yeah i think i’ve bounced off this again myself
don’t mean to be too harsh on it, it took a while for romasaga 3 and saga2 ds to really click with me (and i fuckin’ love both now!) but it does feel like there’s just… not a whole lot to this one
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Yeah I should say there are a lot of good moments, plenty of wonderful background sprites like the band in the Scrap Pub, and entertaining lines and moments that I haven’t seen in many other games (not even other SaGa games)
There are elements reminiscent of Live-a-Live to this (though LaL is certainly my preference between the two)
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I had the opposite reaction, this remaster cemented Frontier 1 as one of the strongest SaGa for me
Give me this game’s setting, as the FFL1/2 ideal of richly evocative small disjointed modern places, made better through the help of a SGI workstation, over anything else
7 distinct 10-hours breezy scenarios is a good SaGa structure as it favors experimentation and prevents the JRPG midgame slump where your strategies are set in stone and you’re just going through the motions for a long while. There’s a lot to make each scenario distinct (in terms of available party composition, atmosphere, freedom, unique places and bosses) especially compared to the numerous other attempts in the series like Romancing SaGa 3 or Minstrel Song
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Thank you for doing a much better job than I’ve done of explaining what I’m finding appealing about this game
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Couldn’t disagree more. There’s a huge amount of overlap in possible party members but the scenarios themselves run together. I liked the Riki, Asellus, and Emilia scenarios (of the 5 I played so far) but the practical difference between them amounts to maybe an hour of content, everything else is the same anemic open world.
Whereas Minstrel Song, and even Unlimited Saga felt like each character was its own unique experience, where even the starting position would determine the order I encountered side content (of which, unlike frontier, there was a lot, and because of how the free scenario system was designed, with battle rank locking old quests out and opening up new quests, this would mean each character had a fairly unique palette of adventures to have)
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maybe this doesn’t apply to you tulpa, but i feel like any given kawazu joint is just as likely to make me appreciate the abstract concept of videogames as opposed to just appreciating whatever SaGa game i’m currently fumbling with
as others mentioned above, though, i really really really like the aesthetics of frontier 1; i think that goes an extremely long way for me
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Alright yeah forget what I said about money not being a big deal, I’m instantly broke in Blue’s scenario, especially after buying gold for the Arcane quest. Haven’t been able to buy a single piece of equipment and one of the cards is guarded by a boss that does 600 damage to my whole party. Brutal!
I think I just got the ‘full mystic’ ending for Asellus, and that was definitely…an unexpected resolution
Funny how the last gauntlet of bosses kind of had inverse difficulty curve, the respawning giant guarding the tower gave me a lot of grief, the next two were tricky but no problem, and final boss could barely touch me at all
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My bottomline is this is by no means a bad game, its just the least exciting SaGa game because its so small. I want big with SaGa.
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I am Alkaiser and I am Very Strong. If I save a pup, he joins my party, I cannot transform anymore and we get wiped. What should I do? 
By ‘pup’ do you mean Cotton? They’re optional so you could always come back later.
Alkaiser form prevents you from getting stat upgrades, so I would refrain from using it at all so you can get stronger.
If you’re in the bio lab the monsters there are stronger than most other places. Good for grinding but you may want some party members first
Also worth mentioning you can escape from all regular battles with 100% success rate in case you just need to escape (edit: unless you’re playing the original playstation version)
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Ok! Btw I see that after getting stronger with Alkaiser, the monsters in the biolab got much stronger too
(I am playing the Switch version)
It’s a strange game. I also had some pokemon vibes, especially with Cotton
I want to see how it develops
Monster raising is very confusing but potentially fun, feels like a gachapon machine kind of. I’d say if this is your first time having a monster party member then just mess around with it and see what it turns into, and for later runs you can consult guides to have a better idea of how it works and how to direct evolution.
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Some thoughts now that I cleared Riki and Emelia’s routes
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The game accomodates thematic parties and I’m going for them (all mecs for T260g, all mystics for Asellus, all monsters for Riki, GIRLS for Emelia) Of course in Riki’s case, this is a trap, as monsters are a total liability against the hardest fight in the game: Magma slimes
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I’m pretty unimpressed by monsters, I went out of my way to get a black dragon and a Dullahan and both were pretty average compared to endgame humans. I didn’t even have the patience to make 2 other real endgame monsters
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I get why Felix was trying to shield us from Emelia’s story but the way the game runs out of story is wildly entertaining
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is « Diva » a mistranslation they kept in, or a pun, I still don’t know
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Emelia’s story and Drakengard are the only example I can think of where playing a game more thoroughly nets you a « worse » ending. In SaGa Frontier this… just doesn’t really make any sense, and in Drakengard it’s a cruel joke at the player’s expense.
It’d be interesting to have a game in which completing 100% of the map and getting all the collectibles would translate into the character not being able to let go of the past and ending up in a worse place or something
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The monsters become stronger and stronger as I level up, correct?