I was ecstatic when Square Enix announced the remaster, and I reviewed it for the site. I ended up getting the game again at a resale shop years later, but never formally replayed it. That certainly didn’t mean I could actually get very far in the game. This was my first SaGa game… and it was baffling, enigmatic, and ugly. The illustration of Blue by Tomomi Kobayashi on the cover also helped. I found it available for rental from Blockbuster, relying on the familiar SquareSoft logo in the bottom right corner of the box as a virtual guarantee this would be a game worth playing. I have so many memories from the dozens of hours I spent in my room and on my PlayStation, playing through the Golden Age of RPGs. I was barely a teenager when SaGa Frontier first came out in 1998. The remaster comes with a comprehensive and adjustable New Game + option that allows the player to carry over however much of the equipment, skills, and stats as they desire, which in turn makes a future Lute run far easier. Experience the stories available on other characters’ routes first, then come back to the blue-haired gadabout another day. That said, Lute is not a character to choose on your first go with this title. But I’m an experienced enough gamer now to grok how Lute’s also the option for people who just want to go out and do stuff in SaGa Frontier’s wide, weird panoply of worlds, and so I’m enjoying the journey with him. That part hasn’t changed I took him from the start of his scenario to the final boss battle in ten minutes flat, just to check that it was still that way. There are reasons why his name is often prefaced with rude words, and it comes from the paucity of plot associated with him in the game.

It was my own fault for saying I’d take whomever was left, because that brought the inevitable “Not it!” choice, Lute. I still enjoyed the parts I could, and this remastered version was a no-brainer chance for me to revisit, and hopefully finish, one of the great games of my college years.Īs the organizer of this little feature, I was also not so lucky with the character I got.

I was not so lucky with my first copy of the original SaGa Frontier back in the day, since it came to me so scratched and dinged that it crashed on half the magic quests. That’s an important part of the SaGa experience was well.

RPGamer even had a review up, practically the day of release.īut what of those RPGamers who were on the fence? The ones who’d heard good things (or bad) about this title and are unsure about where to start, or whom to start with? To help, we have gathered a veritable Circle of SaGes, each tasked with taking one of SaGa Frontier‘s seven initial protagonists and explaining why (or why not) that character is a good one to start with. Almost a month has passed since the remaster of SaGa Frontier launched, and it’s safe to assume that anybody with a strong emotional connection to the original has long since bought it and probably finished at least one of the game’s scenarios.

Saga frontier remastered blue