Romancing SaGa 3

released on Oct 28, 2019

A remaster of Romancing SaGa 3

The celebrated RPG classic comes West for the first time! Experience a brand-new HD remaster of the legendary 1995 RPG masterpiece introducing optimised graphics, a new dungeon to explore, new scenarios and a new game+ function.


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This review contains spoilers

Great albeit very difficult J-RPG.
Reached the Abyss but final bosses gauntlet too brutal.
Needs to redo in NG+ and develop more Magic spells.

Playing this game evokes the same feeling as being left behind by your mom at a checkout line in a grocery store and the line keeps moving faster and faster and she just wouldn't come back.

Romancing SaGa sempre tenta me ensinar o desapego, a aproveitar a jornada, a lutar pelo que é seu mas também aceitar que certas oportunidades nós iremos perder.

é uma cruzada louvavel a qual respeito demais, mas admito que é difícil não abrir um guia pra ver os mais de 21 personagens recrutáveis do jogo e não querer decidir e lutar pelo seu grupo ideal logo de inicio, é difícil não ir procurar se a sua decisão terá consequências terríveis, se você ficara preso fora de uma questline, se não vai deixar o boss final mais forte.

mas, meu alento é pensar que esses jogos sempre saiam com guias lindos cheios de ilustrações e que a criança japonesa la em 1995 certamente ia ansiosa comprar ele pra descobrir todos os seus segredos. acho que também há uma magia em utilizar-se das escrituras arcanas para descobrir os segredos do mundo. como alguém que viveu na geração e no país de pessoas que zeravam jogos apenas lendo seus detonados nas revistas, ou que também simplesmente não sabiam inglês, é difícil pra mim não ter um carinho especial por uma jornada acompanhada do seu fiel guia.

acho que akitoshi kawazu sabe que seus jogos são igualmente impenetráveis e também fascinantes. há uma quantidade não-pequena de mecânicas ocultas que mudam entre os 3 títulos e eu vim pra esse jogo com minha mentalidade do anterior, o que significa que eu mal batalhei o jogo todo e fiquei quase sem HP nenhum, que é o status mais importante que você pode ganhar ao batalhar. é que veja bem, tanto RomaSaGa 1 e 2 possuem mecanicas de "Battle Count", o que significa que indiferente de você vencer ou fugir, só de entrar na batalha essa contagem já aumenta e ela influencia muita coisa, seja quais eventos você pode participar no mundo ou seja o próprio nível dos bichos que vai subindo com isso. é um RPG que eu considero parte essencial escapar dos bichos no proprio overworld, visto que eles aparecem rondando por ai.

pois bem, qual minha surpresa ao saber que em RomaSaga 3 não só você pode escapar de batalha como o ranque de level de bicho é por espécie individual de cada um (representado pelo sprite no overworld) e so aumenta quando você vence deles. ou SEJA. não há penalidade nesse jogo por lutar ou grindar demais e eu, tendo definições ja cimentadas sobre o que era romancing saga, acabei muito fraquinha com nada de vida. mas acontece, é isso que você ganha participando das coisas ocultas da vida.

agora eu fico pasma como inovação de verdade as vezes é visto como falha criativa. um jogo que permite que você faça de tudo, descubra coisas incríveis só por explorar, é visto como "sem rumo" ou "sem história" por quem tem menos vontade de engajar com suas mecânicas. talvez no passado mais distante onde eu achava que existiam de fato boas praticas universais de game design eu pensasse assim, mas hoje em dia só dou graças a deus que Akitoshi Kawazu existe pra levar a indústria de jogos sozinho nas costas

Its mechanics and themes aren't as tightly intertwined as RS2's and its random encounters are way too easy, but it's still a good time. I played as Mikhail, who adds in kingdom-raising and RTS minigames, both of which are confusing and tedious; don't make my mistake.

I really liked Romancing Saga 3 quite a bit more than Romancing Saga 2. It improves on a lot of the unique aspects from 2, smooths a lot of it out, and makes things a bit more coherent. Unfortunately, for all the advancement, it is still very impenetrable and I don't think it is very playable without a guide.

The gameplay is pretty classic Saga style and doesn't stray far from what they did with Romancing Saga 2. Your characters don't level up, instead they gain skill with weapons and magic, sparking new techniques to use throughout the game. I like the system, though judging the power-level of any given character or tech feel pretty arbitrary. The difficulty level of this game is much more even than Romancing Saga 2, so it plays better overall.
An interesting field effect system lets you cast spells to control a passive effect on the battlefield. These mostly just heal bosses, but can also affect the spells you cast of a particular school, so spending turns to manipulate the active field is usually worth it.
This game also has a bit of menu and interaction jank, which is sort of par for the course with this series. It doesn't get in the way too much, but there are a few too many awkward moments while playing.

Structurally, RS3 is similar to RS2. It is an open world RPG you can sort of take at your own pace. Hearing about locations makes them selectable from your world map and there are quests and people to discover at each one. Eventually you might stumble upon the main quest, which is to close four abyss gates and stop the destruction of the world. It is less interesting than the "past heroes are actually evil and are destroying the world" plot from RS2, but the characters are more involved, so it evens out.
In Romancing Saga 3 you start by choosing one of eight playable characters. This will be your main hero throughout game and usually has a minimal impact on the beginning and end of the story (with a couple of characters having additional gameplay mechanics they introduce). The departure from changing parties every few quests is very welcome -- outfitting your company is no longer tedious and annoying and you have more of a chance to get attached to your characters.
There are a ton of possible characters to recruit, most of which have a short introductory quest and nothing after that, but they are mostly unique and you can find some real wierdos. The more static characters work better than the interchangeable randos from RS2, since they have slightly more depth. Most characters still don't have much beyond their intro quests, but it is still welcome.

Romancing Saga 3 falls short for me mainly with its aimlessness and lack of direction. The game has a ton of quests, but with no way to keep track of them you are often just left floundering. Even doing quests can be unsatisfying because their connection to the world and main plot is unclear.
The main narrative is started by visiting a non descript house -- the owners are astrologers and tell you that there are Abyss Gates, but give you no more real information. Many times in the game you have to make a logical leap to go talk to someone in a random place in order to continue a plot line or the main quest.
There are a ton of things to participate in, but there isn't a valid way to keep track of them all. The game has a rudimentary log, but everything that happens is shoved in there as you find them. Tracking any particular quest or even identifying which of them are active or have been completed is not possible.
I appreciate the open, player-driven experience this game is trying to provide, but I do not think playing it is really feasible without a guide, which extremely undermines this goal. A couple of simple features added to the current quest tracking would completely alleviate this problem, so it is very unfortunate that it persists.

There is a lot to like with Romancing Saga 3 even with its rough edges and lack of direction. This is a very unique RPG experience that is worth checking out, especially if you are interested in early RPGs or seeing how this series evolved over time.

(Katerina route)

Firstly, this remake is disappointing in a few ways. Some of the backgrounds look badly compressed, the framerate is half what it should be and the interface is actually worse than the SNES version in some ways (no soft reset button, selecting towns on maps can be a pain).

The game itself, though. Wow! I bounced off RS2 because of the inflexibility of the LP system and the way it tried to push you forwards through generations and almost never allowed you to regenerate LP. This, though, doesn't do that and is a more traditional party-based game.

That's not to say this is traditional though - random character advancement, characters deciding they don't want to leave your party, a pretty much open-world structure (there are four main bosses before the end game and it turns out I did the hardest one first), and almost no explanations for pretty much anything seem to define Saga and this game is infused with an inscrutability combined with an ambition which means that it's full of surprises. Even if you play with a guide you only improve things; there is still plenty of stuff out there that's waiting for you to discover.

Overall then, a game that I thoroughly enjoyed and one with a number of events that I'll remember for years to come. The story itself might be a bit light, but much like Scarlet Grace the game is full of character and memorable moments.