A Defense of Saga Frontier

by Brendan McGrath 

Lately people have been criticizing SaGa Frontier a lot. I have even heard people say that it shouldn't have come to America. This is absolutely ridiculous, and very typical of the recent hobby of insulting Square Soft's games.

I would like to go through each of the elements that make up and RPG and see how SaGa Frontier rates in each catagory:

Graphics: How anyone can complain about SaGa Frontier's graphics is beyond me. They are pre-rendered, just like Final Fantasy VII, and nobody will deny that FFVII's graphics are out of this world. So are SaGa Frontier's! As for the handrawn characters, that is one of the best parts! It looks very nice. Final Fantasy Tactics has handrawn characters, and nobody minded that. It looks very nice too.

Most people, however, are complaining about SaGa Frontier's BATTLE graphics. But look at them again. There are prerendered backgrounds for the battle graphics, but there is also camera movement! This is a very nice touch. Of course, to do this, there could only be a 90 degree rotation field, and many spells could only be done from certain angles dince they were not polygonal. This is a nice change, when you think about it. At first glace, I was amazed by the quality of the battle graphics.

A game needs good gameplay, and this is where SaGa Frontier excels. It uses an extremely innovative battle system (or at least one that we haven't seen in the USA before; I'm not sure if the other 6 SaGa games used it or not). For example, certain techniques can only be learned by using certain weapons. Also, magics can contradict each other, so nobody can have all the magical powers available. The whole idea of having no levels and having statistics increase on their own is also a welcome variety. I don't think anyone can or is complaining about gameplay.

Every RPG needs a fantastic story, and that is why people are criticizing SaGa Frontier. SaGa Frontier does not focus on a strong and involving storyline. However, instead of that, SaGa Frontier gives the player a wonderful and exotic world to explore. Each character has a goal, and it must be accomplished. And it can be done in any order that the player wants. For all those who were complaining that Final Fantasy VII was too linear, this is your stop: SaGa Frontier is for you. And it is not as if SaGa Frontier has no storyline. It just has a simpler one so as to allow for an open ended adventure. If you held combined all 7 storylines together and treated them as one, then held them up against past Square games such as Secret of Mana (my favorite game of all time), you'd find that the story is almost as good.

Another thing an RPG needs is interesting and lovable characters. SaGa Frontier may not be as good with this as Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, or Wild ARMs, but it is certainly good enough by far. Look at Blue. He has to kill his own BROTHER. Emelia is falsely accused of killing her boyfriend, whom she loved so much after such a meaningless life. T260G is like Robo from Chrono Trigger, a robot searching for his soul. Riki is a lovable little animal (a lumox, to be exact) and he is forced to face a world in which people are not as kind as he is, all the while racing against time to save his dying home, Margmel. Red's father was killed, and now he is endowed with super human powers, but must keep them secret. Asellus is like Terra in a way, and that is definately a compliment to SaGa Fronteir. She is caught between to worlds, two races. She is wondering who she really is. Lute is a wandering minstrel, off to find a life with adventure. So as you can see, SaGa Frontier has dynamic and richly detailed characters. Even the characters who are not of the major seven are still well developed, like Mei-ling from Riki's quest.

When you really look at the big picture, you'll see that SaGa Frontier is a wonderful game, right up there with Final Fantasy and all the others. It is just a different kind of RPG. So, even if you don't like it, don't say that you don't like SaGa Frontier. Say that you don't like Non-linear RPGs. Otherwise, it is like a fighting game fan saying that Final Fantasy is a horrible game, when what he or she should say is that they don't like RPGs.

In conclusion, give SaGa Frontier a fair chance. When I first played Final Fantasy, I didn't like it very much. But I grew to love it, and all RPGs.