• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

GAF plays Unlimted Saga! ( $6 at Gamestop_

Yaweee said:
Different Level Skills have different colors. I think they are...

1- Green
2 - Blue
3- Pink
4- Orange
5- Yellow


If you have the matching Weapon Tile (the leveling things) equipped, the combat reel will be laid out in a logical pyramid, like I mentioned earlier (basically, if you are using an Axe, try to have an Axe Tile). However, if you do not have the right tile, the the combat reel will be very spread out, and harder to perform higher level skills.
11111211111131111141111115- repeat.

Yeah, I'd noticed a few blue tiles among all the green ones and thought it was something like that. Makes sense.

What having weapon tiles on your grid does is also interesting to know...

However, you need to 'spark' the appropriate skill before it shows up, just like in any other Saga game. What that means is that whenever you are performing an attack with that type of weapon, there is a chance a lightbulb will appear. You'll then perform that skill, have it learned permanently for that character, and the appropriate symbol will appear on the reel. The odds of Sparking are determined by... I think-- a hidden exp value, stats, do you have an appropriate tile, and a hidden enemy 'toughness' variable. There are some side quests with bosses that are absolutely fantastic for sparking against.

Right, 'spark'... I played a couple hours of Romancing SaGa III (not more than that, though)... having it so that using a weapon unlocks more abilities on that weapon is a pretty normal gameplay mechanic, but normally it's something a bit more regular instead of being essentially random chance like it is here. You can use a weapon quite a bit but if you're not lucky you won't get moves with it... but of course, the more you use it the more likely you are to get something.

On a related note, hidden variables are annoying. Sure in D&D the players aren't always told the results of every roll -- sometimes the DM just explains what happened -- but they sure do explain more than you get in you average JPRG. PC RPGs just don't usually do stupid stuff like hidden gameplay systems. However complex it is, it'll for the most part be explained in the manual most of the time. And you can play Baldur's Gate, for instance, with the mode on that displays all die roll results (to-hit numbers, etc)... I really wish you could be given all of that information in JRPGs instead of having a lot of it hidden from you. Oh well...
 
Yaweee said:
1) LP loss is based on a few conditions, each of which brings with it some probability chance of losing LP. I think they are...
-An attack bringing you down to 0 HP
-Being hit when you are at 0 HP
-The attack deals over some % of your max HP
-innate potential from certain abilities.

And how many of those attributes are shown to you during battle? Yeah, one. (the 2nd if you haven't played it) and even then it's not definite. Great system.

Yaweee said:
2) The dungeons aren't that long-- only an hour if you are genuinely running around in circles (or moving your pewter piece in circles...)

Some dungeons are short, some do last hours. How much of this game did you play again?

I sank at least 100 hours into this game before it was taken away from me, I know of what pain I speak... and I never even mentioned the fucktastic weapon creation (ie, restart ad-nauseam) system.

Yaweee said:
3) While the map reel for trap disarmament does have some randomness (sometimes, the game makes you destined to win or lose), the combat reel is not at all random. It isn't really any different than action timing in Mario RPG games and the such. Not only can you see where the reel is going, but it is both immediately responsive and the same freaking wheel every time, so you can get in the habit of how long to wait. Furthermore, if you have the ability tile for the equipped weapon, the reel is laid out in an extremely logical and non-punishing manner. With the numbers representing the level of attack...
1111234432111123454321111.

I don't understand why people treat the combat reel like it is random. It is one of the easiest combat-button-press systems I've seen.

This is the only thing you said that I can agree with. The battle reel was really easy when you get the timing down and being able to stack the attacks was great fun.
 

Teddman

Member
1. See game with Squaresoft/Enix logo and the word SAGA in the title sitting on a store shelf.

2. Marvel at the pretty artwork.

NO
 
Well basically, obtain the awesome soundtrack and never, EVER buy the game. Hilariously enough, the soundtrack is better than the game itself.
 

okno

Member
I rented this when it first came out and had an oddly difficult time returning it. I wasn't really ENJOYING myself, nor was I not having fun. It was absolutely the most perplexing, devilishly frustrating, beautiful game I've ever played. I actually got the hang of the battle reel pretty quickly (as said, it's the same every time, you just need to nail the timing, which is not hard), and I really liked exploring the maps (I love board games, so). The art style of the game was really what kept me coming back, I think, because I kept thinking to myself, "a game with character design this good has to be awesome!... right?" Ultimately, I was wrong, it's not awesome, but it is good fun if you have a shred of patience and are willing to endure things that may seem "unfair".

Fuck those bird things at the beginning of the game, though. Fuck them to hell and their stupid tornado-spinny attack thing.

For reference: I got the furthest with Julie (but had the least amount of fun with her), but had the most fun with the weird animal thing (but didn't get far at all, his game is hard).

I want to play this again, but I don't have a PS2. Ultimately, it really boils down to if you're patient or not and have a willingness to teach yourself how to play the game. How do you teach yourself to play a game you've never played or have little to no reference for? Patience!
 

sprsk

force push the doodoo rock
One of my friends back home said it best, "I've never beat a game I hate as many times as I have Unlimited Saga"
 

Yaweee

Member
Saint Gregory said:
And how many of those attributes are shown to you during battle? Yeah, one. (the 2nd if you haven't played it) and even then it's not definite. Great system.



Some dungeons are short, some do last hours. How much of this game did you play again?

I sank at least 100 hours into this game before it was taken away from me, I know of what pain I speak... and I never even mentioned the fucktastic weapon creation (ie, restart ad-nauseam) system.

I beat the game 4 times and made it to the end with the other 3, so I've played it somewhere between 100 and 150 hours. What dungeons are 4 hours long? The only very long one I can think of is the tower, which is probably a little over an hour. The dragon valley is pretty long as well, but I really don't think that is longer than an hour, either, unless you go out of your way to fight every single enemy.

I hate the weapon creation system, especially if you are going for a rare fusion.

I don't like the hidden variables, though.


"LP loss is based on a few conditions, each of which brings with it some probability chance of losing LP. I think they are...
-An attack bringing you down to 0 HP
-Being hit when you are at 0 HP
-The attack deals over some % of your max HP
-innate potential from certain abilities."

Three of those things are actually shown in battle, while the innate potential from abilities is easy to figure out. The problem is the randomness in LP damage, since the total numbers tend to to small (larger deviation in the total percentage).


okno said:
Ultimately, it really boils down to if you're patient or not and have a willingness to teach yourself how to play the game. How do you teach yourself to play a game you've never played or have little to no reference for? Patience!

Basically, yeah. Unlimited Saga is like starting the RPG genre over, and takes a lot of time to learn what the hell is going on. I'm not going to lie-- the game is frequently frustrating. Having to beat missions to level up and do permanent saves (you can suspend anywhere), hidden variables, the weapon system sucks, and the frequent randomness in LP damage against your party can be maddening.

Despite it all, I had fun. There are no other RPGs out there that throw so much new material at you at once, and it was a joy to sift through it all and learn.
 
Must...fight...urge... to say bad things. Ok I did put 20 hours into this game and it was ...something. I played through Ventus story because I liked his design. Truth be told I thought the art, music, and over all presentation of the game was really enjoyable. The overall violin heavy battle theme music...genius. After I stopped getting angry with the battle reel or wheel I forget it was gambling. It got to a point where I saw it like shooting dice to get to my higher level attacks. So after I beat Ventus story I was pretty much done. The gameplay....meh. Everything else wasn't too bad though
 
hmm now I kinda want to play it, I never got because I was really disapointed that the beatiful 2D graphics weren't animated as good as they looked. So I'm guessing the charm on this game is the same as in Koudelka, a broken game and play it for what it could have been, and I really liked Koudelka.
 

Yaweee

Member
Prime crotch said:
hmm now I kinda want to play it, I never got because I was really disapointed that the beatiful 2D graphics weren't animated as good as they looked. So I'm guessing the charm on this game is the same as in Koudelka, a broken game and play it for what it could have been, and I really liked Koudelka.

I don't how big of a problem it was in Koudelka, but US can be pretty frustrating. Saint Gregory is right in that lost progress can be a bit of an issue, but I've never lost anywhere near 4 hours. I've lost between an hour and 90 minutes numerous times, but overall getting where you need to go in a dungeon is very very fast.
 
Top Bottom