War Is Hell!

U.S. Game Front

The Family That Will Change The World

SaGa Frontier sold fairly well in the U.S., so Square decided to proceed to round 2. Going back to the more medieval settings once again, SaGa Frontier 2 is a lot like this song I couldn't stand hearing as a kid: "Second verse, same as first. A little bit louder, a little bit worse." Okay, so maybe it's not A LOT like the song, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say that SF2 is a bit of a deviation from most SaGa games.

The story is actually a lot better (or at least more coherent) than the original topsy-turvy SaGa Frontier. Actually, I'd say SF2 has a better plot than most of the games in the SaGa series, but there's a primary reason for this: The game is much more structured. This game took away what I liked most about many of the SaGa games; Its free-roaming ways. Instead, the game has you follow two main characters' history. The first is GustaveXIII, the man without a magical soul. He is ridiculed because he was born without Anima, the magical essence of the world that even mere rocks possess. To make things worse, he is a member of the prestigious royal family of the land of Finney, and scorned so deeply by the father who helped bring him into the world that he is exiled from the land along with his mother. He will eventually learn to be strong without Anima and paves the way to one of the greatest movements in history; Modernization and the regular use of the legendary and Anima-less material known as steel. The second character is William Knights, a rookie adventurer (digger) who wants to search the land for treasures and lengendary "Quells" who will ultimately become a part of something much deeper.

While these are the main characters, you will meet many characters, both family and friends, who have their role to play in this legendary undertaking. The graphics of the characters and environments are beautiful, with the backdrops being meticulously hand-drawn. When you get into combat, things become a little less appealing (especially in the new 1-on-1 battles), but the game as a whole is still great looking. The music is excellent...at least in the beginning, but the game doesn't have as much variation as SaGa Frontier. A lot of the tunes sound too reminiscent of one another. I like the audio, but others may not.

The gameplay mixes aspects from many of the SaGa titles. That might seem self-explanatory, but you have to understand that not all the SaGa titles were exactly the same. This game has modern SaGa elements, such as combo attacks (which are much less frequent and only up to four characters instead of five), numerous attack methods, etc. It also has elements I didn't like too much from older SaGa games such as "weapon durability" (a few weapons can't break). The game also has a couple of new elements like swapping learned skills between all characters, pocketstation support, dynamic 1-on-1 battles (think duels, fencing, etc.) and such. The game also has an aging system where character statistics change depending on the age of the character. Once a character dies due to the timeframe of the story (depending on various events that occur over the years), the game doesn't resort to using something quite like the "inheritance" system that Romancing Sa-Ga 2 used, but it's forgivable since skills can be transferred between all characters. While the aforementioned elements are nice, the game is more slow paced and I still like the original SaGa Frontier more. Still, if you're a big RPG fan, then I certainly recommend you give this game a try.

- Written by Vyse the determined -