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Square’s other RPG series has landed on the PS2.
When most people think of Square, they think of Final Fantasy or at least of role playing games. It’s an instant reaction from someone who is reasonably involved with the gaming industry. Out of Square’s games, the Final Fantasy ones receive the most critical and commercial acclaim. Square’s Saga games have always been the anti-Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy is all about pushing 3D graphics, creating the best available cinematics, pushing story elements and aimed at the casual RPG market. The Saga series is about simple visuals, light story and aimed at a specific and niche market. Unlimited Saga follows that tradition.
Unlimited Saga is very original and as you’ll find out some of that originality kills its mass market appeal. There are a lot of original ideas, but most of them are very complex and require a bit of time to understand. A lot of these ideas aren’t fully explained in the game and the short manual doesn’t help much at times either. Thankfully, I have a helpful Q&A which explained some things to me. I suggest that if you do get the game, you look up something similar online. You’ll need to know these things because the game itself isn’t particularly easy.
In keeping with its originality, Unlimited Saga does a lot of things differently from other RPG games. The actual basics of the adventure, once you get used to them, aren’t that much different. In towns, you can add items to your party members, get information or go on an adventure. Not all adventures are part of the main story since others will simply let you improve your character’s skills. When you complete your various adventures, you’ll receive new skills you can use. Your skills go into a seven-space menu and even the placement of them will have effects on your character. If your character fought in that particular adventure, you’ll get more Hit Points as well.
To complete your adventures, you will move your party on a game board. The game board is all one big map which grows as you travel around. The enemies in the game are also moving around the map.
When you reach a location where an enemy resides, you’ll have to fight all the monsters in that location. The monsters on the way there aren’t really that difficult and the actual adventure is much harder than that. Regardless, this unique system will prove frustrating to some players. Combat is pretty different than in other games as well. Usually, you wipe out someone’s HP and that is it; you won. In Unlimited Saga, it’s possible to have opponents with 0 HP still fight. In order to successfully wipe them out, you need a well thought out and timed critical attack. This works both ways though since you can continue fighting with 0 HP as well.
On the graphics, Unlimited Saga is difficult to rate. The characters and backgrounds are very good looking. On the other hand, they don’t move. That brings the visuals down a notch for me. I was wondered how battles would work but I can safely say that they are indeed better. The battles change character portraits for sprite characters and the wonderfully backgrounds for basic 3D ones.
The sound doesn’t fare much better. The sound effects are very basic, which is what would be expected since there isn’t a lot moving in any particular screen. The voice acting isn’t very good either and some of the voices are very bad. The music is probably the best part of the game and makes you remember this is indeed a Square-Enix title. Luckily, they sell the soundtrack on its own.
Unlimited Saga isn’t for everyone. The gameplay is very different from what everyone is used to. Same could be said for the visuals and pretty much the whole game. While the game isn’t for everyone, fans of previous Saga games should check it out. Anyone else should rent it to make sure they like it before purchasing it. It’s difficulty isn’t something that everyone can get used to. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Jul 14, 2003
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