Romancing the SaGa (3)

[Rez09]

Aaaayyyyy, it's the time of year again and the itch to replay Romancing SaGa 3 overtook me, so I decided to pick this LP back up and complete it alongside my current run of the game. The intention of the original LP was an interactive experience with forum goers directing where our party went and who comprised it, but that fell through completely, so this time I'm just doing a casual playthrough at my own pace without, which will generally include all of the quests and most unique equipment that doesn't require a ton of investment to acquire (seriously, you have NO idea what hunting for all the rare drops is like in this game if you haven't tried it). I also made a few informational errors in the previous LP that I will be correcting here, but I am going to drop the index I was working on before in favor of simply tagging important concepts in the LP itself.

That said, for players that are unfamiliar with the title, Romancing SaGa 3 is the sixth game in Squaresoft's SaGa series and has a large focus on quest based game progression rather than story and event driven progression like the company's more famous Final Fantasy series. It also eschews the traditional leveling systems found in many RPGs of the time, instead basing character growths on the actions they perform in combat, ala Final Fantasy 2 with a whole hell of a lot more refinement. What makes the title extremely interesting is the wide range of characters and the absolute freedom the player has in selecting what they want to do in when, with only a handful of quests being locked behind checkpoints, and this makes the game far less about hopping from boss to boss and more about prioritization -- who do I want, what gear do I want, what's the fastest way to get here, can I make this build work, ect. It contributes a wonderful amount of replay value to the right type of player, and if you are the kind of person who liked the second half of Final Fantasy 6 more than the first I highly recommend this title to you, it is well worth the time.

Now then, with that little bit out of the way let's move on to the first choice the game gives us: main character selection! Relatively unique to the series, when you start a new game you are offered eight main characters to pick from, each with their own little perks and penalties, and I'll give a quick rundown here of each and what I think of them overall.

Sara Carson:

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Sara is, insofar as it matters, the true main character of the game, though I won't go into any storyline spoilers here as to why that is. That said, she is also the character I LEAST recommend new players selecting, as she and a semi-unique character she can recruit cannot be used for a certain end game story battle, which means another party member has to be trained up to replace her. Do be aware this isn't a problem for familiar or forewarned, as you now are, players, and, storyline fittingly, she is the best character for a !Commander Mode! Commander Mode is an alternate combat style available to the player once they have six party members; by opening the formation menu and placing your main character in the inactive party slot you will enter Commander Mode, losing direct control over your characters and gaining the ability to issue large scale orders instead. Additionally, formations will gain additional properties, characters will recover HP each turn automatically, and multi-techs become available. playthrough, if that is your fancy. She can also always recruit Zo, who otherwise becomes locked once the fourth Abyss Gate is closed.

If she isn't selected as the main character she loses the ability to recruit Shonen, comes with the Hunter Shift formation to boost bow damage, specializes in bows, and can be recruited at any time past the introduction in Pidona in Thomas' house. She will leave the party as part of a storyline event however, so only use her to train up bow skills for a planned replacement, as a stopgap until you recruit another permanent party member, or to recruit Zo in Rashkuta.

Leader Rating: 2/5 (5/5 for a Commander game)
Recruit Rating: 2/5


Ellen Carson:

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Sara's rugged older sister, Ellen is the most vanilla leader in the game, with no special events or characters tied to her. This also makes her the least hindered of the main characters, and she is my general preference for main character due to this and her general design -- I dig the ponytailed tomboy look. Also turns out she is a complete offensive monster and makes a fantastic Monk with the Fighter / Kung-Fu combination, which is my general build with her, though Hunter / Kung-Fu deserves special mention for making her crazy fast without lowering her damage. She and Sara also share a supposed special interaction with the Rapier specialty that makes them good at learning any weapon tech, though it isn't something I've ever bothered with testing.

As a recruitable character the game drops Ellen in northwestern part of Lance and focuses her on axes/maces, though Nora is generally better at these tasks. She has no special perks other than her general reliability -- grab her if you like her, but otherwise she isn't going to offer anything amazing to your group.

Leader Rating: 3/5
Recruit Rating: 3/5

Monica Ausbach:

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Monica is kind of an interesting main character for three reasons: first, she is the character that kicks the entire game off; second, she and Julian are the only ones that see the resolution to the Godwin coup; and, lastly, she, for whatever silly reasons, can have the highest constitution value of the main characters in the game at 23 with the Fighter / Kung-Fu combination, making her potentially the sturdiest member of the cast. I have no idea why this is, but take this knowledge and do whatever terrible things you will with it, because I made her a support mage tank with a Spike Shield to bash people last time for pure lolz and it was . . . well, certainly a thing. Those points aside, Monica is a fine main character, being able to recruit Julian before most other people, having a low !Greed Value! the Greed Counter is used exclusively to determine access to Ward's Ice Lake quest and its value increments based on certain 'greedy' actions the player can participate in, such as demanding money to help Vanguard's mayor or accepting bribes from thieves for early money, and has the easiest time obtaining a !Magic Crown! Crowns are the reward for specializing in either physical or magical techs and reduce the TP/JP cost of all corresponding skills by 1. The formula for obtaining a crown is TP/JP => 45 + (JP/TPx10) out of the main cast, making her one of the two best options for a mage character. Her downsides are that she can lose access to certain locations early in the game for storyline reasons and is unable to participate in the tournament in Zweig, meaning she is out a chunk of cash, unable to recruit Leonid, or obtain the Holy Grail, though none of these are particularly large issues, as someone decided to balance the Grail between RS1 and 3.

On the recruitable character front, Monica is . . . unexceptional, outside of the crown thing, for a great number of reasons. First, she is one of three most difficult to recruit characters, being in Loanne castle which can only be accessed for a limited amount of time by most people; second, she cannot be in a party with Mikhail in it, meaning she has limiting party requirements; third, she doesn't unlock any unique formations, characters, or locations; and, fourth, she has a fairly unexceptional stat spread. Pick her up if you want another mage, but I wouldn't bother prioritizing her outside of that unless you like her design or want more female party members. Amusingly, I'm fairly certain she can participate in the Zweig Tournament as a recruit, though I haven't tested this yet.

Leader Rating: 4/5
Recruit Rating: 2/5

Katrina Lauren:

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Be still, my beating heart. While Harid and Ellen end up being the most reliable damage dealers in the main cast when recruited, neither is especially geared toward two handed sword usage, making it a powerful class of weapons only slow characters are especially good with -- Katrina breaks this mold, being exceptionally fast with great physical stats all around, making her the best character in the game for this role in her recommended Merchant / Two-handed Sword configuration. In fact, she is generally an exceptional character for ANY physical loadouts, just watch out her for her extremely low intelligence value if you actually want to damage things with magic. Regarding unique elements, Katrina is the single most exclusive character in the game, only playable during her scenario and for a small section of Mikhail and Harid's introduction, and she loses access to Loanne immediately after her introduction and is free to explore the world with no other restrictions. She also gets an outfit change.

As a recruit, well, she has some okay-ish stuff for Harid or Mikhail to steal from her during their introductions, by that's about it -- no one else can get her in their party.

Leader Rating: 5/5
Recruit Rating: N/A

Julian Naul:

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Soooooooooooo, Julian is probably my least used main character in the game, just due to my dislike of his visual design -- the green and orange color pairing does absolutely nothing for me. He isn't bad though, and as a main character he makes a great swordsman and his high Will makes him more resistant to status ailments than the other cast members. It also makes him the best status inducing mage in the party if one goes that route, though the value of that particular setup is a bit dubious due to generally limited skill availability. Nasty Sewn Bind on this man, though. Beyond that, Julian has a special extended introduction he shares with Monica and is able to recruit her earlier than everyone else -- he is also able to permanently lose her via in game choices, so if you are playing as Julian make sure you talk to Monica instead of / before Mikhail whenever possible if you want to keep her around. For his specific downsides, he loses access to Loanne like Monica and Katrina after a certain point in his story if you take logical choices, but you'll regain access to the location once the first Abyss Gate is closed, so that's nothing too big.

As a recruitable character, he's a decent enough sword user and would be fully usable if he wasn't inside of Loanne castle like Monica and Mikhail and thus unrecruitable until relatively late in the game, at which point you've probably already assembled your party -- not that swapping in / out character is all the big a deal. He's a solid pickup for both Monica and Mikhail though, and generally the first character you'll want to pick up due to his reliability as either of them.

Leader Rating: 3/5
Recruit Rating: 3/5

Thomas Bent:

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Thomas is the, hands-down full-stop, most powerful mage in the enite game, with an absolutely monstrous 27 intelligence with the Scholar / None setup, with his only real downside being his low speed and difficulty obtaining a JP crown, neither of which are especially crippling weaknesses. He's also got unique access to some backstory regarding Muse and Sharl in Pidona which no one else can see or learn about, which is kind of nifty, if unimportant. He can also score a fairly easy 30,000 monies via his trading game, which he conveniently doesn't need to recruit Thomas to participate in.

As a recruitable character, Thomas is available to everyone in Pidona once the introductory chapter is done, though he does have to be followed through the town to Muse's house to actually recruit him the first time, which isn't at all hard. He starts the game with water magic and is pushed towards either bows or spears with his starting gear, though, as with everyone else, you really can make him use whatever you like. He should also come with the Hunter Shift formation to boost bow damage and is required to start the Merchant minigame, which is fairly simple and nets the player a bunch of money and should be picked up for at least that.

Leader Rating: 4/5
Recruit Rating: 4/5

Harid el Noon:

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Unless you have a specific playthrough idea in mind, be it a Commander game or wanting a super mage or silly tank Monica or whatever else, Harid is tied with Katrina for what I consider the 'best' lead character, as he has great stats and a fantastic bonus dungeon and unique weapon, not to mention being the only character able to fight the final Dragon Ruler, on the offhand chance you are the kind of person that matters to. He also starts the game fairly tanky, a trait he really only shares with Mikhail, and he's the reason literally every other main character starts with the fantastic Desert Lance formation. He does have some downsides, though most are minor. First, he is one of the two characters forced into War Battles during the introduction, which can be quite annoying; second, he has the highest greed counter in the game, meaning you need to either beeline Wood's quest or be an upstanding citizen and forego big early money; third, he, for fully understandable storyline purposes, refuses to wear the robes of the Divine Church and thus must pay 10k to enter the Divine Tower; fourth, his first weapon slot is locked, again for story purposes, exclusively to scimitars; and, last, he cannot head to Pidona immediately after completing the introduction and travels to Zweig instead, which is so incredibly minor I'm just mentioning it for completeness -- I normally take that path at the start anyway. All of these things are completely trivial and offset by his bonus dungeon, by the by.

As a recruitable character Harid is the single most reliable swordsman in the game, generally !Glimmering! Glimmering is how characters learn new techs in the game, with different characters learning at different rates and harder opponents allowing the player to learn more complicated skills all single handed sword techs reliably and be available without prerequisite in the Holy King's Palace in Lance. He doesn't have access to the King's Capital as a recruit however, so he is slightly worse since he cannot acquire the True Kamsheen, and he still refuses to wear the Divine Church robes so you might want to drop him for that quest. He's nearly always one of my final party members in spite of those points, though.

Leader Rating: 5/5
Recruit Rating: 4/5

Mikhail Ausbach:

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Rounding out our character roster is the Marquis of Loanne, Mikhail, and he's . . . well, he's an oddball. The most important thing to note about him is that is the only character in the game that can fully complete the workshop, and he is also the single best character to use it in general, as he can both order and acquire items from it on his throne, receiving double the normal quantity when he does. He also has a unique ruling minigame where he manages Loanne and participates in various wars to protect it, AND he starts with a fully stocked armory he can pull decent starting equipment from for his party. His major downsides? He is the only character that can drop the game into an unwinnable state, though this is fairly difficult to do and super easy to avoid, and he cannot use the bank to store money over 10k, as everything beyond that is automatically sent to the Loanne treasury for use in the ruling minigame. In particular this can make acquiring high level sun and moon magic a pain, as the top spells both cost 9999 gold.

As a recruitable character, he's pretty solid, if only for his Heal Rod and good Lord armor, and both Harid and Katrina benefit greatly from stealing from him during their introductions. The only real problem with using him is that, like Julian and Monica, he is inside of Loanne castle and thus most characters need to clear an abyss gate to access him.

Leader Rating: 4/5
Recruit Rating: 3/5




After selecting and naming your character you get to assign a profession and weapon specialty to them, which will augment their base stats and Learning Type, the latter of which determines what weapon skills characters are good at learning. Heads up if you swap from the default setup though, there is a glitch that requires you to save and reload your game before what you pick takes effect, so just do so as soon as you can.


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For this run I'm taking Ellen down the Fighter/Kung-Fu path, so she'll be fast with decent strength and passable toughness, but if you are looking to use certain weapon know that Axes scale with pure strength, Martial Arts use strength AND speed, Epees and Bows pure Dex, and everything else uses strength for damage and dex for accuracy. Anyway, with that out of the it is time to move onto the game and into the introduction! ^_^ /