|
Platform: PlayStation 2
|
|
Publisher: Bandai
|
|
Developer: Bandai
|
|
Medium: DVD-ROM
|
|
Players: 1
|
 |
|
Online: No
|
|
Also on: (n/a)
|
|
|
Somehow Gundam fanservice wandered into the best jRPG of the year. Not that I'm complaining.
|
Long cutscenes, a shallow and flashy battle system, little to no say in how you want your character to develop. These are all hallmarks of the modern Japanese RPG genre…and all things you should not expect to see in MS Saga. Finding a jRPG that thinks outside the box is one thing, but realizing such a game is a typically overlooked licensed anime title…well, that’s something else altogether.
One of the first things you’ll notice about MS Saga is how quickly its plot moves. In the opening video, you’re shown the destruction of Earth…the rebuilding…and you see a bit of each main character in the game. Moments later, you and your comedy relief sidekick are standing in a G-System.
The G-System, a replicator of sorts that takes materials and fuses them into tangible items, is the main resource of mobile suits on your quest. One is created at the beginning of the game, and not ten seconds later you’re thrown into your first fight. While you try and fight the first boss of the game, the comedy relief sidekick screams out information from an operator’s manual lying around—a nice diversion from the typical textbox explanations. Soon afterwards, you’re on your way to the first town…but not after one of the very few cutscenes plays, giving you the backstory of why you should care about fighting.
Throughout much of the game, you’ll see the same pattern: go to a town, get information on some trouble, and deal with said trouble. Plot comes up occasionally through dialogue, but for the most part the focus is on the battle at hand and not the characters. An entire cast of characters will cycle through your party (which maxes out at 6 members), each one playing as a pawn in the war. There are some bits of relations between the characters to keep things fresh, but again the battle takes precedence.
That’s not to say the characters are good or bad, however…most of them have gaudy character designs and prove to be fairly benign. None really endears or annoys, but that’s probably only due to the low priority put on character development. Some characters turn, some just pass on through, and some have a mysterious past that comes up…but nothing really feels important in the grand scheme of things.
Whereas the plot is thin, the action of the game is some of the best you’ll see in a jRPG this year. Battles run in a turn-based style, of course, but a few things differentiate it from the average jRPG. Before deciding on tactics for the round, a display makes note of which type of move each enemy will perform—melee, ranged, boost, technique, or other. Depending on their strategy, your strategy will have to match and exceed theirs.
Say, for example, a mass of enemies attacks and are ready to fire ranged attacks. On one hand, a defensive stance could be the best decision…but then again, if they’re pushovers maybe taking out a couple with faster characters might be wiser. If a character has energy enough to perform a special move, maybe it would be wiser to throw up a chaff field that blocks all enemy fire while the rest of the party can attack freely.
Special moves are not all defensive, however. Quite a few tactical options cycle around forcing the enemy into a situation where they’re a bit more manageable. The always-tough bosses in the game make their advantage by relying on certain stats. Thankfully, some of your party members have the ability to counteract that. Otherwise weak characters find usefulness in their stat attacks, while already-powerful sniper characters can target arms and legs to even the odds.
Although MS Saga has a linear character development for the mobile suit pilots, they’re still very open for tinkering. That mysterious girl who has a few stat attacks, but otherwise weak? Toss her into your strongest ranged mobile suit and watch her tear things up. The sword-swinging hero? Load him into something with an emphasis on toughness instead of speed, and see how that pans out. MS Saga gives plenty of freedom, as even though characters have a straight path, they’re not limited to one type of vehicle.
Mobile suit customization is one of the key elements of the game—it’s on you, the player, to make and equip the best machinery possible. Throughout the quest, parts and data will drop after fights. Both items will be put towards making and improving mobile suits.
Parts can be installed on any mobile suit, with an almost infinite amount of combinations available. In a format that would make customization nuts giggle with glee, MS Saga gives options to edit everything other than the torso and head—if you’ve got the parts, you can then Pimp Your Ride. Parts aren’t merely for show though, they also have stat modifiers—putting spiked armor on will increase melee attack effectiveness, but be less effective as armor and may decrease speed a bit. In every case, it’s important to look at modifiers and see what works the best.
Data is an entirely different beast. With data, it’s almost like discovering blueprints. Load 50 bits of data into a G-System, hit the button, and suddenly a new mobile suit is born into the world. Load more than 50 in, and the new mobile suit will get notable stat increases for every few bits of data. Loading 99 in will result in a level 15 mobile suit, which is not only very solidly tuned…but will also save money in upgrades.
Put simply, MS Saga: A New Dawn is one of the best jRPGs out now. It breaks every rule, goes back to the roots of the genre, and incorporates battle and customization systems that far exceed anything else the genre’s thrown to gamers so far.
|
|
|
|
|
