Okay, now that I actually got some sleep, let's do this properly.

Update Time!

SSG is interesting. It's got a bit more story focus, at least in Urpina's quest, I've heard Leonard's quest just tosses you into the sandbox. It still has it's regional map design, but there is honestly more to do in it. Every region on the map has some little story element going on in it which keeps you busy and adds some character to the game. Of anything, the world design in this game is some of the best in the series. VA work is minimal but serviceable. I think of my current party, only one character has a pretty awful voice and his design is ugly as well. I may strip him of his katana and bench him for the rest of the game.

So plot wise, there are thirteen gods, the god of fire went rogue and tried to destroy everything, the other twelve gods tasked a human mortal to deal with him instead and said mortal built a mighty empire to smack this fire god down every 150 years that he appears. The seventh time he showed up, the empire managed to actually kill the guy for good. Then the empire has an existential crisis, because what do you do when your entire society is built around god busting and said task is accomplished? Well obviously have a massive power struggle that ends with the emperor and his entire family getting assassinated and then plunge into various civil wars for the next seventy years. It's fairly obvious.

So for Urpina's quest, she's the daughter of Maximus Julianus (why yes, we're now in SaGa Roman Empire), one of the four Noble Lords whose house served the late emperor. He has a dream of restoring said empire and just needs the other nation state's that splintered away to get back in line. So the tale begins with him leaving to go knock heads together with his main army leaving his two children to safeguard his kingdom while he's away. Antonius stays in the capital to govern but progressively enough let's his sister take on his former duties of wandering around the kingdom to check up on all the local towns and deal with any trouble brewing. You see, despite the fact Urpina looks like a Greco-Roman idea of a nymph, she's actually a badass sword master like the rest of her family. Though she wasn't allowed to go on a dangerous journey to learn the family's secret art of dual-wielding.

Anyway, he scout duties are going okay until she sees a mysterious robed figure leave the borders through castle Parna, which is ruled by the SaGa equivalent of the Bolton family from GoT. Then the land gets hit with an earthquake and a giant ''Earth Serpent'' rises from the ground and spreads terror. I put that in quotation because it really looks like a giant demonic centipede made from fire and ash. Once Urpina's group quells the best, they discover a mysterious army in black has invaded the kingdom in the confusion and laid siege on the capital. Powerless to help, Urpina and her guardian Mondo opt to sneak out of the occupied lands and try to find her father and his army so they can return together to retake their home.

I am still in the first chapter of her plot, but it's been going rather well. I found her father, who is in his own trouble that requires some rescuing. Learned the art of dual-wielding, discovered that most of the surrounding countries to her own both despise House Julianus and don't give two smurfs about restoring the empire. Discovered the black army is in league with the Earth Serpent as they tend to show up after it appears. She came home finally to discover the invading army has left, but took Antonius as a hostage. So now we're chasing the army that took him. All of this seems to involve an old artifact called the Emperor's Saw which is associated with House Julianus. The saw is needed to fell the Earth Serpent once and for all, but other forces want it destroyed as well. So yeah, it's been an interesting ride so far.

Combat, as I mentioned before is like the CTB system but with a heavier emphasis on turn manipulation. The part I didn't mention is the BP counter.all actions in battle require a resource called BP. When battles start, the BP counter begins with four points available of a maximum of ten. Every round that passes adds another point. All skills require a different amount of BP, so weak skills cost like one point, mid-tier can cost four, and high end stuff won't be available until later rounds. In fact you're party can have so many high end skills it's almost impossible to use all of them in a single round. Almost. You see skills level up when you use them and while some get damage increases, some levels also lower the cost of the skill. Course your ability to level a skill is tied back by your proficiency in the weapon or magic class the skill you're trying to use is from. Also, when character do unite attacks by destroying an enemy on the field and closing a gap between characters on the turn board, all participants of the unite attack get a BP reduction cost bonus the following round. So the game is incredibly strategic in execution. Different formations can also affect BP growth as well. Finally, the twelve other gods will sometimes grant a benison to the party that can be anything from raising your whole parties stats, to light healing. It depends on which of the Twelve Celestials feels you're doing them a favor. Usually if you're in the land where one of them has a temple, that's the one who will likely show up the most. Roles give light personal bonuses the character they are equipped to. Weapon mastery will increase how many roles you can equip at a time. Roles are very important since some of them give greater resistance to status effects, while other boost your damage potential.

The game also has a massive cast with something like 80 playable characters. Granted, half of those characters are palette swaps of each other and you're only allowed to recruit one of the two, but it's been interesting filling out my entourage. Urpina starts with seven characters, but I've recruited about six more since then. I'm likely not going to give a break down of my full team because of that, instead I'll likely focus on the main ones I use. Also, the game has dispatch missions that let you send out reserves for a period of a few battles that helps raise their stats and earn you more items.

Speaking of, this game doesn't really have shops or money, instead you use the materials and elemental crystals you acquire in missions or battles to use at a smith shop to upgrade your gear. Surprisingly, it's not a linear progression either. You can sometimes upgrade a weapon to two or three different weapons within it's class with various stats and specialties. So like Urpina's starting armor can be upgraded into either a Knight's Armor that offers higher defenses at the cost of speed or I can turn it into Chain Mail that doesn't sacrifice her speed but offers less protection. Boots, Gloves, and Hats are especially difficult to upgrade as they generally give smaller defensive boosts but usually offer some neat stat upgrades instead. Did I mention the team finally gives you a comprehensive equipment breakdown in this game?

Using the same smith shop also gives you bonuses as they'll give you discounts a lot. You also need to be proactive in upgrading equipment for both the sake of survival but also to raise the blacksmith rank, which is universally shared by all blacksmith shops and needs to be higher rank in order to gain access to better gear.

Also, as though Glimmer/sparking wasn't complicated enough, weapons now have specialties to them and certain techs can only be sparked by having your character use the correct specialty type of weapon. So for instance, Urpina learned Demilune (a tech from RS3 associated with curved swords) once I gave her a sword with the curved specialty. So you'll need to mix and match weapons and keep a few to go down different specialty paths so you can get all the techs.

Magic... is potent but also a pain in the ass. It sadly merges the most obnoxious elements from SF1 and US's magic mechanics. First off, magic has casting times so even activating it in the first round means the mage will likely not be able to cast the spell until the following round. I'm hoping that raising a spell's level will eventually lower the casting time. When a battle ends, whatever magical element of the battle field is present will generate magical flux at the end which your mage can absorb into their staffs to power up one of their spells. Being the same element means the flux will give you more XP but you can still charge up different elements at a cost. There is also a possibility the flux will allow your mage to spark a new tech though it's often a very small chance. What spells you learn is based on the staff your mage has equipped, in fact your character has to be equipped with a staff weapon to even use magic and unlike the rest of the series, you're only allowed to have one weapon equipped at a time. Standard staffs will simply spark low end spells and usually just two or three. To get the better stuff, you need to equip your mage with elemental staffs to access the higher spells. To compensate for all of these weaknesses magic is pretty potent and your only means of healing since healing items don't exist in this game. On the brightside, the game finally created a group healing spell. Some magic spells like Call of Thunder can also multi-hit a target, making them incredibly powerful tools to kill enemies quickly and open up potential Unite attacks.

Overall, the combat is incredibly fun and robust. It still has the SaGa issue of being a bit cumbersome in it's design, but if you work with it, you'll enjoy the experience. So overall, I've been having a blast with the game, and it's pretty addicting. Ironically, I'm not feeling the ''handheld'' port issue I usually feel with these types of ports. Likely because Unlimited SaGa already got me use to this type of interface, and likely because SaGa has always felt like a series that had a meager budget compared to Final fantasy. The music has been good, if a bit unremarkable. I think the battle theme and the opening opera piece are the only themes I can really recall. I blame it on the game trying to do more of a high fantasy vibe to the music and Kenji Ito's music style excels when the music leans on rock and metal genres.