Romancing SaGa

aka: Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song
Moby ID: 21428
PlayStation 2 Specs
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/16 7:50 PM )
Conversion (official) See Also

Description official descriptions

This is a remake of the first Romancing SaGa game.

The land of Mardias has experienced 1000 years of peace after the defeat of the three evil gods: Death, Saruin, and Schirach. The last evil god standing, Saruin, was imprisoned with the power of the 10 Fatestones - scattered across Mardias. One thousand years later since Saruin's imprisonment, eight adventurers face an unknown destiny against the silent growing evil awaiting to challenge the lands of Mardias once again...

Romancing SaGa is a third-person perspective anime role-playing adventure game with turned-based combat. In this game, the player is one of the possible eight heroes/heroines available in the game.

Each character has a different main storyline, however choosing either character does not affect much of the storyline, regardless. In addition to different main storylines, each character has a different starting class (optional) which may be altered throughout the game. The game uses a non-linear storyline. Characters may travel the land regardless of any main plot. The player's party consists of a maximum of five characters, of which may be added or removed throughout the game at your discretion.

Gameplay of Romancing SaGa may be categorized as the following: * Character Development and Skills

Character development in Romancing SaGa is comprised of two different developments: The first is automatic statistic development where the characters statistically level-up per attribute (not per level) after each combat. The second is manual skill development where the player can trade in jewels to upgrade several skills of a character e.g. Longsword, Climbing, Search Chests, etc.

Character levels are represented by Character Class levels. Certain skills must be upgraded for a character to fulfill the requirements of that class. Each class has different traits, for example a Swordsman gains benefits in attack mode. Character classes do not effect the storyline.

  • Turned-based Combat

Standard RPG turn-based combat, where the uniqueness of the combat refers to automatic combo capabilities of your characters. Under certain situations, the player's characters may combine their attacks against an enemy (a combo) thus creating greater effects (in addition of visual effects).

Characters in combat throughout the course of combat may develop special weapon skills. Weapon skills may only be attained through combat through enlightenment (Glimmer). Weapon skills use BPs (Battle Points) and (sometimes) DPs (Duration Points), each weapon skill has different BPs, which are affected by the skills of a character, e.g. a character that has a level two skill in Longsword uses less BPs for his/her longsword weapon skill.

Another interesting feature about the weapons in regard to combat: each character may equip up to five weapons (optional) and may choose from those five different weapons at any point during combat, thus adding more tactical possibilities in combat. This reason for this may likely relate to DPs (Duration Points) of a weapon. If a DP of a weapon is used up (usually due to use of special weapon skills), the weapon breaks and is unusable during combat. It may only be repaired at a blacksmith or at an inn.

Unlike other RPGs, all attributes of the characters (health, etc.) are automatically healed after combat. However, if a character falls during combat, their LPs (Life Points) decrease. If the LP decreases to zero, the character will die permanently. LPs are regained by resting at an inn.

Spellings

  • ロマンシング サガ -ミンストレルソング- - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Promos

Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

248 People (238 developers, 10 thanks) · View all

Image Illustrator
Composer
Art Director
Battle Director
Battle Planner
System Planner
Menu Planner
Map & Event Planners
Coordinator
Main Programmer
Character Programmer
Battle Programmer
Map Programmer
Lead Character Designer
Character Designers
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 64% (based on 12 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 8 ratings with 1 reviews)

I liked it, but your mileage may vary

The Good
Having been a long time fan of all SaGa games, I have a clearly biased opinion towards Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song (RS:MS from this point on)

Just like the SaGa games of the old, this one features a non-linear storyline, making exploration one of the largest components of the game.

the beauty of this game is not necessarily how the plot all comes together, but like all SaGa games, it's the scope of it's tale.

Make no mistake, RS:MS is not just about the story of the one guy you picked. It's not even about the 8 potential protagonists you could pick. It's a tale about the world itself.

True, you will primarily be playing through as just the story of one particular character. But as you do so, the game has a way of slowly trickling all the background lore to you and educating you on what has happened in the world of RS:MS.

Indeed, there is so much subtext and background material that you could easily make an entire other game using the background material here.

Even more interesting is the Event Ranking system, an attempt to make RS:MS feel like it's constantly moving, with or without you. How does this work? In essence, as you play through the game, your actions will advance the time counter in game, and as you do so, certain quests/plot lines become available or stop being available as you move along. And in some cases, some quests simply cannot be attempted without playing the right character.

So, the game definitely allows for a number of replays.

The same can be said of the games customization. You simply will not be able to experience all of the possibilities in one go. There just isn't enough resources in one single play through to get them all. And in this game, you can customize your entire character's skill set from almost the ground up. Want your big warrior guy to also double as a mage? No problem, just go buy some spells and some skill ranks for him and he's ready to go! There is no barrier of entry as far as skills go.

Another thing I loved about this are the visuals. Every city has it's own unique architectural feel to it that you can almost trace it's style back to some real world equivalent. The art direction in this game is impressive and very creative. No two cities look alike, and again, only helps with the immersion factor.

The Bad
The customization options, ironically, is also one of the source of problems for the game itself. Often because your character can be taught to do just about any skill game, there is really no reason to pick one character over another except for visuals. This problem is not so bad in the first play through as you'll be relying heavily upon the character's default skill sets to make it through the game. But as you get later and later in the game, your character choice will begin to matter less and less.

What makes this even more of a problem is that a lot of the non-player characters do not have a lot of story written for them, which effectively reduces some of the casts into just another warm body to grab and hold onto. This does not present a problem for me personally. But I can definitely see how people will find this problematic.

While you can say that about skills, your character stats, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. You have no choice as to how your character grows. While there is some dim association between skill usage and stat growth (using magic attacks makes it more likely for your INT stat to go up), said correlation is not quite clear. The characters themselves supposedly have "affinities" where they are more likely to grow in a particular fashion. However, the lack of clarity as to how characters grow makes all of this a moot point as growth is once again, almost random.

The black box methodology can be useful in helping players simplify the game and used to things. But this is one area where RS:MS screwed up. The game has a lot of nuances. A LOT. Things like formation, vortexes, combination attacks, etc, etc, are all there at the player's disposal. The problem is the game does very little in guiding you as to how to best utilize this. (Not even the great library area sheds any light as to how things work) Sometimes, this almost necessitates that you pull out an FAQ for reference, lest you want to be hopelessly lost as to how to learn or perform a certain set of commands.

The Bottom Line
A non-linear fantasy RPG that focuses not on the plotline of one, but on the weaving a grand epic the world itself.

PlayStation 2 · by Elliott Wu (40) · 2008

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Romancing SaGa 3
Released 2019 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch...
Romancing SaGa 3
Released 1995 on SNES, 2010 on Wii, 2014 on Wii U
Romancing SaGa 2
Released 1993 on SNES, 2010 on Wii, 2017 on Windows...
SaGa Frontier 2
Released 1999 on PlayStation, 2008 on PSP, PlayStation 3
Unlimited Saga
Released 2002 on PlayStation 2
SaGa Frontier
Released 1997 on PlayStation, 2008 on PSP, PlayStation 3
SaGa Frontier Remastered
Released 2021 on PlayStation 4, Windows, Nintendo Switch...
SaGa: Scarlet Grace
Released 2018 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch...
Unlimited Saga (Limited Edition)
Released 2002 on PlayStation 2

Related Sites +

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 21428
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Indra was here.

PlayStation 3 added by Alaka.

Additional contributors: Sciere, Rik Hideto.

Game added May 7, 2006. Last modified February 19, 2024.