 Hey, thanks to JuanitaChristBlaster for requesting this via my patreon page. The saga series is a weird one to try and follow, especially here in North America. The first three games were all on the original Game Boy but released under the Final Fantasy Legend moniker, so we've got Saga 1, 2 and 3 rebranded here as Final Fantasy Legend 1, 2 and 3. They're very good games and worth checking out to this day, especially 2 and 3. I did a video on the second game a long while back. So when we get to Romancing Saga on the Super Famicom developed by Square, that's actually the fourth game in the series released in 1992, and as of July of last year, it's received a fully playable English translation patch thanks to DDS translation. So on the surface, this looks like your regular run-of-the-mill turn-based role-playing game, going from town to town, rescuing cats and trees in exchange for clues to where the mystical sword is or whatever, because it's a 16-bit RPG from Square, right? This game may look like that, but that's not the case with the Romancing Saga series. The big appeal here is how open-ended the story structure is, giving the player a lot of say in how events unfold as you play. You're given the choice of eight different characters that all have different stories and events you can follow, and you start in eight different locations, and you have eight different classes that you can choose from at the beginning of the game. Once you get started, though, you're pretty much on your own. For me, it was pretty funny to play this for the first time because I'm so used to other JRPGs, so I'm just wandering around doing whatever, talking to everyone, and trying to trigger the beginning of the story. Turns out that's not really how Romancing Saga works, at least not in such a straightforward manner. For example, if you pick the pirate, you can just sail around and fight sea monsters, raid other ships for gold, and level up and just upgrade your weapons. Or you can head to shore, talk to a few people, and trigger an event, like this other pirate named Butcher, who wants to take on the Imperial army, but he wants to be the leader. You can go along with that, or you can say hell no, and you meet him for a duel. Every character has their own event structure like that, and everything is kept non-linear, it's pretty interesting. The world map is still divided into sections, though, so this isn't exactly an Elder Scrolls game where you can just go anywhere and run into anybody. After you've completed a certain number of events, the game kind of boots you to the ending segment, and you just hope you've leveled up enough at that point to beat the final boss. There is a main story arc here, where your character is the chosen one to defeat this evil god, it's pretty standard stuff in that regard. The battle system, meanwhile, is predicated on grid formations, you set up three rows with the furthest row being the best to protect characters, but also leaving them unable to use melee weapons, it's that sort of thing, so there's a big emphasis on positioning here. In a nice touch, enemies can attack from the side and screw up your whole formation right from the beginning of the battle. You level up not by regular experience points, but by skill points that are assigned to specific areas, you don't get to choose what they are, though. The main problems with the first romantic saga game are pretty much the same problems that plague all the early SNES RPGs, the graphics look closer to NES quality than SNES, the difficulty oscillates from easy to way too difficult, and the encounter rate here is just ridiculous. Technically there aren't random battles here because you can see everything on the map, but the sheer amount of stuff on each screen is just nuts. It's impossible not to end up in a dozen battles in five minutes, it gets old quickly. In addition to all that, this game can be glitchy as hell, you'll talk to somebody that's supposed to trigger the next event, only nothing happens, you leave and talk to them again, and suddenly that triggers it, it's that sort of thing. You never really forget while you're playing this that this is an old kind of sort of broken game. The first romancing saga is a really ambitious title for its time, and it's hard to say whether or not to recommend it. If you're intrigued by the non-linear open-ended structure here, then stay tuned because it's executed better later in the series. It should also be noted that this game got a remake for the PS2 titled romancing saga Minstrel Song. Otherwise looking back, I guess the first game is just kind of an interesting relic. There's some good here and some bad, but the first romancing saga is mostly an acquired taste. If you're really jonesing for an early SNESGRPG, that does something a little different, then here you go. I'd love to be able to go over romancing saga 2, which came out about two years later, but unfortunately nobody's been able to translate most of the dialogue yet, probably because the game's ridiculously wide font makes it tough to squeeze any English in the text boxes. Most of the names in the menu are finished on a couple translations, but I wouldn't be able to give the game much of an assessment without much story or dialogue to go by. The game is still playable kind of, and it still has the same general idea of the first game, but if you want to know more about romancing saga 2, I recommend checking out the article I've linked in the description to hardcore gaming 101. Romancing saga 3, which came out in 1995, thankfully has a translation patch that's mostly finished. The stuff that hasn't been translated is again mostly due to the weird width of the font, but what's missing here isn't all that important. This game is still playable all the way through, I have a link to the mostly finished patch in the video description. First and foremost romancing saga 3 is a very good sequel, it takes everything from the first game and presumably the second game and improves upon it tenfold, eliminating certain flaws and enhancing its strength. If nothing else it's a lot less glitchy, so of course that's a good thing. The overarching story is pretty cool too, every 300 years there is an event called the death eclipse, where all newborn life on the planet dies. However during one death eclipse, a newborn baby survived somehow and he turned out to be an evil god called the devil king. For the next death eclipse another newborn survived, but it was a good guy called the divine king. The premise of the game centers around the latest death eclipse, another newborn has survived, but is it good or evil? Again there's 8 characters and 8 classes here, and you choose which weapon you want your character to be proficient with. This time around you get introduced to each playable character in the opening scenario and it's basically the same no matter who you choose, but after that once again you're on your own. This is 16 bit open world which is pretty interesting and unique to say the least, it's nothing but quests and scenarios you can pick and choose to do in any order, so yeah if you're looking for that big sweeping epic story like Final Fantasy 6 or Chrono Trigger, that's not what this game is about, it's about picking one character, recruiting your party with a selection of up to 30 characters, everything from a pirate to a lobster, and just kind of building your own story so to speak. One character you can pick for example is Herod, a mercenary who's known throughout this game's world for his fighting skills, but he only agrees to quest if he's promised a lot of money, and that brings me to the health and greed meters in this game. Each quest not only has a leveling requirement that lets you know if your party is strong enough to do it, but there's also a greed meter. Herod's is very high because he's a polished and refined fighter, so when he tries to take on middling tasks, like just getting rid of bandits on a trade route, he's gonna ask for too much money and he won't be able to do it, so yeah the downside of picking such a good fighter like Herod is that you have to start with a really tough quest. The other characters have a normal greed rating, but it can go up the more you haggle for money, and you do need a lot of money in this game to buy magic because that stuff is expensive. The battle system here is turn based with five characters for your party, and again it's kind of predicated on positioning and formations. The leveling system here is again kind of random, similar to the first game, however you do have some amount of control, the more you use physical attacks the more your strength grows, as well as your proficiency with the kind of weapon you're using, and the more you use magic the stronger your magic is, and your MP will eventually increase as well. There's techs here too for weapons and magic, and once you master them you can equip and unequip them, so that's kind of cool. Another thing that makes Romancing Saga 3 unique is the war game system where you command an army in a strategy mini game. It's pretty simple stuff overall, just giving commands like forward, rush, defend, and retreat, with the goal just to get to the other side of the map, but you do get to unlock tactics and formations based on how you perform, so that's pretty cool. So yeah there's a lot here with all the characters, all the other characters you can recruit, the greed meter, the war mini game, and there's also a commander mode where allies you recruit can teach you new battle formations and new techs. There's just so much stuff here and it all feels completely different from any other JRPG, but unfortunately that's kind of the biggest flaw of Romancing Saga 3, the game can feel like a sprawling mess more often than not. I love the idea of such a nonlinear open world JRPG on a 16-bit system, but in the end you're still stuck with the limitations of a 16-bit game, and as a result of that, this game can be frustrating for the wrong reasons. Don't get me wrong, Romancing Saga 3 is a pretty good game, it's definitely a huge upgrade from the first game, and it's got its strengths like the graphics here. This game seriously looks like it could be taking place in the same universe as Final Fantasy 6. There's some really stunning visuals, the battle theme is also really cool. But ultimately Romancing Saga 3 really doesn't grab me the way the other JRPGs do, and I think that's just because of how it's structured. With other games I want to keep playing just to find out what happens next in the story, or maybe I just enjoy the battle system, but with this game there's a lack of urgency and a lack of focus here that's a bit disappointing. But yeah, if you want to try out a JRPG that offers something truly different, check out Romancing Saga 3. It's a nonlinear open world game in a 16-bit universe, but again, just bear in mind that it's a 16-bit universe, so there are a lot of limitations. If nothing else, Romancing Saga 3 is much better than the first game. It may not be for everyone, but if you're burnt out on the usual JRPG experience and you want to try something different, then this is the game you're looking for. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a good rest of your day.