izigame.me

The SaGa series was never your Mommy and Daddy of JRPGs.
Where they tell you what to do, what and how to use your weapons/armors. No. You're born, that's it.. good luck! Now get a job and start working from scratch, quite literally. The "free scenario" system was one of the few charming aspects that truly gave players the freedom to shape the story on how WE wanted. Multiple narrative routes, lots of missable sidequests, time events, and recruiting party members. It was always encourage to do 3 full playthroughs but you can be sure that the experience will hardly be the same thing as the last playthrough. Far before what games like Octopath started to achieve (JRPG not telling what to do and where to go, want to explore on your own? Things like that..) except far more grander and convoluted. If anything, the series tends to be the school bully who loves to pick on you when you press New Game. Back in the day this game was (and still is) hailed as the hardest JRPG series out there. Even past entries had this thing called the "LP (Life Point) system". If you go down in battle, you lose a point towards your LP, but if the enemy decide to continue beating on your incapacitated party member (or if you use a skill that eats away at your LP) it can dwindle down to 0. Once that happen, your party member stays dead, forever (at least for that playthrough).
What made this series stand out was the "SaGa battle system." Basically, no levels up or learning magic as you grind. You buy magic, and use it more than once to make it stronger. Simple, yet takes time, especially when you unlock far more complex systems like fusion magic.
There's also the signature game mechanic known in the series as "glimmer system". Whenever faced with a powerful foe, there's a small chance a party member can learn a new move. This will be pivotal at winning a decisive battle, that not only heightens the thrill of taking risks facing power foes but gives a massive sense of satisfaction when you actually learned something new/powerful. It's like something straight out of a shounen anime. Not only that, SaGA 2 had a really unique feature called the "inheritance" magic system, whenever your emperor dies (through plot or conventional means), the next generation emperor will acquire the skills/knowledge the last emperor had. This didn't just applied the the story focused emperor either, the starter characters all have their own branching routes too. Aside from Gerard and Leon and the final emperor, all the other emperors are chosen from members of job classes you’ve unlocked. They also cycle through different characters with each generation (or character death). So while the trailers gave the impression all of the characters are story-related characters, the vast majority of them aren’t. Some of those job classes are different beast races too so you can make a mermaid or reptile emperor. The freedom is there for you to choose and shape.
Granted, like many other SaGa games, this game didn't stand the test of time and did a lot of things that put off many people from trying. Such as, party recruitment and item/gear management. You lose a fight, then pick a successor, then go all around the castle (and sometimes far out of the castle) recruiting your team, then you go BACK to the castle and pull all the equipment out of storage, gear up your group, set up their skills, go to the magic lab and re-teach them all their spells, one at a time...then, you go out, fight the boss, win this time...aaaand it forces a time skip, causing you to have to do the entire process all over again. It was torturous even amongst people like me who loved these games.
Which is why I'm glad that the team behind the Trials of Mana remake picked up SaGa 2 and streamlined the most annoying aspects of it. Some might argue, it's a bit TOO accessible to newcomers. Things like having a glimmer icon reminder next to a weapon/spell that's about to discover a new skill, adding a way-point to everything on the map, even quest markers. To their credit I think it's tasteful and not egregious, but part of the fun of the original was discovering things on your own (it had a CRPG feel to it). Luckily, this can all be disable. However, despite the devs taking liberty to streamline the game, they removed the feature to save anywhere. Now you can only save at save points. Which is a odd change but nothing deal breaker worthy.
In all honesty though, I love the changes, the revamped QoL, the detailed 3D models transitioned well from its 2D counterpart, well polished fluidity to everything, optimized performance, Kenji Ito masterful music composition in all its glory (with the option to switch between remake or original audio).
The SaGa (and Mana) series were always the two that could never catch a break, especially SaGa. It does a lot of things that are unique, but the devs (mostly Kawazu) always had this knack of going "How bout we take everything from a graphical to gameplay standpoint, and make it weird. Yeah, let's do that." On top of having less direct storytelling and guidance than your typical JRPG. Stats increase based on actions in battle instead of normal levels gained through experience. Enemies also grow in strength with your party, discouraging mindless grinding but promoting more thoughtful strategy (sometimes). It was really a black box as to what you’ll get from a new game try comparing SaGa Frontier (PS1), Unlimited SaGa (PS2), and SaGa Scarlet Grace (newer consoles). They are all radically different in terms of animation, exploration, world maps, etc. Truly the "anti-mainstream" series.
The dev team really out did themselves with this remake however, I can without a doubt say for certain.. this is the best starting point for new comers, mechanics are explained well and have some transparency. Newcomers are in for what is essentially "one of" the best Saga titles, as for returning players, prepare for the storm....
Termites!