Romancing SaGa – PS2 – Review

Romancing
SaGa brings together eight different characters for another journey of long
battles and hard choices. It’s an ensemble adventure. No one character is
intended to be more important than the other. Who you choose to play as
decides your objectives, your party members, and where your story begins.

Game
developers face a huge problem when designing a game with multiple
character-specific quests in mind. To where should they devote their
resources? Should one character be treated with more care than the others? Is
one quest more likely to be played than the rest? Is there anyone on the
planet who will care enough about the game to play through all eight of the
quests just to complete the story?

Romancing
SaGa doesn’t tackle these problems as well as I had hoped. Below-average RPGs
can hold my interest if the story is top-tier, and while I’m happy to say that
Romancing SaGa is not a sub-par role-playing game, the majority of the content
falls somewhere inbetween boring and almost exciting.

Square-Enix
is the king of music so that’s one thing I knew I could count on. For
Romancing SaGa Kenji Ito composed a compelling soundtrack with a wide range of
tunes. Visit a town and you’re bound to hear something simple and quirky. The
average person might not get it, but this game was made for the hardcore crowd
and we love the sound. Explore other locations and the music takes a more
orchestral and traditional path. Start a battle and it’ll toss out an
exciting, thumping theme that’s wonderful for those long monster encounters.
Additional songs approach high emotion but the story prevents them from
achieving their full potential.

Romancing
SaGa’s cast is made up of characters that are hokey, dorky, shallow, or a
combination of the bunch. Voice-overs are used where only text is necessary,
making those exhausting conversations with townspeople the most annoying sound
effect since the pant and the whine. The voice-overs slow down your ability to
skip the speech, a spiel that is rarely worth listening to. Chances are there
is one, just one character that has something that must be heard before the
game can be advanced. Their comments might not be that helpful, but speaking
to them puts the game into motion.

You know the
voice acting is bad when student and independent films showcase superior
talent. The dialogue between main characters isn’t much better than the
conversations you’ll have with the town idiots. That’s excruciatingly
disappointing. You pay top dollar for an RPG from the world’s greatest RPG
publisher and get stuck with 99-cent performances. And 99-cent dialogue
– the story is butchered by awkward sentences and unenthusiastic dreams and
desires. I’m supposed to believe that Captain Hawke is a strong, respected
man; that Albert wants to become the knight of his kingdom; and that Jamil is
a skilled thief. But I don’t buy into any of it. I don’t feel like these
characters are what they say they are, primarily because there’s no realism in
what they say.

Although
I’ve never played through an RPG solely for its gameplay, Romancing SaGa
could’ve redeemed itself if the combat had lived up to expectations.
Unfortunately for those of us who have played the previous SaGa games, what
you can expect here is exactly what you got before: frustrating
disappointment. There are too many battles with too little of a reward. Trial
and error is a part of the experience thanks to special moves (called Surges
and Benedictions) that cannot be controlled. They may or may not occur during
a harsh battle. Combination attacks give players a slight advantage by
combining the forces of each party member. Do this from the proper formation
and your combination attack may be sustained, causing much more damage.

These
attacks aren’t original nor are they entertaining for more than a few hours (a
short lifespan for any game, especially an RPG). The Final Fantasy series has
been using the same mechanics for nearly two decades and it’s still fun. SaGa
has had kinks in it since the series began, it’s no wonder we’re unhappy with
the sequels when massive changes have yet to be made.

Artistically
Romancing SaGa is a Square Enix-caliber game with one exception: the big heads
look weird. They appeal to some gamers, which is probably why developers
continue to use a big-headed cast. Regardless, I couldn’t help but enjoy the
unusual, oil painting visuals of the computer graphic sequences. They’re in
full 3D but have this great, colorful mask that makes everything look less
perfect. The effect is done on purpose to give the game a messy, original
style and it worked.

In a perfect
world games would be worth purchasing for music and graphics alone. Of course,
if we lived in a perfect world that wouldn’t be the only way that Romancing
SaGa could leave a lasting impression on gamers. The story would be fantastic
and have the best dialogue ever written. In this imperfect world we live in we
didn’t even get 10th best. Romancing SaGa is what all the SaGa games have
been: fairly long, fairly frustrating, big on repetitive combat, and little on
story and character development. Multiple paths aren’t worth taking when the
story’s a bore.

Gameplay: 6.5
If Romancing SaGa
were a racing game it wouldn’t be a part of the Grand Prix, but it’d be the
star of the Repetition 500. Any fun that could’ve been had with the eight
quests is diminished by not rewarding the player with a good story. A story
fuels us; it makes us want to continue at any cost. Without it we’re left with
dated turn-based battles, and several flaws that become more prevalent than
they would have otherwise been.

Graphics: 8.5
Easily the
best-looking RPG I’ve played all year. Romancing SaGa isn’t the prettiest game
in battle, but the outside environments look good, the characters are nicely
designed, and the animated clips have one of the most original art styles I
have ever seen.

Sound: 8.5
Another top-notch
score from a Square Enix game. Kenji Ito is extremely talented and must have
been very inspired to create a soundtrack that stirs a multitude of emotions
for a story that does not.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard
There are better
games with better challenges, but if you must have a new RPG, Romancing SaGa
will drive you insane for hours.

Concept: 3.0
Generic story,
bad dialogue, pointless objectives, horrendous voice acting, typical battle
features that don’t advance the series, etc. I’m saddened just thinking about
all the things that went wrong.

Overall: 5.0
Artistically Square Enix is on par with their top titles (Final Fantasy,
Parasite Eve and Xenogears excluded – they’re still the best). But no matter
what I do I can’t get past the story. As a result I was bored while playing
the game.