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Information Updated: 9/15/2005

If I had to describe Romancing SaGa in one word, I believe I would first choose "overwhelming", with "open" coming in a close second. From the very beginning, it's a game of numerous choices, first selecting which of eight characters you'll adventure as and their class. And after a short introduction, you're thrown into their world, sometimes with a clear idea of what to do, sometimes not.

For this article, I'll be describing my experiences as Barbara, a traveling dancer. Her adventure begins in the town of Weston, and within seconds of my arrival, a villager informed me of Yassi, another town in the region. Traveling there, I was then tasked with my first quest, investigating the disappearance of a child near the Yassi Cavern, which was then available on my map.

Journeying to the Yassi Cavern, I wasn't shocked to find a cave filled with monsters. After years upon years of easy tutorial dungeons in role-playing games, I paid no real mind to the battles, monotonously tapping X each time it came time to choose my turn-based attack. Not three encounters in and I was faced with the Game Over screen, representing my folly in assuming that Romancing SaGa was just another turn-based RPG. Now, I know what you're thinking, I wasn't paying attention to my characters and after three battles they were so worn down that the cannon fodder enemies took them out, but that's only partially true.

First off, in the world of Romancing SaGa, health isn't something you worry about outside of battle. After each encounter, your party's health is completely restored, meaning that health is only a concern during extended or particularly tough encounters, such as boss fights. Second off, and more importantly, the enemies that populate the dungeons aren't the standard tutorial dungeon cannon fodder I made the mistake of assuming they were. Because health is restored after every battle, the game has no qualms throwing powerful opponents your way, even when you're just starting out. Luckily, a quicksave function means you can save at any point outside of battle, should you feel the need which, in my arrogance, I did not.

Starting the game over, I made a point of exploring Weston a bit more thoroughly instead of just rushing off to the newest town. Not only was I told of a third settlement in the area, but my presence at the bar triggered a story event and that in turn rewarded my character with a nice defense-boosting necklace. Of course, those extra two defense points didn't help much when I eventually returned to Yassi Cavern, but thanks to my past experience, I had a much wiser approach to battle this go round: I'd fight until I either won or one of my characters lost all their HP, at which point I'd retreat.

Turns out, at least for the first bit of the dungeon, this style works pretty well. Eventually I came up against a boss, one that took almost no damage from my party and knocked them both out within three turns. But instead of throwing me back to the title screen as one would expect, I was allowed to continue play from just before the boss fight, the only evidence of my defeat a drop in each character's LP.

To explain LP briefly, whereas HP determines how much damage a character can take before they're out of the fight, LP decides how many times a character can lose all of their HP before they're genuinely dead. Certain techniques, such as retreating, can also lower a character's LP, and as far as I know, the only way to restore it is to sleep at an Inn.

Utterly defeated, I returned to Weston and trained, that is, paid a master to raise some of my stats. I then fought through the Yassi Cavern twice more, hoping to level up enough to have a fair chance against the boss. And after yet another defeat at the hands of the boss, I realized that using the first aid kit in my inventory might help.

I then spent a ridiculous amount of time attempting to figure out how to actually use an item in battle, as there is no item option in the battle menu, nor is there a way to equip items from the item screen. Eventually I discovered that items, like weapons, must be equipped from Weapons subscreen of the Status menu. Not that this discovery helped much, I still lost my next round against the Yassi Cavern boss, but at least I know how to use items now.

Anyways, that's where I'm at right now. As I'm having a difficult time on the Yassi Cavern quest, my next move is to put that entire quest off for a while and explore the other regions available to me, presumably opening up more areas, leveling up, and getting tasked with other quests along the way.

From my playtime thus far with Romancing SaGa, a few things are abundantly clear, chiefly that is it not your traditional role-playing game, but also that it’s packed with replay value, what with the multiple characters, classes and various quests. Problem is, the game may be a little too open-ended: without a clear direction on where to go or what to do, I imagine it would be really easy, not to mention frustrating, to miss out on entire chunks of the game.

Given all of this, Romancing SaGa certainly isn't for everyone, especially devotees of the linear-story-driven portion of the role-playing genre, but fans of this particular subset have a lot to look forward to when this hits stores on October 11.

Occupying a prominent place in the story, the mysterious minstrel sometimes guides the party to adventure, and at other times shields them from shadow. And occasionally he forces upon them grave choices.

Minstrel Song brings back the free-roaming scenario system, allowing for the ultimate in open-ended adventuring. Choosing between eight playable characters, a variety of plots develop, with each action the player takes affecting the world of Mardias.

The character and background design is rendered with vivid 3D graphics, making the magnificent realm of Mardias a truly enjoyable place to explore. Events and side quests come alive as still images morph dramatically into cut scenes and mini-movies with the use of "sketch motion." This combination of technology and creative vision comes together to produce a world of wonder, filled with charming characters and inviting vistas.

© 2005 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
IMAGE ILLUSTRATION/ Tomomi Kobayashi
ROMANCING SAGA is a trademark of Square Enix Co., Ltd.