/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5622239]

>character portrayed holding guns
>worst gun growth in the game
What did Kawazu mean by this?

Also, does it make sense to keep redoing the same boss fight over and over until I glimmer the most possible moves?

SaGa thread.

[Anonymous No.5622240]

>>5622239
are you wearing the right outfit? Emeilia's stats and growths are very dependent on her clothes.

[Anonymous No.5622260]

>>5622240
Are there also hidden properties like RS2 has with gauntlets decreasing ranged accuracy etc?

[Anonymous No.5622263]

>>5622239
not true annie is worse

[Anonymous No.5622267]

>>5622260
ur stat growth is dependent on current stats if ur a human so lowering stats are better and stat increasing equip will make you average at the same number, there are also like 7 defense values and the game only shows u slash defense

other than that you can see most stuff

[Anonymous No.5622271]

>>5622239
>fight centipede
>Annie techs Heaven & Hell
>Liza techs some rolling throw
>get greedy and reset the fight
>nobody techs anything for the next 2 attempts
>mfw

[Anonymous No.5622275]

>>5622267
Why would the game penalize humans for wearing gear?

[Anonymous No.5622495]

>>5622239
Hey I'm gonna revive this thread with some other SaGa questions (namely about 1):

Why are kicks so expensive when they don't do much? I bought some for shits and giggles since I grinded and was rolling in gold, I have a human with maxed strength and agility, but the kicks do less damage than even a rapier, and rapiers have a way better return on investment for the use count vs. cost. Is there some secret to making the kicks into a useful attack? I even tried removing armor on the guess that the purpose of the kick was to emulate ninjas in Wizardry, but that didn't change anything.

Also, is it me, or are mutants way more useful in the WS remake than in the original game? It feels like in the latter, they gain (and keep) high-power and instant-death group spells much more often. On the GB version, I have never even seen a mutant gain spells like Death or Stone, and spells like Flame or Ice only stick around for a few battles at most. Not that it matters as they are crazy-stacked since I grinded money to buy maxed stats for the human, but I am wondering about this detail.

>>5622275
It's probably a reference to Wizardry. In those first games, the Ninja class is actually less effective when wearing armor. I guess it's supposed to be a whole "unrestricted warrior of sword and fist" thing. Either way, Square was heavily inspired by wizardry (as well as ultima), and one way you see it is in earlier square RPGs (FF1 for example) where there are classes that do better without having shit equipped.

[Anonymous No.5622547]

>>5622260
Of course not, in what world would wearing a glove make you handle a gun worse?
It makes sense with bows because pulling strings with gloves is harder.
>>5622275
The game doesn't penalize you for wearing gear, it's just that any stat bonus relative to equipment counts in the final bonus calculation for stat ups.
So lets say that you have a STR 40+15, the game won't consider your character's own 40 score but the sum of both the character and the equipment's bonus, making it 55, this makes growth slower, which is why you should try to avoid abuse of specific equipment bonuses at low stats levels, like having four Glirandly, a cyber suit and other stat boosting accessories or something, because it actually stunts your growth big time.
It's a basic counterbalance measure so you can't just break the game effortlessly, all games with the variable stat system format have this, including Minstrel Song and even TLR in its own way.

Some games do have specific gear penalty mechanics, mostly regarding equipment weight though, but outside of the weird and barely relevant STR submechanics in MS or the gauntlets in RS2 it's hard to call them penalties as they're either potential advantages or simple balancing tools, only thing that comes to mind right now is Steel equipment in SF2.
>>5622495
I don't really remember kicks being useful in the old GB games so I can't answer your question, they do benefit from the general martial art mechanics though.
>Also, is it me, or are mutants way more useful in the WS remake than in the original game?
Not sure whether it's the case, the WSC remaster did extensive bugfixing so maybe that's the reason.

[Anonymous No.5622886]

>>5622547
Oooh that's pretty fucking cool to be honest.

I don't see anyone responding to my other question in the OP though.

[Anonymous No.5622943]

>>5622886
You mean as to why Emilia's portrayed with guns but having her INT growth being subpar compared to other characters?
It's mostly a theme for the character, Annie is also portrayed with sickles but there's no sickle weapon in Frontier, she comes with swords, and she's not even one of the better sword users in the game if you want to be picky.
Emilia's gimmick comes for her costumes making her adaptable by changing her tech tables, her gun thingy in the art is mostly a narrative choice and maybe kind of thematical in the girls trio with Liza(Martial arts) and Annie(Swords) if you want to really try to overthink it.
Moreover, there's no real "talent" with guns as there is to Swords/Martial arts/Magic, guns are universal and you just need high INT for learning techs often, which by all means you can nurture even in Emilia's case.

Even if you look at previous games, weapon choice in character portraits doesn't always reflect the characters' proficiencies, Ellen or Tyler for instance are often depicted with axes but they're amazing martial artists, Katarina's art has her wielding a dagger which is probably the Masquerade in its sealed form (which is mechanically a rapier in the game) but she's "canonically" a great sword user, which is the unsealed form of the Masquerade, Galahad is depicted with a crossbow in his Minstrel Song art but there's no crossbows in the game and he's statistically geared for STR based weapons like greatswords or maces.

As for your other question, yeah, you can try to repeat a bossfight, but it's not worth it most of the times if you cannot gauge your BR bonus or when you're not sure of what you can exploit for that, reloading a fight against Berva just to spark more shit when you could just go fight a black dragon is kind of pointless, it also leads to bad habits in the long run if you ask me, but that's something for another topic.

[Anonymous No.5622960]

>>5622547
>It's a basic counterbalance measure so you can't just break the game effortlessly, all games with the variable stat system format have this, including Minstrel Song and even TLR in its own way.
Minstrel Song ignores your bonuses and penalties when calculating stat increasess, but everyone there has a good shot of hitting the 70 range if you grind and the 50 range even if you don't. It is very much in your best interest to wear as much equipment that increases Dex or Agi as you can at all times.

We're not going to talk much about TLR because it's insane and dumb even though I love it.

[Anonymous No.5622971]

>>5622943
>she comes with swords, and she's not even one of the better sword users in the game if you want to be picky.
This is really only because Gen/Fuse/Roufas/Red/Emilia are all sword-gods, everyone else is shit and Annie's high strength score and easy access to Bear Crush makes her good for speedruns or as a backup sword hand.

[Anonymous No.5623014]

>>5622943
>it also leads to bad habits in the long run if you ask me, but that's something for another topic

Tell me whenever we can have that topic because I'm interested.

[Anonymous No.5623032]

>>5623014
You mean the one about how SaGa played a different way actually has insidious and addictive gambling mechanics built into it's design and probably is the point of origin for much of the mobage cancer that plagued the japanese game industry for the last ten years

yeah, don't actually save scum in a SaGa game, you're not going to be having fun

[Anonymous No.5623079]

>>5622960
>Minstrel Song ignores your bonuses and penalties when calculating stat increases
You sure about that? I know it ignores penalties but I'm pretty sure bonuses do count.
I might be wrong though.
>>5623014
It's more of a matter of staying inside the ruleset of the games and avoiding compulsive obsessive minmaxing, which the games discourage by design.
A lot of people shitpost about the series encouraging savescumming because they always let you save anywhere outside of battles (Though it's mostly due to the vast majority of JRPG fans being forcibly fed the dedicated save point system), but the games, and arguably the players, suffer from actual savescumming.

On one hand it's because the sparking system being semirandomized leads to frustration in the case of the average player who's used to have direct control on things like learning abilities, this is doubly evident in TLR's case where a lot of people say the game is shit because they can't control unions directly, or that it's random because they don't know how to build unions and consequently can't control the flow.
Some players then tend to savescum and reroll to get better techs or in the vain hope that the RNG will help them win a battle, missing the entire point of the games' system and the actual risk management and progression.

On the other hand there's cases like Unlimited, where many things like forging, treasure hunting and even character building have an inherent RNG factor to prevent players getting too strong too easily AND to add a layer of unpredictability to it all, much like dice throws in tabletop games.
Savescumming in Unlimited is especially disastrous because it leads to breaking the system in a million pieces, from simple panel farming to cheating the economy and your characters' equipment limitations, which work together with the rest of the other mechanics.
>>5623032
>probably is the point of origin for much of the mobage cancer
This is beyond shitposting.

[Anonymous No.5623140]

>>5623079
>This is beyond shitposting.
That's how you know a guy is watching too much shonen anime he broke the limits of shitposting.

But really, I can totally tell how it spices up a playthrough with the randomness. I wish it was more... determined and not as varying. Initially I thought there would be a seed determined by what I feed my system data with (name, sign, blood type).

[Anonymous No.5623147]

>>5622239
I'm writing an editor for SaGa Frontier, check it out.

https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/downloads/SnakeOil_V0.6.zip

[Anonymous No.5623150]

>>5623147
Along with that, here's some technical information.

https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/waza/

[Anonymous No.5623157]

>>5623032
We've converted some of Zaraktheus's gameshark codes into patches, check out the GameFAQs SaGa Frontier board. Hope you like 1/8 rarest drops instead of the current 1/128.

[Anonymous No.5623170]

>>5623140
>I wish it was more... determined and not as varying
More determined than it actually is?
It wouldn't be SaGa then but just another JRPG, the inherent randomness of the system is something you have to get behind and learn how to control, it's not even hard to do, especially in Frontier's case.
SaGa's one of those RPGs where the approach isn't making a surefire plan A, but rather always making sure you have a surefire plan B in case plan A fails.

I personally wish it was more varied actually, I can only dream of the day Kawazu makes a balls to the wall SaGa roguelite to pay respect to NetHack, kinda like a fusion of Wild Card, Unlimited and SaGa 1.
On the other hand I loathe the rare spawn bullshit in TLR, but mostly because it was not executed well and being tied to your quest board was a horrible, horrible thing, I can only hope they don't make stupid achievements for the RS3 remaster tied to that kind of shit.

[Anonymous No.5625237]

>>5623147
I don't come to /vr/ often, does SaGa really have that big of a following here?
Don't get me wrong, I'm downloading this shit immediately. You're doing Gods work anon.

[Anonymous No.5625238]

>>5625237
Liza is best girl.

[Anonymous No.5625248]

>>5625238
Good taste but you're wrong.

[Anonymous No.5625446]

>>5622495
>Is there some secret to making the kicks into a useful attack?
If I'm remembering correct, the last use of every Martial Arts move does heavy damage so they're gimmick weapons where you try to burn them in regular battles while saving the last one for the boss

[Anonymous No.5625460]

>>5623157
It straight up doesn't matter. The other poster is right, it flies in the face if SaGa to continually save scum with the intention to unlock a new skill. You don't get a new skill during a boss fight? Oh well. Never find that equipment drop on that run? Just forge through. Part of SaGa is dealing with the cards you have been dealt. Before the proliferation of the internet you just had to guess and roll with monster transformations in FFL1 and 2. Things are less defined in SaGa to force you to cope with the situation and just move forward. SaGa series probably broke me in with that due to it being the first three RPGs I've ever played. I never felt like I had to do every side quest in other RPGs, or try to steal a low chance of appearing item, and so on. I would roll with what i gained from battle and what ever little exploration I did.

What is the point of being a perfectionist and a completionist in these games?

[Anonymous No.5625482]

>>5625460
At some point gamers got the idea that they didn't have to hunt or look or even play their games to get all the best bits. Ill concede that somethings are too obtuse but there's something to be said about self discovery. Fuck, I remember the first time I sparked some of these skills and it blew me away as the coolest shit. Even something that wasn't necessarily top tier was still an event in itself when you earned it.

[Anonymous No.5625483]

>>5625460
>it flies in the face if SaGa to continually save scum with the intention to unlock a new skill.
Jesus Christ this a thousand times, not even just with SaGa. Just play the fucking game and enjoy it, then play it again if you really enjoyed it.

[Anonymous No.5625486]

>>5625483
>then play it again if you really enjoyed it.
I've had this argument both here and in real life but the idea of replayability always stood out to me as a silly argument, because more than anything else, a game will be replayable just by being good.

[Anonymous No.5625498]

SaGa sounds awful.

[Anonymous No.5625504]

>>5625498
you sound like a bitch

[Anonymous No.5625578]

Hello guys I want to play SaGa but I don't know which game is a good starting point considering his vast content in terms of mechanics.

[Anonymous No.5625613]

>>5625237
/vr/ has been the main hub of discussion for the series on 4chan since two years or so.
>>5625460
>What is the point of being a perfectionist and a completionist in these games?
I feel most people try to force this kind of mentality due to many games, especially in the JRPGs genre, which by design encouraged that, like Final Fantasy or really just the average JRPG in the 90's which often had some kind of collectathon minigame or quest like Triple Triad, fishing in BoF games or the Stardust hunt in LoD.
On the other hand I'd say the modern culture of achievements is also to blame, since it nurtures this behaviour big time.

SaGa being built as the antithesis to said game models doesn't sit well with a lot of people on top of other issues already mentioned before, I'm afraid the philosophy of dealing with the hand that the game deals you and consequently play an adaptation game rather than forcing your own plans on the games ends up being pretty annoying for most.
It's kind of a shame, I can only hope the recent revival of the series and attempt to spread the model with other non Square IPs leads to making the model a bit more popular.

On other news, the Romancing SaGa 3 remake (specifically the Vita version) is one of the currently most wanted 2019 games in Japan according to Famitsu.
Kawazu also recently announced to get ready for some news although he didn't really specify anything, so get ready for something I guess.
>>5625578
The first Frontier game is a good way to get your feet wet and learn how to swim a bit.
If that feels too much for you, consider playing the DS remakes of SaGa 2 or 3, granted that since we're on /vr/ you could just play the GB originals, but for some people they are a bit too retro, and GB SaGa 3 is barely a SaGa game and the black sheep of the series, the DS remake is a lot better.
Your other option is, as always, playing through the series in production order.

How familiar are you with the series?

[Anonymous No.5625625]

>>5625613
The only familiar thing that I have with the games is to have read here the existence of them, so zero

[Anonymous No.5625680]

>>5625625
Alright then, let's make a few things clear for your sake as a newfriend, as to avoid potential drama and misunderstanding.

You might know or not know that this series is born as an effort to elaborate on what Kawazu did with Final Fantasy 2, if you've played FF2 know that you'll be dealing with a similar, but more polished and elaborated model when it comes to battle and character growth mechanics, since a lot of people don't like that model it's necessary for you to know that the entire series has that stuff, albeit often reelaborated.

The GB games are more or less semi-dungeon crawlers, they're linear and the first two games have custom parties while starting with SaGa 3 they have definite, albeit freely customizable characters.
With the SNES games, the series starts delving deeper into experimental mechanics and becomes non linear, the Romancing trilogy ends up being more explicitly based around the Ultima model.
RS1 is VERY rough around the edges and nowadays, it's not that good to play outside of historical reasons, it has a WSC remaster that fixes some things, but the PS2 remake is what you'll want to play.
RS2 is often considered one of the peaks of the series, but it's also very different from the rest and not an easy game for beginners, the recent remaster is available on anything but the 3DS and is localized (albeit poorly in some parts)
RS3 is one of the most popular games and a decent entry for beginners, it's also getting a remaster like RS2, which is supposed to be release this year.

Frontier 1 is a return to the GB games in setting and mechanics, with a dash of the Romancing formula on the side, it's arguably the most popular and whimsical game in the series, but also one of the worse realized in its potential due to a troublesome development cycle.
Frontier 2 doesn't have anything to do with the first one and it's a more explicit return to the Romancing formula, specifically RS2, but this time the game is more focused on the narrative.

[Anonymous No.5625683]

>>5625680
Unlimited is the most controversial game in the series, as it's Kawazu showing his true powerlevel as homebrew creator. It's hard to describe due to its uniqueness, but it's pretty much a virtual tabletop game with a Dungeon Crawler-ish model, there's a lot to be said about this game but it really would take too many posts on its own.
Rest assured it's a fantastic, but extremely divisive entry.

Minstrel Song is a full remake of the first Romancing game, but it's a Super Turbo Romancing Fighter 1: Arcade edition&Knuckles deal where the game keeps the original core elements while adding pretty much all the ideas the series developed so far AND some more stuff, it's the most mechanic dense game in the series together with Unlimited and not an easy game to get into.

The Last Remnant was supposed to be the third Frontier game originally, but got changed last minute because of reasons, so it's kind of an illegitimate son, but still stealthily acknowledged as part of the series.
This entry is yet again radically different from the rest and is kind of a SRPG hybrid that might be vaguely reminiscent of Ogre Battle for some things, granted that it's mostly an elaboration of ideas previously introduced in RS3.

SaGa Scarlet Grace is the last entry in the series but it's currently in localization hell, it's another game that changes the paradigm wildly and feels like a weird mix of Romancing, Frontier and Unlimited for most things.

In general, the series approach to things is a bit eccentric, the previous discussion in the thread should be interesting for you to read as we were talking about some rather important aspect of the gameplay design.
SaGa games are all very experimental in nature and different in design, so each entry has something different to offer while keeping the series' identity strong, and that series identity is rather different from most JRPGs, so be advised.

[Anonymous No.5625708]

>>5625683
Now that I'm done with the basics, let's get down to the core issues and FAQ:
>I've heard that the games are unfinished
This is a meme that is unfortunately very popular, the games are as finished as the average game, RS1 and Frontier are the only games that had a troubled dev cycle, and had in fact a lot of cut content, that said they're perfectly playable and Frontier is still the most popular entry in the series and one of the most popular JRPG of all time in Japan despite that, so it should tell you something about its qualities.
>I've heard people say the games have no stories
The games actually have pretty rich stories, especially since many have multiple main characters you can choose from, all of which come with their own campaigns.
Problem is SaGa games and minimalistic and fractal exposition, which you have to understand on your own, think of it like Dark Souls before Dark Souls made it cool, or if you read Manga, kind of like the Five Star Stories, where you have a large cast of characters living in a complex world.
The narrative is mostly focused on creating worlds that feel alive and interesting, whimsical stories rather than epic hero's journeys, even though you also have those.
>I've heard the games are random as fuck
You can read the rest of the thread because we've been discussing this very issue, rest assured they're not, but the games do tend to not be as controllable as the average JRPG, and you'll have to learn how to deal with that
>I've heard the games are FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE without a guide
Not really, in fact guides tend to ruin the experience as the games, especially from the SNES entries, are built around exploring a world you're free to roam in, and bump into weird stuff and have an adventure, reading guides isn't necessary at all and the games are built around replay value, which is also why completionism is hardly a thing in SaGa, mostly due to the games having different routes and hard choices that lock you out of other things

[Anonymous No.5625851]

>>5625680
>>5625683
>>5625708
Wow thanks for all this info

[Anonymous No.5625859]

Why is Mythe so fucking based?

[Anonymous No.5625872]

>>5625851
You're welcome, if you have any specific questions or anything to ask in general fire away.
>>5625859
He is a literal waifufag, hard to find an RPG protagonist like that, even in the series' context.

[Anonymous No.5625881]

>>5625872
We need more guys like him and Rance

[Anonymous No.5625913]

>>5625881
He's pretty funny for the usual asshole protagonist in the series, the fact that despite experiencing true love for the first time in his life he's still an asshole to anyone but his waifu is pretty entertaining too, better than Gray and Blue when it comes to that.
At first I didn't like it much but his campaign did grow on me the more I replayed it too, it's one of the quicker ones in terms of recruitments and also has an interesting party.
I just wish he and Kurt didn't suck that much as characters though, having a meager 2 STR growth factor for somebody who also works as a smith is pretty embarassing, Armic of all people has a 3 and yet two grown up men in their 30's have 2...

[Anonymous No.5625994]

>>5625237
>I don't come to /vr/ often, does SaGa really have that big of a following here?
Not really. It's like one or two anons who won't shut up about it and keep replying to themselves to bump their own threads.

Also, Unlimited is not retro. This thread keeps getting posted as a pretense for discussing non-retro games on /vr/ just like the DQ general did. Mods really need to wise up.

[Anonymous No.5626028]

>>5625994
The series is retro tho, just because unlimited is not retro doesn't mean the rest of the series isn't retro or shouldn't be discussed in /vr/

[Anonymous No.5626039]

>>5626028
Ignore him, he's one dude who's been butthurt for years for god knows what reasons and comes in these threads to shitpost.
It's easy to recognize because he punctually rants about people discussing non retro entries once in a while and pretends that these threads are made of "two people replying to themselves".

[Anonymous No.5626128]

>>5626028
>just because unlimited is not retro
It means people shouldn't use these threads to discuss non-retro games. Where did I say I had a problem with anons talking about retro SaGa? I play some of these games too.

[Anonymous No.5626176]

>>5625237
>I don't come to /vr/ often, does SaGa really have that big of a following here?

I don't know, I stick to GameFAQs SaGa Frontier board. I come here once a day to check the catalog and that's it.

>Don't get me wrong, I'm downloading this shit immediately. You're doing Gods work anon.

Next up I'm doing the initial character data, which is huge - 255 bytes per character. It will take probably 3 weeks to finish it, but when I'm done you'll be able to edit almost everything about characters. Only thing that is in another table is Mec Self-Development skills and the specific spark talents (though you can still change your spark talent list to another list).

[Anonymous No.5626181]

>>5623147
That's awesome

[Anonymous No.5626210]

>>5626181
New version out.
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/downloads/

Source code:
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/src/default/

Here's the technical data, you need the ability data key to make sense of the ability editor since so much of it is contradictory and poorly understood:
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/waza/src/default/

[Anonymous No.5626231]

>>5622239
Kawai

[Anonymous No.5628696]

Idk I like looking up guides/walkthroughs, missing some shit annoys me

[Anonymous No.5628837]

>>5628696
You're missing life by browsing here.

[Anonymous ~ No.5629050]

>>5622240
>>5622240
Her "gunner" cosplay doesn't increase guntech/magic learning rate afaik. Only her dancer and masked kitty cosplay has any effect.

[Anonymous No.5629480]

>>5629050
Yeah, Pink Tiger changes her aptitude to be the same as Liza's, and the Dancer changes her aptitude to Annie. Bunny and Commando don't change Emelia's spark list at all.

[Anonymous No.5629498]

>>5629480
Adding to this, there are twelve sets of aptitudes the human characters can have.

1. Blue / Rouge
2. Emelia / Asellus / Mei Ling
3. Lute
4. Annie / Emelia (Dancer)
5. Roufas
6. Fuse
7. Gen
8. Fei On
9. Doll
10. Hamilton
11. Red
12. Liza / Emelia (Pink Tiger)

[Anonymous ~ No.5630028]

>>5629480
>Dancer
>Annie.

I get that it's suppose to make her a better swordswamen, but Annie's sword sparking list is pretty meh. It mostly sparks "Smashing" types of sword techs. Annie is better off training in fists.

If Emi's sparklist is the same as Assy, then she should already be quite good for sparking powerful sword techs like RosarioImpale.

[Anonymous No.5630046]

>>5625237
Is her name Emilia or Emelia?

[Anonymous No.5630060]

>>5629480
Mostly because there's really nothing to change with access to not one but three different lists, and given how spells and guns don't have tables at all.
>>5630046
Emilia, people still use the shitty, wrong localization names for some reason.
Unfortunately they changed or misspelled a lot of names in general when it comes to these games.

[Anonymous No.5630223]

Liza's spark list is almost as silly as Gen's.

[Anonymous No.5630265]

>>5622239
>>worst gun growth in the game
really? I tried various builds with her, but she was always the biggest powerhouse with guns akimbo. Almost on the level of the god MCs.

[Anonymous No.5630274]

>>5622275
Who's gonna get better results from field training, a guy with a machine gun, or a guy with a machine gun, power armor, and a functioning radar?

[Anonymous No.5630291]

>>5630265
Gun tech learning is pretty much universal.
The only factor involved is your INT value and even a shitter like Lute can get it high enough to be a gun god with some effort, let alone Emilia.
As long as you stick to guns Emilia won't have any problems becoming a proficient gun user, this is a SaGa game after all, she won't be as quick as Blouge or Doll but she is far from being hopeless.

[Anonymous ~ No.5630327]

>>5630265
According to the game mechanics faq , the growth rate for gun/mechanics don't really help much. The INT stat is much bigger factor in calculating your chance of learning a guntech. So with enough grinding and luck , you can easily make ANY human a master in guns.

You can read the calculation mechanic from Zarak's FAQ, Section GULRN04 .
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/198537-saga-frontier/faqs/58412


On the other hand, for sword and fighting techs, IF the character doesn't have a "talent" for sparking a specific tech on their table, they would have an extremely low chance of sparking it.

[Anonymous No.5630419]

it's weird that in other jrpgs people do challenge runs and try to master the battle system but when it comes to saga the most dedicated fans play the same way in their 10th playthrough as they do in their first

[Anonymous No.5630427]

>>5630419
I find your poor attempt at baiting a lot weirder, I wonder what drives a man to do something like this.

[Anonymous No.5632642]

So when does RS3 gets good? I feel it's way too easy, I've just completed a few quest, but Ksinzie was more difficult than anything thus far

[Anonymous No.5632758]

>>5632642
RS3 is one of the easiest entries in the series, you're not wrong, RS2 is a lot harder on average.
What have you done so far, who's your MC?

[Anonymous No.5632779]

>>5632758
I was playing with the girl with green hair, I also only used female characters and mostly focused on magic, I don't really remember all the quest I did, since I dropped the game a few days ago, I know I did the muse quest and that town where you fight the two magicians

[Anonymous No.5632782]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK4naoxtX5w

[Anonymous No.5632816]

>>5632779
You're playing as Sara then.
>I know I did the muse quest and that town where you fight the two magicians
Alright then, since I presume you've completed the dream quest and not just the first part of Muse's quest I take you're in the late early game, mind that the quest with Undine and Volcano has actually three routes, one of which is the harder one, it's not really a tough quest but it's harder than choosing to betray either of the two.
You still haven't fought any of the noble devils so you're coasting through the easy content, the difficulty does ramp up eventually, but do not really expect it to ever reach RS2 on that, outside of fighting the Destroyer at full power.
As far as "hard" content goes, there's some quests outside of the main one which are moderately challenging, the Ice Galaxy is one, Harid has a special quest of his own that leads to a pretty hard boss fight, then there's the optional Gwayne fight, the trials of the Holy King and some other quests.
Most of the harder quests involve fighting elder dragons though, so they get kind of repetitive after a while, RS3 isn't really a challenging game for the series' standard.
Have you tried out the Commander mode by the way? It's pretty fun, although it does make the game even easier as soon as you figure it out.

[Anonymous No.5632881]

>>5623170
I'm still trying to understand wildcard, feels like you just play that game to wonder what the hell will happen. Also weird how it almost feels like combat doesn't matter at all in that game. You just sort of throw your search cards at the wall until you find something. Granted my Japanese is shit so I probably am missing things. It's just a strange ass game.

What is TLR's stuff like? Heard that was a crazy game too, 18 player squads or something like that, sounds sick.

>>5625486
The point is more that saga games reward you for replaying them by offering you new variations on how things play out when you play them. It's not about giving you one relatively constant game to replay a lot, it's about giving you something new to see each time you play it.

>>5625613
Completionist style has become a thing more I feel with the latest trend of games being something you experience. I feel like really since MMOs turned into theme parks, we saw games cemented as a thing where you just go and "experience" everything in it, like you're buying a full pass to see everything in a game. The ending is basically guaranteed instead of being a hard-fought reward, and the goal is just to see everything in the game, as opposed to buying a game and playing it for enjoyment, you're more just playing it to check off boxes. Not saying all games where you collect things are bad, just saying that the mindset of games as an experience are what brought about this mindset and expectation of getting it all from a game in the first go. I think there is also an issue here of people feeling that it isn't worth going through a game more than once, like the time investment is too high. I feel like that's really missing the point of enjoying a game, if you only see it as something to get through, and not as something to play for the fun of it
, then it makes me wonder why you are playing at all.

>>5626176
Wow, I didn't know people still posted on gamefaqs.

[Anonymous No.5632884]

>>5632816
I don't really think I'll be replaying rs3 any time soon, the game was so easy that I just started to use the speed up from the emulator and press the ok button to just use the basic attack constantly, it just got boring and dull.

[Anonymous No.5632918]

>>5632881
>feels like you just play that game to wonder what the hell will happen
Yeah, that's more or less the point, the game was an experiment in creating some kind of card based "procedurally generated" RPG, combat wasn't a focus in this game, progression in general was.
Problem is the game is still kind of simplistic and there's really not many cards to play with, I still wish Kawazu made a sequel that fully realized its potential though.
>What is TLR's stuff like?
If you played RS3 with commander mode on, it's kind of similar, except you have up to five parties to manage at the same time.
There's also quite a few core difference, the stat system is simplified into basic attack and defense stats and all characters have definite equipment and ability restrictions, there's no LP, healing is a lot more powerful than in the rest of the series since lethality is much higher, even the general RS3 mechanics reworked for the union systems are different, there's no formation techs like in RS3, although there's still formation magic, the union behaviour works differently as it counts the party leader, union composition and other factors and quite a lot of other things.
It also has a lot of references to previous games integrated in the main lore, which is pretty fun, it's a good entry in the series and definitely challenging at times, but it also has some substantial flaws imo and some things that really have no place in the series, it's also a very linear game.

One thing it absolutely excels at though are the character questlines, all the uniques have their own questlines and some of those are really good.
>>5632884
If you have really been spamming the basic attack I have to question how much you've progressed since it hardly works even in the first hour of the game, the game is easy, but spamming isn't an option unless you've been grinding like a madman to 40+ proficiency levels, even something as simple as the pet hunt is impossible to complete like that.

[Anonymous No.5632929]

>>5632918
basic magic attack on random encounters, and tornado and equivalent magic for anything more difficult.

[Anonymous No.5632942]

>>5632929
So you haven't been spamming the basic attack at all and haven't actually done much, as I thought.

[Anonymous No.5632947]

>>5632942
again, I left the game in early game, no random encounter was difficult, unlike RS2

[Anonymous No.5632964]

>>5632947
But random encounters are hardly difficult in general, they're fodder for your growth just like in RS2, the difference being that RS3 isn't stingy on LP replenishment, but no other SaGa game save Unlimited is, magic is also considerably nerfed in RS3 coming from 2.
Besides, if you wanted tougher random encounters you could have just moved to the crystal ruins or something and see how that goes for you, even with the peculiar BR mechanics of RS3 you could still find a challenge, giving up so soon and saying random encounters are easy (lol) means you didn't even try to get in one of the tougher dungeons and just kept swimming in the kiddy pool.

As much as RS2 is a lot harder than 3 it's not like you couldn't wipe the floor with random encounters in there, stone rain is already a lot more powerful than most spells in RS3 when you put things in context.

[Anonymous No.5633005]

>>5632964
Random encounters, at least in the early game, can be really dangerous in RS2, considering that at least I felt that dodging was more difficult in RS2 so battle rank increased faster.

[Anonymous No.5633119]

>>5632918
>I still wish Kawazu made a sequel that fully realized its potential though.
That's what Unlimited was.

[Anonymous ~ No.5633340]

>>5632642
I felt it was way too grindy unless you used 2 of the MCs who had higher starting HP. Starting with Sara is a pain.

[Anonymous ~ No.5633358]

>>5632816
>quest with Undine and Volcano has actually three routes, one of which is the harder one, it's not really a tough quest but it's harder than choosing to betray either of the two.

IMO if you wanna collect one of the best gear in the game, you should betray both of them. Otherwise it's best to side with Undine to recruit a very good water mage.

[Anonymous No.5633656]

>>5622239
I don't know who that is but I want to fuck it.

[Anonymous No.5634647]

>>5633005
Don't know about that, outside of a few zones with fixed encounters like the desert or some segments like Cumberland's questline it isn't really that harder, the problem with RS3 is that the general BR balancing isn't as rigid as 2, so most of the times you're not in a big dungeon or some particular location like the jungle you'll hardly fight anything strong, which despite the aforementioned problem of RS3 being effectively a lot easier probably doesn't give you a good impression of its common encounters' quality.
Different BR mechanics in RS3 also don't help given how BR scales not only slower than RS2 but also on a monster family base instead of a global ranking, which isn't a bad decision per se, Unlimited does it well for instance, it's just not as balanced as it should be.
On top of it all, RS3 was the game that came after RS2, which was notorious for being one of the hardest RPG on the SNES, so they did ease up the difficulty for 3, I'm sure you noticed how you also level up your proficiencies much faster than RS2.
>>5633119
Unlimited isn't a card based game though, Wild Card is a precursor of sort when it comes to certain design choices, like city/world structure and dungeon crawling, but at their core, they're still very different games that do different things.
>>5633340
Sarah's not that bad as an MC despite her low HP, she's young so she has to deal with that, young characters in SaGa often start with very low HP while older ones have a larger HP pool, look at the difference between Aisha and Hawke in RS1 for instance.

[Anonymous No.5634797]

>>5633340
>>5634647
not that you ever have to use sara in battle nor should you really

[Anonymous No.5635268]

>>5634797
It's kinda funny how even in her own campaign the game more or less tells you to never actually use Sarah.
Which reminds me how much I hope the remaster won't fix the character swap glitch.

[Anonymous No.5636210]

Initial Character Data editor is coming along. Probably 2 more days until it's done.

With this you'll be able to edit the starting state of characters as well as things that can't change, like spark talent lists (but not the spark talents themselves), stat growths, gun/magic talents, uneditable 8th skill slot for mystics, starting stats for mystics and mecs. Combined with the item, skill, mystic absorb, and whatever the other editor is (I forgot) you can change quite a lot.

[Anonymous No.5636214]

>>5636210
Forgot pic

[Anonymous ~ No.5636840]

>>5634647
>MC despite her low HP
She's got a good bow sparklist but the main problem is that the game unlocks new quests ONLY when your main character's HP reaches a certain level.

AFAIK you can't raise her HP in commander mode.

[Anonymous No.5637976]

Why doesn't it let me in? (I already started the rune quest)

[Anonymous No.5638018]

Can someone give me some basic challenge run ideas for SaGa Frontier 1 because I cannot brain right now?

[Anonymous No.5638037]

Why does this board go ape over SaGa?

It's like all needless complexity of a WRPG/CRPG without the good storytelling or writing.

[Anonymous No.5638051]

>>5623147
Fuck yeah thank you! ima bump your gamefaqs thread

[Anonymous No.5638060]

>>5636214
Awesome, hope a shop editor is possible

[Anonymous No.5638081]

>>5638037
>WRPG
>good storytelling/writing

you knew it was coming ;)

either way, scroll up nigbaby, its not that hard to see why.
debates and discussions over fascinatingly esoteric mechanics. the joy of discovering quirks and sharing thoughts over favorite characters and interesting scenarios. reveling in unconventional gameplay structure that other games on both sides of the pond rarely explore

is it shocking that a niche board would be into a niche series?

[Anonymous No.5638140]

>>5638037
>needless complexity
Give me an example of a needed complexity. I'll wait.

[Anonymous No.5638239]

>>5637976
Are you sure you collected the runes? Try getting a full party maybe?

>>5638018
Initial Gear Equips, Initial Skill Equips, Magic-only (there's a mod on RHDN that's magic-only), Monsters + Main Character Only, Single Character in Main Party Run, Mystics Only, Mecs Only, No Shopping.

>>5638051
You're welcome, post away.

>>5638060
Due to the way it's designed we need to know more about field event script opcodes before we can alter shops. The good news is that once we understand it we can create as many shops as you want.

[Anonymous No.5638252]

>>5638239
I forgot, here is some more technical data.


https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/waza/src/default/battle_script_opcodes.txt
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/waza/src/default/event_script_opcodes.txt
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/waza/src/default/memory_map.txt

They're all a work in progress but as people tell me more about them more of the game will become editable.

I especially need to know the exact lengths of all battle and field event script opcodes before I can make a tool to compile and decompile them.

[Anonymous No.5638523]

Only things left to do for initial character data are the mystic absorbs (which will be a little involved) and learned skill flags. There are 256 skills so I'm going to try some half-baked design pattern i thought up just now to see if I can reduce the amount of code I need to write.

[Anonymous No.5638530]

>>5638239
I'm trying to get the rune at mu's tomb.

[Anonymous No.5638536]

>>5638530
I mean did you visit the Rune tent in Devin, take the first option until he gives you 4 stones? Check your inventory for them. If he didn't then you technically haven't started the rune quest yet.

[Anonymous No.5638647]

>>5638536
Yes I have those. Also, I already did runes with emelia.
Maybe tarots and runes are incompatible? Because I got one card.

[Anonymous No.5638652]

>>5638647
You can permanently lock yourself out of one or both quests by doing them both at the same time. Don't start the rune quest until the arcane is done.

[Anonymous No.5638676]

>>5638536
Wait what? You mean the quest doesn't start with Roufas telling me I'm already late and prompting me to "let's go"?

[Anonymous No.5638686]

This might be considered a taboo here but, are there any good SaGa playthroughs on youtube or Twitch to watch? I'm not looking for a guide, just to watch some pro SaGa players playing them.

[Anonymous No.5639684]

>>5638686
>watching instead of playing
here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz404SLWOMs

[Anonymous No.5639693]

>>5638239
>there's a mod on RHDN that's magic-only
Who's the guy who made that mod and how?

[Anonymous No.5639696]

>>5638523
stat talents is growth right? And are you able to take unused items in the game data and make them usable?

[Anonymous No.5639718]

>>5638686
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MACWyquliyo

[Anonymous No.5639927]

>>5639693
He's a buddy of mine that has since quit romhacking. He did it all with a hex editor and CD mage.

>>5639696
Yes and yes.

[Anonymous ~ No.5640229]

>>5638239
>Mecs Only
That's not really a challenge once you've found some decent gear. Though trying to fully equip a mec team with no shopping might be hard.

Mecs are immune to almost all status effects. Only LogicBomb and Magnetic Storm are really dangerous to your mec team.

[Anonymous No.5640525]

>>5636840
Yes, but some early quests expire after you reach a certain HP threshold too, so it's also a bit of an advantage, since you can fight more than the other MCs and have a bigger "time" window for those early game quests, which is good in her case considering the prologue leads her to the caves in Podorui with the rest of the Shinon gang.
>AFAIK you can't raise her HP in commander mode.
iirc Commander mode should make you raise your Commander's HP since it's an independent stat growth and the commander should also count as an active member, but I might be wrong on that, been a while since I played RS3 and I'm a bit foggy on the details.
>>5638018
Solo runs are fun, even T260G's, I wouldn't do a Riki/Coon solo run though, you'll get blocked by Vergil who needs you to use more than one party member, and monsters are just weak in general in Frontier's case.
Speedruns are also a decent challenge, especially if you do not abuse Scrap.

My problem with solo runs is that humans inevitably boil down to more or less the same build, outside of Blue, it's interesting for one or two times but then it gets pretty boring, Asellus can spice it up with her mixed race mechanics, but Red, Lute and Emilia don't have such luxury.

[Anonymous No.5640951]

Initial Character Data editor WORKS! It is DONE! And I did it without manually coding 512 checkboxes for the learned skills section!

Seriously, I can't believe that worked.

[Anonymous No.5640984]

Initial Character Data 1-4 editors are done, get your download here:
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/downloads/SnakeOil_V0.7.zip

Source code is here:
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/src

Readme.txt:
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/src/default/readme.txt

Waza, the SF data project is here (necessary to understand some of the editors, like the skill editor):
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/waza/src/default/

[Anonymous No.5640997]

>>5639684
>>5639718
>one is a TAS the other is a retrospective
I wanted a playthrough - a let's play from someone good, but those are good too.

[Anonymous No.5641160]

>>5638676
It's just Emilia specific dialog, the game still locks you out if you pick up a Tarot card
>>5638018
Build Blue to use Fighting/Sword techniques, be rewarded with the ultimate unit by the end of the quest
>>5638037
Because it's fun. What the game lost from being rushed is made up for in a nonlinear game, meaning every playthrough ends up being unique, coupled with the fact that character progression is slightly randomized means the player can build their team however they want.

[Anonymous No.5641203]

>>5641160
... and now that you can edit the game to fix all the bugs and oversights, it can be even better.

[Anonymous No.5641289]

>>5638686
>>5640997
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFeEzIrMqPM

[Anonymous No.5641441]

>>5641203
Most of the oversights I want fixed relate to the story. I love the game as-is I just wish everything that got cut could be included somehow. I know there was one group that were attempting to restore it but I'm not sure if they were ever successful.

[Anonymous No.5642171]

>>5641441
The SaGa Frontier remake is inevitably coming either way, I wouldn't worry about the story parts that got cut from the original, those are going to be the team's priority.

[Anonymous No.5642253]

>>5642171
Citation fucking needed I've been tinkering with an RPG design heavily inspired by Frontier because my hope for a remake was dead

[Anonymous No.5642254]

>>5625994
Only thing worse than a jannie is a wannabe jannie. get dabbed on faggot

[Anonymous No.5642262]

>>5642253
>Citation fucking needed

>All the games prior have been remade or received a remaster
>We also got a new mainline recently, which means chances of another new mainline are drastically lower now
>Squenix is in full remake/remaster mode since five or so years
>Series will be 30 years old by the end of the year
>Kawazu is dead set in revisiting all of the SaGa games to give them the definitive release he always wanted
>They're riding high on the series' history with the late effort in the mobile sector and the series needs to get some kind of climax to fully reconnect with people, create a new generations of fans and celebrate its history
>The new producer wants to bring back SaGa to its rightful place as a big name of the company
>Frontier is the most popular entry in the series and literally everyone in the community is waiting for a remake to fix all the issues.
>Kawazu already made a staggering number of references in Scarlet Grace, from bringing back Frontier specific waza, to referencing characters and even gave the final boss signature Frontier spells
The signs are on the wall dude, I wouldn't really be surprised if they announce it in the next two years or so, if not this year even.
Pretty much everyone following the scene are betting on the next release after the RS3 remaster being either a new console mainline or a "big" budget Frontier remake.

[Anonymous No.5642295]

So uh where does one even start with this series

[Anonymous No.5642308]

>>5642295
Either release order or with the easier games like Frontier, RS3 or the DS remakes of SaGa 2/3.

[Anonymous No.5642310]

>>5642295
Pick any game and play it.

[Anonymous No.5642882]

>>5642262
The Romancing Saga 2 remake still felt like it needed some things, hell the PS2 Romancing Saga could use more content as well. I hope kawazu doesn't use those games as the "definitive" canvas for the other remakes.

[Anonymous No.5642886]

>>5641441
Is there a way to edit dialog yet? Besides the deleted scenario, just some more exposition from the other characters or added ones could be enough to solve most of the "100 Mysteries of Saga Frontier"

[Anonymous No.5643047]

>>5642882
Romancing SaGa 2 got a remaster, not a remake, Kawazu said he's satisfied with how the game is and there's no need to change anything, which I can understand to some degree.
Minstrel Song and RS1 are a different matter because RS1 is the only game that had both a remaster and a remake, so it's definitely not getting anything else and personally, I'd say the game turned out fine despite some personal disagreement in terms of design choices, they added a lot of content to the base game as well, there's definitely a lot to chew on.
>I hope kawazu doesn't use those games as the "definitive" canvas for the other remakes.
The remasters have all followed the same idea of being partial graphical overhauls, with bugfixes, some QoL features, and maybe an extra quest or two.
The remakes usually end up adding many core mechanics used up to that point while also giving a complete art redesign, new content and generally new core features, Minstrel Song and the DS games are like that.

Judging by the pattern, I guess Frontier will end up being a MS kind of deal, perhaps they won't have drastic character redesigns like MS given how iconic the characters are, but you can be sure it's going to not only integrate most of the stuff they cut out but add some new content, like quests, characters, music, monsters and whatever, that's how they roll with remakes.

[Anonymous No.5643098]

>>5642886
We need to understand more about the field event scripts before we can delve into editing dialog. Once we do though, we'll be able to make those amazing crossover hacks the Japanese do. I personally want to see Gustave from SF2 in SF1.

I'm working on monster forms, table 2 right now. It's very simple, I'm basically done except for some cut and paste data entry work that will take a few hours. I'll knock it out tomorrow probably, feel very sleepy today.

[Anonymous No.5643138]

>>5643098
How does the game decide which form a monster takes based on the skill list?

[Anonymous No.5643147]

>>5643138
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/198537-saga-frontier/faqs/58412

Ctrl + F [MTRAN01]

Basically it first checks if you have all the skills for a form on table 1, in order from the first form to the last.

Then it moves onto table 2, where it does more complex stuff that is easier explained by reading Zarak's guide at the link above.

[Anonymous No.5643234]

>>5640984
New version, now you can edit monster forms table 2. Download here:
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/downloads/SnakeOil_V0.8.zip

[Anonymous No.5643237]

>>5643234
Screencap

[Anonymous ~ No.5643347]

>>5642262
>"big" budget Frontier remake.
Doubt. Most likely a crappy mobile version with online DRM.

[Anonymous No.5643424]

>>5643347
Frontier was one of the top selling PSX games of all time in Japan, and voted numerous times as one of the best too, so much that it was one of the titles included in the PSClassic release in Japan.
To do something like that, especially now that the series is being pushed again, would be the equivalent of Squenix shooting themselves in the balls, and I don't think either Ichikawa or Kawazu would be fine with that either.

[Anonymous No.5643428]

>>5643424
Isn't the SaGa guy in a big leadership position in SE?

[Anonymous No.5643456]

>>5643428
Ichikawa?
Yeah, he's part of the exec board iirc, he's the single reason the series got picked up again as he's working as the producer now, he's a big fan of the series.
He was the one that proposed the revival some five years ago, everything ranging from the remaster, Scarlet Grace, the SaGa festivals/Museum/theater plays and whatever else has been possible thanks to him.
Were it not for him we probably wouldn't even have the RS2 remaster, let alone have it localized.

[Anonymous No.5643457]

>>5643428
That's literally why he keeps making them.

[Anonymous No.5643625]

I want to get into RS1 for PS2 but I am so intimidated by all the stuff I keep hearing about: game gets harder the more I fight, I need gear to catch up with the game and this means money so I have to fight for money and by the time I have the gear the combat gets harder again I guess?

Also, there's a lack of traditional roles so everyone has to be damage dealing with few using spells as secondary, and the only valid strat is going for the kill before the enemy kills you so no "oops I got hit by an area of effect, time for multiheal" strats like FF has?

These are questions as I have no idea if they're true or not, it's just hearsay.

[Anonymous No.5643661]

>>5643625
You got most of it right but there's some stuff that's not quite right or what you probably expect.
>I have to fight for money
Not quite, enemies don't drop money in SaGa games, so no, fighting for money is not a thing here, in fact the tightest part of money management and game progression is making as much money with as little fighting as possible.
Your money income in MS comes from two things:
One is quest rewards, most quests reward you with money AND items you can potentially resell, so completing quests, with the least amount of fighting, is a good way to make money and buy gear in order to keep up with the BR.
The other way looting and reselling, be it ol' dungeon crawling or using a treasure map if you happen upon one, reselling gear or other items you find is another way to make money, there's also specific items like Dinosaur Eggs that give you a lot of money, but again, it's not easy to get your hands on those, especially without fighting too much.
MS has a semi randomized chest system that generates chests in various spawn points, these chests also have their own table of contents and they're periodically refreshed after a certain amount of fights, which means you also have a reason to revisit old dungeons.

Moreover, you need to spend money to buy spells, and also manage your second currency, which is Jewels you need in order to develop your classes.
>there's a lack of traditional roles so everyone has to be damage dealing with few using spells as secondary
Not necessarily, mages for instance aren't all that good at damage dealing, they're there for utilities more than damage, conversely, a pure physical fighter can self sustain with things like martial arts or offer support through items, bear in mind that spells cost money to learn and outfitting an entire party with spells, especially early on, while trying to juggle your BR and ER is not easy.

[Anonymous No.5643663]

>>5643661
>>>
As for classes, they specialize in both fighting and other nonfighting related abilities, with many classes having unique advantages.
A Castle Knight for instance gives you a bonus in triggering a Deflect, which makes it an invaluable defensive asset, a Rosalian Mage can fuse three spells into a new one or fuse a base spell into a more powerful version, Herbalists receive a bonus when it comes to harvesting herbs in the fields while traders increase your trading chances with enemies on the field, each class offers specific advantages, outside of Legendary Classes, which all reduce your DP/LP costs.
While classes still keep the freeform SaGa way of building characters, they do offer very specific advantages, and in order to fit into a class you also need to meet certain prerequisites, like Weapon or Field ability levels, you can't be a trader without putting points in trading, and to be a higher level trader you obviously need to put more points in the prerequisites, which in turn further enhances the class' bonuses on top of taking advantages of those singular higher level specializations.
>the only valid strat is going for the kill before the enemy kills you
If you do enter a fight, yes, it's kill or be killed, but SaGa games offer a lot of mechanical depth and elasticity that allow you to achieve this easily as long as you know how to build a party, status effects, debuffs, knowing your enemy's specific weakness to attack types, comboing etc. all allow you to finish any non boss battle in one round or so.
Of course, unlike a lot of other RPGs, healing is quite nerfed in SaGa, you don't really have mass healing and when you do, it's gonna be VERY costly, so yeah, no easy reset unto neutral until the enemy dies, you have to earn that.

Are you familiar with the series or are you a brave soul who wants to begin with Minstrel Song?

[Anonymous No.5644440]

>>5643663
>Are you familiar with the series or are you a brave soul who wants to begin with Minstrel Song?

I want to get into a Romancing SaGa game and I thought the first would be a good starting point.

[Anonymous No.5644913]

>>5644440
That would have been a good idea, were it not for Minstrel Song being a remake, either way, as long as you're determined enough you can begin with any game, even Unlimited.
However, you're still a newfriend so it's best to give you additional tips and advice.

SaGa games handle character growth in a similar way to FF2, except more in depth.
What you do is what you become, use swords a lot and you'll get better at using swords (Or have lots of STR if the game works on a variable stat system), use a lot of spells and your skill at the schools of magic you use will grow, making your spells stronger and sometimes even letting you learn new one on your own.
In this sense, SaGa games force you to truly roleplay, to become a knight you must act like one, and what your characters will shape into will be the result of your decision and behaviour coupled with their own nature.

SaGa games also let you build characters however you like and micromanage everything from single stats to ability lists, however, precisely because character building in SaGa is so focused on micro, you should make a definite growth plan and stick with it, which is linked to what I said before.
Moreover, SaGa games reward focused builds, so don't try to make everyone a jack of all trades, focus each character on one or two nonconflicting specializations, if you want a STR based physical powerhouse do not try force offensive spellcasting or DEX based weapons on them, as it leads to conflicting and poor growth all around, conversely, while spellcasters are almost always decent DEX users don't expect them to also become good martial artists or Axe users.

Battle Rank scares away a lot of people, and with MS you'll also have to deal with Event Rank which adds further problems, but there's a lot you can do to deal with both of these, so read up.
>>>

[Anonymous No.5644916]

>>5644913
First off, Battle Rank is a mechanic that refreshes enemy batches throughout the game's world to keep a uniform level of challenge.
Some people will tell you that this is a level scaling mechanic but it actually isn't, for the simple fact that BR doesn't scale with your level at all.
Battle Rank scales (generally speaking) depending on how much you fight, each game has its own way to calculate that and also has some other submechanics, in MS' case, BR scales depending on the number of fights you WIN, that means if you enter a battle and run away, the BR will NOT scale, though don't believe for a second you can abuse this since running away costs LP in this game.
Now, this means two things:
The more you fight, the stronger the enemies become, moreover, given how ER is a thing, you'll also have to deal with the world timeline going forward, at some point in the ER certain quests will end and won't be available anymore, this doesn't just lead to missing those great quest rewards, but also to the entire world developing differently, don't kill the Jewel Beast in time and the entire Frontier will be destroyed, don't help the four elemental lords in time and they will be corrupted by the minions and so on.

The other thing you'll have to deal with, is that since BR doesn't scale with your level, that means you have to make the best of each battle.
You have to not just make sure you win, but pay attention to HOW you win a battle since again, what you do is what you become in this game, choose your options randomly and it will lead to subpar growth, spend too much time fighting weaklings for easy wins instead of constantly challenging yourself with high BR enemies, and it will lead to subpar growth.
This seems not that big of a deal, but in SaGa games it very much is, taking the "easy" way out is not an option, you have to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself.
>>>

[Anonymous No.5644923]

>>5644916
At this point, you're probably thinking
>But anon, how am I supposed to deal with the BR exactly? Just be careful in fights and hope for the better?
Not quite, you see, most SaGa games starting from RS1 are nonlinear for a reason, and BR was implemented because of that, it's not what people call an antigrind measure, but it can potentially become one in case you play unoptimally.
Precisely because BR doesn't scale with your own power, you can do a lot to outrun it or trick it, the most important and easy way is to simply outrun it with better gear.
This means exploring and looting while avoiding unneeded fights is greatly beneficial, equipment in SaGa makes a huge difference compared to other games, getting a better sword will make a bigger difference than fighting for 20 minutes, and you can achieve this in a variety of ways, especially in MS.
You can loot dungeons, you can trade with monsters and sell what you got for money until you get enough to buy a new, shiny sword or armor from a shop, you can mine for metals or other rare materials to forge your equipment into better things, or customize it depending on your needs.

Another way to outrun the BR is achieved by constantly fight powerful enemies, BR also acts as a bonus/malus system for your growth, the higher the enemy BR is compared to your "levels", the faster you'll grow, conversely, the lower the BR the slower you'll grow.
This means the game greatly rewards you for taking on a challenge, and making the best with what little you have to overcome seemingly unbeatable enemies.
10 high BR fights will make you grow more than 30 low BR fights, this doesn't only let you save IRL time, but also make the BR scale slower while you grow consistently stronger, faster than the BR can keep up, and in MS' case you'll be further rewarded by the ER giving you more chances to complete more quests and reap even more rewards from quests.
>>>

[Anonymous No.5644948]

>>5644923
There's really a lot to talk about in these games given the amount of content and mechanical complexity, but these tips are going to help you out with the basic flow so keep them in mind.
Of course, if you have other questions you only need to ask.

My personal suggestion is:
Start with a MC geared for beginner, Barbara is a good choice, she's a very strong MC and starts off in the Frontier, which is notorious for having early game quests that expire very soon, explore the Frontier and do the quests there, then move out and feel free to go anywhere you like, the game holds pretty much nothing back outside a few late game areas, you can explore 90% of the world as soon as you start.
Remember to talk to NPCs as they will open up roads to certain places and also give you hints.
Hit the pubs, speak with people there and listen to what they have to say as you'll get not just new quests but useful hints.
Speak the the Minstrel, he's a very important character for reason and will also tell you some nice stories about the world you're inhabiting.
Save often and in separate slots, you'll never know what happens next in a SaGa game, you might turn around a corner and find a really tough boss that demolishes you in one turn so you need to always make sure you're not losing progress and always have some safety back up in case you bit more than you could chew.

But most importantly, pay attention, these games are built so that they give you lots of hint, not just about the narrative but about the mechanics themselves, empiric observation will help you a lot, pay attention to your attacks, enemy behaviour and appearance, even the sounds they make can give you precious information you can use.

[Anonymous No.5645214]

>>5644948
>>5644923
>>5644916
>>5644913
Saving that shit.

I started SaGa Frontier now as Emelia, going around looking for runes. Also using a notebook to write down anything that looks suspicious or useful.

[Anonymous No.5645247]

>>5645214
That's good, you'll be in good company given how most of this thread is about Frontier.
>Also using a notebook to write down anything that looks suspicious or useful.
That's a good choice, which reminds me about something I forgot to tell you.

These games have multiple MCs you can choose and all have their own campaigns, this means that all MCs tend to have their own unique content, be it quests, events/event variations or characters that other MCs don't have access too.
This ties into the narrative quite a bit since what happens in one character's campaign might not happen in another's, or it might happen differently, moreover, a certain MC's scenario and events might shed some light onto another's or just give you more information about the bigger picture, world lore and whatever else, Frontier does it quite well.
This doesn't necessarily means all character campaigns are "canon" or that one character's story is more canon than the others, in fact there's usually quite a few events that are in conflict with another MC's version of said event, which might lead to some confusion.
On the other hand, precisely because of this "what if" nature of the writing you can get some extra depth in terms of roleplay and worldbuilding, while certain events might not happen in one scenario, or develop differently, that also leads to some interesting development, which gives the games even more replay value.

[Anonymous No.5645835]

>>5623147
>>5626210
>>5640984
>>5643234

New version out, you can now edit mec self-development skills.

https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/downloads/SnakeOil_V0.9.zip

Mec self-development data is now in Waza data documentation project too.

[Anonymous No.5645956]

>>5645247
I chose to follow Roufa's advice and go for the runes first, visited Mu's temple and I'm stuck at the bone dragon boss. His breath does 260-420 damage and my meatiest character has 210 HP. Do I just call it and come back later or am I missing something?

[Anonymous No.5645990]

>>5645956
If your characters have that little HP you need to beef up a little and/or get better equipment.
The bone dragon will also regenerate life each turn with Deathsynthesis iirc, which ain't too good if you can't damage it for at the very least 3000 HP per turn.
Mind you, it's not at all impossible to beat it at your HP threshold, but you need to have a good team to do so and a solid understanding of the mechanics in the game.

I'd say take it easy for now, focus on getting your HP up to at least 300, get better equipment and some magic, you have a lot of LP in Frontier on average and most bosses aren't that aggressive so you can kite the damage pretty well on most fights as long as you have two or three healers on duty.
You can get the tree treasures from Mu's tomb if you haven't already, explore Shingrow and Owmi for some good stuff and fight along the way (mind the bats though, don't fight the bats).
Who's in your party and how are you building them? A gun user can do very high damage to the bone dragon, especially if you have TwoGuns.

[Anonymous No.5646006]

>>5645990
The basic trio + Roufas, with Emelia not knowing anything other than basic shot with the pistol, Liza specializing in throws and Annie using a katana.

[Anonymous No.5646008]

>>5645990
>get some magic
Can I just get magic without having the gift for it?

Guess I'll just load my save from back before I even enter the temple of Mu and go for some shopping.

[Anonymous No.5646014]

>>5646006
Not good, get another party member, you aren't going to do much with four people as a beginner, go to Scrap and get one of the characters there, Mei Ling is a good choice as an extra gun user/mage.
>Can I just get magic without having the gift for it?
Of course, what a gift does is let you learn advanced magic for its respective school that can't be bought in the shops.

[Anonymous No.5646038]

>>5646014
Thank you. I'm kinda salty because every random combat in the temple can be cleared in the first round but to kill the boss I have to go out, recruit more characters and buy more gear.

Is this short of mismatch of difficulty between random enemies and bosses in the same area a common thing?

[Anonymous No.5646052]

>>5646038
The general difficulty varies from game to game, but yes, outside of high BR fights, normal encounters aren't going to be much of a problem on average, especially not in Frontier which is on the easy side of the spectrum in general.
Bosses being largely more dangerous than normal encounter is also normal, but again, keep in mind what I said before, normal encounters are there for you to develop your party, so what matters is how you win those rather than just winning, while bosses are the fights that test whether you're following this advice by not holding punches.
You probably noticed by now, there's quite a lot of boss/miniboss battles in this game, the series is like that in general.

That said, if you want more of a challenge for normal encounters, you can still go to the Biolab or the marshes in Yorkland, I still suggest you to get a full party in any case, because newly recruited characters don't scale with your current "levels" and having even one more party member makes a huge difference, even at low levels, once you'll feel comfortable enough to try a solo run you'll realize that.

[Anonymous No.5646065]

>>5645956
http://globe90.tripod.com/sfarmor.html

Improve your fire defense. Also make sure someone has the (arcane) shield spell, and two or more people have vitality rune. Saves on healing.

Explore Koorong sewers, (Shrike) Sei's tomb, and the Shingrow Ruins (NOT the ship) for some good stuff. The minbosses in Shingrow Ruins are tough though.

If you have someone that can master shadow magic the strong shadow spell negates healing IIRC.

Also get everyone a shield.

If you need to get T260, kit him out in a bunch of armor and hope he gets most of the hits.

Owmi has good stuff but the miniboss is tough. PearlHearts are hard to come by to negate Maelstrom.

>>5646008
Just fight your way back out, it's good for you.

>>5646038
I just got Red up to BR9 with 800 HP before I did the Rune quest, I beat the Bone Dragon in 2 rounds. Most enemies at BR 9 take 3 or 4 rounds.

[Anonymous No.5646362]

>>5646065
Lightshift is a Space spell, it's the only thing he could use to negate Deathsynthesis.
Besides, the ship in Shingrow does have a Duel Gun he can put to very good use.
Aren't you spoilering a bit too much?

[Anonymous No.5646994]

>>5646065
Does this mean that boss fights do not scale with BR?

[Anonymous No.5646996]

>>5646065
>Just fight your way back out, it's good for you.
I opted to avoid it to avoid bloating my battle rank early on

[Anonymous No.5647276]

>>5646994
Generally speaking, bosses tend to not scale to your BR.
Frontier's a slight exception to that since most bosses' HP value does scale with BR, TLR is the other exception, with all boss stats scaling with your BR.
Another exception to the rule is midboss fights which are fixed encounters that do scale with BR and end up being completely different batches, Frontier really doesn't have anything like that, unless you consider the fixed encounters in the marshes in Yorkland, the Romancing games (MS included) used this design while the rest of the series doesn't have it, either because some rare games surprisingly do not have BR mechanics, like Frontier 2, or because BR works very differently, like Unlimited, TLR or SG.
>>5646996
BR in Frontier grows very slowly, so you shouldn't worry too much, the game is easy and BR will hardly ever be a problem in this particular entry, as long as you're not wasting hours fighting around with mooks and never upgrading your equipment you'll hardly ever have a problem.

[Anonymous No.5647280]

>>5647276
Actually no, slight correction, MS doesn't have variable midbosses, a quick brainstorming was enough to remember that.

[Anonymous No.5647693]

>>5647276
Now I'm thinking about starting over with another character instead. I ended up getting eaten by a monster while taking a ship and now I'm stuck fighting oozes and I assume I have to wipe the oozes and touch the rune with the character that I want to have the gift, on the same turn.

Fuck my life.

[Anonymous No.5647735]

>>5647693
I wouldn't suggest starting over, especially with other people, one reason is that Emilia's campaign is one of the easiest and most straightforward in the game, the other being that if you're keeping separate savefiles you can avoid getting trapped into the kind of situation you're in now.
Still, it's entirely on you, starting over again even with Emilia will probably make you realize a lot of mistakes you did by revisiting the same same sections, and you'll be able to get to the point you're in much faster than before.

Regarding Tanzer, yes, you have to wipe out the super gels and then you will touch the Rune, it's not a hard fight at all though so I have to wonder just how undertooled you are.
Which begs the question, are you using your techs when you're fighting, anon?
You can't just learn new stuff by spamming attack or the same techs every time, you should try to experiment a bit, magic also helps out against amorphous types, Light Magic is especially powerful for crowd control, but since you're on the Rune Quest now you won't be able to get it until you finish Tanzer's segment.

And before you get all depressed and stuff, don't worry, this is absolutely normal for beginners, we all went through this kind of stuff with our first encounter with the series, just focus on learning from your mistakes now and getting used to the overall weirdness, after a few playthrough you'll wonder why you even had problems and have a good laugh.
Cheer up, anon.

[Anonymous No.5647742]

>>5647735
>I have to wonder just how undertooled you are.
"I just escaped prison got a spellcaster by lying to him, got Roufas from the shrine and now this".

[Anonymous No.5647760]

>>5647742
And now I can't take the ship to go anywhere and I'm stuck at Koorong because taking the ship triggers the Tanzer cutscene.

Albert's scenario on Minstrel Song was definitely easier than this at least for the first 12 hours.

[Anonymous No.5647776]

>>5647742
>>5647760
Doesn't look too good if you didn't do any exploration in between that, and with Tanzer on your way now it's going to be a bit of a hassle.
If you have a save file before starting the Rune quest, I suggest you to use it.
Try to finish some of Emilia's main quest segments, you can get some loot, stat growth and Roufas will also give you money after each of those, that will help you get into shape a bit.
After one or two of those quests, go explore a bit and loot some of the other places, the light/shadow magic quests are relatively easy and once you do one of those the other is completed automatically, one is harder than the other though, and it's better to get the light gift on your main party due to having better advanced spells than shadow magic for most battle scenarios, so work on deciding the main party you want to use and get it after you're done.

Tanzer blocks your access to region traveling until you get the rune inside it, so yeah, it's a hard impasse, but the battle is honestly very easy so...I don't really know what to tell you.
>Albert's scenario on Minstrel Song was definitely easier than this
Minstrel Song's characters' quests are hardly a thing, and Albert is a beginners character too, as for the rest of the game, you probably didn't dig too much into it because there's an abyss between MS and Frontier in terms of difficulty, and given how you're finding the Tanzer battle hard it really makes me think you didn't bite too much in MS, which isn't surprising, the game is very rich in content and a lot more open than Frontier.
But again, don't give up and persevere, restart if you truly feel the need to and try another way to progress through the game since you can, no progress is really lost and you've already learned a lot even if you don't realize it yet.

[Anonymous No.5647872]

>>5647776
Well it was Roufas' idea to get the runes while I'm waiting for something don't blame me! I thought these games were open not that there's a certain order of things to do that I need to know.

[Anonymous No.5647905]

>>5647872
Well, Roufas isn't exactly a trustworthy dude, he might make some wicked pizza but he's still a pretty scrupleless vigilante.
>I thought these games were open not that there's a certain order of things to do that I need to know.
To be perfectly honest with you anon, you CAN win all those fights at the level you are now, you just need to know how to do it, you can even win them solo.
You'll understand though, don't worry about it, you just need to get used to it all, don't rush things.

[Anonymous No.5648006]

>>5647872
You can totally beat the slimes at such a low level and with an incomplete party (though you should have Fei-On IIRC). You just need some good techs.

You can restore LP inside Tanzer, but to restore WP and LP you need to switch between first and second party. That may not be possible with so few PCs, so your next best bet is to only use techs that cost 0 WP/JP as you grind. 1 WP/JP techs with mastery work too.

IIRC Slimes are strong against blunt and weak against slashing, so use swords against them rather than martial arts.

BTW it doesn't matter who touches the Vitality Rune, everyone currently in your entire party counts as being present for the fight.

[Anonymous No.5648019]

>>5647905
They're probably winnable but not with my current toolkit and stats. The vid I found on youtube showing the Ooze fight as Emelia had extra skills because he was doing the Emelia scenario for last or something.

[Anonymous No.5648523]

Leaks say RS3 and Scarlet Grace will be announced at Squenix' conference tomorrow, kind of weird for SaGa to be there, but who knows what might happen.

[Anonymous No.5649045]

>>5648523
Confirmed.
Literally the only games i'll be buying from E3

[Anonymous No.5649556]

>>5647760
>stuck
>Koorong

Just take a round through the sewers and you should be in some decent fighting shape
Maybe go buy some items or something for the long run.

If you want to salvage your Tanzer run then just fight with one man out of your crew til he gets some WP/JP back.

Also I might be wrong, as I haven't played the game in a long time, but aren't there some places you can fly to that don't trigger Tanzer to appear?

[Anonymous No.5649565]

>>5648006
>>5649556
Gotcha. I'll start over again, it's just an hour of playtime anyways.

[Anonymous No.5649594]

>>5649565
Cool, let us know who you end up liking and using a lot

[Anonymous No.5649906]

>>5649556
>aren't there some places you can fly to that don't trigger Tanzer to appear?
Iirc Tanzer swallows you as soon as you get to Koorong after getting the blank runes from Devin and try to move around from there, I might be wrong on this though.
If I'm correct that means Tanzer shouldn't bother you as long as you don't go back to Koorong, but as soon as you do you gonna get eaten, unless you're Blue that is.

[Anonymous No.5650547]

>>5649594
I legit gonna start with Romancing Saga 2 on Steam now because I can't stomach doing the prison section again.

[Anonymous No.5650575]

>>5650547
Dude, how are you jumping around from game to game like that? At least start some other MC's story.
>I can't stomach doing the prison section again.
What's wrong with Despair? It's super short and Emilia also fights a massively nerfed Nidhogg.

[Anonymous No.5650578]

>>5650547
Also forgot, RS2 is A LOT harder than Frontier, so be advised, it's not going to be an easy ride.

[Anonymous No.5650847]

am I an idiot or are the runes/arcane magic kind of wack?

[Anonymous No.5650884]

>>5650847
Rune magic is particularly powerful and leads to the infinite time loop instawin too if you have access to time magic, if you play as a solo human, Runes are pretty much mandatory and are also the key to make Blue the ultimate mage and a literal invincible god, the Victory and Vitality Runes alone are pretty great.
As for arcane, it's a bit of a mixed bag, Saber is mostly useless outside of learning purposes, Shield is good and a pretty big advantage in solo play and Tower is ridiculous, the rest is kind of useless outside of Magician, and even there you're probably better off with Mirrorshade, oh and there's Death I guess.
Pretty good schools of magic to have around all in all, then again, outside of Evil and Mirage magic all schools are mostly useful.

[Anonymous No.5650962]

>>5650847
Hide and Vitality Rune are excellent, Victory Rune damage bonus lasts all battle and with very high magic stats can double damage output. Rest are pretty meh though you can Stasis Rune an enemy and have someone else use a snake oil on you to remove the effect.

Arcane's Shield is as useful as Victory Rune, Grail can be useful when mass debuffed, and Tower can cause upwards of 10k damage if you have over 100 JP.

[Anonymous No.5651073]

>>5650962
I meant Freedom Rune is excellent, Hide Rune sucks.

[Anonymous No.5651117]

>>5650962
I thought Victory Rune is a static 1.25% buff on you weapon attack values?
Does it really scale off INT?

[Anonymous No.5651160]

>>5651117
It scales off I think wil or intelligence and wil, but it can double sword damage if your magic stats are maxed out. Try it with a master magician Blouge. Shield does something similar with defenses, but according to Zaraktheus it can only give you up to 21% boost.

[Anonymous No.5651165]

>>5651160
That's interesting, once I finish my Judy run I'm gonna try another Blue solo run and see it for myself.
>it can double sword damage if your magic stats are maxed out
Slashing modifiers only or just any equipped weapon modifiers?
It should be a general boost on any equipped weapons you have, right? Just like Shield is a flat % buff on your total armor value.

[Anonymous No.5651180]

>>5651165

I think it's a flat amount, and Zarak said it doesn't stack. But if you notice when someone uses BattleSong or SadSong everyone hits harder or softer by quite a lot.

Oh I see what you're saying. It applies to all weapons, try using it on a mec.

There's an effective 100 limit on each defense, so it probably won't boost it beyond that. But 21 defense is nothing to sneeze at. I think he said it can give between 5 and 21 defense.

Going from 40 to 60 defense is life-saving in some battles. It should help with status defense too.

[Anonymous No.5651193]

>>5650578
I'm reading Emelia's FAQ on gamefaqs and the author notes that

>It is also not a game that you will be successful at unless you don't mind
spending some time leveling. Personally I find the stat building system
and combat to be very enjoyable so I don't mind power leveling but if that
sort of thing bothers you then this may not be the game for you.

How much grinding are we talking about here?

[Anonymous No.5651223]

>>5651193
Most of those FAQs are old and have wrong info. You don't need to grind, just get a mec and find some good gear for it. Besides that different races gain stats differently so grinding is pointless for some of them.

Mecs gain stats solely from equipment. They can only benefit from fighting other mecs and absorbing skills or learning a self-development skill.

Monsters benefit from 4 accessory only equipment slots, previously absorbed skills, and from their equipped skills. Equipped skills determine their form, which determines stats and 4 bottom equipment slots. Absorbing a previously unabsorbed skill improves base HP.

Mystics can only grow HP, WP, JP, and Charm. Their stats are modified by equipment and by the monsters absorbed into their mystic weapons. Mystics can buy and learn magic (except mind magic). Mystics can benefit from equipment.

Humans can grow everything but LP. Humans can spark and learn techs and spells. Humans can benefit from equipment.

Most grind to least:
Mecs
Monsters
Mystics
Humans

You can get a Zeroworm (BR 9, top tier insect type) monster form at BR 1 if you read Zarak's guide and JusticeZero's FAQs, and ask on the GameFAQs boards. That and T260 equipped with lots of decent equipment can hold your hand through tough fights.

[Anonymous No.5651224]

>>5651180
Hmmm, that's pretty interesting.
>But if you notice when someone uses BattleSong or SadSong everyone hits harder or softer by quite a lot.
iirc Battlesong/Sadsong work around your STR, not ATK, so that's why it can stack with Victory Rune.
On the other hand, any non equipment related stat buff expires after a few turn while Victory/Shield run as long as you stay alive, so it's better to boost those values than your character's stats.
>try using it on a mec.
Yeah, I've been thinking about it as well.
iirc Victory Rune works exclusively on your items, which means something like Bits/Satellite Linker does not benefit from it, since it's technically a skill and not an item...
There's quite a few things to experiment on that I didn't consider, mostly because I use buffs on Solo runs instead of full parties.
>>5651193
>How much grinding are we talking about here?
Frankly, I'm going to disagree with whoever wrote that FAQ, but I played Frontier a lot and know how to handle it.
>How much grinding are we talking about here?
Virtually none or a lot, it all depends on how you want to play.
A single mech can solo anything Emilia's scenario throws at you for instance, and you don't need to grind at all, outside of maybe getting a few programs off mech fights, but you need to know how to plan for it, spend all your money on Mech equipment and know when to do it.
Conversely, playing as a full monster party does require you to grind more than humans on average, Mystics are in a similar situation, though they get away with it a lot more easily.
As for Emilia's scenario in particular, it's really, really easy and you have access to really powerful character, a hilariously easy main quest and extra money from Roufas, so the grinding is pretty much nonexistent unless you pretend to avoid any possible fight, just fighting shit along the way to your next quest point is more than enough to make you strong to win against anything, Abyss bat excluded.

[Anonymous No.5651226]

>>5651193
Also, do all SaGa games require grinding?

[Anonymous No.5651228]

>>5651224
>As for Emilia's scenario in particular, it's really, really easy and you have access to really powerful character, a hilariously easy main quest and extra money from Roufas

Well shit, and I thought that I should avoid the main quest and go for the runes first.

[Anonymous No.5651231]

>>5651224
Oh and speaking about Emilia, what weapon should I go with her? I tried using guns but I went through a hundred battles and she never ever learned anything the moment Liza and Annie had about 7 skills each.

[Anonymous No.5651239]

>>5651226
SF2 is hit-or-miss on grinding, really you just need to get your stats up and spark some good techs and definitely get good equipment.

RS (PS2) punishes you if you grind, I used to use a gameshark code for infinite LP to allow me to run from all fights.

Never played any others.

>>5651228
Save before each quest, the Trinity ones are pretty hard though you get a nice bonus if you finish the first one.

>>5651224
I don't think Emelia can use mecs.

>>5651231
You have to use a pistol/rifle type gun, not a mec type heavy weapon. No one can learn anything from the latter.

[Anonymous No.5651256]

>>5651226
Not really, look at this run for instance>>5641289
The only case in which you might want to grind is games like RS3 or SF2 where you have the options of fighting a powered up final boss, generally speaking, as long as you understand how your tools work SaGa games need pretty much zero grinding, in fact you can speedrun all of them in around one/two hours or so, glitchless.
Mechanical knowledge, planning and understanding potential exploits or specific combinations are far more important than grinding for stats, just knowing how to sequence break well is enough to shave quite a few potential hours of gameplay, and the games offer a lot of depth when it comes to getting better and better on your general performance.
>Well shit, and I thought that I should avoid the main quest and go for the runes first.
You can do that, but you need to know how.
SaGa games do let you explore freely, but you also need to know how to survive and what you can afford fighting in your current state.
While you do have hard statistical limits, it's also true that you have a lot of elasticity to accomodate nonlinear progression, again, it's mostly sequence breaking and knowing how to plan progression, I also can't stress enough how important it is that you get magic utilities.
>what weapon should I go with her?
Emilia's own standard table lets her learn a lot of sword techs fairly fast, the Pink Tiger costume lets her get Liza's spark table for martial arts while the Dancer costume changes it to Annie's, that makes her very versatile, but if you want to use guns she's also fine.
>>5651239
>I don't think Emelia can use mecs
Can't she recruit T260G in her campaign?

[Anonymous No.5651265]

>>5651256
No mecs at all in her campaign, unless you gameshark one in.

[Anonymous No.5651275]

>>5651265
My mistake then.

[Anonymous No.5651682]

Praise Kawazu

[Anonymous No.5651713]

>>5651682
We're back bros.

[Anonymous No.5651716]

>coming soon
WHAT THE FUCK WHAT DOES SOON MEAN FUCK

[Anonymous No.5651774]

What do you think are the odds of a 9th protagonist this time around?

[Anonymous No.5651780]

>>5651716
SOON means SOON
>>5651774
That's the Holy King(Female), I think that's just referring to the the new hero being the MC you choose in the game, like the prologue says.

[Anonymous No.5651827]

>>5651780
>I think that's just referring to the the new hero being the MC you choose in the game
Yeah, I thought so as well, but one can dream.

[Anonymous No.5651849]

>>5651827
Who else would the new hero be though?
Shonen?
There's no real MC material unless they introduce a completely new character, which I don't think they will since it's a balanced 4 Males+4 Females cast.

[Anonymous No.5651857]

I hope it has lots of new content, maybe a couple new characters too

[Anonymous No.5651871]

>>5651857
If they made new recruitables, the professor and volcano are pretty much guaranteed.

[Anonymous No.5652021]

What are the most skip-able games in the series? Is SaGa Frontier 2 actually good?

[Anonymous No.5652051]

>>5652021
>What are the most skip-able games in the series?
>Skipping games
And yes, Frontier 2 is good.

[Anonymous No.5652128]

>>5652021
SaGa 3 unless it's the DS version then, none at all

[Anonymous ~ No.5652382]

>>5651193
>>5651226
SF probably requires the LEAST amount of grinding especially if you're playing T260G's route and recruit a full mech party.

I remember SaGa 1 was also minimum grinding especially if you have at least 1 human and monster. Although you would need to check a monster FAQ to transform your monster into an endgame-usable form. Humans increased stats just by buying stats-up items to drink. Having more than 1 human however would require a lot more time to grind for gold to buy such stats increasing items.

[Anonymous ~ No.5652383]

>>5652128
S3 had a cool muzak and great wacky timetravel plot long before Chrono TRIGGER was a thing.

[Anonymous No.5652436]

>>5649906
>Iirc Tanzer swallows you as soon as you get to Koorong after getting the blank runes from Devin and try to move around from there

Tanzer only bothers you if you've already collected a Rune, having the stones isn't enough. Unless of course the plot calls for you to be in Tanzer.

>>5651193
>How much grinding are we talking about here?

Keep two saves and don't worry about it.
If you ever feel like you need a boost then just go exploring and that should give you whatever edge you need to get by.

That being said I do have something of a routine when I start a fresh file:
>Recruit a full party of dudes
>Devin & Luminous for gifts
>Sei's tomb for some equipment
>A quick run through the Koorong sewer
>go to the Owmi Mansion and run to the bottom and back up
>Usually unfuckable by this point

[Anonymous No.5652672]

>>5651073
they nerfed Hide Rune compared to RS2's Mist Cover, it was really good in that game for your healers. In SF the Hide Rune is dispelled upon being hit by multitarget attacks.

[Anonymous No.5652742]

>>5652436
My routine is evil and basically breaks the game.
>Immediately pick up Rouge
>Trigger the arcane quest in Devin
>Pick up Emilia, Gen, Lute, Riki, T260G, Engineercar, and Mei-ling
>go to Mu's tomb and grab money and katana off the floor
>buy DefendWears
>Sei's tomb to dunk skeletons for waza and keep the treasures
>Shingrow ruins to quickly snag harmonium and run out
>Wrecked ship, get the hyperscale and duelgun along with the suit and credits
>back to scrap
>pay to get in the junk shop
>grab shields
>go to the counter
>sell the Duel Gun
>go back in to the cage and get 1-2 lethalguns
>sell the hyperscale
>go back and get another lethalgun
>give both of them to Rouge
>buy warlord armor and fill the other characters with the angelarmor/stardust robe/harmonium armor that can be picked as treasures

usually takes like 4 hr to finish a scenario

[Anonymous No.5652959]

>>5652672
Mist Cover was just too strong for its own good, the Hide Rune wouldn't even be that bad if the game wasn't so easy, even in a speedrun or a low power run it's not that great to warrant any use when even something as simple as Powergrasp ends up being massively more useful and relevant throughout the game.
With a proper rebalance though, I can see it being much better, solo Hide Rune set ups coupled with Magician/Mirrorshade for instance can be very useful against some bosses or in some fights.

[Anonymous No.5653114]

Just started SaGa 2 on DS, got human, mystic, monster and robot

When does it pick up?

[Anonymous No.5653196]

>>5653114
Where are you exactly?
The game's pretty short and easy, and it's also linear so it's not gonna be like the other games in the series, I'd say it "picks up" once you reach Apollo's world, either that or the Guardians' HQ.

[Anonymous No.5653239]

What are the specs for Scarlet Grace?

[Anonymous No.5653240]

>>5623147
>>5626210
>>5640984
>>5643234
>>5645835

Magic learning difficulty factors editor done, download version 0.11 here:
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/downloads/

Waza updated to include some info on dodge skill sparks, check it out here:
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/waza/src/default/dodgeSparks.txt

[Anonymous No.5653241]

SaGa 1 didn't get a remake, did it?

[Anonymous No.5653256]

>>5653196
I'm at the desert atm

Got a really strong mon but human and mystic are weak as shit

[Anonymous No.5653279]

Is it even possible to finish a SaGa game playing blind? It really looks like it has to be played in some rote fashion.

[Anonymous No.5653291]

>>5653279
Oh sweetie

[Anonymous No.5653298]

>>5653239
It runs on phones dude, don't you worry about that.
>>5653241
Nope, only a remaster for the Wonderswan Colour.
>>5653256
You're barely starting then, don't you worry, you still have a lot to do and see, make sure you help out the muse in there too.
>>5653279
This isn't Wizardry IV man, come on.

[Anonymous No.5653301]

>>5653279
Anyone kind enough to answer this?

[Anonymous No.5653308]

>>5653301
You don't need any guide to finish any SaGa game.

[Anonymous No.5653316]

>>5653298
>It runs on phones dude, don't you worry about that.
They tend to upscale and bloat PC ports of mobile games. I can't look at the Japanese steam page because region blocked.

[Anonymous No.5653319]

>>5653316
Dude, it's a port of a VITA game made on Unity, any entry level PC card can run it.

[Anonymous No.5653470]

Looks like Kawazu's at the E3.
If anyone's in there you might drop by and say hi.

[Anonymous No.5653793]

>>5622239
can someone post some more art from the games please

[Anonymous No.5653795]

does Final Fantasy II count as a Saga game lol

[Anonymous No.5653806]

>>5653795
It's kind of the Akalabeth of the series, so yeah.

[Anonymous No.5653813]

>>5653806
The Emperor is so SaGa it could have been a Kobayashi design. None of the FFII characters look like characters in later FF games.

[Anonymous No.5653832]

>>5653813
To be fair, Ulty does have a similar design to Emps with her horns, no wonder they made pick on each other that much in Dissidia.
On the other hand Nomura's a hack and FFVIII had deliberately faux Amano designs with the witches, so there's that.

I think it's more interesting to note how all the SaGa games have good guys when it comes to emperors, Kawazu reusing the trope so much in the series makes it all the more evident.

[Anonymous No.5653865]

>>5653832
The Emperor was kind of at odds with everyone, he wanted to rule everything. Kefka was nihilist that wanted to destroy everything, Exdeath and CoD wants to return everything to THE VOID, Sephiroth just wants to impale Cloud, Kuja is kind of aimless in his goals, Golbez is a double agent, and Jecht was just tagging along but ultimately also Cosmos' side. Ultimecia wants to compress time just like in FFVIII and be the sole being in existence (kind of amplifying Squall's worst aspect) which conflicts with Emperor's goals. Garland and the Emperor are the two directly answering to Chaos and Emperor ultimately has the dark crystals made to fulfill his own ambitions. If they took it a step further Mateus could have been the main villain in Dissidia.

[Anonymous No.5653890]

>>5653865
The problem is Mateus is such a straightforward and clear cut fairy tale villain and you just can't have that anymore, everyone has to have a sympathetic sob story. They even added that for Kefka.
Exdeath was popular because he was at least hammy and hilarious, and CoD was kinda cute and autistic about how some of the reactions she gets over her appearance being a half naked hot chick and not intimidating at all.

[Anonymous No.5653913]

>>5653793

[Anonymous No.5653914]

>>5653913

[Anonymous No.5653916]

>>5653890
I wouldn't say he's a fairy tale villain, I mean, I can see what you mean by virtue of FF2 being pretty barebones in storytelling given how old he is, but Emps is pretty fucking scary.
>Game starts by the time you've already lost
>Palamecia technically owns 80% of the world by then
>Your tiny group of rebel is so undergear and outmatched a simple encounter with imperial soldiers in Finn can destroy you
>Most of of the game is spent desperately sabotaging the empire
>Your friends die
>You bring down the Dreadnought after so much trouble and sacrifice and emps just whips up a floating castle inside a fucking hurricane
>Then he kidnaps the princess and sends an undercover Lamia Queen to kill you
>Traps you in a coliseum while taunting you
>Then more of your friends die so you can get the ultimate spell to kill the fucker
>And you do kill him after entering the hurricane castle somehow
>Except that the absolute unit comes back from hell after conquering it SINGLEHANDEDLY and has opened a portal to hell that leads to his own palace
>And more of your friends die
>And now the world is literally merging with the underworld
Emps is pretty fucking terrifying in his own rights, he's the epithome of evil genius spellcaster who would stop at nothing, and he's pretty /fit/ too, probably slays demon pussy like mad.

[Anonymous No.5654027]

>>5653279
Just always have two saves and you should be fine.

[Anonymous No.5654304]

is something bad about the original sfc Romancing SaGa?

[Anonymous No.5654314]

>>5653916
Man, you know what? FF2 was a good-ass fucking game. I'm kind of sick of people memeing on it.

>>5654304
It's just that all of the other games in the series improved on it so much that it's pretty much outclassed. Is it bad? No, but if you don't have patience for old JRPGs, which it has many of the popular trappings of, you might not get much out of it. If you look at the year it was released and compare it to the other games that were out at the same time, though, it's hard not to be impressed.

[Anonymous No.5654342]

>>5654304
It's pretty rough and a transition title so to speak, so while it is still definitely an interesting game for its time and did a lot of things right, it also did a lot of things wrong and ends up being too archaic for most, with a ruleset that is kind of underdeveloped even compared to RS2, which came out just two years later.

Taken inside the series' context it's interesting and worth playing since you can see the big jump between from the GB games to the SNES, it's definitely impressive, and compared to the other games of its time, wildly ambitious, it will also make RS2 look even more impressive because it's another massive jump in quality all around, but it will also feel unpolished, rough and archaic, not to mention that it also suffers from cut content.
I'd suggest you to play most of the other games, especially the GB games and the other romancing games before playing RS1, then play that game, it will help you put a lot of things in the right perspective.

[Anonymous No.5655297]

>>5652021
Pre-romancing games are the basic bitches of the SaGa series.

[Anonymous No.5655832]

>>5654314
Eh, FF2 was a good game in the sense that at least it honestly tried to be something more than the rest of the genre of its time, but if we're considering the original, bug ridden mess on NES, I don't really know, it's really, really sketchy and with quite a few critical oversights.
From a designer point of view, it's pretty good, if it had some kind of player agency it would be legitimately on the level of proper Ultima games too, there's a reason it impressed so many young devs at the time, nobody thought the NES could handle that kind of mechanical complexity.
The Origin release fixes most of the issues and it's pretty decent, but all in all, it still remains a product of its time, though definitely unjustly hated by a lot of people.

I'd say it's very similar to SaGa 1 in that sense, though SaGa 1 gets extra brownie points for being the first RPG ever made on a handheld and also inspiring various other devs like Gamefreak, it's a historically important game but it's still a hot mess, a fun mess, but a mess nonetheless.

When thinking about FF2, sometimes I imagine that there's a timeline where FF adopted Kawazu's formula and became the SaGa series instead of branching out as something of its own, imagine how weird would that be.

[Anonymous No.5656130]

Been looking at the E3 trailer a bit, here's some stuff I noticed
>SFX for RS3 are not the original SNES ones
>Lots but not all battle effects have been retouched, it's safe to say it's not like RS2 for that
>Seems like midbosses and bosses are all animated like RS2
>Scarlet Grace is using Minstrel Song's waza translation given how Swing is called Reaper
Also didn't realize nobody posted the link, so there it is for those who missed the E3 stream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ6J3qvV0cE
I wonder if the new sound effects mean that we're getting an option for an arranged soundtrack as well, kind of weird they'd use a new mix of the Four Noble Demons themes.

So let's go, what are you all expecting/hoping for the remaster? I'd say:
>Two or three new recruitables like Volcano, Ludwig or the Professor
>Some new/restored questlines(Tatyana) or expanded ones(The ruins with Galatea)
>Obligatory extra dungeon
>General rebalance, hopefully for the ER as well
>Secret endgame superboss like the Real Queen, possibly the Holy King given the trailer hints(?)
>Bugfixes, no more exploits like the Holy Ring loop

[Anonymous No.5656231]

>>5655297
Except with various races developing in different methods and always an easy couple of games to point to that experience points and levels don't make a RPG.

[Anonymous No.5656239]

>>5653301
I've beaten a route on Unlimited Saga without a guide if that counts for anything.

[Anonymous No.5656365]

>>5653240
>>5623147
>>5626210
>>5640984
>>5643234
>>5645835

Gun tech learning difficulty factors editor done, download here:
https://bitbucket.org/MysticLord/snakeoil/downloads/

[Anonymous No.5656463]

>>5656130
I've never played RS3 because I didn't want to play the shitty buggy translation and my 日本語 isn't お上手ですね:) enough yet. I could probably get through it nowadays decently but I'd still need to look up too many words per minute to really enjoy it properly.

If it's anywhere near as good as RS2, I'll love it. I'm also not sure whether I want to double dip with an english copy of scarlet graces.

[Anonymous No.5656474]

>>5656463
RS 2 is much better IMO, but it's not a bad game

[Anonymous No.5656497]

>>5656463
>If it's anywhere near as good as RS2
Not to bring you down, but it's really not, at least challenge wise, though truth to be told the remake might rebalance that a fair bit.

It looks great and you'll probably like the more classic multiple MC structure compared to RS2, but all in all, it can't compete with RS2.
It is vastly more polished though and there's tons of new stuff for you to learn in this game, the music is great and some dungeons are really, really good.
The characters are also much more zany than RS2, it's a really fun cast all in all, similar to Frontier's for some things, so if you prefer the more grounded and romantic cast in 2 it might be a bit of a different experience, RS3's cast is much more cartoony and bizarre.
You'll see either way, it's still a good game but it can't compete with 2 or other games in the series, very good entry for beginners though.

[Anonymous No.5656514]

>>5656463
RS3 is generally considered to be better
which means that as soon as it comes out everyone will here start saying RS2 is better basically

[Anonymous No.5656536]

>>5656514
>RS3 is generally considered to be better
It's really not and most people here who played both always preferred RS2.

[Anonymous No.5657463]

>>5656536
not him but speak for yourself. i actually preferred RS3 and i've played and beaten RS2 while im on my second run on it now. RS3 is also the one that made epees not bloody useless, had actual characters with varying questlines, an improved formation system while expanding on the battle system, you can actually switch out your party members for once, and a hell lot more gorgeous than it was previously

that being said, both are also rather different experiences with one being more non-linear while the other had a somewhat definite plot to follow through so you might as well compare SaGa Frontier 1 with 2

[Anonymous No.5658236]

>>5657463
>RS3 is also the one that made epees not bloody useless
They're not useless at all in RS2, they're just not meant to compete with axes or swords for damage, which RS3 changes a bit since all weapon types are standardized to eventually do big damage (in which rapiers still can't compete if you want to be picky).
Rapiers in RS2 are kings of support, you can stun, paralyze, seal waza, instakill various types of enemies, counter with Matador, attack rows etc., in RS3 they're not really any different outside of getting a new strong single target waza with Southern Cross.
>had actual characters with varying questlines
So did RS2, and the questlines were also a lot more varied than 3, unless you refer exclusively to the MCs, which is kind of misleading, the average cast in 2 is also more fleshed out than 3, especially thanks to having more varied questlines.

3 is more polished, it looks much better and it does have its own unique elements that make it worth playing regardless of how it stands among the rest of the series, but it's also a lot less challenging than 2.

It's true it did elaborate on a lot of gameplay elements, the new master system is a lot more convenient than in 2, you have formations that tie in with Commander Mode now for extra depth, smithing now requires components instead of just money and leads to actually unique items, you have six swappable party members instead of five fixed ones and so on.
But for a lot of other things it's also inferior to RS2, there's a lot less quest routes, its own ER system makes progression less nonlinear and more bottlenecked, magic is a lot less varied in function and there's no magic fusion anymore, the new BR system ends up being barely functional too.

Now, the remaster might as well change that, but as it is on SNES, a few more streamlined or polished mechanics and new stuff like commander mode aren't enough to make up for the lack of difficulty and inferior progression.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658263]

>>5658236
>(in which rapiers still can't compete if you want to be picky).
In my experience, weapon damage has more to do with the character's stats than weapon type. Most of the main characters have higher base STR than DEX. Maybe that's why the more DEX based weapons feel weaker.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/588634-romancing-saga-3/faqs/30020

Though the club weapons seem to have less variety in highend techs.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658276]

>>5658236
>(in which rapiers still can't compete if you want to be picky).

Picky? If you get the 7 Star Sword and the Magic Arm ,then exploit the Harid's bug, Sword will trump everything.
https://fantasyanime.com/saga/rs3secrets.htm

If anything, magic is pretty underpowered except for healing.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658279]

>>5656130
>>Bugfixes, no more exploits like the Holy Ring loop

I thought the loop was on purpose, since it's so hard to earn money in this game.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658286]

>>5653914
Or SF or the other games too? Well I'll post my favs including fanart.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658292]

>>5658286

[Anonymous ~ No.5658294]

>>5658292
Blouge

[Anonymous ~ No.5658296]

>>5658294
>I WANNA BE A PSYKO HIRO!

[Anonymous ~ No.5658298]

>>5658296

[Anonymous ~ No.5658305]

>>5658298
Doll looks way too feminazi these days.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658308]

>>5658305

[Anonymous No.5658317]

>>5658263
>In my experience, weapon damage has more to do with the character's stats than weapon type.
It's a bit more complex than that.
First off, rapiers statistically can't compare with a lot of other weapons in their basic stats.
Your strongest rapier in RS3, the Kris Naga, has 37 ATK, this is lower than items such as:
>Khamsin(41)
>Dragonscale Sword(40)
>Seven Star Sword (60)
>Ice Sword(40)
>Gekkabijin(41)
>Demon King's Axe(42)
>Dragon Spear Smaugh(45)
>Death's bow(42)
Meaning rapiers are by default already underperforming big time given how the other two top tier rapier are the Estoc(28) and the Gladius(23), which is by all means intentional since again, they've NEVER been a weapon for damage and more for utilities or giving spellcasters a decent melee weapon option other than staves/maces.
If you want to consider your roster's DEX distribution and average compared to STR based charactes, you also have another problem, then there's the inherent waza multipliers and properties and even there, rapiers can hardly compete with the rest on average.
On top of it all there's this>>5658276, and sword cloning aside, I doubt the silver hand will be nerfed in the remaster either.
>Though the club weapons seem to have less variety in highend techs.
Yeah, to be honest, maces almost always sucked in SaGa games, Grand Slam is pretty good though, better than its RS2 version.
>>5658279
Afaik it's not, but we'll see with the remaster, if they keep it then it's definitely intended, I don't think it's hard to get money in RS3 either if you plan your progression well, even if you play as Harid there's plenty of money you can make, though Mikhael might have a harder time with his own quest.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658329]

>>5658308
She looked sexier in the super deformed sprite...

[Anonymous ~ No.5658332]

>>5658329
Muh Chinagirl.
>>5658317
>Mikhael might have a harder time with his own quest.
I don't get it. Isn't his war minigame totally optional? I don't remember it giving much rewards either.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658335]

>>5658332
Charlie's NOT-Angels.

[Anonymous No.5658338]

>>5658332
>I don't get it. Isn't his war minigame totally optional?
It is, it's what decides the ending you get though.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658340]

>>5658335
Waifu bot

[Anonymous ~ No.5658343]

>>5658340
>ET go home

[Anonymous ~ No.5658347]

>>5658343

[Anonymous ~ No.5658349]

>>5658347

[Anonymous ~ No.5658354]

>>5658349
>Kill Le Kill

[Anonymous ~ No.5658358]

>>5658354
Sand power.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658362]

>>5658358
>Ronin Pirate Party versus evil globalist megacorp

[Anonymous ~ No.5658370]

>>5658362
>Harem Pottery & The Half-Blood Lesbian.

[Anonymous No.5658379]

>>5658370
>Harry potter
Asellus' story is literally a ripoff of Utena, except White Rose is not a sociopath like Anthy and everyone's a vampire.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658382]

>>5655832
>SaGa 1 gets extra brownie points for being the first RPG ever made on a handheld and also inspiring various other devs like Gamefreak,

I seriously doubt any dev looked at SaGa 1 and thought "Hey, let's design 151 recruitable monsters with unique sprites and cries!"

[Anonymous ~ No.5658383]

>>5658379
I frankly thought Assy's route was standard fujoshit, since all the male NOT-vampires seem to be gay or at least look very gay.

[Anonymous ~ No.5658395]

>>5658383
wait. lemme post all the possibly gay vamps...
i can't believe not-akuma had star-nipples.

[Anonymous No.5658404]

>>5658382
Actually, that's more or less what happened, believe it or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Fantasy_Legend
>it has since been described as one of the Game Boy's greatest games and cited as an influence for series such as the Pokémon franchise.
>>5658383
>since all the male NOT-vampires seem to be gay
Orlouge is far from being gay, but as Zozma says, youma are more or less pansexual.
Besides, it's still pretty much exactly like Utena where most if not all of the cast was gay/bisexual, it has little to do with fujos.

[Anonymous No.5658664]

>>5658404
Mystics confirmed degenerates

[Anonymous No.5658904]

>>5658404
I see very little in common with Utena apart from roses and fancy clothes

[Anonymous No.5658971]

>>5658904
>Chateau Aiguille might as well be the Academy
>Asellus has to dress like a boy
>Asellus and White Rose mirror Utena and Anthy, except that WR is less crazy
>Orlouge is pretty much Akio but more malicious and possessive, and with less gay undertones
>Asellus gets trained to fight in various duels by Illdon
>Illdon is more or less Touga for that matter and eventually becomes supportive of Asellus due to his hostility to Orlouge, just like Touga slowly becomes supportive of Utena
>Rastaban is also similar but he's implied to be a bit crazy like Saionji, and he also looks weirdly similar in design
>Ciato is pretty much Mikage
>Most of the story is about Asellus developing feelings for WR, struggling to escape from Orlouge's grasp with her, rejecting the Mystic's societal standards and eventually accepting her sexuality
I'm not saying it's a 1:1 clone, but it's very evidently influenced by Utena, outside of cars and some of the subnarrative it's pretty much Utena with vampires, down to the Rose Bride theme with White Rose, the "duels" with the Sages etc.

[Anonymous No.5659003]

>>5658971
White Rose? She's barely a factor in the plot. I think it was meant to be Gina since Asellus makes her a bride in the full mystic ending

[Anonymous No.5659010]

>>5658395
why would Orlouge be gay? And I don't get sexual vibes from any of the other characters, least of all Nusakan. Does every attractive male character also have to be a butt boy?

[Anonymous No.5659040]

>>5659003
>She's barely a factor in the plot
I really can't take you seriously now.
>I think it was meant to be Gina since Asellus makes her a bride in the full mystic ending
Gina is pretty important, but Asellus makes everyone a bride in the full mystic ending since she becomes Orlouge 2.0 and goes around kidnapping people, not a good point to make.
>>5659010
That Anon is clearly pushing some kind of headcanon, but Zozma more or less tells you that Mystics will fuck anything that looks cute enough to them.
When Asellus gets embarassed by him telling her to be a bit more honest with herself, he just tells her that Mystics don't really have a concept of gender like humans do.

On the other hand, it's also true that the Charm Lord's powers are specifically tuned to attract the opposite sex so it's possible certain mystics have more defined sexual tastes, Asellus gets away with it because Orlouge gave her his blood to save her life, which gave her his very same power by proxy, which is why she is very attractive to both men and women and why she eventually turns out just like Orlouge in the full mystic ending.

In any case, outside of Orlouge, Zozma and White Rose we know nothing about the other mystic characters' sexual preferences so it's pointless to argue about supposed facts, it's all conjecture.

[Anonymous No.5659140]

>>5659040
Mystics can absorb body parts from monsters and presumably other mystics too (absorbing someone's mystic power may encompass this). If they are physiologically more fluid then it follows that their sexuality is too.

I'm extreme right wing btw, this isn't some fag trying to push buttsex into everything.

[Anonymous No.5659148]

>>5659140
>this isn't some fag trying to push buttsex into everything
sure

[Anonymous No.5659161]

>>5659140
>>5659148
Come on now, this isn't /v/.

[Anonymous No.5659254]

>>5659148
Note that for the most part mystics are feared or at best considered outsiders. This is in line with how every normal, healthy society treats sexual deviants. Given what the people in the bio research lab are researching it's not surprising that anything to do with monsters or mystics is shunned.

[Anonymous No.5659357]

>>5659254
>This is in line with how every normal, healthy society treats sexual deviants.
It has little to do with that, Mystics are for the most part unconcerned with anyone other than themselves, that's how Mystics live, Vergil and Orlouge both tell you so iirc.
As for human society, I guess people are far more concerned about mystics being generally weird and potentially dangerous rather than their sexual customs, and even there, you have that one lord in Owmi falling in love with Mesarthim, and the people in Fascinaturu are less worried about what Orlouge and the rest shag than what happens to their own sorry lives, since Fascinaturu is a regime of terror.

Even considering the few mystics that are more or less part an active of the general society, Silence is a respected high operative of IRPO despite Fuse's disliking him and Nusakan...is Nusakan, then you have Vergil, who just chills in his palace all alone and Timelord, who sealed himself away in his own region.

[Anonymous No.5659401]

>>5659357
wasn't the lord in Owmi a monster though

[Anonymous No.5659410]

>>5659357
Essence says that the Mystics have a strict hierarchy https://essenceofsaga.wordpress.com/home/book-index/material-room/
They're more elitist aristocrats with some despotic tendencies than degenerate outcasts

[Anonymous No.5659414]

>>5659357
the homosexual is the quintessential narcissist

[Anonymous No.5659462]

>>5659401
Of course not.
>>5659414
Maybe you should actually play the game instead of trying to pass your retarded armchair psychology around.

[Anonymous No.5660549]

New dungeons confirmed for RS3 remaster.

https://www.famitsu.com/news/201906/13177928.html

[Anonymous No.5660586]

>>5658382
You dare doubt the God King Kawazu?

[Anonymous No.5660596]

What the hell do you guys do to make this thing autosage all the time.

[Anonymous ~ No.5660616]

>>5660596
admin or mods seem to be autosaging any "old" thread ever since that one guy kept bumping threads by deleting his own posts(to avoid the 500 reply limit) and post bumping again.

[Anonymous No.5660635]

>>5660616
That blows. One of the appeals of /vr/ is that it is slow so I can check a thread once a day or even a couple times a week.

[Anonymous No.5660690]

>>5660549
And no new MCs confirmed, as I thought.
I'm really curious to see what the other additions are, though I already have an idea on a few of those.
>>5660596
Happened for one of the previous threads too, don't know what the fuck is happening to /vr/, autosaging perfectly fine threads that aren't even at 400 replies...

[Anonymous No.5660990]

Autosaging jannies are on the ship, evacuate to the nearest thread and don't panic!
>>5660983