SaGa Frontier really only delivers on the last, because its intent isn’t really to be consistent or to keep the player entertained with one plotline for dozens of hours.
This makes it pretty divisive – your typical Square JRPG fan wants a lengthy story, with character arcs, consistent atmosphere, and a snappy (if not also easy) battle system. SaGa Frontier IS a mess – a weird, unfocused mess and even remembering it, having played it recently, feels a little bit like a fever-dream because it is so unfocused. Prior to the PSX, and after it, there were few games like it. The few pieces I remembered were a chaotic mess of vampires, robots, magic, and the bio-lab. I played SaGa Frontier when it came out in 1998 but don’t have many memories of it. the first round of Final Fantasy mobile remakes).
Watching remasters come out or get localized for the first time has been a treat, since it’s like getting a new classic RPG series, with most of the original sensibilities intact (in contrast to e.g. The ones I did play either didn’t have the SaGa label (Final Fantasy Legend), or were among the few that made it over during the golden age of RPGs – which is, of course, when I was mature enough to enjoy them and had the time to play them. It's worth noting that this sprite proves that the poofy white thing normally on White Rose's head is a hat, not her hair.I’ve mostly been a “SaGa-adjacent” RPG player, primarily because many of these games didn’t make it over. Early versions of the game would have had them escape Facinaturu via Kurenai, the sentient flame pit just outside the town, which is indeed where these would have been used. just as they appear: Asellus and White Rose, naked. Given her important-looking appearance, she may also have been who the unused "Woman" was supposed to be. She looks rather like some sort of superhero, so it's possible she'd have had some connection to Red's chapter. The third sprite is of a mysterious woman who appears several times in the debug room. It's possible this sprite was intended for CommonMec, but wasn't implemented. The second sprite is a Type 7 mec with a silver palette not used anywhere in the game. The first is one of the few pieces of evidence left pointing to Fuse's dropped chapter: a Despair worker uniform, the same type worn by Red, Blue, and Lute if they visit Despair in search of the Freedom Rune. In addition to the characters listed above, there are also a handful of unused sprites which can also be seen in the debug room. The only way out of the debug room is via the RegionMap, so you may wish to either visit the debug room as Blue or hack in a RegionMap via GameShark.
In the case of Red and Riki, two sprites are displayed, and the upper ones will change you into Alkaiser and Riki's humanoid form, respectively.īeyond this screen are numerous more "debug rooms", but there's nothing else to do, as the entire remainder of the debug room is simply a sprite test, although there's some interesting stuff here if you care to explore. The second area consists of all the main characters (including Fuse another remnant of his lost chapter), and speaking with any of them will change your "map" sprite (the character you walk around as) to that character. When you're finished, exit to the right to access more of the debug room.
Monsters and unused characters are represented by slimes the one in the middle is "Woman", and the top row, from left to right, are as follows: CommonMec, Thunder, Cotton, Sei, Kylin, Slime, Suzaku, and RedTurnip. Simply talk to the chosen character, and choose the top option to add it to the party, or the bottom one to remove it. In this room, you can add or remove characters to your team at your leisure, allowing you to effectively create mix-and-match "dream teams" not normally available.