Home Page / psx / S / Saga Frontier 2 / Review Listing / Review

Normally when a game is really popular, the capitalistic monoliths push for a sequel for easy money. Sometimes the sequel is even better than the original. Occasionally sequels are made of less popular titles. This is the case with Saga Frontier 2. The original Saga Frontier was one of the first generation of role playing games for the Playstation, but it failed to impress most gamers despite its widely branching story line.

Square decided to give it another chance, so they rolled out Saga Frontier 2. In many ways it resembles its predecessor, with nicely drawn and animated sprite graphics and branching story lines covering multiple characters. This resemblance may be just the thing to show that such branching stories aren't what players want. Gameplay:

From the moment I started playing, it was clear that Saga Frontier 2 was not like other RPGs. To begin, you must choose the character whose story you wish to follow. I began with Prince Gustave. I had expected to do the normal RPG thing of walking around and talking to people to find the story. Instead, I was greeted with an automated battle complete with dialog. "No problem," I thought. At least, I thought that before I had to wade through the pages of text and slow animations that were to come. Instead of searching for the story, the story found me. Once the characters finished their dialog, a screen popped up and asked me if I wished to save. Being the cautious gamer I am, I naturally chose to.

Once I had saved, I once again had the choice of stories to follow, so I decided to continue with Gustave. After I sat through a couple more slow animations with a helping of dialog, the save screen popped up again. Now I was starting to worry. Nevertheless, I saved and then continued with Gustave's story. Finally, after going through four such scenes, I reached the magical fifth scene where I could finally move around.

Things didn't necessarily get better from there. Despite my best efforts with Gustave and Wil, I just couldn't get into this game. A lot of this had to do with the presentation of Saga Frontier 2. Each scene is a part of the overall story, but they seem too disjointed and brief. In each one you are presented with the background, and then you execute a short mission. The missions generally require you to go somewhere and talk to someone, with some combat involved along the way.

Each story segment follows this pre-defined pattern. Rather than force you to figure out anything for yourself, in Saga Frontier 2 everything is handed to you on a silver plate. You are always told exactly what to do, and often the reasoning behind it isn't clear.

It is in this way that Saga Frontier 2 is less a role playing game and more an interactive story. I never felt that I was playing the part of a character. Instead this title seems more like reading a book. While there isn't necessarily anything wrong with interactive stories, I don't like them and I certainly wasn't expecting Saga Frontier 2 to be one.

There are no random encounters in Saga Frontier 2. The monsters all walk around on the map and are often avoidable. A number of the passages are too thin for you to slip by, though, so some combat is necessary. One thing that annoyed me was that every time you leave a room, the monsters that inhabit it are restocked. This can become a pain during exploration because it leads to repeated fights with the same old monsters.

Through experience in combat your characters learn new special moves called 'arts'. The arts aren't character specific, so once one character learns an art, any character using the same weapon can take advantage of that art.

Combat in Saga Frontier 2 stands out against other titles with its solo fighting mode. If the option is available, at the beginning of combat you have the choice of either fighting as a group or individually. In the individual mode, you get four actions per round of combat that you can use to create killer combinations, or simply try for an all-out assault. After a number of combats, I decided that group combat was my favorite because it is easier to stay alive when you have four people on your side. Each character also has a number of life points that increase with level, which allow them to recover all of their hitpoints. Even if you lose one character in group mode it's OK, but if you lose in solo mode, it's back to the saved game.

Finally, this game loses a whole point by being Pocket Station friendly. There are a number of people you can talk to who will give you PocketStation programs that you can improve on with the PocketStation and then import back into the game. Unfortunately, the only way to get a PocketStation is to buy an expensive import. Either take it out of the game, or bring them to the U.S.

Longevity:

The advantage of branching story lines is that it lengthens the game. The disadvantage is that it is very difficult not to lose focus when making a game like this. The end result is that if you can manage to enjoy this game, there's plenty of it there. The disadvantage is that I didn't enjoy the game.

Controls:

For the most part Saga Frontier 2's controls are very standard. The menus are east to navigate and in general it falls into the norm of console RPG control. Saga Frontier 2 supports both the digital and analog sticks, the only difference being that the running speed is a tad bit easier to control with the analog stick.

Graphics:

It is good to see Saga Frontier 2 take advantage of the storage space of CDs. Rather than bombard us with lots of full screen movies or voice recordings, Saga Frontier delivers tons of beautiful backgrounds. There are no tiles here, only hand drawn and colored environments. I really like this style a lot, particularly with the abundance of 3D rendered backgrounds that we see these days. Quite frankly, I was getting sick of them. They look gorgeous of course, but Saga Frontier 2 has something new and refreshing. From castles to country, with dungeons in between, these water color paintings are very refreshing to see.

Combat graphics consist of a 3D polygonal background with 2D characters and monsters rotoscoped on top of it. The movement is pretty well matched, but you can only do so much when you try to plant 2D characters on top of a 3D surface.

The monsters are also beautifully rendered drawings. The shading on them adds a lot of depth, and the animations are done from a three-quarter view perspective, which makes all of the creatures really come to life. If there is anything I would change about the monster graphics it is that some of them are too small. I can tell their designs are nice looking, but I can't truly appreciate them due to their size. The bigger creatures look really great, though!

The combat effects are a little lackluster, unfortunately. For the most part they consist of little explosions or flashes. Some attacks do produce more brilliant results, such as the comet attack, but even they aren't so spectacular. I know that the 2D realm is limiting, but I'm certain that they could push the envelope a little harder if they tried.

The worst part of the graphics are the people, though. I can appreciate the cartoony style they are drawn in, but they lack the exquisite shading that the monsters got. The characters could definitely stand to be larger, at least in the combat screen. As it is, they lack features and... well, character. Unfortunately, lack of character fits with the theme of the rest of the game.

Sound:

I'm sorry to say that there isn't much to say about the sound in Saga Frontier 2. The lack of voices leaves the sound effects and music to carry the load, and both of them are pretty much average. The sound effects are absolutely nothing special. If you turned off the music on half a dozen PSX RPGs and just listened to the combat effects, you wouldn't be able to discern Saga Frontier 2 from any of the others.

The music, too, is nothing to get excited about. For the most part it sounds like something you would expect to hear on a 16 bit console. I was particularly disappointed to find that the combat songs were uninspiring. Combat music is the most difficult music to compose for an RPG because it has to be catchy, and remain interesting for the duration of the multitude of combats that the player will have to endure. Instead, the combat music in this title can be easily dissected by the ear into its bleepy instrument components.

Overall:

Saga Frontier 2 proves that you should never make a sequel out of a lousy game unless you plan to make substantial improvements. In the case of an RPG, the most important part of a game is the story and the presentation thereof. Not much has changed from the original, so Saga Frontier 2 remains a game that holds promise, but in the end is rather un-fun to play.

It certainly isn't the worst RPG ever, but with the flood of good games that players have to choose from these days, I don't see why one would select this title unless they have already played through all of the others. It's also possible that I'm the only one who can't stand the tell-don't-show style of this game, so if you're not in my camp, then you should probably give this title a rent to try it out.