Last Fantasy. Kingdom Hearts. Mana. Dragon Quest. Chrono. Star Ocean. Valkyrie. Bravely. Sq. Enix has no scarcity of RPG franchises underneath its belt, from these it is developed in-house to beloved classics that it is acquired over time. However amongst all of the space-faring motion RPG and patisserie chef jobs, there’s one Sq.-developed franchise that manages to face clear from the pack: SaGa.
SaGa made its mark on the world again in 1989 on the Sport Boy, making it considered one of Sq.’s longest-running franchises. It’s by no means gained the recognition of its older cousin, but SaGa has collected a die-hard following over time for its dedication to being bizarre and totally different. Non-linear tales, ‘sparks’ and ‘glimmers,’ a number of playable protagonists, and a number of timelines are all par for the course right here.
SaGa wouldn’t exist with out one man particularly — Akitoshi Kawazu — so it’s solely proper that we begin this deep dive into Sq. Enix’s weirdest collection by taking a look at how the creator acquired his begin.
Kawazu’s Saga
Akitoshi Kawazu was born on fifth November 1962 in Oguni, a small city on the isle of Kyushu on the southwest tip of Japan. Regardless of his environment, Kawazu, was not a quiet child. “I used to be proactive, eager to be within the limelight, and was a rowdy child who wouldn’t hesitate to voice my opinion to adults,” he instructed Forbes again in 2017.
Rising up, Kawazu fell in love with sci-fi and video video games – the Star Wars growth hit, Kawazu found the Apple II due to his love of Star Trek, and his favorite online game of all time is Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, which modified his perspective on video video games.
Earlier than he performed Ultima IV, he felt that there have been solely two issues a online game may present: satisfaction in victory, or basking within the glory of completion. However upon assembly a dancer in-game, Kawazu had a revelation: regardless of being “low-resolution”, regardless of it being “a product of an individual in Texas” on the opposite aspect of the world, this single interplay taught him that “it’s okay to supply different issues of worth outdoors of simply profitable or reaching a aim.”
All through college and school Kawazu’s love of gaming carried over to House Invaders and tabletop — generally importing board video games from North America, and even creating his personal. As he instructed Jeremy Parish, he acquired his first style of the video games business as a author on the journal Beep, the place got here throughout an advert for Suishō no Dragon, a Famicom Disk System sport developed by Sq., together with a job itemizing.
Regardless of having by no means heard of the corporate, he utilized and despite the fact that the itemizing was closed he was requested to return in for an interview – first with Hiromichi Tanaka after which with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the “father” of a bit of collection we’ll discuss in a bit. In 1985, he was employed and acquired his first online game credit score on the 1987 NES title Rad Racer as a graphic designer.
Sakaguchi would quickly put the wheels in movement on probably the most common RPG franchises on the earth, and Kawazu was an enormous a part of that.
The Wild Rose
“Let’s purpose to make a sport that may surpass Enix’s Dragon Quest!” is how Kawazu recalled Sakaguchi’s preliminary concept for Last Fantasy.
He was put in command of battle design, implementing the 4 components (fireplace, earth, water, wind) that made up the 4 crystals and sticking to one thing he knew properly – tabletop, Dungeons & Dragons, and conventional fantasy.
Nonetheless, Kawazu’s actual impression got here with the sport’s sequel – and you may’t discuss SaGa with out speaking about Last Fantasy II.
The primary Last Fantasy has a conventional turn-based battle system, you decide from six totally different job courses, and every character ranges up and learns talent based mostly on the expertise they acquire from defeating enemies. Nearly all of that was thrown out of the window for the sequel.
The workforce wished a “extra story-driven sport” for Last Fantasy II, and that formed the best way the sport performed, too. “The system is extra about nurture than nature now. You do not select what you might be at first. You make them develop in a sure method after which they’re going to finally go in a route to change into no matter you set them as much as be,” Kawazu stated in 2012.
In Last Fantasy II, characters don’t develop with expertise factors – they develop based on their actions. Assaults increase assault, expending magic will increase your MP, and taking harm will increase HP. For sure, Kawazu’s concepts didn’t stick round for Last Fantasy III or the remainder of the collection, however the concept wasn’t buried.
A Last Fantasy Legend
With the large success of Tetris on the Sport Boy, Sq.’s president Masafumi Miyamoto wished the corporate to create one thing to rival the block-stacking puzzler. Akitoshi Kawazu, Koichi Ishii (creator of the Mana collection and now president of Grezzo), and others at Sq. thought otherwise, and as a substitute pitched what Sq. was changing into recognized for: an RPG.
Thus, Makai Toushi Sa・Ga, or SaGa, was born. Kawazu grew to become lead director and designer, and with this new IP on a booming console, he “wished to do issues that Last Fantasy would not do or could not do.”
Know as The Last Fantasy Legend within the West, Kawazu and the workforce constructed on what they realized from FFII. However there have been a number of methods they wished to diverge from Sq.’s premiere RPG collection. They didn’t need a story that centred on saving the world, selecting climbing a tower to succeed in paradise and – in fact – defeat a god. Oh, and climbing up the tower, you could possibly go to different worlds, and job courses had been swapped in favour of various ‘Races’ – people, monsters, and mutants.
Kawazu wished one thing distinctive, however one thing that caught to that “nurture” philosophy. People, for example, can put on virtually all kinds of gear, however to extend their stats, they need to eat gadgets that increase issues like power, defence, and even HP. Monsters, nevertheless, get stronger by consuming meat, which is dropped by enemies in battle – and never solely can the meat improve stats, however it may well additionally change the monster’s sub-class.
For 1989, it was extremely distinctive, and it’s nonetheless distinctive at this time. Retrospectively, it’s superb that SaGa grew to become Sq.’s first sport to promote over 1,000,000 copies, so in fact SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu (Last Fantasy Legend II) adopted only a yr later.
SaGa 2 follows roughly the identical gameplay template because the earlier sport; you possibly can go to a number of worlds, fight is basically the identical – people now degree up like mutants and sooner, whereas now you can select what mutant mutations to maintain – and you continue to decide from totally different races moderately than courses. Robots had been added, the world was designed to be “a bit of extra bleak”, and it’s an enchancment on the unique in virtually each single method.
SaGa 2 was one other success and is commonly thought-about probably the greatest SaGa video games. On the time, Nintendo approached Sq. about transferring the collection to the Tremendous NES, however fan demand for a 3rd SaGa sport was robust. As such, the RPG big determined to work on two video games directly – Akitoshi Kawazu would work on a SNES title, whereas a model new Osaka-based workforce would work on what grew to become SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha (Last Fantasy Legend III).
This third entry is essentially the most accessible of the trilogy, nevertheless it additionally scraps loads of Kawazu’s concepts from the primary two. Whereas the world is rather more expansive, and you may journey between dimensions and eras utilizing an upgradeable airship, expertise factors make a return, and character races had been simplified so you could possibly improve People into different races.
Fortuitously for followers, SaGa wasn’t abandoning its extra esoteric components, as Kawazu was busy engaged on the 16-bit sport.
Romancing the SaGa
With the Sport Boy entries, Kawazu stated the workforce “positioned emphasis on with the ability to play casually,” however with Romancing SaGa he “aimed for a fantasy role-playing sport that adults may get pleasure from.” Out went the extra sci-fi-inspired settings, robots, and mechanical weapons and in got here a extra “romantic” setting. The brand new title, based on Kawazu, may very well have come from 1986’s Romancing the Stone – as recommended by SaGa 2 debugger and future Stay A Stay state of affairs designer Nobuyuki Inoue.
No matter its origins, the whole lot from the artwork, visuals, music, and setting is ‘romantic,’ in a literary sense. From its pastel-hued artwork and pixels to the extra conventional fantasy setting, Romancing SaGa feels totally different from its predecessors, even with its non-linear development. You’ve now acquired eight totally different protagonists, all of which have their very own private narratives that finally tie into the principle aim: to gather the Fatestones and defeat Saruin, an imprisoned god who desires to destroy the world.
Romancing SaGa is the place the ‘core’ SaGa workers had been established. Kawazu would direct this trilogy and go on to supply the remainder of the collection; Kenji Ito, co-composer on SaGa 2 (alongside one Nobuo Uematsu), would change into the collection’ fundamental composer; and Tomomi Kobayashi’s first massive break was on Romancing SaGa, and she or he’d stick round till SaGa Emerald Past.
The sport launched in January 1992 on the Tremendous Famicom and was successful, so lots of the key workers had been moved over to assist on the following Last Fantasy sport – Last Fantasy V. That allowed Kawazu to prepare dinner up concepts. Again in 2019, he instructed us that “com[ing] up with a good suggestion for a brand new design that would solely work on these new platforms” excites him, and whereas Romancing SaGa takes benefit of that, nowhere is that felt greater than in its direct sequel.
Romancing SaGa 2 doubles down on the open-ended construction with a complete kingdom that you would be able to develop. This sport can also be the place the Glimmer – additionally known as ‘sparking’ – was launched. Characters will generally get a bit of lightbulb above their head, that means they’re about to study or grasp a brand new talent. It’s type of random, relying on the monster you’re preventing and the issue of the method. Life Factors additionally made their debut, and in most video games, that is akin to a permadeath – LP goes down if a personality loses all their well being, or in the event that they’re hit once they’re unconscious and at 0, that’s it. They’re gone.
There’s, nevertheless, one mechanic solely distinctive to Romancing SaGa 2: the Generational system. Finally, the participant character will cross on, and you should select a brand new ruler to hold on this legacy and proceed your plight in opposition to the Seven. The brand new ruler will get various abilities and spells from the earlier ruler, handed on by a magic spell.
Extremely, simply 20 folks labored on Romancing SaGa 2, and the workforce was made up of a set of future Sq. all-stars: Akihiko Matsui, who later went on to co-direct Chrono Set off; Yasunori Mitsuda labored on the sport’s sound results earlier than happening to compose for the Chrono collection, Xenogears, and, finally, Xenoblade Chronicles; and Tetsuo Mizuno, founding father of the now-defunct AlphaDream, was the sport’s producer.
Romancing SaGa 2 is the best-selling of the Tremendous Famicom trilogy, shifting over 1.5 million copies in Japan alone. Accompanied by guidebooks and a manga, it’s clear the second sport hit a nerve with hardcore Japanese gamers.
Curiously, then, 1995’s Romancing SaGa 3 goes again to the primary sport’s construction, abandoning the technology system and giving the participant eight protagonists to choose from. Like SaGa 3 earlier than it, Romancing SaGa 3 might be the simplest sport to ‘get into’ this trilogy, nevertheless it proved to be tough to develop, because the workforce initially appeared to create a sequel to the primary sport, whereas Kawazu wished to make one thing wholly distinctive.
“On the time, we had been discussing whether or not RPGs actually need to characteristic battles,” Kawazu instructed Dengeki On-line in 2014. “So we puzzled if we may add one thing to RPGs that would substitute battles.” Fight continues to be there, in fact, however ‘additional’ actions bolster Romancing SaGa 3. Mikhail, for instance, has his personal mini-war marketing campaign alongside the principle RPG narrative, and Thomas can use buying and selling to progress. Some sidequests noticed characters taken out of the occasion, whereas others unlocked new areas.
Sadly, the West wouldn’t get to see any of those grand concepts till the PlayStation 2 remake of Romancing SaGa, referred to as Minstrel Tune, and the 2017 and 2019 remasters on Change. Nonetheless, even with the SNES entries skipping our a part of the world, SaGa would quickly return to our shores.
New Frontiers
SaGa Frontier jumped ship from Nintendo to Sony with the remainder of Sq.’s catalogue, and upon its launch in 1998, it was the primary entry to land within the West since Last Fantasy Legend III. Equally necessary, this was the primary SaGa sport to retain the ‘SaGa’ title worldwide.
SaGa Frontier is, once more, utterly totally different from Romancing SaGa and Sport Boy SaGa. We’re again to a science fantasy world, right here known as The Areas. Kawazu shared his reasoning for altering issues up once more within the companion e-book, The Full of SaGa Frontier (translated by Sevon at The Essence of Saga Frontier). “The three Romancing SaGa video games came about in worlds with well-defined guidelines. I wished to place a spin on that.”
The Areas is made up of a number of planets, and every of the seven (eight within the 2021 Remaster) is from a kind of. Each planet has its personal tradition and know-how, whereas each protagonist has their very own story and totally different last boss.
Even fight is expanded on within the type of combos, permitting characters to pair up when sure situations are met. Triggering these isn’t at all times apparent, and Kawazu even admits the situations are “fairly strict,” nevertheless it provides a brand new degree of occasion customisation to the collection. After all, talent glimmers are again, however you can even purchase some spells in retailers.
With its expanded concentrate on story and character, it’s not shocking that SaGa Frontier 2 follows up on that facet. However, in fact, it does many issues otherwise. Introducing a brand new composer – Masashi Hamauzu, who would later go on to compose for Last Fantasy X, XIII, and VII Remake – it establishes a surprising watercolour artwork type for the entire sport’s backgrounds. And whereas Frontier 2 limits you to simply two protagonists, the story goes again to spanning a number of a long time and re-embraces that fantasy setting, this time impressed by Germanic and Anglo-Saxon folklore.
With 2002’s Limitless Saga, nevertheless, Kawazu is at his most experimental. Hamauzu returns to compose alongside system director Jyunichi Shinomiya, with Last Fantasy X artist Yusuke Naora becoming a member of the workforce. Simply essentially the most divisive title within the collection, it leans closely on Kawazu’s love of board video games, proper all the way down to exploration going down on an precise board.
Each single motion – whether or not it’s a motion, assault, or encounter – takes up a ‘flip’ and a few missions and story occasions must be accomplished in a sure variety of turns. Add in weapon sturdiness and a needlessly difficult gear system and you’ve got a sport with willfully inscrutable mechanics that, reportedly, Kawazu pushed via anyway. As a result of that is apparently how he likes them and there is no one to inform him he cannot.
Sing a Tune
Kawazu’s bullishness was mirrored within the gameplay, but in addition within the sport’s essential reception, which was largely damaging. And whereas SaGa Frontier would later be remastered for contemporary consoles, Frontier 2 and Limitless SaGa are each MIA.
Fortunately, each different title has seen a rerelease. The final sport earlier than a late-2000s, early-2010’s lull was that Romancing SaGa remake, Minstrel Tune.
Arriving on PS2 in 2005 (and Change in 2022), it took the bones of the Tremendous Famicom sport and reworked it into the primary fully-3D SaGa. Many components from different entries had been retroactively added, equivalent to combo assaults, LP, and sparking, and a fast save characteristic permitting gamers to make short-term saves in dungeons.
Regardless of Kawazu as soon as commenting that “The extra gamers say ‘Let’s make it a bit of simpler,’ the extra I wish to make it a tough sport!” there was a concerted effort to make Minstrel Tune a little extra accessible. That’s much more the case with the 2022 remaster, the place mini-maps and a fast-forward operate had been added. New recruitable characters and enhanced bosses simply sweeten the deal for followers.
The PS2 model reviewed poorly within the West, and the collection fell right into a little bit of a hiatus. A brand new console sport wouldn’t land till 2016 in Japan – 11 years after Minstrel Tune – however Kawazu had been leaping between initiatives within the meantime.
By no means one to relaxation on his laurels – having labored on Legend of Mana, Racing Lagoon, and Last Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles within the previous years as producer – Kawazu would go on to assist with Last Fantasy XII, earlier than sticking with the Crystal Chronicles collection for various video games, and co-writing on The Final Remnant, a 2008 RPG for Xbox 360.
SaGa would return in 2012 with Emperors SaGa, a cell ‘social sport’ that makes use of digital taking part in playing cards in fight. The style was common on the time in Japan, however producer Takehiro Ando admitted to Polygon in 2013 that he was “fairly nervous” about placing SaGa into that framework. It was common in Japan, nevertheless it by no means left the nation and the service was shut down in 2017.
Imperial SaGa adopted in 2015, one other Japanese unique and a browser-based RPG. It was extra historically SaGa, with a world map to discover and turn-based fight and levelling that was solely action-based. Waning help for Adobe Flash meant the sport was shut down in late 2019, with a sequel launched quickly after.
Good Grace
SaGa’s quieter years had been coming to an finish within the mid-2010s, as alongside the announcement of Imperial SaGa, a model new SaGa sport was revealed – SaGa Scarlet Grace. Co-developed by Enterprise Division 3, Studio Reel, and Opus, Scarlet Grace was initially a Japanese unique, launching on the PS Vita in 2016. Kawazu wished to see the way it was acquired in Japan earlier than releasing it worldwide, and in the end the workforce delivered an expanded model on a number of platforms abroad which launched in 2019 as SaGa Scarlet Grace: Ambitions.
Earlier than that, Romancing SaGa 2 made its Western debut in 2017, and it felt just like the tide was turning within the West for SaGa. “I imagine trendy gamers received’t discover this sport jarring,” Kawazu instructed Forbes previous to launch. And he was proper. Longtime followers had been being rewarded for ready, whereas newcomers may lastly discover out what all of the fuss was about.
Again to Scarlet Grace: Ambitions, it’s kind of of a ‘best hits’ of SaGa. There are components of each single sport in right here, however Scarlet Grace was additionally constrained by its funds, which resulted in dungeons being solely scrapped in favour of chains of enemy encounters, a call that Kawazu was “frightened” about, nevertheless it was “unexpectedly well-received.” The sport was initially meant to have eight playable characters, however that solid was reduce all the way down to 4. And the world map was 2D, just like a board sport like Limitless Saga, however the fight nonetheless contained that scrumptious slice of SaGa.
The brand new wrinkle right here was the Timeline – just like Last Fantasy X, you possibly can see the flip order of each character and enemy on the backside of the display. You’ll be able to have an effect on that flip order relying by yourself actions, which eat Battle Factors. Your occasion shares Battle Factors and, as soon as they’re all consumed, the “flip” performs out. Combos, now known as United Assaults, can scale back the price of abilities. In different phrases, it’s SaGa enterprise as ordinary, however with a extra refined and snappy system.
Bringing the sport to the West proved to be fairly the problem, and 8-4 localiser Graeme Howard instructed Siliconera that it was across the similar quantity of labor “as translating 4 modestly-sized RPGs” because of the sport non-linear construction, a number of protagonists, and the totally different accents that every character has.
With Scarlet Grace: Ambitions reviewing properly within the West, the collection had discovered a brand new lease of life. Remasters of Romancing SaGa 3, SaGa Frontier, and Minstrel Tune quickly adopted, every with enhancements and additions to entice newcomers and satiate followers. Not solely that, the Sport Boy trilogy was rereleased as Assortment of SaGa Last Fantasy Legend in 2020, with a speed-up operate, background customisation, and display magnification.
One other cell sport, Romancing SaGa Re:Universe (2018 in Japan, 2020 globally – though the sport is about to close down) additionally sneaked into the line-up, however SaGa’s largest yr, with two new video games – one model new, one full remake – was simply across the nook.
Inexperienced Revenge
You might name 2024 the 12 months of SaGa, and SaGa Emerald Past is the sport that actually cemented this collection’ renaissance.
Launched in April worldwide, Emerald Past is actually a continuation of Scarlet Grace mechanically – there aren’t any dungeons, the fight is analogous however improved upon, and the world map is one massive 2D-style airplane. Kawazu wished to construct on the “pared-back RPG” expertise from Scarlet Grace however, as he shared in a Sq. Enix interview, additionally wished to create a sport the place “the consumer interface, sport world, and sport mechanics had been all intimately linked.”
Emerald Past revisits that science fantasy theme that SaGa Frontier and the Sport Boy titles embraced; it encourages you to dive into the lore, taking part in via the sport with all 5 characters and all six routes. There are a number of worlds, and races return, too, every with their very own distinctive abilities.
However it additionally charts a course to a brand new SaGa future – Satoshi Kuramochi, character designer on Scarlet Grace, is now lead artist, and whereas it does construct upon Tomomi Kobayashi’s lovely paintings, the color scheme utilized in Emerald Past is not like every other entry.
With its newfound viewers, SaGa was regularly rising, so color the world shocked when Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven – a full-blown 3D remake of the Tremendous Famicom sport – was introduced throughout a Nintendo Direct that summer season. Not solely that, it was launching in October.
Much more than Minstrel Tune, Revenge of the Seven is a whole visible overhaul of the unique sport. Shinichi Tatsuke, who produced the Trials of Mana remake, acted as producer right here, and it will get a visible glow-up akin to that Seiken Densetsu 3 remake.
Tatsuke was given “free rein” by Kawazu to do what he favored with Romancing SaGa 2, however Tatsuke was eager to maintain the unique really feel of the sport intact, and so consulted with Kawazu on a number of components. However one of many keys, together with the newer video games, appeared to be to convey new followers into the fold.
Revenge of the Seven offers you a number of difficulties to select from, new episodes that includes the Seven Heroes – the sport’s fundamental “villains” – and there at the moment are markers on the map to point out you the place you possibly can go subsequent. You’ll be able to verify on the standing of your kingdom at any time from the menu moderately than travelling again to Avalon. And now you can pressure your emperor to abdicate, thereby passing on the abilities and stats to considered one of six characters, moderately than 4.
Even the fight, which stays basically the identical because the Tremendous Famicom model, has acquired some modernisations. Enemy weaknesses are seen in battle, and you may see enemy and occasion flip orders on the prime, just like Scarlet Grace and Emerald Past.
It virtually seems to be and seems like a brand new sport, however there’s a definite flavour that reminds you that this can be a basic SaGa sport, Glimmers and all. It may not hit 100% with everybody, however the sport was forward of its time in 1993, and in some ways, it’s nonetheless forward of its time in 2024. Lengthy reside the SaGa Empire, says Sq. Enix.
What Lies Past
With this SaGanissance, the long run is limitless, although we don’t truly know what’s subsequent for the collection.
Again in 2021, across the launch of SaGa Frontier Remastered, Akitoshi Kawazu instructed viewers on a launch stream that SaGa Frontier 2 and Limitless SaGa (Minstrel Tune was additionally talked about, however that has since been rereleased) had been “ignored,” however that the workforce desires to “by some means launch these titles, so that everybody can play them anytime.”
That was three years in the past, and we’ve acquired a number of SaGa video games, new and outdated, since. Listings of SaGa Frontier 2 for Change have appeared on-line, so it’s most likely solely a matter of time earlier than the entire SaGa collection is playable on trendy consoles.
The one factor we will say for sure is that the way forward for SaGa is trying very, very vivid certainly.
Have you ever jumped into any of the SaGa video games? What would you wish to see subsequent? Tell us within the feedback.