overdrive's Saga Frontier review

I really wanted SaGa Frontier for years after seeing an add for it. The backgrounds looked so pretty and the promise of a "free form scenario" sounded just grand. After playing the original SaGa games on Gameboy, Alliance Alive, and Legend of Legacy, SaGa Frontier seemed like it would be all types of good.

Well I finally got the Switch remaster. About 10 hours into Red's scenario, I can only describe it as disappointing. The encounter rate is bananas, the dialog is about as nonsensical as NES-era stuff, the quests make no sense and really need a guide, and the difficulty is very uneven. I think the most frustrating part is how combos seem to be the big damage dealers but they aren't in the player's control. I feel like I'm just picking random moves that I've seen combo before and hoping for the best. I don't really feel like I have agency here, despite the promise of more freedom.

I'm going to attempt to finish Red's story and then try another on NG+ and see if it's more tolerable. There's some interesting ideas here, but it feels really sloppy and half-baked.

Kudos to you for actually playing the original version. I can't imagine playing this game without being able to flee combat or see descriptions of what abilities do.

It's been forever since I played the PS version and I recall the difficulty to be very all-over-the-place. A couple scenarios (including Red) were pretty easy overall, while others were brutal. Don't think I finished Blue's, the monster's or the woman looking for her boyfriend's because they got insanely tough. Or at least, I'd powered up enough that the monster encounters hit a whole new level of brutal.

My main hatred point for this game came from repetitiveness. You have 7 different stories is a great idea, but loses its luster when you cover the same ground in so many of them. If you want good magic, you have to do Blue's magic-acquiring quests every single time and Lute's quest is so short that you'll find yourself doing every quest you've done in every story just so you're not comically under-powered when you take on its main dungeon.

The remaster as a NG+ feature (that I haven't utilized yet since I haven't finished a scenario) that let's you carry over stuff from another scenario. It's not clear to me if you'll keep learned spells and such or just equipment/stats though. That probably eliminates most grinding and need to complete side quests (unless required by the main quest).

If I could change one thing it would be to swap in traditional random encounters (seriously). The enemy sprites are hard to avoid on the map and respawn every time you leave/enter a screen. There lots of areas were you just get hit with like 3 encounters in a row and can't move. I just finished the Tanzer monster sidequest and the combination of "where am I supposed to go?" with constant, literally didn't take a single step forward, encounters really drained the fun out of it.