Odiema

It's always funny to see people call Chrono Trigger the best JRPG on the SFC/SNES when that's no true in the slightest and only demonstrates their lack of experience with said console: RS2 is better than CT will ever be. RS2 has actual non-linearity, with non-traditional leveling. You have proficiencies for various weapon types (like bows, spears, etc.). You learn new skills by "sparking" techs, i.e. attacking with a certain weapon. The stronger the enemies you fight, the higher is your chance of learning a new skill (albeit that also depends on the class and type of your characters; a hunter is more likely to spark bow techs than a ninja). Enemies (and some bosses) scale passively,and high battle rank enemies are really devastating. It's generation-based, so while playing through the game, you play through an entire lineage of emperors, and how the empire evolves is entirely dependent on your actions; doing a certain amount of quests causes a generation skip to occur. There's also permadeath in the game: each character has a fixed amount of LP (life points), which, when depleted, causes a character to die permanently (in the case of your emperor, you'll have to appoint a new one). Sleeping at an inn does not regenerate your LP. Defense is separated into 8 categories, Blunt, Slashing, Piercing, Projectile, Heat, Cold, Electric, "Status" (this doesn't really mean status effects, it means magic damage that doesn't fit into the other categories, like dark curses or weird star magic) Since you can't just pump 1 "def" stat you'll be swapping defensive gear around to deal with different enemy types and also probably be supplementing your defenses with utility spells. Utility spells are a BIG deal. Status effects are useful against bosses but how a status effect is applied matters. "Stun" comes from both Sweep and Feint (and a bunch of other sources), but Sweep only works on enemies that actually have legs, and Feint only works on enemies that are actually holding a weapon, etc. It's a really good JRPG and marks the peak of SFC/SNES JRPGs.

The "mystique" of a SaGa game is simultaneously its strongest and weakest point. I love all the surprises and curve-balls a SaGa game throws at you, both in terms of story and gameplay, especially if you go in blind and figure out those things yourself. Then you play the game for a couple more playthroughs, think you've figured it out, only to visit the forums and realize that you overlooked a huge chunk of the game! Time for another run! To me, it's all in good fun, but most people don't have the time or patience to go through that. I remember the first time my entire party in SaGa Frontier was wiped except for Red, only to realize that he can transform into a superhero when everyone is down. Or, in Unlimited Saga where the battle system is all about switching formations every single turn. To even heal at all in that game, you have to put the injured on standby, so you're constantly rotating characters in and out from your entire roster. Or, recently in Romancing SaGa 3, where there is a whole, separate battle system (Commander Mode) that actually makes your party far stronger than the normal one in many situations. A battle system that barely, if any, reviewers ever mention. I remember how Unlimited Saga was so incredibly opaque, even for a SaGa game, that there was a huge rift in review scores between the Japanese and the US version, just because the US version got a manual that explained nothing in the game. Imagine playing an RPG without knowing how to heal at all - how much fun would you have? I wonder how many USaga players today even know how to activate multi-art combos in USaga. You have to hit a skill on the FIRST rotation of the combo slot ring so that multiple characters can activate their abilities in a combo. People think that the minimalist board game design was its downfall, but such games have been and are still successful today. It's the extreme lack of handholding for a game that is incredibly deep mechanically and very experimental. Unlimited Saga is the most underrated game of the franchise. Don't let the reviews fool you - barely any of them probably even played the game correctly. Unlike other SaGa titles, it is hard to play this one blind (I'd argue that veterans of the series might be able to). If you're interested in revisiting this old, lost gem, here's a rundown of things to expect: 1.) Dungeons & Dragons-like board game design. 2) Complex Exploration - For example, it can take up to optional 5 steps (Fortuneteller, Sharpeye, Defuse, Locksmith, Melee) to open a trapped treasure chest safely without it blowing up in your face. 3.) Experimental Battle System completely unlike anything you can find ever: 4.) HP is not HP, it's an MP-like resource that also absorbs damage. The more HP you have, the less chance you have of taking LP damage. The same is true of bosses, so you would do a lot of HP damage first, then switch to LP-damaging attacks. Unlike other SaGas, you don't collapse at zero HP. 5.) Standby Healing - You constantly rotate out characters in your party each turn from your entire roster. Those on standby (not fighting that turn) heal HP. Fights are epic, since the whole party is involved by design. Believe it or not, but the amount you heal is also affected by the weather of the environment (snowy means you heal less). 6.) Tactical Position - Each turn, you choose who to attack first in what order. This determines aggro from enemies. Correctly rotating defenders is vital to beat bosses. 7.) Skill Reel - Instead of skill points, you activate stronger skills by pressing attack at the right time on a spinning reel. To activate all skills in a combo attack, you need to press on the first pass of the skill, otherwise other characters' skills won't be aligned. 8.) Weapon Weight & Attack Types - The Weight of your weapon determines what Attack Types it has, and each type has a different role, whether to attack first to split enemy combos (Quick/Throw), damage HP (Power), damage LP (Multi/Aim), or damage both (Dash). Crafting in this game is very detailed, since you can make weapons lighter or heavier to flesh out your strategy. Lighter weapons in your secondary hand are important for blocking attacks. And of course, none of this is explained. Sorry for the long rambling, but USaga's reputation makes me sad sometimes. USaga's brilliant, Formation-based battle system of constantly switching around characters is something too few players appreciate, even among SaGa fans to this day. And sadly, almost no reviewers understand.

It's is a clunky hybrid of turn-based and real-time (ATB). Enemies pose no threat and deal a fraction of the damage the player character is capable of dishing out. There's almost no interesting spells or status effects, important debuff/buffs, every ability simply deals damage. Dual/triple techs are just boring variations on the same 'do tons of damage' or 'heal tons of HP' template. There's nothings that messes with Equipment-in battle, interact with terrain or change the very rules and mechanics of the battle, It's so bland and dull. Compare to any turn based games like SMT, SaGa, Etrian, even Chrono Cross or other FF that use ATB, etc. It simply lacks enough depth and challenge to be compelling since you have no real customization, builds or skills which hurts replayablity when every play-through is the same each **** There's barely any exploration, it's a time travel game that is somehow completely on rails. Your only choice is how soon you want to end the game by teleporting to Lavos which is the most disappointing aspect. There's no practical way to beat the game 'early' on your first run, so you pretty much have to get the standard ending, then all the other endings are NG+ replay gimmicks that basically reward you for being over-geared at particular stages of the otherwise linear game. The multiple endings are even shallower than the overall narrative: they're either superficial variations on the same happy ending/easter egg/joke endings. They're pointless and contribute nothing to the game. Time travel is not even used in any meaningful way: instead of traveling back in time to prevent Lavos from becoming a threat, the characters travel forward in time to face him at the height of his power and beat him up. There's no entertainment when the gameplay loop just spam high level techs with a occasional AoE heal. Who the **** finds this "fun"? It's repetitive and devoid of sustenance and dungeons might as well be linear corridors. It's not even only overly simple, it's overly TOO shallow. There is no challenge and variety is non-existent. Abusing double and triple techs really just destroys anything, and when Chrono receives the Luminary spell, you don't even have to see the pixels on the screen again . The lack of challenge is a major problem when that's 90% of the ****ing game. Its hard to remain engaged when you are just sitting there watching animations play out and not actively engaging with the mechanics. Even Magus' (which people like to claim is a difficult battle) is completely bypassed by doing the same thing you do all game. The game has zero customization which is supposed to be the point of a RPG? There is no player involvement, except in equipping new gear which is just select the best one in every scenario. You can't assign spells or roles to anyone they are just attackers and healers who basically play the same. It's boring as a rpg, and there's no strategy to the actual game part. Just look at the other rpgs that came out CT's era that surpass it in all areas >Phantasy Star IV Came out over a year before CT. Has multi-character techniques like CT, more interesting character abilities, vehicle combat, and the ability to setup turn macros, lots of customization >Lunar Character placement/positioning matters far more than in CT as characters/enemies have movement ranges & have to be adjacent for melee attacks, far more interesting movesets. >Lufia 2 Has limit breaks, a roguelike-dungeons, and far better non-combat gameplay with the tight puzzle & maze design. Of the 100+ techs/spells in Chrono Trigger, less than 10 have a range that is something other than "single/all", and you can't even manually target their area of effect. Almost all of CT's tech/spells function just like they do in other jrpgs. In addition, you have no way to influence positioning in any meaningful way, since your own characters can't move. Enemies can technically move, but they do so extremely sporadically and are just motionless 99% of the time. They also do the typical jrpg thing where they jump at you to attack and then jump back to their position on the battlefield, so their position is basically static. There is no friendly fire. Your character's inability to move means you can't take advantage of enemy positioning like you can in other rpgs. Your character's inability to move also greatly reduces the scope of tactics. In other rpgs, you might want to spread out characters to prevent them from all being struck by an enemy's area of effect attack. Or you might have to make a sacrifice: for instance, if one of your party members is in close proximity to the enemy, and attacking them would mean also damaging your own ally through friendly fire. Even these basic tactical options are absent from CT. CT is just a really poorly designed games for little kids, praise the visuals and music all you want, but the game has massive problems on the game part. 0/10.