/vr/ - Retro Games

>>3978301
I don't think it was a Scarlet Grace stream, but here it is, it's nearly three years old by now I think.
Not like much would have changed anyway, the JP fanbase is a monolith of 30+ years old people, I doubt Scarlet or the recent remasters brought a lot of new blood.

Just checked Kawazu's twitter, there's some good news and some bad news.

Bad news is that Scarlet won't have the usual soft reset feature, that sucks, you have to go back to the main screen from the menu, Kawazu didn't say why he let go of soft reset this time so don't ask me.

Good news is that he arranged the Nico stream and seems he'll play for six hours, he warns that there will be spoilers and says to prepare chips and think of it as watching a friend play through it, he will also start from the beginning of one character's quest instead of the usual random playthrough like other videos, so again, don't watch it if you don't want spoilers.

Stream will be on 11/12, nice birthday present for me, thanks old man.
Link to the stream is:
http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv280578450
You can also adjust the JP time to your own but you'll have to login to do so.
>>3609628
>What are the best SaGa games?
I don't think there's really a list of the best games, SaGa games are all different, it's not like FF that has a pretty uniform design throughout the series, spin offs excluded.
I can tell you which are my favorites.
I like RomaSaGa 2, both Frontier titles and Unlimited the best, Minstrel Song is up there but even though it has great gameplay it didn't manage to catch me as much as the other games, mostly because of the cast I guess, I only really like a few characters, and being redirected to Saruin all the time doesn't help, even though for me it is an objectively better game in terms of design than the first Frontier, which is hella broken.
If you want the last Japan popularity poll here it is, Minstrel Song isn't counted as it's not mainline.
>Spoiler
Shamefur dispray, what are you even playing SaGa games for?
>>3609645
>Why does nobody like the first game
I like it, it's just that it's too old, broken and archaic by now, but it's a great game.
>And how is Unlimited SaGa so highly ranked?
Unlimited is SaGa going even further beyond. Play that shit.

>>3526486
Also to further add on this, while SaGa is indeed an acquired taste like others always said in this thread, you must also consider another factor in japan, that is the rift between the series fanbase and the other audience, magazine reviews included.

Most SaGa fans are adults in their late 20's or 30's now, other JRPG series have a more varied demographic when it comes to age, most of the fanbase also had very different opinions from reviews like Famitsu, the most striking case was RomaSaGa 2 which had the lowest critical score of 26 out of all the games in the series(yes, lower than Unlimited which was a 31) but it was a great commercial success and is the second most popular game in the series within the fanbase according to the latest NicoNico poll and general feedback you might find online, in Japan, RomaSaGa 2 is one of the most popular SFC games and RPGs of all time, despite receiving negative reviews.

SaGa is a peculiar series in many aspects down to the fanbase, you can't say the same for most other RPGs, western or japanese, many people in the fanbase actually enjoyed the challenge of needing to figure things out for yourself and I guess Kawazu and his teams realized that since to this day most information is still not visible to the player, the Ultimania guides for SaGa games are pretty much bricks of paper and only started to be really detailed very recently, look at the efforts spent in cracking the older games, RomaSaGa 2/3 cracking lasted to the early 2000 thanks to dedicated people like Endo-San, same in the west where comprehensive FAQs took many years to get done.
Then there's other stuff like RomaSaGa 3 impressive bulk of mods which says a lot about the fanbase's affection and respect for the game, you don't see this kind of effort for FF or DQ, SaGa just appeals to a specific kind of people more than most other franchises I'd say.
>>3526528
I thought you hated Unlimited, colours me surprised.

>>2810736
Frontier's up there with RomaSaGa 3 but japs still prefer RomaSaGa 3

>Inb4 japs have shit taste

Yeah, but the majority of the fanbase prefers RomaSaGa 3.
Now if they did bother making a survey in the west...

>>2283234
>Continues

SaGa Frontier 2 is another oddball in the franchise as it drops nonlinearity in favor of a deeper story, it introduces/reintroduces breakable weapons and a few other things, it's also one of the few SaGa games that don't have a score composed by Itoken, but Hamauzu does his own thing really well and give it a very soothing and romantic soundtrack, the story and characters are great but many people complain about the lack of exploration and the fact that the game is very linear, the graphics are still amazing to this day.

Unlimited is the most hated JRPG in the world as it's extremely convoluted, criptic and balls to the walls hard, definitely leave this for last as it's either love or hate.

Minstrel Song or MinSon is a remake of RomaSaGa 1, it adds a few things and has a complete redesign of the characters, a new score and lots of new mechanics, really good game overall.

To give you an idea of the popularity of the various games, here's the poll results of this years' anniversary.

>>2168460
No
>>2168660
Emelia is very nice for starters as you get a really good starting pool of characters and nothing really out of the ordinary.
Red is nice too but some mechanics of his quest can be a little tricky to exploit properly and he has a few parts of his quest that are harder than Emelia's.
T260G is focused on mechs and you'll have to understand how they work and some of the quests bosses can be tricky.
Blue is also very good for beginners as his quest is really simple and he's a real good main character in the sense that he's the only one who can use all magic schools, he'll also let you learn how magic works so you'll be able to make mad exploits later.
Asellus, as>>2168714 says has weird plot triggers that might caught you unprepared and due to being a quest focused on Mystics you'll need to learn to use them and magic well even though she's another member of the SaGaFro Monster trio.
Riki's quest focuses on monsters and monsters are really hard to use well so leave that for last.
Lute quest is utter crap but it's very easy except for the fact that you can be locked in the final dungeon after literally 5 minutes if you don't know what you're doing and that WILL force you to reset his game.

looks like Romancing Saga 3 followed by 2 is the most popular