/vr/ - Retro Games

The 8 characters that you can choose as your main character all have the highest overall stat growth. Although Miriam isn't one of those characters, she still has the highest intelligence growth.

>>4548496
Is it possible to re-recruit characters?
I ditched Barbara and Albert so I could keep Claudia after the Jean quest (needed a bow user) and now want her back but now the the Crystal City pub is empty.

Since I'm sure people will be asking those two questions, I'll be that one guy:
What's the best starting point for somebody that never touched the series?
How hard should I expect my playthrough to be?

>>4548543
They pop again after a certain amount of battles. Sometimes not in the same pub, though.

>>4548553
SaGa Frontier just slam in balls deep no condom you can't go wrong

dying and reloading and starting over is part of the fun

Is this game worth a playthrough or should I skip just to 2?

I have a decent party but have absolutely NO IDEA what should I do or where do I have to go.
I don't want to check guides since I'm not supposed to but I'm completely lost and feel no progress at all.

>>4548823
I'd say to start with RS2 then play the ps2 remake of romancing saga 1 later on.

>>4548873
So is it acceptable to skip 1?
Has it objectively aged that bad?

>>4548917
Games don't "age" but I think most people would agree that other games in the series are much better than RS1, including the remake. The games aren't connected so there's no real reason to play in order.

>>4549025
games do age

>>4548478
Hey OP Im playing this as well, started as Gray too. Currently grinding for money to buy better gear and magic, it is quite overwhelming deciding which characters will get certain spells or weapons, I decide by their abilities and been doing good so far, until I reached the end of the cave in Walon isle and got steamrolled by the two dragons.
My party so far is Gray, Claudia, Hawke, Aisha and Albert, Hawke being the MVP because he kicks ass with the spear I gave him.
I what I would recommend to people playing this for the first time is: have a notepad and pen on your side, start taking notes of anything interesting the npcs say, trust me, when you're wondering what the fuck you should do you're gonna be glad you've been taking notes.

>>4548917
Yeah, don't bother. The game's only notable for how experimental it was and every other game after it expanded on that and was actually playable.

>>4548917
The PS2 remake of 1 actually incorporates improvements and features from 2 and 3, so playing the current remaster of 2 and the upcoming remaster of 3 (comes out later this year) and then the PS2 remake of 1 will feel like natural progression.

How about playing the games in order of original release date? It worked for the people who grew up in that generation.

If you seriously think of graphics or gameplay features in terms of being 'dated,' then what are you doing on /vr/ in the first place?

>>4550620
'Remasters' are just low-budget cash-ins. The RS2 'remaster' is essentially an RPG Maker rendition of the game with fuzzy upscaled sprites and a translation that was apparently outsourced to a third-worlder. I don't recommend OP waste his money on that hot garbage.

The RS1 remake was an ambitious effort, but the PS2's restrictive memory is made painfully evident by the fact that areas get broken up into smaller, individual maps that consist of maybe one or two corridors at a time. Trying to maneuver your way through a single area involves 20+ total minutes of load times. At least the game is considerate enough to allow fast travel in some cases.

>>4550620
>>4550674

Is it easier to stay focused on the main quest there? As in, not getting lost?

In the SNES game I actually got lost and couln't continue. I felt like I made no progress at all, I explored, killed enemies, found guys that didn't react to my talk command and there's just no way to know what have you done or how to progress. Finding the fatestones without a guie is pure luck.

>>4551054
I don't know about the remake, but the SNES version is all about being lost and screwing around. There's not much of a "main quest" beyond just finding and defeating the final boss. Even the fatestones are just a side-quest, really.

>>4551124
That's the problem.
I don't even know how I'm supposed to even each the final boss. Curiously walkthrought for the game aren't clear either. They just mention the quest like it's already active.

>>4551054
You will feel lost in Romancing SaGa 1 compared to a lot of other entries in the series.
>>4550674
If he can read Japanese he can go ahead, otherwise if he cannot his options are more limited. Though I don't see the importance in playing the series in order if there is no overarching story.

>>4548553
Romancing SaGa (PS2), SaGa Frontier 1, the Gameboy SaGa games and their DS remakes (especially the remake for 3, don't play the original version of that one)

Romancing SaGa 3 is probably fine too but I honestly personally don't really like it.

>>4550674
RS2's remake is like they hired a bunch of people who didn't even know they'd be working in videogames before they ended up in a company that exclusively produces shovelware for mobile platforms

>>4550674
>If you seriously think of graphics or gameplay features in terms of being 'dated,' then what are you doing on /vr/ in the first place?
Personally I like playing good games and many good games happen to be classified as 'retro'. However my lifespan is not infinite so I don't intend to play everything else along the way. As for release date order, final fantasy legend offers quite a different experience than the romancing games and an extremely different experience compared to something like unlimited saga so it's not sensible to start at the first game in the series unless all those things appeal to you equally.

Speaking of "remasters", has there been any news on RS3? I'm really looking forward to that.

>>4551531
There's three areas that lead to the final boss. Two of them can't be accessed until pretty late into the game.

>>4552841
What can be considered "late" in a open ended game with literally no way to follow?

>>4548582
>>4551785
I decided to start with Frontier and I'm really liking it so far!
Thanks for recommending it!

So I started the ps2 remake of rs1 and chose Aisha as my first character. I couldn't find anywhere to go at first but eventually discovered some desert ruins. Got to a boss which wrecked my face and suddenly a knight appeared to rescue me. Then he died. Game over.

>>4553324
Pretty funny. I would never suspect someone going all the way out there at the start of the game.

>>4553324
Aisha is a bad first character because she starts out weak as shit try Jamil or Claudia instead

>>4553712
Aisha's doing pretty well for me. I gave her jamil's foil and reclassed her to pirate.

If I can't find any quests to do in Minstrel Song is there something I can work towards rather than simply grinding random enemies?

I'm just flabbergasted. RS1 is the first game where I got bait and switched, damn game bamboozled me.
Theres a certain weapon in a store called the Ice sword, and it was a whooping 30k, which legit took me a full day to grind the money for.
Guess what? Once you get enough money to get the weapon it completely dissapears from the store, turns out you were never meant to buy it in the first place.

>>4553040

I recommend quick saving often, and try to avoid doing a hard save inside a dungeon; when you're still new at the game you can end up being pretty much fucked if you do a hard save in a bad spot.

>>4555825
>I gave her jamil's foil and reclassed her to pirate.
Pirate is top tier, make sure you teach her hydrology and keep someone else on the front line with her though. Jamil's starting rapier is the best weapon early game. You can get another foil as a reward from the emperor, but at the start of the game the armor is the better choice. Later during the mid-game the emperor needs help again and it's a lot harder to decide whether the armor or foil is better (usually the foil).

I started Romancing SaGa 2 a few days ago and I'm really enjoying it so far. Does the university serve no purpose other than to unlock the tactician? Because there's a bunch of kids learning finance and whatever therre so it'd be cool if that reflected itself on higher imperial revenue in future generations.

>>4558138
I think someone said it changes the ending

>>4558169
That's cool but I'd really like some extra income because it's getting hard to fund R&D on equipment. Also, I'm only on my second emperor (after the first two) and I already feel like I'm about halfway through the game, I'm I going to fast and potentially fucking things up for myself in the endgame or is it fine as long as I keep leveling my skills and funding everything I have money for?

>>4558138
The main purposes of the university are unlocking the tactician and allowing you to research light magic fusion spells if you have the magic research facility (you need to have a global level of 15 in both spell types to learn fusion spells, i.e. when you learn new magic you start at level 8, and it costs 500k each). Building the university also increases your revenue by 200 crowns and it adds one year to your calendar.

>>4558174
Don't worry, you don't need research everything (in fact you don't need to research anything), just make whatever you feel like. You're not going too fast.

>>4558189
Alright, I'm currently spamming spells to try and get to that point while annexing regions to my empire. You know, I heard a lot of talk about how brutally difficult this game was but, while I don't know how hard I'm going to get fucked in the later stages, it really hasn't been that bad.

>>4558174
There's a certain point where you have the whole world open up for you to be able to unlock and at that point you just have to get to the strong weapons before the monsters get so strong that you don't do enough damage to kill them fast enough. So just keep exploring as far as you can reach and don't worry too much about the blacksmith, focus on dungeon treasures more.

Eventually you'll reach a point about 3 quarters through the game where you've gone everywhere and can only get roadblocked by some of the heroes, specifically probably Wagnas, and the only way to beat them is to grind until you're super powerful, or grind until you unlock the magic spells that let you beat them. You could also make a party specifically to beat that boss, but that kind of sucks usually.

You need to pass a generation to build upgrades to your city and learn new magic, but you only have to fight 10 battles or so to make a new weapon. So it's perfectly fine to leave it until you're done with magic.

>>4558195
People overstate the difficulty. Basically as long as you don't grind mindlessly you'll do fine.

>>4558195
It's not a hard game at all unless you're comparing it to some bland mash A to win simulator.
That said, I could imagine a scenario where someone needs to grind for the final boss, but if you even have a couple useful formations or sparked some good skills I doubt you will have much trouble. Unless you ran from several hundred battles or something.

You don't need to spam spells, I didn't mean to imply that they're more important than weapons or anything like that. No fusion spell is essential.

>>4558207
>only way to beat them is to grind until you're super powerful, or grind until you unlock the magic spells that let you beat them. You could also make a party specifically to beat that boss, but that kind of sucks usually.
I don't think you need to grind for any of the heroes. The most useful spell vs wagnas is available very early on and isn't necessary. I think the hardest of the seven is noel but he's very beatable when your weapon levels are about 10, and I would be very surprised if someone ran out of stuff to do without getting stronger than that.

Upgrades to your city take 15 battles to complete, developing new weapons/armor takes 5 battles, researching fusion magic spells requires a black screen ("x years later"), updating the dojo with new techniques requires a full generation shift normally or just any black screen if you're on the final generation (I think).

>>4558251
>I don't think you need to grind for any of the heroes.
idk man I last put the game down when Wagnas was doing 1000/500 damage with Psycho Shot and I died every time he decided to use it twice in a row because I couldn't keep my healing up without going back and rebuilding my party so that everyone brought fire magic.

I keep trying to beat them without specifically going back and rebuilding a party to have the tools to beat that specific hero, even though I know that's how the game is designed, so I'm probably making it a bit harder for no reason.

>>4558260
I like specifically designing a party to take on each boss, it's fun. In this case I aim for fire and status resistance (psycho shot is not a fire attack) if I'm fighting him early and I like using a defensive formation.
Are you fighting the blue hair form or the blonde hair one? His first form only uses psycho shot (the only real threat) 1/8 of the time so you're pretty unlucky to face it twice in a row. Even then you might be able to recover if you have a well protected healer.

>>4558286
Can you even reduce the damage of Psycho Shot with status defense? He was using Psycho Shot often enough that even with Rising Phoenix and my emperor using Phantom Chivalry I wasn't able to tank him, but I'm not sure which version I was fighting since it was like a week ago.

>>4558302
Yes it reduces the damage. Some useful items with status resistance include the demonstone ring, the twilight robe, kris knife, starstone, nibel ring, the 800k boots, various other robes, the 800k light armor, the 800k doublet or even the brawler's default doublet.
The nereid, moleman, and iris all have decent status resistance from their special gear. The nereid comes with both status and fire resistance so I like having one under mist cover as a dedicated healer.
Self-immolation is nice but I don't think it works under phantom chivalry and you probably don't want to lose water magic if you're using a nereid, so fire resistant gear is also useful.
I like Mu Palisade as my formation especially against fast enemies like this; only your emperor is protected prior to attacking in rising phoenix. Otherwise you can forget about the formation bonus and concentrate your useful gear on a couple characters if you don't want to keep everyone alive vs constant AOE attacks.

It sounds like you were fighting the second form of the boss. Since you're quite far in the game you might have even more useful stuff available to you that I haven't mentioned. Good luck.

>>4558352
does the somon ring increase stat defense or just prevent the confusion?

I'm at the point where I could probably beat him after a skip but I've just been grinding fusion magic cause I don't know how many skips I'll get left and I really want to get all the spells before I beat all the heroes (still have Noel, Subier, Dantarg and Wagnas left)

Will Dantarg change forms if I just raise battle rank btw? or is he locked once the last spawn point is opened up? (he showed up at Child & Mu Calf for me and I was really disappointed when I completely stomped him.)

>>4552895
Many quests in RS1 are available within a certain range of battles fought, in addition to other conditions such as what quests you have completed, and in rare cases such as the ending quests your morality score is also taken into account. I'm not sure whether the game uses the number of battles won or number of battles triggered, but considering RS2 uses the latter for calculating battle rank I would assume it's the same. To trigger an ending quest which will open up the final dungeon, your battle count must be high enough, and your morality score will be checked to determine which quest you get.

>>4558525
Without a guide this truly is criptic as fuck, no wonder the game isn't as liked as RS2 or 3.

>>4558525
>>4558565
It's been a while since I've played RS1, but I recall there being some shenanigans with how the game updates the battle rank too. Like it's not instant, it only progresses when you enter certain areas or something.

>>4558565
The intention is presumably to make it so no two playthroughs will be alike, since you'll go to different areas at different times, finding quests that you may have missed on a different playthrough. Some quests also require certain characters in the party, which has a similar effect for replayability. You don't have to do every quest; just play the game and do the things you come across or that seem interesting. SaGa games are not designed around "100%" playthroughs.

It's an interesting system for the time. The abundance of monster sprites on the field are probably intended to be a way of pushing the battle count forward as you explore and do quests in order to keep the world's "time" constantly flowing. It's questionable in practice, but considering how much cut content the game has, I wonder if they just didn't have enough time to really balance the battle count, character stat growth, and flow of time, so they just added more monsters until it worked out somewhat. There are actually unused battle sprites in the rom for Sheila and Death (as allies), meaning they were intended to be recruitable at some point. Some of the fatestones also cannot be acquired. If all the quests had actually be implemented, maybe the monster count would have been lower to accommodate the player having more things to do.

>>4558584
I'm not sure about this. The battle rank is definitely rough in RS1, and can jump suddenly to monsters that will annihilate an unsuspecting party, but I don't really know how it's programmed and never experimented with it much.

Well, I grinded until all my skills were over level 30 as a result of the millions I needed to get all the magic. I picked the lizardbro Awe(some) as my Emperor and am planning on picking up a full team of demihumans for lulz (plus one sword-dude I guess).

At this point I can only be impressed if the heroes actually beat me. Hard to say how hard they can be what with all my mikiri's

>>4558658
This.
The monsters per area are too much and most of the time makes exploring a shore since the old battle system doesn't do the game any favors.

I'll keep playing the game for some more time and see if I can find fatestones on my own or activate the end quest before sending this game to the backlog forever.

>>4558456
The somon ring might have a bit of status defense but not much.
I know dantarg gets stronger as generations pass on the calendar rather than battle rank, but if you've already cleared the nazelle dungeons he might be stuck. The in-game explanation for him powering up is that he eats the dungeon bosses.
Fusion magic is just a novelty, don't grind for it unless you want to ruin the game for yourself. At most you might get a couple lvl15 fusion spells with your final emperor when playing normally.

>>4558841
Why? The final boss is a nice challenge when your skill levels are ~20, now you win by spamming your strongest moves. Is that fun?

>>4559913
anon isn't that because you already know what formations you need and already know what fusion spells you want and what strategies to use against the bosses

I mean yeah I don't -need- to try and make a team that's strong enough to handle any situation and beat all the bosses without me preparing ahead of time, but that's what makes SaGa relaxing to me, just like unlocking all the fusion spells to be able to just cast them all once and figure out which ones are actually good makes me feel satisfied more than using a guide to know in advance.

I have all the spells now (except dark magic obviously), I should be able to beat the rest of the game just by retrying any battles I lose at and paying the blacksmith. I like imagining that there's some way I could have won without using some form of ludo-narrative breaking information outside of what the protagonist of the game would have access to. Like did the Emperor die and then the entire universe ended and restarted in such an infinite variation of ways that he managed to be reborn into the same situation with fragments of information from the previous timelines influencing his current self?

This kind of mental role-playing isn't necessary. It's just a game.

But it's a Role-Playing Game.

>>4560193
Well if you're having fun that's all that matters. In my first playthrough I adventured around, got stronger as I progressed, and figured out how to overcome challenges when I came across them. It all worked out well and made for a great experience. Now that I'm familiar with the game I know that you won't get into an unwinnable situation even if you don't have formations or fusion magic or anything like that, so I try to reassure people who have heard rumors of difficulty and might feel inclined to over-prepare and spoil some of the fun.
But if grinding and crushing enemies effortlessly is fun to you that's fine too.

>ludo-narrative
I don't quite get what this joke is supposed to mean but regarding the emperor dying, yes, having the emperor die and using the information gathered by that emperor is indeed part of the game.

>>4560327
no no, what I'm saying is that for saga games in general, I try to beat every boss as though I had never met them before, if I died and built a new party that would be one thing, but I want to be able to reload, and not change my spell or skill list, and find a way to win with only the things I brought with me. If I fought the boss, gathered information, came back and then won, that would be too easy. It's too forgiving for me. The consequences aren't devastating enough. I would like it a lot more if you lost all the items in your inventory when you died. I'd love that. What I hate is spending like 20 minutes assigning skills and spells to a new party to do one thing. I want to be shoved through the gauntlet and for the chance to be lost forever, until I literally start a new game, if I happen to lose in the middle.

Maybe I should just start over and play through with no reloads now that I know what the spells are and figured things out

but wouldn't that be the biggest reload of all? I don't know man. No matter what once I know and then I just go and do that thing and then I come back and win it doesn't feel like I won for some reason, it just feels like I did the exact thing that the game had designed for me to do there, this is fucking Banjo and Kazooie

I think Unlimited is my favorite SaGa now

>>4560384
>I think Unlimited is my favorite SaGa now

As it should be.

So I managed to get the hell claw mikiri from one of those bird girls on my emperor before I passed generations. But when I go to try and learn it it's not there. Every other skill is there, but not the hell claw mikiri. What the hell man

>Can't find Noel or Subier anywhere
>Killing Wagnas advances to the final emperor
Man I really feel like I fucked something up when I botched the mermaid quest

How pissed off is noel gonna be if he's the last hero?

>>4562082
He gets pretty fucking angry when he's thinkgen of sword barrier

OH GOD THERES SO MANY BUGS

>>4562464
Yea, I kinda crapped out at that point too.

>>4562465
Final Emp is doing 4k Crimson Flares so I managed to get through them without losing LP (from anyone essential)

Then the boss got my female emperor with sex drugs and my entire party got wiped for 3k damage with glalctic rift.

>>4558251
>You don't need to spam spells
I don't know man, right now I only have Dantarg and Wagnas available to me and I have to say I'm really starting to feel the lack of high end spells. I'm going to have to just outright grind them out because I'm getting brickwalled pretty bad.

>>4562532
I can't even see how you can get to the end of the game without being 25+ average skills when the game basically goes RS1 on you so many times near the big events. The game is definitely designed for you to be using these spells, even if you don't get the fusion spells, you still have basically no choice but to use the defensive and recovery spells you get by just grinding spell levels.

I gotta tell ya man Fire and Earth magic are the best, Water is only good for heals.

I don't want to think about what this game would be like without revive or hasten time. I'd rather just play unlimited. I want to play unlimited so bad right now.

oh god why is there so many dragons

okay what the fuck is my game bugged how do I fight subier

>>4562689
>Finally find him
>"you had a hard time finding me underneath the ocean didn't you?"
this motherfucker

>>4562542
>I gotta tell ya man Fire and Earth magic are the best, Water is only good for heals.
Mist Cover is GOAT

>>4562807
I did get a lot of use out of mist cover

>>4562542
I managed to get by until now with all my magic in the 15-20 range, maybe I was just lucky but I do feel like I need to grind some new magic out right now, not even the fusions just your regular spells.

What's your opinion on Mikhail's minigames?

I find the army minigame above confusing. What the fuck should I even do?

Just finished RS2 for the first time, is it even possible to beat the final boss unless you have the top spells in each element? I mean you could always cheese the shit out of him with quicktime but damn. The difficulty of this game is indeed greatly overstated but the final boss is no joke.

>>4565962
well you'd definitely need something, maybe not all of them

Doing it without magic at all would definitely suck, but every element has some spells that can make a pretty big difference.

>>4565962
I struggled more with early Dantarg to be frank.

For 7heroes it was enough to put up sword barrier and heals on the empra every turn to last forever and win a war of attrition.

>>4565962
>is it even possible to beat the final boss unless you have the top spells in each element?
Yes, it just takes some knowledge of formations, equipment, and other spells.

>>4565962
Reviver and quicktime make the game a joke. Sword barrier, missile guard, elixir, gilden strength, mist cover, and healing spells are also useful. Moonlight in particular is important when facing the second phase.

Last playthrough I finished with weapon levels ~20 and hp ~400. I also was missing a lot of useful gear because it was sort of a minimalist run. At low levels the biggest challenge the bosses pose (aside from OHKOing everyone with powerful moves like stone shower) is their regen, if you don't do a lot of damage and consistently change the battlefield to remove their regen you'll quickly run out of MP/TP and won't be able to win.

Next playthrough I'm going to get the final emperor ASAP and I'm not going to build the magic research facility so I'll see how that goes. I might still use a nereid for life water because of their great resistances but I don't know how the second magic spell is chosen; do I need to recruit one super early on to get physic water or will a freshly recruited nereid still have a chance of starting with it when my global water levels are higher?

Question about RS1 on SFC. I played with Albert in my party for the first ~10 hours then ditched him so I could unlock a few other quests. Now I can't find him anywhere, and I've checked literally every single pub. Any ideas how to get him to show up?

>>4565970
except wind, which is shit

>>4566816
Fight some battles. They won't reappear immediately.

It's been 4 hours since I dropped him off and I did the entire Elder Dragon questline in the meantime

>>4566839
Wind has Faerie Glow that you can use with Dragon Stance and Solar Wind

if wind was the only element you were allowed to use you could just wear down the heroes with HP absorb

>>4566816
There are a couple periods where he cannot be found. You can check this chart to see where he and other characters appear based on battle count.

http://gamecentergx.at-ninja.jp/rs/party.html

>>4566839
There are strong spells unlocked at high magic levels but realistically, blades of wind is going to be your best offensive spell for most of the game. Even later on, blades of wind does pretty good damage for 1mp, missile guard is useful to protect against cyclone, and hp drain can be good.

HP drain runs off of your wind magic level and your dark ("logic") stat, unlike other spells, and it's technically the strongest spell that runs off of dark magic. I'd be interested to know how much damage a character could do with HP drain if properly decked out in a twilight robe and candy rings.

That's super useful, I've been looking all over for some kind of character chart like this. Thanks

>>4556469
It is part of a series of quests. Its insane price should have clued you in on it being a macguffin of sorts.
The game didn't bamboozle you, you clearly flawed thinking patterns did.
SaGa games are for the most autistic, but you take the cake m8.

>>4566895
I had the same problem with Barbara, when I ditched her to get Galahad in my party to get the Ice sword, now she dissapeared completely from the game.

Regarding RS1 on SNES, is there any convenient way to check your battle count?

>>4568351
Check where different characters are, and compare to the chart posted in >>4566927

I saw a video of a guy fighting Saruin with multiple Fire God Halos and Ice Swords. Is there some way to get more

>>4568568
The neutral end quest has a town that sells them.

what if I'm on the good route, are there any other saruin level weapons, and where can I find them? right now the best I can even find is garal spears/swords which is what I have equipped on everyone

>>4568857
The good route leads to three of the best weapons in the game. You can beat Saruin with regular weapons from shops around the world, so don't worry about which ending quest you get.

>>4568903
>You can beat Saruin with regular weapons from shops around the world
And you'll probably be doing that regardless of your ending route since leveling up a bunch of shit right before the final dungeon is a chore.

but I'll probably have to be leveling anyways since I'm assuming ~600 HP is nowhere near good enough for the final boss

Does anyone have link to the pastebin of Faq and Guides whenever a Saga general is posted?

>>4556469
sounds like the elixir in final fantasy mystic quest. I spent a couple of days grinding out the 9000GP before i got to that part, only to be scripted out of getting it. It annoyed the shit out of me.

grinding... in final fantasy mystic quest...

????????

>>4569110
if everyone has healing that's probably fine, just use heal-chains

>>4556469
you can buy it by selling items inside the shop to get enough and purchasing it without exiting the store

at least in minstrel song you can

how hard would it be to brute force through scarlet grace not knowing any but the most rudimentary kanji

>>4569110
Depends on how you've built your characters and whether or not Saruin feels like pulling out that Diamond Weapon -> Sword Wave bulshit. I'd feel a lot safer around 700 HP though.

>>4570174
I sure wish the minstrel song version wasn't trivialized by that one tactic

really hilarious watching the god of hatred try to assault you with a single flying fish

I still have a bunch of quests to finish anyways. I've only done 3 and I've already got the Eres Bow/Yukom Spear/Left Hand Sword to level 14-15

wow actually the difficulty of saruin is heavily overstated in all the english FAQs I've seen that wasn't that bad at all

>>4570441
I beat the game yesterday and while the man that made the faq is full of shit, still saruin was a pretty nerve wracking battle due to the immense amount of hp he has and that a few unlucky turns for you can mean the end of the battle.
Still I managed just barely using simulacrum on my front line and healing twice every turn.

I think I'm going to replay RS2 by emulating the super famicom version now that I got the plot just by memorization.

Anyone got an idea for a fun challenge? I was thinking of just going with an ironman challenge and trying to finish without reloading any LP loss or wipe outs, but maybe I can do last emp vs the world or block out sword skill or one of the magic pairs to make it more interesting.

nothing but Pyrology, Divine Magic, and Martial Arts.

>>4571185
Actually no, just Pyrology and Martial Arts would be enough; now that I think about it. Crimson Flare is too OP

>>4571185
I've done a run without reloading, it was pretty fun. I didn't have OP stuff like high level magic because I beat the game with global levels <25.
The final emperor ASAP thing is a good idea, or some other calendar based restriction, so you don't end up with a full party using cross claymores.

>>4571469
I just beat the Seven Heroes for the first time tonight; I'm curious to know how others did it.

>>4573547
With a combination of that
>>4562807
And that
>>4566078
Also, having Coppelia as a meatshield

>>4573547
Female Emp in Dragon Stance with Faerie Glow

I had 4 earth users and 3 fire users to sustain light wall and revive for the entire fight.

I basically had them locked down the entire time.

>>4573579
I got my ass kicked in Dragon Stance formation the first time. On the next, I went with Rising Phoenix and won. To be honest, it was my own dumb fault for not equipping mind-warding rings on my two male team members, who also happened to be my main healers.

>>4573637
Hannibal was the only character that wasn't protected for me, and the third time he got hit with it, he learned the mikiri

I want to say he learned Triumvirate there too, but he got that during a random battle.

Based Hannibal

>>4560384
>I think Unlimited is my favorite SaGa now
It's great isn't it?
If they fixed guns, took out the EXP requirement for spell learning and nerfed debuffs it would be near damn perfect, I could even overlook Naora's art.
>>4565193
>What's your opinion on Mikhail's minigames?
An interesting idea based on Takai and Kawazu's twisted love for wargames, but executed terribly.
I really hope the remaster fixes that among other things.
>>4569337
>Links
http://pastebin.com/ubT3r1z5
Romancing SaGa 3 Patch FAQ
http://pastebin.com/QeD1BR5q
FAQ for people new to the series
http://pastebin.com/kRbSg6PG
>Downloads
http://pastebin.com/E1V2hcfM
>>4570441
RS1 Saruin isn't really any tougher than your average FF final boss, the Minstrel Song version is a lot worse though, especially if you fight him in his 10 Fatestone version.

>>4574189
>If they fixed guns
There's nothing wrong with them tho.
I agree about magic taking too long, though I think debuffs wear off in Unlimited fast enough that they aren't too OP, not like Minstrel Song with it's exponential interaction between Agi and Dex.

>>4574205
>There's nothing wrong with them tho.
Outside of the fact that they basically do not exist outside of three MCs' scenario, they could give them a waza set like all other weapons, they're basically great combo fuel and little else as they are now.
>they aren't too OP
Debuffing SKL is a notorious cheese tactics that works on everything, it's not unlike Minstrel Song as you say, but unlike MS you could just debuffs SKL over and over with one character and not worry about comboing/crossocomboing at all, MS at least has your characters get knocked out and rebalance debuff chances by making them more likely to succeed on a combo rather than on standalone.

Though on the other hand they could also simply rework SKL by either lowering the basic multipliers for LP damage/defense, or remove the defense part entirely and use END for that.

>>4574229
>Outside of the fact that they basically do not exist outside of three MCs' scenario, they could give them a waza set like all other weapons, they're basically great combo fuel and little else as they are now.
Guns are the fastest long range attack with nearly the most reliable LP damage on a skilled character. They also have a full 5 tiers of Waza linked to their one attack option which are learned automatically when gaining the tile and are easier to hit than other weapon's waza.

If you're lucky enough to get a gun, and you have to be a lot less lucky than you'd need to be to get forbidden magic or fusion magic online, then you can automatically just assign it to any character with decent skill until they get a tile, then easily see them pull LP damage with almost every single attack, letting them deal the finishing blow or just completely skunk random encounters with the first shot, and dealing reliable LP damage to bosses every turn.

Guns are great, there's nothing wrong with them. You shoot the weak spot and do LP damage.

>>4574229
There's really nothing to stop you from using stuff like Gust Blade and Maim and Id Break and Brain Quake every single turn, once you decrease his Agi once or twice, maybe 3 times, you don't even need the combo anymore to score the stat down. It turns the fight into a battle of attrition that he's rigged to lose. You don't even need to worry about pillars because you don't even care about doing damage to him until his bird of fire is slapping you for less damage than your regen. Lower his dex and you'll even be blocking DEM with your shield and countering it with your geckling knights.

>>4574253
>Guns are the fastest long range attack with nearly the most reliable LP damage on a skilled character.
Bows still outdamage guns and also have access to things like random arrow, guns have nothing on that, they are single target only and bows still have the better SKL related waza for LP damage, Mass LP damage at that.
Five tiers of the same exact basic attack with higher basic multipliers doesn't compete with other weapons who have also five tiers of actual waza with other effects, things like Puree will always be miles better than a Shot!!! panel, so are things like Random Arrow.
>If you're lucky enough to get a gun, and you have to be a lot less lucky than you'd need to be to get forbidden magic or fusion magic
That's bullshit, in nearly two decades I've never seen a gun that didn't come with Michelle or Mythe, whereas I've got "plenty" of forbidden tablets and magic blenders, even things like Rainbow Guckies are more reliable than trying to farm for guns.
>>4574265
Considering you're talking about 10 FS Saruin, yeah, there are a lot of things stopping you, especially compared to Chaos Ruler.
I know people in here are already at the stage where you don't need to worry about most of the things you need to prepare since they're basic knowledge to you, but there is a huge difference between the systems and battle design.
Even at low levels Chaos Ruler will never, ever be able to wipe you out in one or two turns, by design, this doesn't apply to Saruin, you're a lot more hard pressed to find better equipment, have higher stats and use combos and other things in MS than you do in Unlimited, simply because debuffs are that more relevant in there, same with a lot of other situations, outside of the Minions I guess.
There's a world of difference between scoring debuffs against 10FS Saruin and doing so against Chaos Ruler or things like the Egg.

>2056
>Still no RS2 Snes translation.

>>4574313
>Gideon
Either learn moon or give up

>>4574301
The game feeds you so much unique OP equipment loaded with stat boosts or with end game weapon power that I can't believe anyone would actually need to take extra time to gather equipment or anything. You don't need insane defense values as much as you just need good spells and tactics.

>>4574331
Well, if we want to be honest there's not a lot of OP unique equipment in MS when even things like the Ala Melvirana are outclassed by shop stuff, it all depends on how you approach things and possibly a slight degree of randomness if you're into forging stuff, or if you're Gray.
But yeah, I'd say that you do need extra time to gather good stuff unless you've already dissected the game that much by the time you want to fight 10FS Saruin, unless you follow a guide.

Compare it to Unlimited when even steel equipment is more than enough to do your job at the same level of knowledge.

>>4574362
>even things like the Ala Melvirana are outclassed by shop stuff
are you one of those people who tempers all their gear for defense and puts field plate on everybody while forgetting completely that you could just be fast instead

>>4574385
Yeah, I am, better safe than sorry.

>>4574387
Tell me how you sold the beast equipment to buy more fashionable helms and dex reducing gauntlets

>>4573547
First time I beat the seven heroes I was in the amazon strike formation using mediocre weapons and techs like slice on the moonlight sword. I had a tactician for offensive spells and a crusader behind mist cover on healing duty. I had weapon levels in the high 20s and hp ~600.

Most recently I finished with weapon levels ~20 and hp ~400 as well as some other restrictions. Mu Palisade is a godly formation, a nereid behind mist cover is amazing for support, divine lancer helps, and using light magic to stop their regen is essential. It took several attempts because a couple rare moves like stone shower would wreck my formation and if the seven heroes regenerated too much health I'd run out of steam and be unable to win.

>>4575869
nothing mediocre about slice man

>>4576489
Yeah slice is great considering how early you can get it. I guess stream blade on the vorpal sword would be a better example of being mediocre.

>>4576616
Slice does more damage than Triumvirate if you're comparing the Dragon Blade and Longinus, and I was actually using Slice, Triumvirate, and Yo-Yo for damage against the 7 heroes. I even had a Mole using Mega Thrust with an Estoc who did more damage with Stone Shower but needed to conserve MP for Elixirs and Light Walls.

This was all kind of irrelevant, Crimson Flare beat the damage of everything no matter what I did, and there's absolutely no reason why I couldn't have built my team around that.

>>4576674
>This was all kind of irrelevant, Crimson Flare beat the damage of everything no matter what I did
Not a surprise considering RS2 is one of the few SaGa games where magic is king.

>>4576674
>>4576721
It depends on the character, weapon levels, and the target. Personally I've never found offensive magic to match up to physical attacks, but that's probably because the tactician I had using crimson flare was one with crummy spell power. The support spells are ridiculous though.
As for slice it's made up of four weaker hits so in theory it should fare worse against high defense enemies than trimvirate. Yo-yo is great if your axe rank is super high but reverse delta is usually stronger and relatively accessible.

>>4576740
Oh and the other issue with offensive magic is that you don't have much more than blades of wind and sunlight until the end of the game. Even stone shower comes really late.

On a side note, the sapphire spear is an interesting way to get a decent multitarget magic attack and it doesn't rely on magic ranks. However I don't think it can be obtained very early.

>>4576740
>Personally I've never found offensive magic to match up to physical attacks
Try to see the difference in attack power between Koumei and the Male Emperor or Hannibal, even with a Cross Claymore or stuff like the Seven Sword Crimson Flare will do more damage, not to mention Galaxy wiping out mostly everything in one go even better than Afterimage Sword or how that's called in the localized script, and that's without considering support spells, RS2 is one of the very few games where Magic is top tier in every regards, and the more you minmax the more evident it is.
It is especially all the more evident on battles like the Dread Queen, where your physical attackers will never compete with the damage Crimson Flare can dish out, I'd go as far as say that it was a battle deliberately built around Crimson Flare since it's the only reliable way of dealing high damage that the Queen.

Though as you say, on the other hand offensive Magic doesn't really pick up until Stone Shower, so it's still kind of "balanced" in a way, and it's not like Crimson Flare is all that vital either, but it's a really convenient and powerful nuke, much like Quicktime is a very convenient way to cheat on everything bar the Dread Queen in the remaster.

I don't even think Magic has been ever as powerful as it was in RS2 offensively, maybe TLR counts if you consider Arcana's convenient field wiping potential, but it still gets outclassed in terms of pure damage when you consider a single physical Union output.
At the end of the day, the only title who did get really powerful offensive magic capable of competing with physical attacks on all fields was Unlimited, and maybe Scarlet Grace if it didn't take so long to develop properly, and it's probably the most lackluster magic system in modern SaGa when it comes to everything else too.

>>4576821
What about SaGa Frontier 2 and Unlimited anon

magic is pretty darn strong there
Flare is also the strongest in SaGa 1 and 2

>>4577095
Frontier 2 has pretty strong magic, Guard Beast, Regeneration, Incinerate and Thunderbringer especially, but not in terms of actual damage, physical and hybrid are still better for raw damage whereas magic is better for effects like Incinerate's instakill or Delta Petra's mass petrification, as for Unlimited, I did mention it in my post.

You're right on SaGa 1 and 2 though, I always stupidly forget to put the classic trilogy in the equation, flare spam was very much a thing, and so is in the remakes, though thanks to the new systems is slightly less dominating than the originals.

Which characters are good/bad to start with in unlimited saga?

>>4578680
Good:
Ventus, Ruby
Intermediate:
Laura, Mythe, Judy
Bad:
Kurt, Armic

Your mileage may vary though, you should definitely avoid Kurt or Armic as your first file though, Kurt has a particular main story quest in which it's easy to get locked up forever due to his own gauntlet gimmick while Armic can be particularly frustrating to play with due to his own gimmick being focused on some unique commerce mechanics that are mandatory in order to proceed through the main scenario and require a bit of knowledge about commerce, items and shops in general.
Ventus is the only one who can do unlimited quests(though there's a little price to pay for that), so he's by design the best MC to start with since no matter how bad you fuck up your builds you can always fix everything, Ruby is the most similar to Ventus in that her own gimmick lets her "simulate" multiple quest in her own scenario quests, meaning you can grind those single quests for some time in order to build your characters, that is rebalanced by having you go through all the specific Seven Wonders dungeons as a story quest, unlike the other MCs.

Laura, Mythe and Judy are all more balanced in a way while still having character specific gimmicks, they do not require as much effort as Kurt or Armic but are also not as forgiving as Ventus or Ruby.

>>4578680
I always tell people to start with Ventus because it's real comfy and you can get around the map easily, just make sure you do his carrier missions to open up areas early on because he gets new party members that way. Laura and Ruby are also good to start with, though Ruby probably gives too much of the game up front if you already know you're gonna replay.

Bad would be Mythe or Kurt, because they get more difficult if you don't already know how to build your characters.

>Get back to playing Unlimited
>30 hour file with entire team at end-game power level
>completely forgot how to play that team or what I was doing with any of the characters
man it's gonna take me like an hour to puzzle this out

How difficult in general is Unlimited? I've been playing relatively blind for the past 10 hours as Ventus, I don't really understand everything but I'm not having problems with the enemies or bosses so far.

Am I going to eventually hit a brick wall where I have to go back and grind for specific panels/equipment/spells/whatever or is it generally okay to just putter around and do carrier missions and continue the story when I feel like it

>>4579939
In Unlimited you can basically do whatever you want if you're competent enough, but at some point you might find out that you just don't have the panels to finish an adventure or you just can't beat a certain boss.

At that point you can probably take some time to re-examine your strategies or consult with the experts to learn a real life waza that you didn't know before and maybe you'll beat it.

>>4579939
It varies a lot.
Depending on how familiar you are with the series, who you start with and how much time you want to dedicate to it the game might be either surprisingly easy or pretty puzzling, the usual problems of the series like getting to mid game and finding out you messed up your builds is there, and it's probably the game where that matters most outside of Ventus and Ruby's quest, since you only get character growth at the end of a quest and quests are limitedm not to mention that panels make it so it's pretty easy to mess up a character compared to any other entry in the series.

There might also be some difficulty spikes, since you're playing as Ventus is not unlikely you'll hit a few of those given his scenario, Ruby's the same and same goes for pretty much everyone else bar maybe Judy, who has a somewhat more stable level of difficulty all around.
Some people find Unlimited easy while others can't really get used to it, though that might be said for all SaGa games really, I've seen a few people on /v/ getting stuck on the Viker boss fight in RS2 for instance, though to be fair, they were admittedly new to the series so they were probably shellshocked by a tutorial boss being more than able to wipe them out effortlessly compared to most other RPGs.
I myself started out with Ruby back in the days, and while I wasn't new to the series I did hit a wall when I went to the Nakle Lines with her, mostly because I really didn't figure out much by then, then again, I was like fourteen years old.

>>4573960
Hannibal is pretty great.

>>4583350
Hannibal and Koumei are pretty much the best heavy hitters in the game.
That said, RS2 had pretty good character balance for such a huge cast, the games with fixed stats tend to have generally better balance than those with variable stats, Unlimited excluded since it's pretty much a hybrid and a model of its own.

where are you guys playing this series in ENGLISH that is counted as retro
this thread is illegal

>>4586356
>where are you guys playing this series in ENGLISH that is counted as retro
On literally any platform ever, Gideon.

>>4585851
The game with the best character balance just has no stats and only has skill levels and HP/SP/LP

everything is about how you gear them and what skill talents they have, which are tiered in a progression that exposes you to all the spells and techniques as you go through the game normally

In Unlimited Saga, what should be my target stats for the final boss? Like, how should I prepare?

Right now my HP is all in the ~400 range, my weapons in the ~35-40 damage range, and my stats generally between 25-50. I'm pretty much just using sword/spear/dagger/axe/fist attacks, I don't really have any spells. I don't really have much in the way of armor either.

>>4587409
>what should be my target stats for the final boss?
Depends on your party composition, tools and equipment.
The final boss is designed as a battle of attrition with four phases that get progressively tougher to deal with, having healing spells is pretty much needed unless you get really good equipment and panels on everyone, which takes a while for someone unfamiliar with the game.
>Right now my HP is all in the ~400 range, my weapons in the ~35-40 damage range, and my stats generally between 25-50.
Yeah, but what's your party composition? what are your panels? That HP is pretty low on average, it's better to be on the 600 range on your first time because Chaos Ruler has a lot of gimmicks you have to deal with.
>I don't really have any spells. I don't really have much in the way of armor either.
That's bad, spells are a must considering your stats, and if your armors aren't up to the task just forget about it since Chaos Ruler will slap your shit really hard, especially when you enter the third phase, and depending on the MCs it can very well sap up to half of your party's LPs with ease in a turn at low levels unless you get really good armor with good attributes.
How many quests did you do? Have you tried forging things yet? I assume you're using something like Copper weapons judging at the attack values you listed, you should try to get some iron or steel ones at the very least, it's really easy to do so by forging assuming you haven't been selling anything you come by.

I've still got quite a bit of time before I attempt the final boss, I've really just been doing carrier quests this far. I just want to know what should be my target for as I aim for completion

>>4588053
That's good then, especially since you're playing as Ventus.
Take your time, you still have to deal with a lot of other stuff before Chaos Ruler, and if you can deal with that you'll hardly have problems in the final battle.

Anyone have the leaked beta for RS3 eng retrans by magno? Seeing the saga logo made me want to replay 3

>>4588259
No

You know there's a RS3 remaster in progress, right?

>>4588325
I don't actually

if it looks anything like the FF6/FFTactics/Dragon Quest remasters then I'm not interested to be honest, FF6 looks horrible, I think the mobile and PC versions look the same even

>>4588360
I think they're angling more towards a full remake akin to Minstrel Song. But that could just be fan speculation.

>>4588360
Not much info about RS3 yet.
Did you at least hear about the RS2 remaster? It's available in English on various platforms.

>>4588360
they're starting to become slightly aware that people don't actually want to look at weirdly mismatched assets and retraced sprites, so we might get something a little better this time

but it all depends on who they give the work to and what kind of deadlines and resources they're given, chances are they won't spend a lot unless it's a total remake from the ground up like FFIV or something

>>4588373
now that looks good
>>4588363
I wish it was 2d, ps2 remake had horrible camera angles
>>4588375
I'm looking at screenshots of the RS2 remake, the only thing I'd change for RS3 is the font, feels like it doesn't match the sprites, kind of reminds me of the PSP legend of heroes (gagharv) games

>>4588363
I wouldn't count on it, Kawazu did say he wanted to fix some stuff if he could work on RS3 again, but considering he explicitly said that the new RS3 will be a remaster I don't expect something like Minstrel Song, which was a full remake.
Still, considering the success of RS2 and how they were also happy with Scarlet Grace I'd say that the incoming resmaster will have a better budget than RS2.
>>4588375
>chances are they won't spend a lot unless it's a total remake from the ground up like FFIV or something
Kawazu did say that RS3 would have been remade from the ground up, unlike RS2, though how much they have invested on it is anybody's guess.
Doesn't help that he's one of those devs who doesn't say anything until a few months before release.

>>4548478
I've never run anything without a full party of mains. I usually start Sif or Albert, then go for Grey, Barbara, Hawk and Claudia (I find Aisha to be dead weight). I've found myself with Galahad and whatever the Witch's name is on occasion, as the latter is an easy Fire user and the former comes for free with the Ice Blade.

I tried using Raphael once but I think he comes too late. The kind of work he needs is two-hours-of-turbo-mode kind of work.

Always bugged me that formations basically had to be 3/2/1 f/m/b, thanks to no access to good weapons after a while.

>>4588887
Yeah, Raphael is shit. I tried using him once as well.
He has a good stat spread, basically a right-handed Albert (and he looks cool), but it doesn't matter because he's never going to catch up by the time you get to recruit him.

Miriam is probably the best non-main in RS1.

>>4548478
For saying how much everyone hates icycalm, they sure love trying to make one thread per game a thing everywhere else.

>>4588971
I'd say "literally who" but I don't actually want to know.

>>4588971
I don't hate icycalm I think he's hilarious and dumb

>>4588927
What about Guella Ha tho

no one is better than Guella Ha

He's basically Dog-Hannibal at this point

>>4589412
Beauteous

>Ctrl+F 'unlimited saga' 'scarlet grace'
>>>/vg/

/vr/ - Retro Games

These generals always become non-retro shit. DQ general had the same issues. Just take it over to /vg/ if that's how you want to run it.

>>4590905
You forgot to mention those TLR comments too, retro policeman.

>best girl in Unlimited isn't recruitable

>>4591045
>You'll never get an answer on who is Unlimited's Emerald
I get that the fortunetellers were references to the female court mages in RS2, but it bothers me not knowing what's Emerald's connection to Ruby and Sapphire.

>>4592727
According to Kaitai Shinsho (page 557) she's a descendant of Ruby, and is able to control the power of the Seven Wonders.

>3番目の場面に登場するのは、ルビの子孫のエメラルドだ。七大驚異の力は自分たちでコントロールできると力強く言い切る彼女の姿は、世界の新たな可能性を感じさせる。

>>4592809
>descendent of ruby
woah, did the madwoman actually rape hiro?

>>4592858
I haven't found a 100% confirmation that it's Hiro she settles down with, but their relationship is heavily implied in-game.

>>4592809
That explains why Iskandar forfeits his status as the Unlimited by the time Emerald's around, I guess.
Guess she'll become the next Unlimited in line, or maybe the next Leith Torles.

does getting a party wipe in Unlimited send you to the main menu? thinking about trying the final dungeon but not if it means dying to the final boss will undo the last 2 hours of gameplay.

>>4594997
>does getting a party wipe in Unlimited send you to the main menu?
yes. also if your MC or an essential party member has an LP death.

Lots of times if you're stuck in a dungeon you can (sometimes) escape, or usually just let the turns run out to get sent back to town (you retain your battle count which effects panel levels for the next adventure though). In your character's main quest their plot related adventures have no turn count limit though, so you might want to be careful.

Is there any reason you couldn't just save before starting the adventure?

You can also save in the middle of an adventure and take a break, but it'll be deleted when you reload your file.

of course I can save. but if dying to the final boss means I have to redo the entire final dungeon again, then I want to make 100% sure that is not going to happen.

>>4595095
>or usually just let the turns run out to get sent back to town (you retain your battle count which effects panel levels for the next adventure though).

So stuff does carry over, even if you fail or leave a quest early? I've been curious since I've had a few quests where the turn limit would run out, or I'd leave early myself. I even had a quest run out in the middle of a battle.

>>4595274
The number of battles you've been in since the last time you received panels is used to determine a bunch of stuff like how good the magic tablets you get are, the number of battle turns each character took is used for their HP growth next panel, the rank of the panels you get themselves can get better, and it seems to increase the overall Battle Rank which is used to generate treasures and monsters and shop items and stuff (though shops have their own rank that's based on how much money you've spent).

Once you finish a quest and get panels, the current battle total resets, and the magic tablets you pick up will be level 1s and 2s instead of 3s and 4s

>>4595162
All of the final dungeons have a save point. They're sometimes slightly off the beaten path, so be careful not to miss it.

>>4595420
there's a lot of times when it seems like you're at the final dungeon but then there's actually another dungeon.

>>4595335
>Once you finish a quest and get panels, the current battle total resets

So could this be exploited by going into a quest and getting into battles until the turn limit runs out, and keep doing it over and over?

>>4595620
sure if your time is worth nothing to you. You can still never get a panel better than level 5 and there are no magic tablets better than level 4

it's the sort of thing you really only benefit from doing once or twice, until you get whatever tablets you desired

I really wish you could keep your spells and techniques learned between playthroughs

>>4595670
>You can still never get a panel better than level 5

Well that answers my other question.

Ok, how the fuck do you get to the 7-heroes fight in RS2 without the Final Emperor?

I thought it was based on number of generations, so I came up with a route to kill off the heroes asap, but that just resulted in me being the Final Emperor in year 1177.

>>4595734
>Ok, how the fuck do you get to the 7-heroes fight in RS2 without the Final Emperor?
You don't, obviously. Whichever hero is the penultimate hero that you kill will always trigger a generation shift to the last emperor.

Which SaGa games would you consider have the best story, or at least above 'good'?

I liked SaGa Frontier 2 tons, but I don't know if it's because the story is good, the setting, the lore or the whole presentation and package

>>4595743
The remake has an achievement for doing it, so it must be possible.

Anyway, the real reason I want to know is because I'm routing out a speed completion and doing that should skip Kzinssie 2.
So it might be faster, matter on what bullshit you have to pull to make it happen.

>>4595752
>I don't know if it's because the story is good, the setting, the lore or the whole presentation and package
maybe they're not separate things

>>4595734
Normally you get a timeskip to the final emperor once you get a black screen with four of the heroes dead. In order to skip the final emperor you need to avoid black screens past that point. So first beat Rocbouquet, Wagnas, and Bokuohn in any order, then do the following in any order: Noel, Subier at the sunken ship (don't talk to the ocean diver girl afterwards; you may need to kill the narwhal to get him to appear there), and Dantarg at the child and mu calf dungeon (don't talk to the kid after beating Dantarg). Then sit on the throne and you should be able to proceed.

Remember if you want coppelia to be the final empress you need her to be in your party in the generation before your final party, so plan accordingly.

>>4595848
>You have to beat Rocbouquet before Noel
That right there basically tells me it's not faster.

Well, that and you're either forced to skip generations to get the inventor to make the wind machine (which isn't so bad because you can just leave the Canal Fort uncompleted for a fast generation skip whenever you want) or you have to do the whole bard quest, which is slow for sure.

Thanks for the info though.
My route (that didn't work) was:
Gerard: Brawler scenario -> Gemstone mine -> Saigo recruitment
2nd gen: open Mu and Calf, but don't do it -> Desert Tower -> Bokhohn
3rd gen: Dantarg -> Noel -> first 2/3rd of Wagnas quest -> Rocbouquet
And then I was at Final already on gen 4

>>4595875
Out of curiosity, what was your setup for fighting Dantarg and Noel that early? I can't imagine you'd have much magic or equipment based on your route.

>>4595875
Is this a single-segment speedrun or is saving and reloading okay? I don't know much about speedruns but I imagine that would be a big factor in your speedrun. They key to a good time is probably finding a way to grind efficiently so you can roll over bosses quickly rather than barely making it through after a long fight. As for damage, you probably want to use one weapon type and spark a strong attack from the stone guardian e.g. reverse delta with axes.
I don't know how well this will work, since you'll either be too weak kill him quickly or too strong to get the chance to fight him, but one possible place to power grind is the sorcerer on comrune island. If you get the stone boat from the jungle, talk with the salamenders, and your emperor's HP is <255, you can choose to fight the sorcerer when you first meet him and can repeat the fight by walking out of the room. He's hard to beat (rapid stream + stun is a must; he has high status defense though so you could use mist cover to guarantee stun but that would prolong the fight considerably given his regen) but he does give 6000 exp each time.

Remember that your characters' starting HP is determined by the number of battles you have fought so even running from fights can make you stronger. Also, the passage of time affects certain events; if you fight the right number of battles with Gerard, you can get Dantarg to spawn in the northern Nazelle cave.

>>4596556
I've done a 3-generation playthrough where my saigo emperor killed dantarg, rocbouquet, noel, and bokuohn. I used mu pallisade, weapon levels ~10, reasonably strong equipment available early like the amethyst axe, phantom wolf sword, rapier from the desert oasis, etc. + a healer under mist cover.

>>4596734
>rapier from the desert oasis
wait what

>>4595752
I'd say RS2, the Frontier games, Unlimited and Scarlet Grace have the best stories.

RS2 has a great story due to the Seven Heroes' unexpected drama and all the other storylines for the various regions and characters, especially great for a game that came out in 1993.
Frontier has the best interwoven lore and story shared among multiple characters, one of the best sci-fi setting in games and a very colourful, quirky cast with tons of charm.
Frontier 2 has the best character driven stories and drama hands down, Gustave and Wil are simply great and so are their descendants, amazing setting too if you like classic fantasy settings.
Unlimited has the most intriguing lore and an interesting setting of a world in ruin with some various themes, character stories and themes that are particularly interesting and well done, like Laura's own story, Clyde Blackstorm or Iskandar.
Scarlet Grace has the best set of story variations in the series coupled with a very good cast and worldbuilding, not as serious as Unlimited or SF2 and more of a return to the Romancing's "great adventure" style, but it's really good at what it does, especially since all the various event variations gives more insight on the events in the world and the characters that inhabit it, it also has the longest script in the series so far.

Honorable mention goes of course, to SaGa 1.
>>4596789
You can get the Irolina saber from the Mirage Oasis in the Meru Desert by starting Noel's questline in there, it's very easy to do so and you can speed up the questline further by liberating the towers in Tereluteva at night instead of doing it during the day.

>>4596834
>You can get the Irolina saber from the Mirage Oasis in the Meru Desert by starting Noel's questline in there, it's very easy to do so and you can speed up the questline further by liberating the towers in Tereluteva at night instead of doing it during the day.
I never got it even though I did finished the game though

>>4596836
I suppose you missed the secret room, it's in the south wall right before the room where Noel and Sharrkhan are duking it out.

>>4596834
>liberating the towers in Tereluteva at night instead of doing it during the day.
What? How do you do that and what does it change?

Anyways I should mention that you can access the desert oasis at any time and find the rapier in the hidden room, but if you want to get the phantom wolf sword before meeting noel you need to go to the oasis to talk to the ancient guy before noel arrives so he can tell you about the teleport puzzle ruins (noel won't be there until you beat the boss of the central tower in town).

>>4596863
Speak to the people in Tereluteva until night falls, just like the Mermaid quest.
>what does it change?
The enemies patrolling the towers raid the town at night, that means you can sprint up to the top of the towers in seconds since nobody is guarding them.

So I just picked up Romancing Saga 2 any tips or tricks I should know about? This will be my first saga game.

Sell me on cosmology in RS: minstrel's song. Seems like it's only good for the healing spell

>>4597965
Don't grind. Don't run from battles no matter how much you want to.

>>4597965
Not really any tips and tricks but some basic information might help:
Your weapons rank up as you use them in battle, you learn skills randomly when fighting strong enemies, you can teach down any skills you've learned to anyone in future generations by talking to some guys in your castle (near the formation guys), most new emperors can teach you a new formation if you talk to those formation guys in your castle, if you sit on the throne after meeting certain conditions you can develop your city (e.g. build a magic research center if you've studied a bit of magic), the game just displays armor's slashing defense but there are other damage types (e.g. helmets are usually good against blunt attacks), enemies get stronger when you fight more battles (but don't worry too much, so do you).

>>4598503
it also has the starbits spell and cosmic wave or whatever

>>4599239
oh wait it also has bind to earth and galactic rift

galactic rift is incredibly strong

>>4599239
Are those any good? The starbit related spells seem like they take too long to set up. Galactic Rift is great for sure, but it's stuck behind imperial scholar right?

>>4599728
Use the starbits as a shield not as an offensive weapon.