Square Enix remasters and expands SaGa Frontier, a peculiar RPG from the first PlayStation that was not distributed in Europe.
The reissue of classics on modern platforms is always good news, especially if they never officially arrived in Spain. SaGa Frontier Remastered , available for sale on PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC, iOS and Android, is a good example of this: Released in Japan in 1997 and a year later in the United States, Square Enix’s RPG for PlayStation never made it to the market. Europe . It was not a bad game and in fact in Japan it was very popular, reissued several times, and managed to become the 15th best-selling launch in the country on the console. The reception in the US was somewhat colder, partly because this audience – and the media – only had their eyes on more powerful blockbusters of the time, like Final Fantasy VII . Nevertheless,Without being a masterpiece of the genre at the level of the best 32-bit JRPGs, many fans have fond memories of him .
A choral history
After remastering numerous Final Fantasy , main and spin-offs , we can see that Square Enix’s strategy is to continue remastering part of its classic catalog on consoles, PC and mobile phones. SaGa Frontier comes with a remastering that visually brings few new features compared to the original – generally the Remaster tagline supposes polished graphics, better audio, etc. – but that does provide new content so that it can be considered the best version of SaGa Frontier , a “director’s cut” unpublished to date.
What’s so special about SaGa Frontier ? First of all we do not have a single and defined hero but seven playable characters – made eight in Remastered – who live in a universe called The Regions, with different planets, cultures and races. Many are human, while T260G is a robot and Riki is a fox-like creature that lives in the mysterious world of Margmel. Each one has its motivations and objectives, which gives rise to stories of fantasy and magic, thriller or revenge , and although the duration of each campaign is not very long for the standard of the role -about 15 hours-, the idea is to repeat with all in successive games.
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Each story has its motivations and the tone will be different, so it is normal that you do not like all the characters the same.
During the original planning nine stories were shuffled, but one was discarded for falling too much into comedy, while Fuse was cut due to time and CD capacity issues ; this is the protagonist incorporated in Remastered -available after fulfilling certain conditions-, along with new scenes and events in the history of Asellus that did not appear in 1997 . Obviously for the majority European public the whole adventure is new, but even if you know the original, it can justify a new game. If you want to play the content of the original – something that does not provide any advantage – it is also possible.
This development, much more open than other role-playing games , allows us to see stories that intersect, dialogues that vary depending on events or group selection, and great freedom to explore and participate in optional missions. The design of the SaGa , and also of this SaGa Frontier , makes it quite tough for novices looking for a more guided experience ; This is the double-edged sword of the game, which has its great claim in its Free Scenario System : soon you will be able to start looking for information, new companions or participate in combats of a slightly above average difficulty, but you can also feel lost to its possibilitiesor disconnect because the story sometimes loses its rhythm and does not go as deep as it could in the secondary ones and even the protagonists; It is a game that wants to cover a lot but does not always press.
There are no random battles, so you can avoid many of the clashes if you don’t feel like it.
Specificities in their progression system depending on the race – in humans the statistics increase according to certain conditions, such as use during combat, or that not all races use weapons, that monsters absorb abilities, that there is a limit of techniques for lead into combat… – require a learning time. To this must be added the language obstacle that many players will encounter: the texts are in English . Turn-based fighting is apparently quite traditional, with the option of using attacks, skills or magic, but here there are also curiosities such as learning consecutive special attacks with up to five members of the group, devastating and spectacular. Oh, and there are no random matches here, which is usually one of the main discomforts of returning to the role of 20 years ago.
SaGa Frontier Remastered is one of those RPGs where playing alongside a guide doesn’t seem like cheating; sometimes it is more enjoyable with information that the game should provide. But, in any case, the design of the adventure that increases the difficulty and complexity is part of the charm, so gamers with patience will discover all the virtues of a different adventure , with a fun and demanding combat, like those that almost no longer are made. As for other improvements of the remastering, we can mention a mode that accelerates the speed of the game and the combats – similar to that seen in the Final Fantasy adaptations – and a small gallery of illustrations and music.
The graphics have been polished and it won’t be easy to see pixelated elements.
A lovely setting
The story takes place in scenarios of rendered backgrounds that, although they do not have the quality seen in Chrono Cross or the Final Fantasy of PlayStation, they have not aged too badly. They present a mostly simple style, something logical because excessive detail would be inconsistent with the characters, in 2D , which is what really screeched the players of the time. Obviously it has its limitations in resolution and animations -especially in the combats, which play with 2D decoration and small polygonal elements-, but what before could be seen as an “old-fashioned” RPG compared to the competition today any fan of retro games you will be able to assume it without problems. It’s an old-fashioned RPG, for better and for worse, andthe remastering doesn’t show as many pixels in sprites or textures during battles , so some graphic work has been done.
Pre-rendered scenarios with more fantasy still exude beauty.
One aspect of the remastering to criticize is its intrusive interface , more typical of a mobile game – and therefore, with large buttons for touch control – that does not look too good on the big screen. SaGa Frontier Remastered is also released on iOS and Android, which will probably be the best-selling versions, but it is a pity that a design adapted to the new times has not been sought. A minor complaint, in any case.
In the soundtrack we will find some extra songs by the composer Kenji Ito for the new scenes of Fuse . It’s not one of the great 90s Square Enix soundtracks but it does have that signature 32-bit role-playing sound.
‘SaGa Frontier Remastered’ is for gamers of the genre, and the dedication it demands is rewarded with a peculiar and different adventure to, for example, ‘Final Fantasy’.
Conclusions
Even if SaGa Frontier Remastered does not remaster an RPG at the height of the greats of the time, seeing it in Europe and with new content should be a source of joy for all fans of the genre . The inclusion of Fuse is not a mere whim, it brings back stories that had been cut more than two decades ago, and also peppers the experience with other improvements that soften, a bit, the difficulty of this complex role-playing game. The weak points are the same as always, starting with the irregularity of the stories –impossible for all of them to maintain the same level- or that freedom sometimes plays against them. All in all, this is the best way to enjoy the classic , and to pay off a debt if you have had it pending for a long time.
