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Thread: SaGa Franchise

  1. #121
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Update Time:

    I started the Mermaid Quest, now have to find a few more items to get the potion from the witch. Had a surprise boss fight as well where I learned how utterly broken the sword skill Heatwave is. The tech does damage based on the opponent's HP so for bosses or tanky big guys, this attack can do quadruple digit damage. This in a point where doing 500hp of damage is considered a great attack. I also befriended the Mole men and unlocked their race as playable characters. I also reported back to one of the Savannah villages and unlocked the Hunter class and liberated the region adding to my empire. I was annoyed because I've been trying to save my money to build a university but I had to spend money to build a bridge in one of my cities which unlocks a new scenario in that region. Knowing I would likely not get enough cash to make it this generation, I opted to expand the Orchard since it's purpose is to generate money as well.

    I've been able to raise my magic levels a bit and sparked a bunch of new attacks. My Corsair Magellan has been odd though because he's technically an Axe Specialist based on his Type Classification but he rarely sparks Axe skills. Unarmed skills on the other hand... Anne, my Bow specialist is the same way, she's not quite as good as the last two Rangers I've had in terms of sparking techs or gaining Bow levels. Also, Rose, me Earth Magic specialist is way better with her Fire magic, though it helps that Fire Magic is more useful than earth ones at this point in the game. Peter and Medea keep sparking good techs for 1h-swords which is great because I was seriously lacking good skills for them. I kind of want to raise all my magic types to Lv. 10 but I'm not sure if that's going to happen because Earth magic, like Cosmology/Light magic levels slowly it seems. My water magic is also on a non-caster type character but's he's been getting levels rather admirably. The issue with Wind magic has been that Anne has absolutely no talent for it and Peter's class makes him painfully slow, so it's hard for him to get a turn before the rest of my team decimates the enemy.

    My big issue now is that my current team is actually pretty good. It's a good combo of classes so now I'm debating about tackling one of the Seven Heroes. I can't figure out how to get to the Landship without going the Slaver Route which is suicide because my team only has one strong hand-to-hand fighter. I may have to wait a generation and build a specific team for it, which is something I've read about that you have to do with a few of the Heroes. So I may still try to finish the Mermaid quest, but it's a shame I'll waste a good boss fighting party on it. I may explore a bit more and see if there any more scenarios I can unlock. This generation has been surprisingly directionless, but I also haven't explored all of the areas that are available to me. Hell, I haven't even returned to Cumberland to see what has happened to it since I liberated it with the Empress. Still a fun ride.

  2. #122
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Update Time

    I've reached the fourth generation.

    Peter collected all of the ingredients for the Mermaid Potion but first I went south past the Ludon region where I met the roaming Mu (fantasy yak) herders who were being pestered by some monsters in a nearby cave. I went in hoping for treasure but instead liberated the area and unlocked the Herder class. Finally took the plunge and finished the mermaid quest which ended Peter's reign prematurely. I did have to laugh because when you visit the mermaid with the aid of the potion, the two of them get excited and wander off screen before it blacks out and reappears with both of them sighing and thanking each other for a good time. I'm sure this is meant to be a thought of as them going on adventurers or something but it really looks like they're doing something far more adult...

    I didn't care for the choices of my next emperor because for some reason I rolled three boys and one girl, and said girl was already a class I've been (Thief) so I reloaded and used my Auto-Save for a new selection and lo and behold, one of my choices was a Neriad (Mermaid) which felt incredibly appropriate.

    This has easily been the worst choice I've made all game. While mermaids have some amusing quirks, she has easily been the crappiest party member I've had to deal with. Her health, and more importantly, her Life Points are abysmally low. I played her for like one evening and she's already down to one LP thanks to enemies being very aggressive against her. Making matters worse was the fact I accidentally locked her into quest without a full team which meant they all got beat up pretty badly. I wish there was an easier way to get around sometimes, especially in regions like the Steepe/Savannah/Jungle region because they are only accessible by traversing a few dungeons. The other issue with her is that Mermaids are mages. So she started with Water, Wind, and of course Light magic but I have not grinded enough levels to have access to the really good stuff yet because leveling magic, like RS1 and FFII is a chore. Making matters worse is that she's a Type 5, meaning her best weapons are Clubs and Maces which has been the one weapon type I've neglected the most next to Rapiers. So I'm taking advantage of the act she inherited my better Sword/Spear levels to make her a better fighter. Her one unique quirk, which I learned is shared by all of the non-human races, is that in addition to being immune to Water based attacks, she actually gets a minor Regen Buff like monsters do when she fights in an area of her element. Sadly, she doesn't teach my group any new formations.

    From Avalon, I picked up a Water Free Mage, who sadly came with Earth Magic as his secondary element. I have yet to unlock any offensive magic for either element, so I had him lose his Earth Magic and traded it for Wind Magic, but he starts with an abysmal level in it so my Mage has been kind of useless until I finally got his Wind Magic levels up. He does have more HP and LP than my Empress though, which is kind of sad...

    My last three members have all proven to be quite good though. I returned to the Savannah and recruited a Hunter which feels like an upgrade to the Archer class. Good bow skills and even has strong levels in One-Handed swords which has been nice. The best thing about him has been the fact he's actually sparking new techs. My last Archer only sparked one new move the entire generation, but this guy has sparked three bow techs and one sword tech. His health pool is also much better than the Archer class as well.

    While I was in the Savannah, I paid a visit to the Mole people and recruited one of their members. Mole people start with Earth Magic and get a regen buff in Caves or Mountain regions. He is also tanky as all hell. Despite saying he has good numbers in Martial Arts, he's not as strong as I would like. The weirdest thing about Moles is that their primary weapons are Rapiers. He has sparked like seven new Rapier techs which has been great and his levels with it are strong enough to make up for the weapons awful stats. He's been a very solid party member.

    My last recruit, who ended up getting me stuck on that quest I mentioned earlier because I was too lazy to traverse the dungeon area to reach the Ludon region, was the Mu Herder. They specialize in Martial Arts and Clubs. Despite being a guy wearing an ethnic hat and a straw cape, he's is built like the Mu's he guards and is tanky as all hell. A surprisingly good party member who has finally shown me what Club/Mace weapons are really capable of once you have strong levels in it and spark a few decent techs. Wish I could have gotten to him before my Empress lost most of her LP.

    When trying to recruit my herder, I went to the town of Moblem to take a boat to Toba, which would lead me to his mountain home without having to wander through a grindfest dungeon. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the boats because my Corsairs had decided to rebel. I learned from their former leader that an upstart overthrew him and took over their town of Nueno and stopped all sailing and was halfing my income for the empire. He allied himself with Subier, one of the Seven Heroes. Unfortunately, talking to him locked me into having to sneak into Nueno to topple this guy. I took the ocean path because I had never done that before. With only four party members, two of which are squishy mages, I was unable to utilize and of my Formations, leaving my Empress exposed to get the trout kicked out of her. There were also two really nasty fights I was stuck having to do which cost me more LP than it should have and I probably should have reset when they occurred. I beat the guy down, but he escaped vowing revenge. Got my guy and remembered a thing I never finished in the last gen.

    You can commission a scientist to build a moving bridge in one of your bigger cities, but something destroyed it last gen and the scientist refused to rebuild it until I figured out what caused it. Turns out it was a Narwhale trying to protect her child from Subier. So the bridge was restored. I finally accumulated enough Gold to not only start construction of my University, but to unlock the Imperial Guard class though neither will be ready until next generation. Went through the desert to find a village being hounded by the one of the Seven Heroes forces and liberated it as well. Traversed the jungle to finally unlock a passage to Comroon Island where I stopped the local volcano from erupting and started the first step to either recruit the Salamander Race, or unlock Dark Magic. Called it a night after that.

  3. #123
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Update Time!

    Oh boy, what a complete disaster this last generation has been. I really don't like the Neriad race. They are just way too freaking fragile for their own good and armor doesn't seem to help them a whole lot either. Not helped by the fact the enemy A.I. often targets the characters with the lowest HP.

    With her lousy 1LP, my party became a serious glass cannon experience, so I was basically trying to complete a few smaller quests to hopefully bump myself into the next generation. I lost my first party member after I found this stupid Stone Boat in the Jungle region which will allow me to cross the Lava Rive on Comroon Island to visit the Salamanders, but the boat severely restricts my movement speed and the whole area is filled with speedy enemy types so I kept getting into random encounters like no bodies business. The worst part? Turns out I didn;t even need it because stopping the volcano earlier already cleared the lava and gave me access to the village. I wound up finding the Amazon Village and recruited a fragile if complete badass Amazon warrior to my team named Jeane who replaced my crappy Water Mage. Afterwards, we followed Jeane to the village of only men. Apparently the Amazons actually originate from this village but their new queen turned all the men against them and they fled. She's trying to get into a tower but the guardian blocks her way. So I go into her tower to speak with her and barely make it to her after beating some evil plant creature. She then asks me to face the guardian for her and I end up being locked into an unwinnable situation. My poor team was too banged up to deal with this guy but I couldn't leave because this queen chick blocked my way. So I opted to let him give me a party wipe and chose a new successor. I chose a Heavy Infantry unit named Tortoise.

    He picked up a Fire Mage, a Neriad, one of the newly created Imperial Guard units who are badass, and I went over to Cumberland to pick up the Crusader. I also finally found. While heading back to the Amazon village to recruit a new Amazon, I learned the hard way that I cna only recruit them if I'm an Empress, so my dude was quickly expelled from the area. I did find myself over to a region that is basically SaGa Japan and they're fighting with the leader of the Seven Heroes Wagnas. I also started a war with their Daimyo even though his best soldier knows it's a stupid idea to fight the empire. I hightailed it out of there because I really didn't want to deal with the situation just yet. Unfortunately, I was unable to avenge my previous Empress because my University opened up and after taking a fun quiz, unlocked the Tactician Class. met a Tactician who helped me to finally deal with that damned Landship in the Steepes, and while that dungeon was obnoxious and had maybe one decent piece of treasure, I toppled another of the Seven Heroes, Bokhon the Puppeteer. T

    hat ended up actually finishing off the era. My new Emperor is a Tactician cause why not? Recruited a Light Infantry because I'm seriously neglecting my Greatsword techs. Picked up a new female Imperial Guard because I love their sprite design better than the male ones. An Earth mage with sub fire magic, and picked up my new Nomad Class I unlocked by stopping the Landship. With the landship gone I can finally travel the region unmolested and even have better access to Cumberland region without needing a boat.

    So a few scenarios opened up in this era. My mines are troubled by a mysterious force that knocks out my miners which is hurting my Empires ability to make money. The Comroon Volcano looks like it's going to blow again, and there was flooding hitting a region to the south of me. I'm going to do the Mines first cause money is always important, but then I want to do the Comroon scenario because this is where I can unlock Dark Magic, but like the Mermaid Quest, this will prematurely end my current Emperor's reign cause they end up becoming an apprentice to a dark sorcerer who helped me fix the volcano the first time around. I may also try to follow the Minstrel and collect a few more of his instruments because I think it has to do with unlocking another race.

    My biggest concern at this point is that I know I'm coming close to reaching the final era. I still don't have Fusion magic, and I fell behind trying to make new gear thanks to waiting around to make the 2 million gold needed to open my university. I did notice my Magic Lab is bustling with more people because my levels with Light magic have grown stronger in the last generation. I've also unlocked the third and fourth spells for a few elements but Earth Magic is still lagging behind and Water still doesn't have an offensive option. Since I'm going to sacrifice this guy for the Dark Arts, I may spend some time leveling up my magic and trying to Spark some more techniques. I also want to tackle a few more of the Seven Heroes, so if I have one more Emperor/Empress before the Final Emperor, then I plan on spending it being more proactive with dealing with the actual bad guys of the game. I know that killing Five of them will shoot you straight to the last scenario, but I've only dealt with two of them at the moment. So that means I can take down at least two more without worrying about ending the game prematurely.

    I'm not sure what concerns me more, the idea I might be jumping into the final scenario unprepared, or the idea this game will already be over because it's honestly been my favorite experience with the SaGa brand so far.

  4. #124
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Update Time!

    Okay, so the Tactician is only slightly better than Neriads. He thankfully has more actual health and armor options, but he also has awful LP like them and the Formation he teaches is better served with a sturdier class. On the other hand, he is next to Thief as one of the fastest classes in the game, and he's a pretty decent mage, but unfortunately that means he can't spark anything...

    I decided to try and grab the Dark Magic option and this turned into a bigger headache than I imagined. You lose the revenue from two cities, you lock yourself out of access to the Salamander Race, your current emperor/empress abdicates the throne making you choose a new successor, and you have to fight a really nasty boss. Said boss walloped my party. Hell just trying to get to him eroded away most of my party LP. This boss was obnoxious because he regenerates 10% of his health after every round which was like 994HP. He also exclusively uses Fusion Magic. This battle came down to a few things, my damage output, whether he successfully charmed anyone, or if he used the Sandstorm spell which was pretty much a TPK if he did so cause my team is ill equipped to deal with magic attacks. He pretty much kicked my ass all evening. Finally I decided to chance grinding a few skills or levels in the dungeon and sadly my team simply refused to Spark anything. Luckily the grind wasn't a total waste because I did raise a few people's HP and I found a second Poseidon Spear which I gave to my Imperial Guard. That weapon alone practically doubled her attack. After that, it was just a suicidal charge against the boss that finally beat him. Afterwards my Emperor abdicated the throne and I had to choose from among my party my actual successor. I went with the Imperial Guard who teaches a really nice formation that is up my alley. It's an improved version of the Imperial Cross move called Imperial Arrow which boosts most of my team's speed. My Nomad also Sparked a really good Axe skill.

    Afterwards, I recruited Capella,a robot servant the local mad scientist made for me as a gift. She's amusing because she's actually pretty foul mouthed. She's an odd character, and one I imagine most gamers would actively avoid. She starts with 99 LP and Lv. 15 in all physical stats as well as comes with a huge collection of Martial Art skills. She can't use magic, spark abilities, or wear armor, but her stats are superior to most of my party. The real catch here is that she's A.I. controlled and does her own thing. It works out most of the time for me, especially with the Imperial Arrow formation since I have her on point taking the brunt of the enemy attacks. Still I know some people hate these types of characters.

    Afterwards, I returned to the scene of my battle with the Sorcerer and claimed the Dark Tome and some other items. I swung back by the Amazon village and remembered I had some unfinished business with Rocbouquet of the Seven Heroes. I did my rematch with the Stone Guardian and won thanks to the awesome Axe skill I picked up and I was even able to seriously raise some of my magic global levels. Ooh, and my Empress sparked the unique skill from the Burning Sword which is not a bad skill. Rocbouquet learns some info in the tower and wanders off to another tower in the jungle, but I choose to return back to Avalon to drop off the Dark Tome, teach one of my characters dark magic, and approve a crap ton of Fusion spell research I unlocked by grinding some magic levels. I then return to the Jungle and enter the Shrine, but it's late so I save for the night.

    I'm pretty sure this will be the last Emperor before the Final One. Assuming defeating Rocbouquet doesn't end this era, I'll try to unlock Diver or Desert Warrior next. Though it looks like I do need to beat all of the Heroes before the final dungeon unlocks so I'll at least get the chances to unlock them with the Final Emperor. I also learned this game has a NG+ and for once it's actually worth it. Not necessarily because you unlock new content, technically the game is so content rich it's damn near impossible to see everything in one go. Hell I just learned that it's possible to unlock the final dungeon and beat the game before the Final Emperor shows up. What you get to keep is all of your money, Global Levels, Formations, magic, and any skills unlocked in the Dojo. Unfortunately, anything learned or acquired by the Final Emperor's team does not carry over. Not as bad of a loss as you would think, especially since enemies scale with your team, so the likelihood of reacquiring any lost skills is still fairly likely in NG+. Regardless, this means that if I can continue pass this current scenario without a jump, I should focus on grinding some more and try to acquire some more skills to take with me into the final chapter, especially since I would still like to at least acquire all of the first tier Fusion spells and level up Dark Magic since it's actually pretty OP.

    Here's a great fanart piece of Rocbouquet. She probably has more fanart than the whole cast combined.

  5. #125
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Update Time!

    Man that dungeon blew. Course it didn't help my party was pretty badly banged up and I have a thing about losing units. The toughest parts of the dungeon was this one room with multiple doors all guarded by monsters. If you chose the wrong door, you got thrown into the basement which was filled with these Shen Long type dragon enemies who are basically mini-bosses. Also, when you return to the correct floor, all of the enemies you've slain are respawned...

    After that mess, you reach Rocbouquet but she has one of those dragons guarding her. The guy gits pretty hard, gas an annoying lightning based group attack he pulls out whenever it's inconvenient, gets two turns per round, and if you don't spam earth magic to change the room element, the bastard restores 999hp per round until you do so. I think it says something that the mini-boss gives you more Tech Points than the actual dungeon boss.

    In comparison Rocbouquet is a joke. She has one lousy offensive move which is a powered up low level Wind spell. Other than that she loves to spam her signature move Temptation which charms all Male party members for her real offense. Lucky for me, I'm sporting two ladies, a robo chick, and one of my guys is equipped with an accessory that protects him from Charm status. Charm is also heal-able with a standard status heal spell unlike most other RPGs I know. So in comparison, she was kind of a joke. After beating her, the Amazon region finally joined the empire. I didn't raise my magic levels high enough to earn any new spells, but my global levels went up enough for me to order research into another Fusion spell. I also approved research into a new club weapon, though it's the Bow I really wish I could get a serious upgrade for.

    After words, I traveled to the South Longit region to investigate the Storm being caused by a ghost pirate ship, but it didn't look like I could enter properly. So I went to the Melu desert to see if I could find that wandering Oasis, and after half an hour of wandering about I finally found it and the Desert Warriors I heard of. Unfortunately for me, they have picked a fight with Noel. He's another of the Seven Heroes and it turns out he's also a very overprotective brother to Rocbouquet. So he starts a fight with me and utterly crushes my team with his martial arts prowess. I learned afterwards that his Battle script changes depending on whether you fight him before or after his sister and if you do so after, he gets seriously souped up with twice as much health, souped up stats, and pulls out two of his really nasty attacks. Realizing this team was ill fit for this battle I chose to return to the boat but noticed another area I've never explores, the Maze of Memory. It has four orbs in it and I went with my favorite color of green first which has me in a Jungle setting filled with lizards, snakes, and birds. This area is interesting because as you progress the floors the enemies get harder but start at their weakest initially. So this might actually be a pretty snazzy place to spark some new techs.

    Speaking of which, I just learned that some equipment have unique spark techs attached to them. My Blazing Sword's Pyrowave technique is such a move and the Comroom Hammer has a pretty snazzy group hitting one as well. My Nomad finally Sparked an upgrade for the Haphazard Arrow Tech called Rain of Arrows and it seems that much like SF2, some techs spark if you spam certain other techs, so I may start experimenting in this are a bit if I can find me some decent monsters to fight. I may also take the plunge and let a few party members die off as well. Save scumming is getting tedious and since this is likely my last MC before the actual Final Emperor, I should probably experiment with some more classes to spark as many abilities in this era as I can while also working on my magic.

  6. #126
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Update Time!

    I've mostly been exploring the Maze of Memory. I learned that it's an optional dungeon created for the Remaster. There are four orbs which transport you to dour different multi-floor dungeons which has randomized treasures, one unique gift per dungeon, and each leads to a special Dragon boss who fills in a bit more of plot and beating them unlocks the Ultimate Optional Boss. What's neat about this place is that you can run into pretty much every monster in the game in these dungeons which is great for leveling and sparking techs. I fought and lost badly to one of the dragons, I hear they're really meant to be tackled on NG+ so I'm going to leave them alone, especially since beating them only unlocks another optional boss.

    The Green Maze involved running into a group of bumbling Goblins who end up teaching you a really powerful offensive focused Formation. The Red Maze has you run into a Yuffie wannabe ninja who is treasure hunting and tricking you into traps before running back to get your help cause they are inept. The nice thing about Ninja's is that they're basically the Female version of the Monk class except they can also use swords. The Purple Maze had me follow a Diviner (Onmiyoji) who was hunting an evil spirit. He gets possessed instead and we defeat the ghost to get him to join, so I've now unlocked two new classes and got a snazzy new formation for my trouble. I've also been acquiring a bunch of good items I'm hoarding for the Final Emperor.

    In tech news, I've sparks a good chunk of the Axe and 2-handed sword moves. I also had Juno (my Empress) unlock a pretty good spear move but I've been a little disappointed in her because she doesn't spark many offensive techs. Course basic swords are the hardest weapon class to spark but I can't seem to get her to spark anything. I have raised my magic levels enough to unlock most of the fourth tier spells except for Dark, but I've also been able to unlock what I believe is all of the Tier 1 Fusion Spells including the ones with Dark Magic. Sadly I won't be able to access any until the next generational leap.

    Where I'm a little disappointed is that I've seriously been neglecting my Blacksmith. I'm trying to have them forge some new gear, but I've been lagging so much with them that they're still not making anything that is actually better than some of the gear I've found in dungeons. Hell, I'm starting to think part of my team's real issues is that I'm still only using mid-game gear despite the fact I'm encountering more and more end game type monsters. I was able to upgrade my Orchard again an its starting to bear fruit even.

    I think I'll hit up the Blue Maze to see what treasures lie there and then I'm going to tackle the Ghost Ship.

  7. #127
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Update Time!

    Not a huge one. I did a small quest to retrieve another of the Bard's instruments, I think I might have all of them at this point but I'll double check. The instruments are needed to recruit another race, or so I've heard. In the course of getting this instrument, I finally allowed my Light Infantry, Nomad, and Earth Mage to get killed off for real so I can replace them with two of the new classes I unlocked and a Monk so I can try to get the last of the Martial Art skills. My Ninja is pretty awesome as she's decent with magic, great at martial arts and Greatswords, as well as being one of the fastest party members with good health. The Onmyoji (screw their English name) is a Dark Magic specialist, and though I should have had him sub Earth magic, I gave him fire instead which is about the only bad choice I made here. He's pretty snazzy because before this class existed, there really wasn't a dark specialist class in the game, only a few select characters had decent affinity with it. He's also good with spears and bows, which is great because most mage classes are awful fighters, my Earth Mage certainly was. I also learned that I unlocked the fourth tier Fire spell.

    With that, I ventured into the last part of the Maze of Memory, the Blue Water zone which unfortunately had a high quantity of slimes as well which made giving my Monk Earth magic not so much of a bad idea. This zone has a merchant who sells some rare items as gimmick in it. Unfortunately each item is worth my money cap, so you can only really get one of the three items per visit. I opted for an item that raises the drop rate of items from monsters. The real treasure of this area is a special ore you can take back to either of your blacksmiths to either forge a real strong 1H Sword or a pretty snazzy piece of armor. Since I know the Final Emperor/Empress each come with their own unique weapon, I opted for the armor, especially since I feel I'm lagging in that department. I've been doing these small quests for the sake of getting my blacksmiths caught up on new gear. My orchard has also expanded and in wracking in more cash flow, it even has two golden fruits on it at this point. Not sure if I'm going to try for the full unlock since it requires me to fight like another 1000 battles

    With the new crew, I'm split on what to do next. Part of me feels like I should wander around the Maze of Memory some more and simply grind my magic and techs before I take the plunge into fighting another member of the Seven Heroes. I just keep thinking this is going to be the last free emperor before I get locked into the final one. Techs learned in the final era can't transfer and I won't be able to unlock anymore fusion magic until NG+ since I need a generational skip to unlock them once commissioned. On the other hand, I honestly feel like this is going to be one of those games I may actually come back to, so I probably shouldn't worry about leaving things for NG+.

  8. #128
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    • Former Cid's Knight

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    Update time!

    Well my efforts were rewarded with some good and bad revelations. As I figured, the Ghost Ship scenario ended up closing this generation off. I didn't fight one of the Heroes I was suspecting but I did unlock the Diver class. What really turned out to be a surprise was that I didn't skip to the Final Emperor like I thought, so I have one more generation to work on Techs and Magic. Even more amusing was that Coppelia was an option to inherit the Emperor title. I went with that option and got a trophy before it dawned on me how bad of an idea that was. As a machine, Coppelia can't use magic or spark techs, which would severely handicap my efforts to finish up a few things this generation, so I went back to the previous save an re-rolled my emperor.

    I opted for a pirate and picked up a Onmiyoji and Ninj again, because that worked out well last time, and opted to recruit the new Diver class and try again with a herder. There were two problems here: the herder is only accessible by going through a dungeon because the nomadic assholes are still chilling at the bottom of the map after like four generations. I've leveled up enough that random encounters are often filled with boss like enemies, so reaching them tends to wear my party down pretty badly. The other issue is that the Diver class kind of sucks. They are a mage class with no sparking potential and I already had a mage character on my team. Top it off, they are really frail like the Tactician and Neriad classes.

    I opted to try my luck with a temple nearby the herder camp and was promptly destroyed for my efforts because with the exception of my emperor and herder, everyone else was incredibly fragile to use. Realizing I didn't really want to save scum my wayt through this generation with a fragile team, especially since the few quests I have left are all going to put me on a direct confrontational path against one of the four remaining Seven Heroes, I opted to just elect a new Emperor from the list. I went with a Nomad, who is also a fragile class but has speed and are experts with Axes which ae one of the few weapons I still need to spark for. I picked up a new Onmiyoji cause I need to raise Dark Magic ASAP this generation and opted for a male Imperial Guard. While I hate their design, the male variants have one thing over the female ones, they are more focused on their spark types. The female ones are all over the place and you have to check a guide to see which one you're dealing with and even then they are more mage like in use. The male ones are all Spear experts and it's another weapon I've been neglecting, so this will be nice to use. Sadly, he's still slow as molasses. I opted to go with a female Crusader, so I took a boat to Cumberland to recruit one. She's great with magic and is also a Hammer expert, which is another weapon I'm neglecting.

    Now here, I felt I should go after one of the three remaining classes to unlock. I still have the Desert Guards, Irises (Harpy) and the Samurai classes left to recruit. The Desert Guards require me to beat Noel of the SH to get them, and he has been taking his steroids since the last generational jump as he's gained a new sprite and has opted to combine his wickedly powerful fisticuff ability with finally showing us why he carries that big sword around... So trying to tackle that with a four member team seemed like a headache, so I opted to return to fantasy Japan and see if I can recruit either the Irises or the Samurai. This is where my bad news came in. I learned that I screwed up the scenario to recruit the samurai and so I've locked myself out of getting them. I was suppose to fight the head of the order in the previous generation where I opted for the Mermaid romance. Unlike other scenarios, this was one required I fight this guy, so jumping a generation has him die from natural causes instead and locked me out of the class until NG+. This is concerning because they are the best spark class for swords in the game, and I have a real soft spot for samurai. With that disappointment out of the way, I returned to Avalon to recruit a Ninja, who is the female equivalent of the class, just speed instead of survivability, and she can also learn Monk techs as well, so it's hardly the end of the world.

    I did get the benefit of seeing what a bunch of my Fusion spells had to offer. They're a little annoying because I have to have the character using both types of magic in order to learn the fusion spells, but they make up for it with some real firepower. My mages can finally do some real damage like the high end spark techs I've learned. The other great thing I've learned is that I am actually pretty close to having most of the weapon type tech skills unlocked. Like I'm only missing maybe one or two high end skills per weapon. So that's a major relief. I'm also not far from reaching level 30 with a few magic types which will allow me to unlock their final spells and hopefully push their global levels high enough to unlock the final tier of Fusion magic in the game. I also hope to use the insane amount of cash I have to unlock as many weapon and armor upgrades as I can.

    My goals for this round is to finalize my techs and magic, hopefully unlock the final tier of fusion spells, recruit the last two classes I can, and hopefully free the last four territories of the map, though the last one will likely not happen because I'm pretty sure they're all controlled by one of the four remaining Heroes. I know that if I defeat two more, I'll automatically jump to the final era. So I need to figure out who I want to tackle since I'm pretty much out of story scenarios to do. I will have to beat Noel to get the Desert Bandit for sure, but from what I've read, I can probably unlock the Irises without having to fight Wagnas, since they're only needed to reach his fortress. I don't really know where the other two are though. We'll see what needs to be done because I'm actually further along than I thought I was. Also, I've been netting some really good armor and shields lately. I just wish I could start getting some of the better weapon upgrades because I feel my power output is getting a bit sluggish depending on the weapon type.

  9. #129
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Update time!

    Ended up having a more time than I thought. So I collected the last of the Bard instruments and went to Mt. Chikapea to recruit the Iris race. Cleared the local castle of it's monster issue and watched as Wagnas ran away with a floating castle. Decided I didn't really want to bother and went to go see my herders because I'm still looking for Subier.

    Instead, I got a mission to help find a missing boy and calf. This dungeon was kind of obnoxious because it has multiple paths but 90% of them just send you out of the cave. Instead you have to check each entrance until you hear the sound of the baby mu. At the bottom of this damn cave, I ran into Dantarg, another of the Seven Heroes I never even had a slight clue where to look. Turns out he's not interested in his group's revenge plot, instead he's assimilating monsters until he becomes the strongest being. Since he wasn't actually causing any harm, my Emperor told him he would let him live and asked nicely if he could get by to help the child. Turns out Dantarg found this whole premise incredibly insulting and a battle ensued. I don't think he was at full power but he was surprisingly manageable compared to Noel. It helps that I unlocked two beastly techs for hammers and spears. One lowers the enemies defense in addition to being one of the strongest hammer moves in the game, the other lowers all of their stats and is the second strongest spear move in the game. Suffice it to say, he didn't last very long.

    Feeling more confident, I decided to try my luck with Noel so I can unlock the last available class to me. Noel was much harder, but again, he was surprisingly manageable, especially with the Fusion Spell Firewall no selling some of his attacks along with a certain Light spell that no sells all Blunt and Slash damage which is mostly what he had. I figured this would have jumped me into the final era but it didn't. I did not wish to fight Wagnas cause I hear in addition to being the strongest boss, he's also one of the most annoying to fight because he loves group hitting status magic. So I decided to look up where Subier was and it involved utilizing a certain quest line ship that I didn't even think about trying. Definitely could have used some better clues for this one. Thankfully for me, I also learned that I screwed Subier out of his ultimate second form by doing a minor quest earlier involving a narwhale and a broken bridge. He went down pretty easily compared to even Dantarg.

    This finally leaped me to the Final Emperor. I've been told that the Seven Heroes have all been resurrected because my ancestors couldn't finish them all off. and technically I've been fighting copies of them instead of their true bodies which are still hibernating. The mysterious oracle from the beginning of the game returned to inform me of this and my emperor recognized her, which she reveals that in addition to the power of my ancestors, I get their memories too. Unfortunately, she also informed me that the Inheritance spell has run it's course and no future emperor/empress will be able to inherit my power, so the Final Emperor is going to have to finally end this war once and for all. She tasked me with going to her village which is on the other side of the mountain where the Irises are. Not sure if I can still fight Wagans' double or not.

    In the war effort/empire building department. I didn't acquire all of the territories before the end it seems. I never got the bottom three regions to fully unlock and although I'm sure one of them is the final dungeon and other is Romancing Nipon, I'm not so sure about the third territory which I figured would have been the region Dantarg and Subier were in. I also technically lost Common Island since I let the volcano destroy it because I wanted Dark Magic. Which was worth it by the way. I was able to acquire a good selection of weapon and armor upgrades that are finally better than some of the gear I had been using for awhile. I'm sure I'm still missing a few high quality pieces. The real good news is that as far as I can tell, I unlocked all of the Fusion spells with my previous Emperor and so they should all be available this generation, this includes all of the Dark Fusion spells. I still need the fifth tier spells for Fire, Earth, and Dark magic but the ones I've gotten for Water, Light and Wind have been pretty awesome. Light gives you a really powerful group hitting attack, Wind gives you a move that allows your character to make a sword out of wind which helps keep my weapon slots opened, and Water gives you a freaking team Haste spell which came in handy against Noel. The real fun thing about the Haste spell is that it actually changes the music by speeding it up. Not a unique track, it just speeds up the track, really neat. I also have four fruits on my Orchard and it's almost earning me 10,000 gold a pop by existing. I still need like 700 more battles to fully unlock it, but I'm not likely going to get there.

    So we're at the tail end of the game. I need to seriously look at what skills and spells I have and see what my options are. Not sure what I want my final team to be. I imagine the Irises are like the Neriads, so I'm likely to ignore them, I do want to check out the Desert Guard though. I imagine I'll keep an Imperial Guard and Crusader. In fact, my lat generation team, well the one that survived more than one dungeon was so well balanced and had such good synergy, I may just go for that. I'll likely change some magic around. FE will likely keep Light magic, but I may experiment with two other elements. Thankfully I only need to teach him one of a particular spell to open up the option for Fusion spells. We'll see. Looks like I'll be wrapping up this great game in the next few days.

    __romancing_saga_2_and_saga_drawn_by_sayaka_katou__21178a05b9d59d49c55021f1855486b2.jpg

  10. #130
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Been a fruitful evening.

    So I went back Yuyan (Romancing Nippon) and took down Wagnas' annoying flying fortress. He was definitely the most obnoxious to fight against besides Rocbouquet until I realized most of his attacks are fire based and Fire Wall made him useless. Afterwards, I was struck with an event within Avalon itself, which I won't devolve too much info because it's an optional event that requires you did something earlier in the game. This was easily the most obnoxious sequence I've dealt with in the game. Also the one that brought back bad memories of the massive and aggressive monster spawn rate from RS1. With that sequence over, I went back to the Irises and grabbed the treasure there so I could finally reach the Hidden Village. Here I met the oracle and finally got a bit more of the backstory concerning the origins of the Seven Heroes. From there, I finally unlocked the final area and for a lark, decided to try my hand at fighting the final boss.

    This boss has several phases, basically it starts with you fighting one of them and eventually more of them appear. By the final phase, you're basically fighting another party. The two most obnoxious phases has to be the starting phase and the true final phase. The starting phase is a pain because Rocbouquet is the first hero to fight and she brings her obnoxious Temptation skill with her. Unfortunately for me, I have only one woman on my team and only one accessory that protects again Mind attacks, so this phase is obnoxious because she's constantly removing two of my party members from the battle. Surprisingly, this gets mitigated as more Heroes appear because she uses the move less frequently. I may need to invest in another accessory to protect myself though because the two characters she keeps making useless are my two best damage dealers.

    The final phase is annoying because the boss gains a few extra attacks and starts being far more aggressive with all the new abilities it gets from each of the heroes. The real trouble here is that the boss finally starts getting several turns in a row, so the fight becomes more about survival. I may need to prioritize Fire Wall just to protect me from one of the more obnoxious group attacks they have and I may need to equip the Anti-Hell Claw move as well since that attack can be dangerous when merged with some of their other abilities. I could return home and better set up my team, but I kind of want to try and beat them down a few more times because I am able to reach their final phase pretty easily outside of the hiccup with the Rocbouquet rematch.

    In development news, I unlocked the final spelss for Fire and Earth, which if I had to redo this game, I would have specialized earlier if I had known what these skills were. Fire's final spell is Auto-Life (Reviver is it's actual name) and the final Earth spell is Vajra Shield which works like the Golem spell in FFV but only affects one character. I also have one more change to the city I was able to make, which sounds like one that I felt should have unlocked earlier and may had I not waited so long to open all the areas where recruits are. You basically build a new section of town where all of the special regional classes can be recruited so you don't have to march all over the map to recruit people like the Herders or Amazons anymore. You can potentially build your party from just Avalon.

    I'll attempt the final boss a few more times and see if I can just end it with what I have, we'll see.

  11. #131
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Game, set, and match.

    As per usual for the series so far, the final boss is a much nastier piece of work than anything before it. I am forever grateful that I made it a point to master magic as early as I could.

    So my initial attempts just never worked out too well. Trying to prep for a long term battle with two of your party members getting charmed almost every round just doesn't work out too well, not to mention my damage output was just not as good as I hoped. So I hopped out of the dungeon and went to check out the last optional dungeon I missed which had a dragon theme going for it. Most of the bosses weren't a big deal after trying to tackle the final boss. I gained some dragon armor and a dragon sword for my emperor. I then returned to Avalon and reworked my magic. While everyone has magic on my team, two are specifically setup for it, but one proved more useful than the other so I had the other change out their magic load to mirror their partners so I could finally have two people with the awesome healing spell Elixir (Max heal and restores status). I also went to my storehouse and picked up the Darkstone Ring I acquired earlier in the game. There is a quest early in the game where one of your imperial mines has shut down due to a mysterious illness. Turns out it's thanks to a darkstone uncovered that drains health. When you destroy it, you can take it's remains to the mole men who will fashion a nice ring for you. It blocks all Mind status effects like Charm so I picked it up to help me. I had it stored because the ring is also cursed and will drain your LP if you sleep anywhere that isn't your Emperor/Empress' bed chamber.

    So with a better prep work, I returned to the final dungeon, which as far as final dungeons go, isn't so bad, and had my rematch with the Seven. My first attempt was okay until the one guy I can't keep from getting charmed used Gilded Shield (High chance of blocking all physical attacks) and basically sunk my team's chances of beating the boss. Thank goodness Revive doesn't work on them. Anyway, after the second attempt and the second time he pulled this stunt, I gave him the other ring that protects from Charm and took it off my main damage dealer. This ended up being the key to victory because my third attempt on the boss with this new party build ended with the team getting wrecked by the boss using Subier's Tidal Wave move. Well the guy who screwed me out of the last two fights has a move called Fire Wall that blocks all Fire and Ice/Water magic for one round. So that became his job though it hurt my damage output so I had to have my other mage go offense with her Hammer moves. I then discovered that the Light Wall move works in a similar manner where it drastically reduces damage from some attacks like that obnoxious Tidal Wave. My guy with Fire Wall knows that move, but thanks to the Sword of Gaia my second mage had equipped, he had it too, and even better it cost Skill Points instead or Magic Points so I didn't have to worry about sacrificing a steep cost per round that could be used for healing or a party haste cast. Now with four damage dealers going all out, the boss didn't last much longer this fourth attempt and the game finally came to an end.

    The credit sequence is actually pretty fun, because it's a weapon/magic expo while the credit role and honestly, the spell effects in this game are pretty cool and I really missed out on some cool end game skills for a few weapon types. The game then goes through all of my heirs and lists their accomplishments within the game. My final two Emperors accomplished the most according to this system. Finally, I saw the last part of the ending which was a nice bookend feel to the game's fun intro.

    Hardest Boss: Final Boss
    Most Challenging Seven Hero: Noel
    Favorite Weapon: One handed Sword and Spear
    Favorite Magic: Light, Water, and Dark
    Best Classes: Ninja, Onmiyoji, Crusader, Hunter, and Imperial Guard
    Least Favorite Class: Tactician, Neriad, and Ocean Diver
    Favorite Scenario: Termite Queen, Landship, Cumberland, Mermaid Love story, and the battle with your first Seven Hero
    Least Favorite Scenario: Lost Child and Calf, Sunken Ship, and Wandering Oasis
    Favorite Addition to the Empire: The Orchard and the Magic Lab.

    Final Thoughts:
    Overall, this was a pretty fantastic game. Granted, you need to understand what you're getting into to really appreciate it. If you only play the genre for great character drama and major plot twists, well look elsewhere, you're not going to find it here. If you want a challenging JRPG with a strong concept that rewards you for planning for the long game, then this is the game for you. Honestly the core gameplay is deceptively deep with multiple classes, weapon types, and the sheer amount of scenarios to play around with. This game largely rectifies most of my grievances from Romancing SaGa 1 such as poorly implemented weapon skills, and losing out on potential party members, as well as the odd time lapse scenario that basically forced you to save grinding until the final dungeon unlocked. Here everything works out fairly well with a more subdued Tactical vibe to handling party members which made it easy to acquire a good class again if one is lost, but doesn't punish you for treating your non-emperor/empress characters as pawns as you play the long game to finally take down the Seven Heroes. While building Avalon leaves much to be desired and will hardly even wet the appetite of something use to more in-depth city building style games, there is a certain charm and sense of satisfaction as you watch the capital expand or liberating territories. It also helps build a real interesting narrative as you watch as your lineage build this massive empire and unite the known world to stop a greater evil. The ending also places a nice touch on this larger narrative and almost has a Suikoden type vibe to it that I appreciate.

    The introduction of the Waza/Spark mechanic is also a nice touch here. I know most people hate leaving something as important as skills to RNG, but there is nothing quite as satisfying as battling a difficult boss and then hearing that little jingle of music as the light bulb icon comes over a character's head and they unleash a devastating special attack on the enemy. Though it's hidden, looking up the Type Proficiency of a character will curtail a good chunk of the RNG factor. I also appreciated that the game would record these skills even if the character who learned it dies. This concept of spending time to build up your future generations is a nice touch as well. You might lose a skill in your current team if that character dies, or you instruct your minister to build a new addition to the city they'll never see, but it's gratifying to jump to the next generation and discover you've unlocked more spells at the Magic Lab, seeing that new University or city section be open to the public, or check the dojo to find all the skills your old team had are waiting there to be taught to your new team. Oddly enough, much like Dark Souls, you don't really get annoyed with dying so much in this game. Classes also have enough stat differences, weapon type proficiency, and uses that party building is pretty satisfying and you start actively seeking scenarios that might unlock a new class for you to use. It's also nice that some weapons themselves just have weapon skills you can permanently unlock with them that adds a bit more life to equipment. Also the formation mechanics are awesome, and I'm happy I didn't have to put up with RS1's annoying one. Helping everything here is that the game is pretty challenging, having the same feel as the challenge found in the NES era as opposed to the softer 16-bit era.

    The scenario mechanics are also both more generous and fair in this entry. You don't have to worry about avoiding battles, in fact the game kind of urges you to fight to your hearts content as early as possible so you don't need to by the end. The LP mechanic feels like a scrappy mechanic in later titles, but here, it has a logical purpose and ties into the overall system of the game's various game mechanics. Choosing your successor is fun and I like you can choose from both male or female characters. The plot overall is pretty epic despite not being character focus and the title brings back a nostalgic feel of when you the player would fill in the gaps. A less imaginative player would find the game pretty dry and boring, but for me, I was really having fun kind of filling in the gaps of who each of my successors were and their relationship to the Seven Heroes. Also, how awesome is it to actually play as a benevolent empire in a JRPG? My only real complaint is something I mentioned much earlier which is that the game has a terrible UI for displaying information on weapon and armor, as well as Character Type. All information you really need to make this game less of a headache in some places. Thankfully, there are a few really informative guides online to help, but it still feels a bit annoying to have to resort to that just to enjoy the game.

    Would I recommend it? Hell yeah, honestly, it's easily my favorite entry in the SaGa franchise to date, and I now really hope Romancing SaGa 3 does get brought over, as well Scarlet Graces which has a plot that sounds like a combination of RS1 and 2 just with a less benevolent Royal family. While my plate is quite full at the moment for games I'm going to play, I do hope I get to replay this gem again soon. Not sure if I'll tackle NG+ or simply go with a fresh title and try out that Final Empress.

  12. #132

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    Eyyyyy, glad to see you finished the game and loved it -- I still haven't given the game a fair shot yet, as I keep getting pulled into 4X games on my days off, but, one day, one day I will get around to playing it. And Legend of Legacy. And RS3 again. > .<

  13. #133
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Honestly, I kept giving the game the shaft as well for awhile and then finally found myself at a moment where I didn't have anything particular I wanted to play and so I picked this game back up. Got hooked surprisingly fast actually.

  14. #134

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    I should be getting my Switch back today, so I'll probably end up picking it up there finally -- the Steam version wasn't doing it for me, but maybe the more traditional feel of the Switch will. Besides, I really need something to play to keep me sane while people take turns five minutes longer than they should be in other games anyway, and this has always been the mostly highly regarded entry in the series.

    Have there been any updates on the RS3 remake release date?

  15. #135
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Nothing new since the last update I gave. It's still coming along with Scarlet Graces, but I haven't heard anything since.

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