Romancing SaGa 3 |OT|
Release Date: 11/11/2019
Developer: Square/Akitoshi Kawazu da gawd
Publisher: SquareEnix
Genre: JRPG
Platform(s): Switch, PS4, PSV, XB1, W10, Steam, iOS, Android
Price(s): $28.99/£27.99/¥3500/€31,99 (20% Launch Discount until 12/04/19)
A Tale I Shall Sing For You
Once every 300 years, the Rise of Morastrum—an event where the dark star blocks out the sun—threatens the very existence of our world. All born in that year are doomed to perish before its end. Whether man or beast, none have a chance at survival.
However, there came a time when a sole child did survive. He was entranced by the power of death, using it to conquer the world. He came to be known as the Archfiend. Yet one day, he simply vanished.
Another 300 years passed, and again a child defied fate. She did not give in to the same powers that controlled the Archfiend, and came to be known as the Matriarch.
It has been nearly two decades since the previous rising of Morastrum, and 300-odd years since the appearance of the Matriarch. Humanity now stands at the fulcrum between hope and despair.
Will there be another child of destiny? Will the child be righteous, evil, or another force that the world cannot fathom?
What is this:
Romancing SaGa 3 is the sixth game in SquareEnix's long running SaGa series, which itself was a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy II and all it's self flagilating glory. It was originally released on the Super Famicom in 1995 and has only since been released on Wii and WiiU's virtual consoles in Japan. This thus marks RS3's first home console and portable release in the west, which is a big deal for one of Square's big SNES-era RPGs to be left officially untranslated.
Release Date: 11/11/2019
Developer: Square/Akitoshi Kawazu da gawd
Publisher: SquareEnix
Genre: JRPG
Platform(s): Switch, PS4, PSV, XB1, W10, Steam, iOS, Android
Price(s): $28.99/£27.99/¥3500/€31,99 (20% Launch Discount until 12/04/19)
A Tale I Shall Sing For You
Once every 300 years, the Rise of Morastrum—an event where the dark star blocks out the sun—threatens the very existence of our world. All born in that year are doomed to perish before its end. Whether man or beast, none have a chance at survival.
However, there came a time when a sole child did survive. He was entranced by the power of death, using it to conquer the world. He came to be known as the Archfiend. Yet one day, he simply vanished.
Another 300 years passed, and again a child defied fate. She did not give in to the same powers that controlled the Archfiend, and came to be known as the Matriarch.
It has been nearly two decades since the previous rising of Morastrum, and 300-odd years since the appearance of the Matriarch. Humanity now stands at the fulcrum between hope and despair.
Will there be another child of destiny? Will the child be righteous, evil, or another force that the world cannot fathom?
What is this:
The game itself is an open ended RPG set in a land caught in a brutal 300 year cycle of the Morastrum, a sudden mass death that has historically resulted in the appearance of great saviors of the land or great evils from those who survive the mysterious series of deaths. Rather than sticking you with one character who is definitely the survivor of said events, you are given a selection of characters who live in the world around the time that such a savior or fiend arises following the mass deaths. Each character will experience the same general events from varying perspectives, allowing you a significant amount of variation as you unravel the mysteries of the world and the devastating Morastrum.
What Can I Expect:
-An Open World: Romancing SaGa 3 very much has the same open ended gameplay the series eventually became known for, giving you many different ways to approach your adventure. Much of the game's world is open for you to explore from an early point, with new areas opening up as you explore the world and talk to the expansive cast of characters populating the world. All that truly will limit your ability to explore will be your own limitations.
-A Game of Characters: Unlike the generic class-based characters from the previous game, Romancing SaGa 3 is full of a wild array of recruitable characters with a vast array of quirks to be had between them. Aside from your traditional stable of JRPG character archetypes, RS3 goes wild with some fun characters, including a superhero and his chonk of a copycat fanboy, an elephant, a snowman, a lobster, and more.
-Classic SaGa mechanics: the SaGa games (SaGa/FF Legends 3 aside) drop the traditional level based gameplay of the genre and instead base your development on the actions you take in combat. Equip and use a sword? Get better at sword fighting and get a little more buff while you are at it! Learn to chuck a fireball and go crazy doing that? You become the best fireball wizard ever and probably learn a thing or two in the process.
-The Glimmering Spark of Hope: Improving your skills with weapons/martial arts/spells won't just improve your ability to use those items. Characters who improve a skill will find themselves learning new techniques in battles with the spark of inspiration being represented as a flashing lightbulb before their new attack goes off.
-Formation Based Combat: Returning from Romancing SaGa 2 is the Formation system, which let's you change how your party is positioned in combat as a means of altering their statistic.
-Life Points: Running out of HP isn't the death of your character! On top of your hitpoints, all characters have Life Points, which represent their overall lifeforce. Losing all your HP will cause a character to lose LP, as will subsequent hits to an unconscious character. As long as you still have LP, your heroes will recover all their health at the end of every combat. Run out of LP, and your character be be lost from the party. If your protagonist runs out of LP, then it's game over!
-Know Your Role: While levels are gone, as is the general class system from RS2, RS3 gives you the ability to tweak your starting protagonists' specializations by choosing a starting class and a specialty.
-A Clash of Kings: Depending on who you pick as your starting character or ultimately recruit, you may gain access to the game's strategy minigame, where you pit your army vs an enemy army and try and outwith them through basic but clever strategic manuevers. A certain selectable character also sees this expanded into a sidequest relating to them ruling over their own kingdom.
-Capitalism HO!: Other starting characters also have access to a trading mini-game, where you try and buy out other trading firms.
What's New:
Why should I care:
If you are coming into this already hating SaGa games, this game won't likely change your mind, but please give it a shot anyway. As none of the other Romancing SaGa games made it out of Japan at the time, this being a later day Square SNES game that wasn't as high profile as a Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger effectively doomed it to be passed over for a western release. While a fan translation has been available for years, it was never a full and polished experience. This is the first time RS3 has been officially AND completely localized and given a wide release outside of japan. It's thus mildly important from a gaming history standpoint. Likewise, it was generally a well regarded game in its own time, so it's nice for the west to get a chance to officially experience the game in all its Kawazu glory.
FAQs (more to be added)
A: No. Each SaGa game is effectively its own contained story, often in their own self contained setting. As with Romancing SaGa 1 and 2, the linking fabric here is the presence of the mysterious Bard character.
Q: SaGa games can sometimes get pretty different from game to game. Which ones does this mostly resemble?
A: Romancing SaGa 3 features selectable main characters with differing storylines, but don't expect it to be dramatically different as the scenarios in Romancing SaGa 1 and SaGa Frontier 1 do. All characters ultimately experience the same core story, but from differing perspectives and with different subplots available to them.
Q: Do weapons degrade here like in other SaGa games?
A: They do not!
Q: Do I need to beat myself up to get stronger in this one?
A: No. Stop asking. That wasn't even a good strategy in FF2.
Q: Is Akitoshi Kawazu really the best?
A: Yes
Do it for him
Q: Is there really a lobster party member?
A:
MEDIA
Resources (more to be added)
SaGa Project Website
The Romancing SaGa 3 Shrine (designed for the SNES version and uses old fan translated names, but it is otherwise a helpful and exhaustive resource for a lot of the game's intricacies)
NA eShop
NA PSN
NA Xbox/Windows 10
Steam Store Page
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