CVFreak
01-15-2004, 11:29 PM
Hey guys, this is my first post on this forum, I sorta found it just searching for "quality" square-enix fan sites/boards, anyway that aside, I wanted to give my review or thoughts on Unlimited Saga, as I figured I might find a few open minded people on here or less hate ons.
First up, I am no stranger to Square ( been playing since FF 1 first came out on the nes which I actualy bought a week after it was released here, whoop de doo I know heh ) and I am the kind of old school gamer who enjoys games like Gradius ( the horror I know ! ) and Castlevania as well as all the Square Quality games, hell...even some working designs, etc
Anyway, on to my review....
After having some green to blow 2 days ago, and itching for something different ( to tide me over till RE:Outbreak and MM Collection comes out ) and cheap, I decided to go down to my local EB and pick it up for 29 CDN, it was that or having luck ( kinda like U:S ) finding a quality mint or nm shape PS1 title to add to my collection.
Now before anyone looks at me like I am some insane freak, I want to say that I did read from all kinds of sites about just how horrible this game was, seeing all the sub par scores, all the 1-3/10 scores on gamefaqs or other places, etc. I knew what I was getting into before I went out and bought it 2 days ago, I was prepared for one of the so-called worst games square made or worst game in general.
I have never played any Saga games before this, although I have a friend who swears by SF 1 being awsome but SF 2 being ugly horrible, I was even telling myself that hey, this may really just be a mediocre Square in name but Crap in quality game, which would be a huge shock, as I love 99% of their games. So I pop in the disk and am treated to a Unique style of art opening movie with some pretty nice sounding music ( to me anyway ), So far so good. BTW I was already aware of the unique art style which is partly what caused me to impulse buy this.
Now when it came to picking a character, I felt there was a fair bit of diversity in some way of the kinds of "class" you could pick from, I started off with Judy, simply because I had read it was the most easy character to start with. I will admit to some of the voice acting being a little too...child oriented I guess, but overall it was not horrible, I have heard much worse in much darker themed games, however I really enjoyed Vagrant Story ( I have beat it a number of times actualy and found it easy ! ) and found that the semi similar "comic bubble" text to be a nice change, it somehow to me anyway, made the High Quality art backgrounds/characters feel much more enjoyable ( which I imagine was the original idea ).
I explored around town abit ( ok well menue exploring :P ), which I found at first a little...different, but afterawhile, no more different than the kinds of exloring that I found in FFT ( which the towns and map interface is not exactly a hell of alot different no matter what even the most tame fanboy would say ), so on to the adventure, this was where I was going to see just how true or horrible it was, as the many harsh reviews have stated.
I was greeted by a woodsman who I thought probably was out to rip out my heart and send it back to some pale evil magic user woman and get saved by dwarves, although this did not happen in the end. So I moved around this map, it was kinda like moving around the map in FFT, only different looking and VERY VERY sensitive, weird to say the least, although this interface and style I am sure will be very boring , although if you by any chance play Warhammer 40,000 this will seem all the more normal to you ( guess who has another habbit on top of a 5 console and pc game one <<< ), now it was on to an encounter, this was not really all the much different from a FF encounter, random stupid looking monster pops up and twirlz around in a rainbow swirl, boom....your now in a 3d nice combat type area !
This combat map actualy reminds me alot of Golden Sun ( an awsome snes style rpg for the gba ) and I felt familiar in some way, now the actual combat is where it gets weird, really really weird, which is a 50/50 mix of good and bad, I gotta give Akitoshi Kawazu a pat on the back for trying something new and unqiue in an rpg, but I also gotta stick my boot up his arse for being too random with the combat, when I say random, its that although the reel is new and different, it can really, really come down to pure chance literly when fighting monsters. And to make this more of a chance, it seems some enemies can take off LP ( life points you cant get back, although they seem to reset to full once you complete an adventure ) while at the same time, taking off your HP ( you just stay at LP once this happens, but if you lose those you DIE ), you can also REST and heal ( not at the inn for whatever reason ! ) but this will eat up turns ( which will matter latter on ), so overall, in this area, the combat is mix of good and bad, sometimes more for the bad, but I still find it fun...I know, I am crazy, but hey...if you played AD&D in the 80s, you would be used to this kind of random stuff so it would not be all that bad :)
I could go on and on and on about the combat, but I dont want to type a book, its really that in depth ( to me anyway ). I am learning about it more, but its still a little confusing even after playing it for a good 4 hours nonstop. I did not mention that stuff breaks, and although this is realistic, it can really p!ss you off, and is my one MAJOR gripe with the game.
So I made it to the next town, where I had to go and rescue a pansy dude who treats women like meat ( or something like that ) or was it crossing a chasm/rock area and losing my dad for a while
after fighting my second boss ( I will add I only died once my first time through playing but I will get to that later ), so after that I went back to the country type town and it was night, so a bunch of bandits got the smackdown from my knight character ( I was gaining skills in this hex type random grid thing, which was kinda cool also ) using sword art type things and even taking alot out very easy with this lighting type bracer attack that was taking like 120 HP plus 2-3 LP off them at a time, even in large groups.
After this I saw some huge guy run into the bushes, ran into his hideout and was assaulted ( while reuniting with my lard arse brother, the story for this is rather funny btw :) ) by his "Gang", this Magic User shows up and decides to lay the smackdown on me, although I think I need to use magic lock on him ( least thats what made sense to me ) and do heavy magic and sword attacks on him, cause he does some hefty damage and has to this point, been the only guy that has killed me.
So I may or may not be far or even 25% into the game, and I know this has not been a full review in the least, but I was not really aiming at that, as most of the people reviewing the game have only talked about playing for a few hours also, thing is, 90% of the reviews have all been extremly harsh on this title, without giving it a chance or trying to understand the flavour or style of the game.
See its what alot of us old timers would call a "text based rpg" only it IS more than that, what it seems to be is a high quality artwork game, with some minor 3d background for battle, and a not totaly unanimated combat visual battle, some of the damage and spells really do look nice, and I really do find the art very nice to look at. I am not going to even try to compare it to Golden Sun, but I will say it IS better graphicly for combat than that, and it does remind ME of the combat "look" of that game. And of coure the 3 main things that seperate this game from other "Standard" rpg's is the moving, the city interactions and of course the combat ( which can grow on you after you get some of the basics ).
So for my score I give it:
Graphics 9/10
Sound 9/10
Gameplay 5/10 ( this is really what causes alot of the harsh reviews )
Story 7/10 ( although I found there being a lack in alot of text honestly but from what I played I liked )
Replay 8/10 ( if you can get into it, there is alot )
Is this game for you ? This is will depends on how much you can go into it with an open mind and a will to try something new and different.
Should you go out and buy it ? Well cmon, there is plenty of 20$ ps2 titles out there that are on par with this or better or worse, its only 20 bux, if you have the cash to blow, I would suggest picking it up, I am glad I did, but maybe I am just not as fussy as the majority.
Overall I have to say that I do understand why it got the reviews it did, although I think that many of the reviews were a little too much on the harsh side, its not the best square has done, but its not garbage, it just takes a certain kind of gamer to enjoy it.
So if there is anyone else on this forum ( there has to be a few right ? ) that has similar views on the game, just reply.
First up, I am no stranger to Square ( been playing since FF 1 first came out on the nes which I actualy bought a week after it was released here, whoop de doo I know heh ) and I am the kind of old school gamer who enjoys games like Gradius ( the horror I know ! ) and Castlevania as well as all the Square Quality games, hell...even some working designs, etc
Anyway, on to my review....
After having some green to blow 2 days ago, and itching for something different ( to tide me over till RE:Outbreak and MM Collection comes out ) and cheap, I decided to go down to my local EB and pick it up for 29 CDN, it was that or having luck ( kinda like U:S ) finding a quality mint or nm shape PS1 title to add to my collection.
Now before anyone looks at me like I am some insane freak, I want to say that I did read from all kinds of sites about just how horrible this game was, seeing all the sub par scores, all the 1-3/10 scores on gamefaqs or other places, etc. I knew what I was getting into before I went out and bought it 2 days ago, I was prepared for one of the so-called worst games square made or worst game in general.
I have never played any Saga games before this, although I have a friend who swears by SF 1 being awsome but SF 2 being ugly horrible, I was even telling myself that hey, this may really just be a mediocre Square in name but Crap in quality game, which would be a huge shock, as I love 99% of their games. So I pop in the disk and am treated to a Unique style of art opening movie with some pretty nice sounding music ( to me anyway ), So far so good. BTW I was already aware of the unique art style which is partly what caused me to impulse buy this.
Now when it came to picking a character, I felt there was a fair bit of diversity in some way of the kinds of "class" you could pick from, I started off with Judy, simply because I had read it was the most easy character to start with. I will admit to some of the voice acting being a little too...child oriented I guess, but overall it was not horrible, I have heard much worse in much darker themed games, however I really enjoyed Vagrant Story ( I have beat it a number of times actualy and found it easy ! ) and found that the semi similar "comic bubble" text to be a nice change, it somehow to me anyway, made the High Quality art backgrounds/characters feel much more enjoyable ( which I imagine was the original idea ).
I explored around town abit ( ok well menue exploring :P ), which I found at first a little...different, but afterawhile, no more different than the kinds of exloring that I found in FFT ( which the towns and map interface is not exactly a hell of alot different no matter what even the most tame fanboy would say ), so on to the adventure, this was where I was going to see just how true or horrible it was, as the many harsh reviews have stated.
I was greeted by a woodsman who I thought probably was out to rip out my heart and send it back to some pale evil magic user woman and get saved by dwarves, although this did not happen in the end. So I moved around this map, it was kinda like moving around the map in FFT, only different looking and VERY VERY sensitive, weird to say the least, although this interface and style I am sure will be very boring , although if you by any chance play Warhammer 40,000 this will seem all the more normal to you ( guess who has another habbit on top of a 5 console and pc game one <<< ), now it was on to an encounter, this was not really all the much different from a FF encounter, random stupid looking monster pops up and twirlz around in a rainbow swirl, boom....your now in a 3d nice combat type area !
This combat map actualy reminds me alot of Golden Sun ( an awsome snes style rpg for the gba ) and I felt familiar in some way, now the actual combat is where it gets weird, really really weird, which is a 50/50 mix of good and bad, I gotta give Akitoshi Kawazu a pat on the back for trying something new and unqiue in an rpg, but I also gotta stick my boot up his arse for being too random with the combat, when I say random, its that although the reel is new and different, it can really, really come down to pure chance literly when fighting monsters. And to make this more of a chance, it seems some enemies can take off LP ( life points you cant get back, although they seem to reset to full once you complete an adventure ) while at the same time, taking off your HP ( you just stay at LP once this happens, but if you lose those you DIE ), you can also REST and heal ( not at the inn for whatever reason ! ) but this will eat up turns ( which will matter latter on ), so overall, in this area, the combat is mix of good and bad, sometimes more for the bad, but I still find it fun...I know, I am crazy, but hey...if you played AD&D in the 80s, you would be used to this kind of random stuff so it would not be all that bad :)
I could go on and on and on about the combat, but I dont want to type a book, its really that in depth ( to me anyway ). I am learning about it more, but its still a little confusing even after playing it for a good 4 hours nonstop. I did not mention that stuff breaks, and although this is realistic, it can really p!ss you off, and is my one MAJOR gripe with the game.
So I made it to the next town, where I had to go and rescue a pansy dude who treats women like meat ( or something like that ) or was it crossing a chasm/rock area and losing my dad for a while
after fighting my second boss ( I will add I only died once my first time through playing but I will get to that later ), so after that I went back to the country type town and it was night, so a bunch of bandits got the smackdown from my knight character ( I was gaining skills in this hex type random grid thing, which was kinda cool also ) using sword art type things and even taking alot out very easy with this lighting type bracer attack that was taking like 120 HP plus 2-3 LP off them at a time, even in large groups.
After this I saw some huge guy run into the bushes, ran into his hideout and was assaulted ( while reuniting with my lard arse brother, the story for this is rather funny btw :) ) by his "Gang", this Magic User shows up and decides to lay the smackdown on me, although I think I need to use magic lock on him ( least thats what made sense to me ) and do heavy magic and sword attacks on him, cause he does some hefty damage and has to this point, been the only guy that has killed me.
So I may or may not be far or even 25% into the game, and I know this has not been a full review in the least, but I was not really aiming at that, as most of the people reviewing the game have only talked about playing for a few hours also, thing is, 90% of the reviews have all been extremly harsh on this title, without giving it a chance or trying to understand the flavour or style of the game.
See its what alot of us old timers would call a "text based rpg" only it IS more than that, what it seems to be is a high quality artwork game, with some minor 3d background for battle, and a not totaly unanimated combat visual battle, some of the damage and spells really do look nice, and I really do find the art very nice to look at. I am not going to even try to compare it to Golden Sun, but I will say it IS better graphicly for combat than that, and it does remind ME of the combat "look" of that game. And of coure the 3 main things that seperate this game from other "Standard" rpg's is the moving, the city interactions and of course the combat ( which can grow on you after you get some of the basics ).
So for my score I give it:
Graphics 9/10
Sound 9/10
Gameplay 5/10 ( this is really what causes alot of the harsh reviews )
Story 7/10 ( although I found there being a lack in alot of text honestly but from what I played I liked )
Replay 8/10 ( if you can get into it, there is alot )
Is this game for you ? This is will depends on how much you can go into it with an open mind and a will to try something new and different.
Should you go out and buy it ? Well cmon, there is plenty of 20$ ps2 titles out there that are on par with this or better or worse, its only 20 bux, if you have the cash to blow, I would suggest picking it up, I am glad I did, but maybe I am just not as fussy as the majority.
Overall I have to say that I do understand why it got the reviews it did, although I think that many of the reviews were a little too much on the harsh side, its not the best square has done, but its not garbage, it just takes a certain kind of gamer to enjoy it.
So if there is anyone else on this forum ( there has to be a few right ? ) that has similar views on the game, just reply.