SaGa Series Discussion

[Hobo Elf]

If finding out how stuff works is not your cup of tea then yeah that's just the way of it. I wouldn't say the mechanics are any obscurer than in previous SaGa games, but this game does punish experimentation quite a bit with how tight the resource economy is on your first play. You don't really have money and jewels to fuck around with, although this new release does help with the money part due to the fixed scaling rewards that I mentioned a few posts back. You get more good items which means you can sell them off for gold to buy spells and stuff a bit more liberally. Ironically Unlimited SaGa is pretty much just a more streamlined version of Minstrel Song, although with a real turkey of a combat system.

Still, I managed just fine. This was my first time playing Minstrel Song and each hour for the first few hours was a feeling of great joy and satisfaction as I understood what each system and mechanic did and how they come together to create a very elegant and cohesive game. Experience with previous SaGa games helps a bit, though mostly with just having the correct expectations of how things will pretty much go down.

Fists and Bow are pretty much the 2 best weapons IMO. Especially fists when you don't have money for weapons, but saving up enough gold to buy that Kjar Bow and get some +DP modifier on it via crafting makes things go a lot smoother. 3 guys specced fists, 1 person on bow, and the 5th spot was a mage. I turned Barbara into a Mage. I sparked Millionaire on Bow pretty quickly, and that attack with a Kjar bow with a +3 DP mod on it just cleans up trash in a big way. So, it's not that I couldn't beat this game, it's just that the game wasn't fun. Mind blast on a mage is a pretty good AOE as well, so between Millionaire and Mind blast, I had AOEs covered, and my fist guys typically used jackhammer, or a similar mid-tier tech as their standard attacks. I had the fist guys on defensive so they took less damage, and that really helped a lot with damage mitigation. Fists also get a heal+regen, which helps a lot as well, and bow gets a phoenix arrow move that heals. So, all my characters had heals in one form or another. That zapper move on bow, the one that shoots a huge lightning bolt appears to ignore physical defenses, and it seems to combo well with fist techs.

You mentioned that it wasn't fun for you because you didn't enjoy figuring how stuff works, which is what I commented on. I'm not questioning whether or not you can finish the game. Anyone can probably do it, if they just don't give up. I think understanding the mechanics is more like an optional thing you do for fun, especially so you can break the game in NG+ when you are drowning in more jewels. But if you just go with your gut feeling of getting stuff with higher stats and upgrade your weapon skill with jewels you're pretty much set on the path of winning the game. This game is no Romancing SaGa 2 or Scarlet Grace which are more demanding in the combat department.

Also from my understanding martial arts techs in Minstrel Song combo well with everything, which means that they can be utilized as a bridge between different weapon types that might not combo so well together.

 

[somerandomdude]

You mentioned that it wasn't fun for you because you didn't enjoy figuring how stuff works, which is what I commented on. I'm not questioning whether or not you can finish the game. Anyone can probably do it, if they just don't give up. I think understanding the mechanics is more like an optional thing you do for fun, especially so you can break the game in NG+ when you are drowning in more jewels. But if you just go with your gut feeling of getting stuff with higher stats and upgrade your weapon skill with jewels you're pretty much set on the path of winning the game. This game is no Romancing SaGa 2 or Scarlet Grace which are more demanding in the combat department.

Also from my understanding martial arts techs in Minstrel Song combo well with everything, which means that they can be utilized as a bridge between different weapon types that might not combo so well together.

If there's another game where you can get walled out of a quest because you got into too many battles, tell me what that game is, because I can't think of any others. More importantly, state if you believe this is good game design.

 

[Hobo Elf]

You mentioned that it wasn't fun for you because you didn't enjoy figuring how stuff works, which is what I commented on. I'm not questioning whether or not you can finish the game. Anyone can probably do it, if they just don't give up. I think understanding the mechanics is more like an optional thing you do for fun, especially so you can break the game in NG+ when you are drowning in more jewels. But if you just go with your gut feeling of getting stuff with higher stats and upgrade your weapon skill with jewels you're pretty much set on the path of winning the game. This game is no Romancing SaGa 2 or Scarlet Grace which are more demanding in the combat department.

Also from my understanding martial arts techs in Minstrel Song combo well with everything, which means that they can be utilized as a bridge between different weapon types that might not combo so well together.

If there's another game where you can get walled out of a quest because you got into too many battles, tell me what that game is, because I can't think of any others. More importantly, state if you believe this is good game design.

What do you mean by walled? Enemy scaling isn't so drastic unless you completely forego upgrading your characters' armor in which case that's on you. Or you mean how quests get closed/made available based on your ER? Yeah, that's a pretty good mechanic. The game is meant to be replayed and each run being different is an exciting prospect to me. This game isn't made for people who absolutely must do all content on a single run.

As for other games that do this, well, Romancing SaGa 3. And that's before going into the Greed mechanic which can also lock you out of quests. SaGa Frontier 2 has conflicting scenarios and you can only do them all freely in NG+. Honestly, all SaGa games have some kind system where events/scenarios/quests get locked or opened based on battles fought and other events you might have done before.

 

[somerandomdude]

What do you mean by walled? Enemy scaling isn't so drastic unless you completely forego upgrading your characters' armor in which case that's on you. Or you mean how quests get closed/made available based on your ER? Yeah, that's a pretty good mechanic. The game is meant to be replayed and each run being different is an exciting prospect to me. This game isn't made for people who absolutely must do all content on a single run.

As for other games that do this, well, Romancing SaGa 3. And that's before going into the Greed mechanic which can also lock you out of quests. SaGa Frontier 2 has conflicting scenarios and you can only do them all freely in NG+. Honestly, all SaGa games have some kind system where events/scenarios/quests get locked or opened based on battles fought and other events you might have done before.

This has nothing to do with enemy scaling. There's quests that you have to do within a relatively narrow ER range, or you get locked out. There's no way you could possibly know the ER ranges for these quests without referencing a guide.

I don't mind quests being main character specific, I don't mind quests requiring a certain story progression, or even missing them if you progress too far, but in this game doing something as simple as winning too many battles will lock you out. None of the other saga games had an ER system. It was based on BR, or quests having a line, or order to them, and some might have been missable for one reason or another, but certainly nothing like this. Stuff like the greed mechanic was determined from dialogue options, and that's fine. The Last Remnant had quests that you had to do before certain story progression thresholds, and that's typical or average for questing in these RPGs.

Blind run on the first playthrough in this game is fine, but you're gonna miss more than 50%+ of the content. And if you plan on getting anything out of the 2nd playthrough, you better have a guide glued to your face, because everything you missed in the 1st playthrough can be missed in the 2nd unless you reference a guide.

Then comes the question of "Did I find the game good enough for multiple playthroughs?" - the answer is obviously no.

 

[Hobo Elf]

This has nothing to do with enemy scaling. There's quests that you have to do within a relatively narrow ER range, or you get locked out. There's no way you could possibly know the ER ranges for these quests without referencing a guide.

I don't mind quests being main character specific, I don't mind quests requiring a certain story progression, or even missing them if you progress too far, but in this game doing something as simple as winning too many battles will lock you out. None of the other saga games had an ER system. It was based on BR, or quests having a line, or order to them, and some might have been missable for one reason or another, but certainly nothing like this.

It's essentially the same thing. Minstrel Song just splits BR and ER into two different scalers with BR lagging behind ER. ER is used for world event progress while BR scales up enemy encounters, treasure chest rewards and I believe also ore and herb nodes.

Blind run on the first playthrough in this game is fine, but you're gonna miss more than 50%+ of the content. And if you plan on getting anything out of the 2nd playthrough, you better have a guide glued to your face, because everything you missed in the 1st playthrough can be missed in the 2nd unless you reference a guide

Ok. So? Play the game differently; do things in different order and pick different choices and you're bound to encounter new results. Every quest has multiple win and fail states. Some based on who your main character is. It's a SaGa game. You're meant to experiment with it. Dunno how many quests are in the game but I did 20 on my first playthrough. I feel like if I jump in again I'll get a different yet equally personal experience. I suppose that's what the intention here was. Kawazu wanted people to play through the same game but have their own unique stories. Sure, this particular approach on quests differs from other SaGa, but ultimately you can still get locked or fail quests in other games so the end result is pretty much the same, it's just the way you get there is a bit different. There is no one unified game mechanic vision for SaGa afterall. They all share elements, but are still very different experiences from one another, heavy emphasis on the experimentation part. But I like it. Also, there's not a single missable quest that you have to do to win the game. To repeat myself again: it's a SaGa game. There are going to be mechanics and design choices that will put people off but will be highly attractive to people like me who like games that do weird things. Just imagine how many people get walled hard by the Fallout 1 timer which is peanuts compared to this. That's just how the cookie crumbles.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Ifrit kept kicking my ass until I invested in better weapons and armor and turned one character into a beating boy to break his self-immolation. I'm at ER 21, no idea if I'll face the ending soon.

I like how the Jewel Beast keeps nuking towns in the Frontier region over time. This bad boy is kicking my ass, which means I'll probably stick around and keep trying to take care of him.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

slower passage of time

I'm not even sure what that is referring to. The only metric that seems to matter in the game is Event Rank and I didn't think that was different between versions.

The slower passage of time is based on the NA release. The JP version had faster rank ups, which is normal in this version. Dunno if that really makes the game harder or not, but it does make the timing on quests tighter. Didn't feel like it was the end of the world. I missed out on some "crucial" quests for equipment but was able to get those same items from treasure chests later. There was a bug in the NA release where treasure chests, mining nodes and monster drops didn't go up with your ER, but that has been fixed here, so getting high level loot is not so impossible anymore. In fact I was drowning in all the best upgrade materials after one cave run while legacy online posts lamented that getting even one was close to impossible.

What is with several company translations upping up the difficulty in english releases. I watched a full Working Designs gameshack video and nearly every game had difficulty pumped to max. There are some unworking designs patches for some games.

I don't mind difficulty but I question the "why" the jap versions are so much easier. I'm starting to think they just suck at gaming or something. If they win the jap version bfd, if we beat the pumped up english version with its ultra difficulty, then we can rub it in their faces.

Yo ya pussies... you suck!

 

[TigerKnee]

What is with several company translations upping up the difficulty in english releases. I watched a full Working Designs gameshack video and nearly every game had difficulty pumped to max. There are some unworking designs patches for some games.

I don't mind difficulty but I question the "why" the jap versions are so much easier. I'm starting to think they just suck at gaming or something. If they win the jap version bfd, if we beat the pumped up english version with its ultra difficulty, then we can rub it in their faces.

WD actually stated their reasons at some point of time - it has to do with preventing rentals because the additional grind time etc would cause the players to have to buy the game instead. Not defending them for that decision because they did shit up a lot of games, it's just what it is.

It's not really consistent that the Japanese version is always much easier than the US one. FFIV is an example where the game was made easier and simpler because they were afraid American audiences couldn't understand RPGs, and several Fire Emblems renamed the difficulty settings in order to trick players into picking "Normal" (actually Easy) for likely the same reasons. I think WD might be a bit of an outlier and it's more likely that games are made easier for an English audience rather than the other way round (or perhaps it's a genre thing - action games made harder because of the same rental reason above)

(Also you might be misinterpreting that post but the English version is the "easier" one in this case.)

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ah! Well, either way I find it annoying but the rental reason is by far an outrage.

 

[Jinn]

If I'm not mistaken, the Japanese version of Minstrel Song is the more challenging of the two, because "time" moves forward faster, therefore you're locked out of quests and resources earlier on than you would be in the US version based on the number of encounters you get into.

 

[somerandomdude]

It's essentially the same thing. Minstrel Song just splits BR and ER into two different scalers with BR lagging behind ER. ER is used for world event progress while BR scales up enemy encounters, treasure chest rewards and I believe also ore and herb nodes.

ER and BR function similarly, but the end result is if you get into too many battles, you miss out on content, and not 1 other game does that. Comparisons to other things that can cause you to miss quests in games is comparing apples to oranges. I'd prefer there not be any missable quests in a game, or if they're only story progression related.

Also, every quest doesn't have multiple win/fail states, most of them are have singular ways to complete them.

You would probably like Wildermyth, it's a weird game, right up your alley. It's random and goody in its own way, lots of potential for cringe results. I got cringed out after about 2hrs. I don't like it for some of the same reasons I don't like this game, which means that maybe you might like it for some of the same reasons you like this one.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

slower passage of time

I'm not even sure what that is referring to. The only metric that seems to matter in the game is Event Rank and I didn't think that was different between versions.

The slower passage of time is based on the NA release. The JP version had faster rank ups, which is normal in this version. Dunno if that really makes the game harder or not, but it does make the timing on quests tighter. Didn't feel like it was the end of the world. I missed out on some "crucial" quests for equipment but was able to get those same items from treasure chests later. There was a bug in the NA release where treasure chests, mining nodes and monster drops didn't go up with your ER, but that has been fixed here, so getting high level loot is not so impossible anymore. In fact I was drowning in all the best upgrade materials after one cave run while legacy online posts lamented that getting even one was close to impossible.

What is with several company translations upping up the difficulty in english releases. I watched a full Working Designs gameshack video and nearly every game had difficulty pumped to max. There are some unworking designs patches for some games.

I don't mind difficulty but I question the "why" the jap versions are so much easier. I'm starting to think they just suck at gaming or something. If they win the jap version bfd, if we beat the pumped up english version with its ultra difficulty, then we can rub it in their faces.

Yo ya pussies... you suck!

Because shit publishers like Working Designs feared that gamers would rent the game, beat it very quickly, and then return it, therefore they usually upped the difficulty in cheap ways to get more 'gameplay time' out of these games.

Games that suffered from tampering like this felt like unbalanced shit (Exile: Wicked Phenomenon comes to mind) or fucked you over in the long run (BRAHMA Force: The Assault on Beltlogger 9), sometimes forcing you to replay them from the very beginning until you get them 100% right.

Didn't exactly save them from going out of business.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Aaand kicked Saruin's ass as Albert. After I played around with positions and invested in slightly better armor, he went down at the last moment on my ~sixth attempt.

My impressions so far -- it's an excellent game, but I've only scratched the surface.

Going to take a break and try another character later, as I'm sure I've missed out on many things and made too many mistakes in my first playthrough, so I'm expecting smoother runs in the future.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I finished the game on my second run yesterday. This time with Hawke. Saruin went down like a lousy bitch now that I was prepared for him, but the first time made me sweat. Song of Souls and Overdrive + Armor Blessing on your entire team is an absurd amount of damage mitigation that nothing could cope with. Even Saruin was hitting me with wimpy 10~ pts of damage attacks.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Finally got the time to play more this weekend, I'm still at ER 12 w/ Albert and collecting fatestones.

Topaz at ER 7 is just a flex but it's nice to have the option to refill the Chalice if needed. I waited until ER 11 to do Ailing Emperor (it fails at ER 13), used the Id Break strategy of debuffing the Minion to keep his spells weak. I noticed this time he was re-buffing his Int with Enhance Spells but I can't remember if that happened in the original or not. Ended up having a bigger issue with the moonstone guardian but got him with a lucky Surge-reverse combo.

That put me up to ER 12 in time to get the Aquamarine. FYI the Ghost Ship boss is susceptible to Paralysis and Instant Death, I used a Blunt Strike combo to stun him on turn 2 and Raksha and Shadow Shot (from Pyrix) on turn 3 to finish him. It does feel like playing on normal gives you almost no time for grinding; quest timing becomes practically unfair. No shame in playing at the slower rate.

Neidhart is funny to me, you hand him the Aquamarine and he joins you but you don't get it back, unlike Galahad and the Ice Sword or Hawke and the ancient text. If you ask him for a weapon as a reward he gives you a halberd which is actually stronger than his default Black spear. "Oh looks like that reward I gave you is a perfect fit for... me! Imagine that." He's basically a Jeigan--get him early and he's a beast but his locked items and lowish BP regen prevent him from reaching top tier.

Speaking of party members, I've been using Monica and she's decent. She was not recruitable before, you can get her now after Neville's request. She's my archer with high Dex/Agi but her Str and Int are also nearly as high despite not using related weapons/spells. BP regen is also pretty good. Too bad her voice acting sounds literally phoned in.

I've also noticed Schiele showing up more than she should, in the old version you had to play through the game 3 times before you could complete her quest, with four appearances per run. I've already run into her six times this game so maybe she's recruitable in the late game or the first NG+ like Darque?

Also with Darque, in the PS2 version beating Albert's quest would override his intro and lock him out for all characters except Aisha. I'm hoping that is no longer the case.

Let's see, other tips:

-Weapon modes: Attack mode is a bit of a noob trap, defense mode is where it's at. It not only lowers damage but quadruples your chance of deflecting. FYI, smaller one-handers (shortsword, foil, scimitar) can only deflect for the wielder, but heavier weapons (long sword, great sword, spear, and 2-hand swords) can deflect for the whole team.

-Armor, armor, armor. It makes a huge difference. Field plate, fashion helm, conqueror gloves, leg mail. Every character. Spend the money, it's worth it. You can get a Field plate for the Aquamarine (worth 12k), and a Alva Melvirana (unique armor, better than field plate) from the Ailing Emperor quest.

-Don't equip a shield unless you're using one-handed weapons. It's just extra weight that slows you down. It affects turn order and surge/reverse chances. Martial Arts and Magic don't work with shields either.

-Most of the best weapons are found in random endgame level chests. However there are a few guaranteed:
--Foil: Espada Ropera, get one from the Ailing Emperor quest, though I like the armor better.
--Club: Donkey Bone, in a chest on Mt. Scurve, you need level 5 Climb
--Scimitar: Darque's Sword, you need to finish Darque's quest to get it, so this is NG+ only.
--Katana: Demonbrand, Gray's personal quest reward, only available if he's your main.
--Kjar bow: You can just buy these with high shop levels in Tarmitta for 20k.
--Shortsword: Dragonscale blade, you can get one from the Trials of Elore.
--Quarterstaff: For the purpose of this list it's the highest damage staff (24, pre-tempering) not that that's much to get excited about. You can get one in Shiverland or buy them in a bunch of stores. There are other staves that give more mage-type bonuses though.

*Edit* One other thing, Vortexes cannot trigger until you've triggered each of the special tech events at least once. That's a Combo, Fulcrum, Surge, Reverse, and a Surge-Reverse. If you're having issues, Cutting Lunge is a common tech for many weapons that can Surge-Reverse. Vortexes don't actually add any damage, they just affect your god reputation.

Other super special party members:
-Farah: Her lack of stats, skills, items, or spells makes her seem bad but her BP and LP are great and she's easily a match for any of the lead characters. You can't get her until the Assassin's Guild quest though (ER 12) so she requires some patience. Jamil can't get her at all.
-Silver: Easy to miss, unlocking the Pirate coast requires some obscure tasks before the pirate attack on Melvir starts. Go there after beating her (Silver's Treasure in the Jungle) and you can recruit her. She's a Sif clone with terrible LP (7), so not that great.
-Dragon Knight: P. sure you have to do the whole Knight's Dominion questline to get him. That's Pride of the Knights, Constance Kidnapped, and Theodore's Madness. Then you have to fight him either with Neidhart in your party or in a game where you've never, EVER met Neidhart, including cutscenes. Otherwise Neidhart shows up and kills Dragon knight, in a playable battle, and if you lose that battle it's a game over! After doing that, you can leave, come back with an empty slot, fight a minion, and recruit him. Then you will marvel at his whopping 5 fucking LP. WHY SQUARE, just why? Take this super hard to get character and give him near-unusable stats.
-Freilei: Last character in the game, ER 20 or 21 quest (Frosthold fortress). Beat her with an empty slot and she's yours, make sure to tell Red Mage to fuck off too. She's good but she also has poor LP for a mage and she comes in so late in the game why bother. I did a run where I rushed Freilei as fast as possible and THEN did all my grinding and it was so totally not at all worth it.

 

[Hobo Elf]

-Most of the best weapons are found in random endgame level chests. However there are a few guaranteed:
--Foil: Espada Ropera, get one from the Ailing Emperor quest, though I like the armor better.
--Club: Donkey Bone, in a chest on Mt. Scurve, you need level 5 Climb
--Scimitar: Darque's Sword, you need to finish Darque's quest to get it, so this is NG+ only.
--Katana: Demonbrand, Gray's personal quest reward, only available if he's your main.
--Kjar bow: You can just buy these with high shop levels in Tarmitta for 20k.
--Shortsword: Dragonscale blade, you can get one from the Trials of Elore.
--Quarterstaff: For the purpose of this list it's the highest damage staff (24, pre-tempering) not that that's much to get excited about. You can get one in Shiverland or buy them in a bunch of stores. There are other staves that give more mage-type bonuses though.

Also keep in mind that the second best weapon is still going to be more than good enough in terms of damage as long as you upgrade them fully. Combos are going to be the main source of damage in this game. Sure a powerful weapon will do more damage, but not to the point where you need to become stressed if you missed something. There are plenty of guaranteed options that are also powerful if not side grades. This game has loot galore.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I don't feel like you can say you've properly finished this game until you've gotten every fatestone. That's my metric anyway. You could also toss the Jewel Beast in there as well.

On NG+ and beyond, any Fatestone you miss will be picked up by a Minion of Saruin and used to power up the end boss (on your first run I'm pretty sure Saruin's power is fixed no matter how many stones you miss, the game's way of giving you a break).

You can also go to an altar in the final dungeon and sacrifice the stones yourself to make him tougher if you want, with 10-fatestone Saruin being the hardest boss in the PS2 version. Note that this is obvious when you do it, unlike Star Ocean 2 Indelacio "Huh, I did what to his limiter?! Nooooo..."

In order of appearance:

Spoiler

-Amethyst: Barbara gets it automatically, everyone else has to recruit her to steal it. Which you should do because she unlocks important towns anyway.
-Topaz: Finish the Missing Taralians quest, In the Kaklim desert ruins. It starts at ER 7 and doesn't have a time limit, but I think you need Aisha to get the initial quest at the Steppes.
-Moonstone: In Twinmoon temple in Walon Jungle, from the Ailing Emperor quest. Pain in the ass, all my early game grinding is to prep for this. There's a minion at the entrance and a tough boss at the end. The window for this quest is ER 9 to 13, and it unlocks other important quests afterwards. To enter the temple you need two medallions which you get from the Ancient text quest, which you can get from the Free the gecklings quest. (See how this game fucks you with quest chains?) Free the Gecklings doesn't have a hard limit but it has the slightly obscure requirement of recruiting Guella Ha to complete it.
-Aquamarine: Crystal lake. You can get this any time after the lake is unlocked, but Neidhart will give you the quest at ER 11. At ER 16 it's gone. The boss is rough but he can be paralyzed or even 1HKO.
-Emerald: Isle of Evil. The Priestess of Elore in Melvir gives you this after Ailing Emperor. The quest has no time limit but if you leave the island before getting the stone it will fail.
-Opal: Silver's Treasure. I don't know if you need to do Free the Gecklings to get this, but they give you the, uh, "map" for it. Scour the Walon isle jungle and beat her.
-Black Diamond: Underwater Temple quest at ER 17, requires Stolen Nymphs to be done first. At least that's a hard one to miss.
-Ruby: Theodore's madness. Straightforward, late game (ER 18) quest, but it requires Pride of the Knights and Constance Kidnapped to be done first.
-Obsidian: Frosthold fortress. This unlocks automatically at like ER 21 or something, but you can open it earlier if you unlock the underworld and have Death revive a dead person. Good luck opening the underworld early anyway.
-Diamond: Schiele has it. In the PS2 version you couldn't get this, meaning on NG+ you always fought at least 1-fatestone Saruin. She's recruitable in this version but I don't know how yet.

Bonus: The Chalice. Not a fatestone but super broken item, refills the entire team's BP to max. Can use it four times and you have to refill at the Temple of Nisa in Kaklim desert. Or use it with the Phantom Warrior spell and it never runs out. To get it, start the Return of the Vampire quest, then talk to the pub dudes in North Estamir and they will mention it. Head to the catacombs in the sewer and search the graves until you find it. You can only get it AFTER this quest is started, but BEFORE finishing it. Return of the Vampires doesn't have a time limit but if you wait too long to start it the Jewel beast will eat the Frontier.

Bonus 2: The Jewel Beast. To fight this guy the smart way, you need to complete three quests in the Frontier: Unsettling Settlement, Fiends of Saoki, and The Vampire quest. Unsetting Settlement fails at ER 3 !!! so it's super easy to miss. All this will delay his awakening. Then complete the Assassin's guild quest (ER 12) and the minion at the end will open the Jewel Beast lair. The Lair contains several very hard miniboss battles that have to be done in a short time frame. Beat them all and you can fight the sleepy Jewel Beast and he will rarely or never use Jewel Blaster, making him a chump. I'm not sure what's tougher, beating those sub bosses or just fighting the full power Jewel Beast, so it's a matter of picking your poison.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

You can recruit Marina after the Black Diamond quest, it requires Stolen Nymphs having been done first. Thankfully she sticks around at the Northpoint docks and you can recruit her whenever, instead of needing a free slot during the quest itself like Freilei and Dragon Knight. Unfortunately it's ER 17 and she only has 150 HP. Good stats otherwise, and non-gimped LP. Comes with a fixed piece of leg gear that resists water attacks but only two low level water spells. Has a unique class "servant of the water god," it just gives you a higher chance for Yucomb benedictions. Meh. Slightly interesting skill spread between polearms and magic.

I know Flammar is recruitable after the ruby quest, so that leaves Shiele and Aldora. I'm guessing for Aldora you have to go through the usual Darque-as-a-mage sidequest only this time you'll get the real Aldora instead of her in Darque's body? I hope you don't have to beat Shirach to get Schiele; that would be the ultimate pointless time to add a character, unless she stays recruitable on later playthroughs.

Finishing up my first run I've done every quest except Jewel beast and the Ecologies, mainly because they take too much time away from other Fatestone-related quests. The ER system is probably the game's most maligned feature because of this, but I feel like you're not supposed to play it this way. You should play just doing whatever, fighting battles as they come, and don't worry about ER. Pretty much everyone's first playthrough is like that and you feel like you barely pull through this epic struggle. You'll only see 1/3 of the quests but the next run you should see lots of different content. Trying to do every quest is a pain in the ass though, I wish I could just cut loose and grind in the plains for Pyrix. I can't blame the game for me playing it in a completionist manner... Then again they did put ER right there in the status screen and give you the ability to run from up to 99 battles in a row with no penalty, just to cater to players like me.

If I could though I'd definitely find some way to lock ER, at least on NG+.

Anyway I wished they had remade Romancing Saga 3 or made more sequels with these systems and mechanics (but more Scarlet Grace's art style). I guess that's The Last Remnant though and we know what happened there.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The Last Remnant had a certain memetic charm to the game with frogger mages, and big fish bros with cheesy grins on their faces smashing stuff with axes and clubs. There's really nothing I can point to about this game's world or character designs that I found to be even mildly entertaining. I thought Saga 1 had a similar type of charm to it, and I even liked the art style of Saga 2 as well.

I thought that TLR's world was rather interesting. Vast beastman hordes roll over the land. Civilizations have been built up around the power of magical artifacts, and if a kingdom loses their Remnant that's it. They're overrun by beastman armies. And the Remnants can be anything, from two insects that extract water from the ground to create an oasis city in the desert, to a stone that kept a volcano from erupting which allowed a kingdom to become wealthy through mining, and so on. The fantasy races were also atypical. I can't think of any other game that lets you have 4-armed lynxmen as playable characters. The clothing designs did reach FF10 and FF12 levels of dumb, though.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

One cool thing about the Dragon Knight, all his attacks can combo with anything. Almost makes the 5 LP worth it.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

-I've confirmed that Neidhart's opening scene after finishing Albert's quest no longer blocks out Darque, so that's cool. You still need to get to the underworld to trigger Darque though. Then if you complete Darque's quest with higher Int than Dex, you can recruit Aldora
-To spark techs easier, buy a cheap weapon and make it versatile (all three modes) and use it for practice. There is a sharp sparking penalty for techs outside your weapon's current mode. Keep your main weapon single mode since versatile mode nerfs damage and speed.
-I'm seeing reports that high level super rare items like Claymore and Gekkabijjin are no longer quite so rare, so late game chest farming is worthwhile. Still haven't seen a single treasure map in my game though.
-Weapon/Magic crown exists but is totally hidden. Keep known weapon techs/spells under 10% of the opposite type and you get a DP bonus. This only works after a minimum 10 spells are learned or 20 techs. The game lets you forget spells but not techs (?) so generally the magic crown is harder to maintain.
-You can cast spells from opposing schools by using a magic-channeling weapon. This uses the weapon skill though for BP/DP purposes, not the magic skill.
-Possible to fight Shirach and get Schiele on one playthrough, but you have to encounter her in the Weston pub before the Frontier is toast or kill the jewel beast. Beating Shirach lets you learn Sorcery spells, previously limited to one recruit in one dungeon only.
-Beating 10 Fatestone Saruin unlocks level 6 for all skills, uncaps all stats (nominal softcap is 70), and powers up all the god bosses (Death, Shirach, and Saruin). Get grinding!

 

[Grampy_Bone]

-Collected all 10 Fatestones, opened all three ending quests just for the hell of it. I was aiming for the underworld to unlock Darque but why not, let's do them all. Fought Death and won; it got a little hairy when Neidhart was going to be LP killed but a benediction from Elore saved him. You win nothing for this besides 100 jewels, FYI.

-Beat Shirach, she was much harder. I tried a variety of strategies; Int debuffing did not seem to make a dent in her damage (it seemed to make her Illusion spells stronger), trying to keep everyone buffed with revive/regen/armor enhance was also a waste of time. In the end it was forgoing buffs/defense to just go pure offense (besides heals) and burn her down ASAP. I got lucky and she only used her Hymn attack once before switching to her other AoE attacks which are actually easier to deal with. Schiele is a nice recruit but at that point the Minstrel is gone so I had to LP kill someone just to get her. I was too broke to buy Sorcery magic either.

-Naturally at this point Saruin was a joke. Not bad for a 'first' playthrough.

 

[TigerKnee]

Int debuffing did not seem to make a dent in her damage (it seemed to make her Illusion spells stronger)

cuz Illusion spells run off Charisma

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Are any of the other games in this series like saga frontier 2?

 

[Matador]

Have started today playing Minstrel Song Remastered with Gray. Let's go!