As odd as it may seem to some considering how many video games I have squirreled away in my closet, I want to take some time and talk about a downtrodden title that is of little consequence to most: SaGa Frontier.Why take the time to talk about SaGa Frontier, a game that was – quite literally – left in the dust despite the massive upheaval and embrace Final Fantasy VII managed to create for the genre outside its port of origin? Well it’s simple: I’m a fan. Outside the aforementioned Final Fantasy VII (maxing materia for the various master materia) and Blizzard’s Diablo II (moo!) I don’t think there’s a game that’s consumed my gaming hours like SaGa Frontier did. Okay, that “140 hours of gameplay” they boast about on the back is a bit bogus (it takes what, about eight to ten hours to clear any given scenario with a group of adequately powered characters; times that by seven and it takes roughly half the touted time) but like most I wasn’t typically happy with just beating a scenario. No. I always wanted to see how powerful I could make my team. Hit the hit-point cap of nine hundred ninety-nine? Can’t resist. Try and get every sword/fighting/gun technique outside Dragon Turn (oh don’t even get me started on Dragon Turn!) on my human characters? Definitely, expect nothing less from one of my files thirty to sixty hours later.
Still, this piece isn’t about how buff one can make their characters (which is pretty fun) but about an aspect of SaGa Frontier that was left out to dry. While some are obviously screaming “the whole game was” right now I’m a little more focused in my pursuits. What am I talking about? It’s not really one particular element per say but rather how the elements in the game are explained – or rather how they were left unexplained. Looking at the manual for the game and comparing it to those from other role-playing games like Legend of Legaia or anything else on the market at the time does anyone see this as the giant FU that it is? Sure, we get some “bare bones” idea of what some of the game’s systems do but beyond that SaGa pretty much leaves the player to their own devices. It’s a lot like an inept father giving a child a bike and saying “ah, screw it, you’ll figure it out.” This pretty much sums up SaGa Frontier to a lot of Western gamers: fiddle around, “feel out” the situation, get murdered and form the hypothesis that you’re not meant to do “this particular” thing yet. So you’ll come back later. Also popular is the whole “don’t save here! Point of no return! Quicksave only!”
Now, I don't point this out to paint SaGa in a bad light. Hell, part of what I like about the game is the sheer lack of direction even though there is a finite list of things to do. The real reason I point this out is because where the manual dropped the ball on really explaining the mechanics of the game’s world Brady’s official guide could have picked up the slack. That would have been the smart thing to do and would have made Brady’s guide a little more than the semi-memorable footnote in the minds of SaGa Frontier fans. Nice as that would be, we all know how this story ends, the player being thrown into the pages covering Riki’s scenario as fast as it takes to turn past the acknowledgements page.So what does this lack of explanation (which fans have been more than willing to make up for on sites like GameFAQ with their own text-based guides and through reverse engineering) have to do with modern reality? Not much, in fact the idea that SaGa might have caught on with a wider audience with a more concise explanation of it’s in and outs is pretty much moot, but it calls to attention this really isn’t the case in Japan where the game has some stellar media documenting how complex of a game it really is.
Enter “The Essence of SaGa Frontier” and “The Complete of SaGa Frontier” by Studio Bent Stuff. While “The Complete of SaGa Frontier” takes on the role of Brady’s strategy guide to a much greater extent (which is hardly a surprise given the quality of Japanese goods) “The Essence of SaGa Frontier” is something else entirely. Everything a SaGa Frontier fan could want is in this book; from a scenario recap that explains how all the quest eventually tie together (hey, Slime IS important!) to the real ending to Blue/Rouge’s game (and who acquired which magic and won the one-on-one duel) and much, much more. Working with the limited knowledge I had of the book before purchasing it, I thought it be an artbook first and everything else second. Boy was I wrong. Despite the fact I can’t read even an inch of it’s text to save my life (if there was ever a moment outside video game music soundtrack tracklistings that made me want to know Japanese this is it!) it’s easy to tell even beyond the illustrations that The Essence does the game justice – even the parts that didn’t make it into the final product!Regardless, a truly comprehensive of this book a still a long ways off even fourteen years after the fact. Granted I can’t see someone translating all 336 pages of this thing (that’s excluding the illustration section) but the tidbits of this book that have made their way onto the internet in English – interesting as they may be – are hardly enough. Let’s hope someone out there corrects that some day….
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