm a trap. You'll get to learn what monsters to attack because the next time you'll walk they'll attack you anyway possibly joined by more, and what monsters not to attack because they're not aggressive and alone. You will travel to some maps several times, and some of them have a lot of treasures you'll find by using the searching skill corresponding to the type of area.
- overall I tend to like the dungeon mechanisms, they are unequal, sometimes there's nothing and it does not matter, about cool ones there's this mission where you need to put a ball which gets hotter and colder in three specific holes and at first before you find an hole with an inscription you put it in holes without inscription and wake up an octopus. Then you reach the time limit, several times. There's also this one where you invert portraits from walls. There's at least one mission where your party gets separated into two groups, which is fun.
- At least you choose a character with its own quest (but from what I've actually replayed I don't think it's worth replaying the game with another character).
- music, gfx (everywhere outside of combat where they're meh).

There are things I'm more indifferent about.
- I don't particularly like nor hate itemization and crafting. I like to create the appropriate weapons with the best materials, that occasionnaly a mix between two materials creates a third best one, but in the same time buying cheap materials and repairing feels like busy work. I like slowly raising my armor scores.
- Combat itself is a bit repetitive, because of lack of monster variation. Overall preparation (equipment and characters' building) is important. I don't think the combat wheel adds anything to combat. 5 actions per turn is good. Actually that only the ones who do an action can be attacked (and the ones in front line have more chance to be attacked??I'm not certain) is almost the only thing to take into account in combat. The few state afflictions are cool, and it's cool that a paralysed or dead character cost one action point and you have to manage to take him/her out of the battlefield to get the point back.
- I think I also need to mention possible level scaling, even if I don't know how it works, because I really hated the level scaling in SaGa Frontier, I think it kills Saga Frontier to some extend (or rather more precisely that it seriously damages the combat part because overall I thought SaGa Frontier was a somewhat pleasant game anyway), while in Unlimited SaGa however it works it didn't bother me that much. I don't know if it scale to your party's power or if it's just that the later you choose a scenario the harder the scenario (in which case there's actually no real level scaling). What's sure is that either way it's really not the worst level scaling ever, not really because it's not levelled monsters but stronger types of monsters (SaGa Frontier is also like that), but because it's limited, some monsters are not scaled, and especially handplaced monsters, bosses, are always the real deal even if they're not numerous (but more numerous than in SaGa Frontier), and they're not scaled. Besides you can't exploit it anyway, or so I think, I really don't think it would make you play the game in an unintuitive way if you figure it out.
- Sometimes a boss annihilates your entire full health party at the end of a long scenario full of weak monsters, it does not really bother me, and maybe I'm exaggerating, but I can imagine how someone can think it's a waste of time replaying a scenario where only the boss is a threat.
- No direct class restriction but stat affinities, why not.
- Slightly limited magic via items (when you have the skill you can recharge them during missions) + learning from magic tablets and unlimited via high lvl familiars, once again why not.

These are some things I don't like :
- Some obscure mechanisms are alright, and that you learn to play while playing is fine, also the manual gives you some info, but there are still a few things I don't know and think I should know. For example I'm almost sure the "skill" stat is actually used to determine damages to LP like said in the manual, with a weapon that is, but whether it also applies to magic or not I have no idea. I have no idea if the damages to LP depends on anything related to the weapon worn (type, power). There are many interactions, like wind pushing you, I have no idea if stats are taken into account to generate the checking wheel then.
- You can't choose to take no upgrade when levelling up, and I think that it adds nothing to the game and is just very annoying.
- One precise thing about the stat system I don't get, it's unintuitive, it's stupid, or I'm stupid and don't understand something, or maybe all of these reasons. A familiar placed near the magic stat is a very bad idea, it does not raise magic. OK that's weird but could not matter, but what's worse and why it matters is that one sorceress comes with one lvl4 metal familiar (with a strong spell associated) near its magic stat, which is very stupid, you need to erase the familiar to raise her magic.
- Outside combat the wheel once stops when you press the button and once anywhere, not sure there's a reason and that's very annoying.
- Not in all of them, and to different extents, but in most missions the type of many monsters you meet seems to have nothing to do with the mission environment, they're the same everywhere.
- Yes/No? Two text colors, no idea which one I'm selecting when I get back to the game after a period.


 
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Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
Like I said in that particular Sigourn thread, this game is shit but not for the reasons why people hate it. Everything you listed are positives that will turn off people who want a more generic JRPG experience. The part where Unlimited Saga actually falls completely flat, unfortunately, is the combat system. It's really poor and revolves entirely on trading blows and seeing who can shit out the most damage before the other party dies. A severe lack of any kind of strategy or tactics; no heal spells, no real buff spells. Just using the reel to try and get the Reverse Delta procs. To the untrained eye this might seem like a typical JRPG problem, but I'm comparing this game with the other SaGa games which all have some of the best combat systems I have ever seen in an RPG. Still, I appreciate what this game tried to do, and I'll occasionally pop it in my PS2 even if the combat does frustrate me with its lack of any complexity. The music is just amazing, the 2D sprites and animations are really fantastic and this game has a good sense of exploration and dungeon crawling even if it looks like a board game (I don't mind).
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Yes, when a battle starts there's not that much you can do to change its outcome, SaGa Frontier is the only other SaGa I've played so far but its combat system is indeed much better.

I'd say the difference between Unlimited SaGa and a typical JRPG would be that you can't grind so at least you have no choice but to get good equipment one way or another, likely an active way, and not completely slaughter your characters' grids.
 
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Vagiel

Augur
Joined
Jan 20, 2008
Messages
319
Location
Greece
I love all SaGa games including unlimited. Anyone knows if there is any special reward for finishing all scenarios?
 

glass blackbird

Learned
Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2015
Messages
664
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
to answer a few of the OP's questions:

Weapon type affects the types of damage. Some scale off strength and some skill, which also determines what kind of damage they tend to do. IE axe attacks do lots of HP damage but will rarely do LP damage and you should give them to someone with high strength; daggers do more LP damage and are skill weapons. Some are in between, ie swords. Special attacks can be exceptions to the damage output but still scale off the important stat, which is why axes are the cheap and easy weapon to use--they wear down HP quickly if you fail to hit reverse delta, but if you hit it then you also do a ton of LP damage since strength is usually easy to raise.

The Magic stat offers very little benefit for elemental magic and only boosts forbidden magic to any notable degree. Familiars have good elemental growth so you should stop removing their familiars so often (though you don't want to only use familiar magic since it won't get you magic blender).

I love all SaGa games including unlimited. Anyone knows if there is any special reward for finishing all scenarios?

each completed save starts the enemies and shops at a higher rank and if you beat them all it plays the credits. that's it

e: other weapons have cool and fun attacks to use; I suggest not doing an all axe thing unless you want to be bored
 
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zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
3,085
Location
デゼニランド
:necro:

Been playing this over the past few weeks. I think I'm reaching the end of Laura's scenario, clearing sidequests for now to grow my party.

Been meaning to ask which scenario is recommended to do next. I'm kinda torn between Vent and Cash, the latter I tried before but got rekt due to lack of experience.

Another question: I kinda played it safe in the beginning and invested into martial arts, but I can't seem to grow my Kick / Punch / Throw Arts past L3 despite having L4 tablets equipped. Did I screw up somewhere along the way?

EDIT: I just managed to get my Punch skill to L4. Looks like it's a bit of a grind to get there.
 
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Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,514
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
Ruby, Laura, Judy, Ventus are all solid first/second runs.

Save Armic, Kurt, and Myrthe for last.

I'm playing myself. I even responded to you on twitter about it.

I'm not playing as much as I want, thiugh. And I still hate the spinning wheel.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
3,085
Location
デゼニランド
Ruby, Laura, Judy, Ventus are all solid first/second runs.

Save Armic, Kurt, and Myrthe for last.

I'm playing myself. I even responded to you on twitter about it.

I'm not playing as much as I want, thiugh. And I still hate the spinning wheel.
Thanks.

I found that completing a quest or two per session is the best way to play for me. The reel mechanic requires concentration, so playing for too long can fuck you up.
 

Amurada

Educated
Joined
Jul 26, 2020
Messages
73
Purchased this game about a year ago. Had a decent time of it, but ran into the same issues Hobo Elf mentioned that somewhat turned me off to it. Plan on getting back into it eventually, as I enjoyed what was there, despite being somewhat disappointed. I enjoy a good board game aesthetic (Wizrogue being one of my favorites), but this game is quite lacking in this regard. Particularly, having a 2D icon with rough aliasing having the Z-axis increment and decrement to signify movement; or simply having a texture of a treasure chest (granted, drawn pretty well) -- not much of a fan tbh. Battle visuals look decent at least, despite some weird anatomy and camera angle issues (UI is a bit dumb as well, but not too bad). It seems as though Kuwazu always has to bungle some aspect of his games, just to keep out the normies I guess...
 

RoksCQ

Novice
Joined
Nov 12, 2019
Messages
25
I remember everytime i sat down and got my copy out and thought to myself, Last time i played this game i was just mentally retarded I'm smart and capable now, I'll find the key to cracking this code and get past the hieroglyphics.

Still have my working ps2 waiting to play it once and for all but I treat the game more like a foreign language dictionary for now.
 

zwanzig_zwoelf

Graverobber Foundation
Developer
Joined
Nov 21, 2015
Messages
3,085
Location
デゼニランド
Got my ass kicked by the final boss (final form). After some deliberation, I think I'll start over, since I see why it happened and where I fucked up along the way.

I'll be happy to hear some corrections, but I think my main mistakes were:

-- Focusing too much on martial arts. It's good as a backup plan if your weapons break, but 1-2 LP damage from Deadly Palm is never guaranteed against bosses.
-- Not fighting often enough to build the HP buffer to withstand another attack or two before LP starts dripping. This mostly concerns my tanking units (Musol Yanii / Anzan / Francis).
-- Half-assed panel assignment that didn't really represent what my characters are focusing on, instead focusing on stat adjustments.
-- Zero investment into equipment / magic.

I'm looking forward to replay it with these points in mind and building a better party. :positive:
 

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