Open ended gameplay! Engrishy translations! Spiky hair! Let's play SaGa Frontier!

Alright, we're on our own, in a strange and dangerous place. All we have to do is make sure we don't get run over by a carriage, stabbed in the back with a sword or have needles shoved into our face.

Hey! How about we go to our room! It's safe and comfortingly bereft of coffins! I bet we won't run into anything th-



BED INTRUDER!

...either that, or Ildon ordered a stripper for Ase-chan. I mean, seriously, what would you think if you walked into your room at night and saw this waiting for you:



Yo!

You again?

Sorry, I didn’t properly introduce myself last time. I’m Zozma. You’re Asellus, right?

I don’t care what your name is. What are you doing in my room?

Obviously male strippers aren't the best way to endear yourself to Asellus.

Easy lady, unless you want another enemy. Mystics are very easily offended.

How about you?

I’m different from all the others here. They despise me. They say I don’t act like a high class mystic. They even told me to stay out of the castle.

But you sneak in?

The only one who can stop me is Orlouge himself. The others are no match for my power.

Well, aren’t you proud.

I really do love how unimpressed Asellus is whenever a mystic brags about their power.

It’s the truth. I’m already tired of this small talk. See you around.

Aww, did Ase-chan hurt your feelings, Zozma-kun?



What did he come here for?

Well, it wasn't to try murder us, so that already makes this one of the best interactions Asellus has had with a male character since we started this game.

Since Asellus doesn't seem to care one way or the other, I'll volunteer myself to take this particular stripper mystic off her hands. I just remember really liking Zozma. I don't quite remember why though.

Was it because of the star shaped nipple pasties?

Asellus has a truly great personality. Then again, I am partial to snarky protags.

Those stars nipples are... uh... Interesting. Yeah.

Anyway I'm still drooling all over the official art and those backgrounds... Sooo pretty. *3*

She really does. One of my favourite things about Asellus is the fact that while she's a genuinely nice person, she does not take crap from anyone.

Yeah, the art is beautiful! It's done by Tomomi Kobayashi, who has been responsible for the art of nearly all the SaGa games since Romancing SaGa on the Super Famicon. Apparently she did quite a bit more art for SaGa Frontier in the supplementary publication, Essence of SaGa Frontier, but to the best of my knowledge, there is no complete scan of it :(

Anyway, on to Asellus's continuing adventure!



Asellus meets up with White Rose, who's hanging out at her uh, coffin room. Man, I don't get how anyone could ever be comfortable with that.

Let’s go.

Wait. Exactly what is your relation to Orlouge? What’s an arch-princess?

I believe humans call them mistresses.

A mistress!?

Of course it is different from human relations. Lord Orlouge took my blood, making me a mystic. By ending my human life, he granted me eternal life. His charm is irresistible.

OH FUCKING HELL. FADEAACCOMPLI'S STOCKHOLM SYNDROME THEORY WAS RIGHT

I don’t feel any attraction to him.

YES! Good girl, Asellus! You don't go and feel attracted to the mass kidnapping psychopath!

I suppose you’re immune to his charm because his blood is in your veins. Not only that, you’ve also inherited his mystic power.

Stop making excuses for yourself, White Rose.

I don’t want…don’t need any power…

Whether or not you will develop the mystic power within you is up to you. That’s enough talking for now.



These coffins, are they all…

These coffins are our refuge as well as our prison. Lord Orlouge never let’s go of things he has acquired.

How childish.

"Childish," isn't exactly the term I'd use, Asellus. More like, "how completely and utterly fucking insane and irredeemably evil."

Anyway, just a heads up guys, I'll be in Vietnam for a few days, so there won't be any updates for the next few days. That said, I'll try post some fanart intermittently, but that depends on whether I'll even have an internet connection.

Eh, it's kinda "funny" to see that the only one out of all the women (and ogres) out there that's not raving over Orlouge's sexiness is... a lesbian.



Have fun in Vietnam then !

Yeah, it's not the best of implications. For what it's worth, the game does try to explain it with the fact that Orlouge has a supernatural power of seduction and that by receiving a blood transfusion from him, Asellus was made immune to his power. It may not be the best explanation, but hey, it's something.

And thanks! I'm looking forward to my trip! =D

You would need a special power to make everyone get over your name being Orlouge...

I always thought his biggest hurdle was the fact his house is literally made out of coffins and roses. But yeah, Orlouge is a damned stupid name as well.

Stupid name trumphs poor character every time!

You never know, some people might be into that kind of stuff. *cough* I'd totally live in a castle made out of coffins and roses. *cough*

Hmm...maybe. What can I say, I was a strange pre-teen.

You're not the only one. <.<

Edit: Have a safe trip, Snark! :)

This is totally the best interaction yet.

Also holy shit I was actually assuming that there was some reasonable backstory element for why Princess White Rose was into this dude, and not just "Teehee! He kidnapped me, changed my species, and locks me in a coffin when he doesn't need me! Soooooo dreamy!"

Thank god Asellus is a voice of sanity around this place. Preeeeetty much the only one. I'm so used to JRPGs where the protagonist is a whiny teenage boy who needs to be clocked over the head repeatedly to act in a halfway reasonable manner, it is a wildly awesome change of pace to have a protagonist going "...y'know, guys, this--this is kinda messed up. Guys! Seriously! With the coffins! ...just me, then?"

For a JRPG protaganist, Asellus has a damn good head on her shoulders. I have to admit, sometimes I wish that rather than dividing attention and resources amongst 7 main characters, SaGa would have just focused entirely on her.

That was so adorable that I had to like-unlike-relike it three times.

I had a feeling you would like that one =P

Anyway, I was planning on doing a post outlining the gameplay differences between the various races, but the Vietnam heat is obviously not agreeing with me and I've got a massive migraine. So I'm just going to leave some fan art here instead:

I wish you speedy recovery. Nothing I ever had sucked more than a migraine.

Iiih, fanart ^w^

GODDAMMIT MAN ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME WITH ALL THIS BEAUTIFUL FANART?

So I just realized I never posted the official art for White Rose. Have some White Rose official art:

That headdress makes my back hurt just looking at it. Then again, if my hair's too long it gets heavy and my back hurts, but still...

Let it never be said White Rose doesn't put in the effort to live up to her name.

She is truly heroic and an inspiration to us all! At least she isn't called Orlouge, I guess...

It's actually pretty amusing with how descriptive some names are in SaGa Frontier. There's a dude who doesn't talk named Silence, a guy called Timelord who is, well, the lord of time, and my favourite; Engineer Car, a robot car that serves as an engineer.

Please tell me Timelord looks just SLIGHTLY like Anthony Ainsley.

XD As amazing as that would be, he unfortunately doesn't. Unless you count having a humanoid shape a sufficiently slight resemblance.

For what it's worth though, he does have a cool cape:

Eh, I take what I can get. Cape is close enough. Wrong colour, but close enough.

*Obligatory eeeeeevil laugh*

I accidentally came into the thread on this page instead of the first page. I have no idea what's going on, but I think I like it.

Probably somethign along the lines of 'YAAAAAAAAAY- Waitaminute...'

Have I mentioned I'm a bit dumb, though?

That's pretty much exactly how I felt when I first started playing this game =P

Must. Collect. All. Official. Art.

Given that I am happily bereft of headaches tonight, let's get to that race overview I was talking about! SaGa Frontier is comprised of four races; humans, mystics, mecs and monsters. Each race grows and progresses differently, which can have a large impact on your play style, depending on the racial makeup of your party.

Humans

The most populous race in the game, humans are characterized by small, incremental growth. After each battle, human characters have a chance of getting a small increase in their stats, depending on what abilities and actions they perform. For instance, using sword attacks may lead to an increase of HP, Strength or WP (think MP for physical abilities), whereas using magic may increase Intelligence or JP (think MP for magic).

Skills are learnt in much the same way; incrementally, through battle. However, the point at which they are learnt depends on the discipline. Sword techniques and martial arts are randomly learnt mid battle, where instead of performing the selected command, the character will perform the new skill instead, permanently learning it in the process. Guns and magic however, are learnt after battle, making them more consistent, but unable to turn the tide with powerful new techniques mid fight. Humans can equip up to eight different skills. Not to worry though, these skills are learnt permenantly, and can be reequiped at any time.

Unique to humans is the ability to attain Mastery. When a human character equips either 6 physical skills (swords, martial arts or guns) or 6 magic skills, they attain physical or magical mastery respectively. This has two benefits; it makes it easier to learn rare techniques, and it reduces the required WP or JP of all equipped skills by 1 (given how top tier skills generally cost 9-10 WP or JP, a 1 point reduction is significant).

Mystic

As the race closest in physical appearance to humans, mystics are also the closest in terms of progression. Unlike humans, mystic stats (with the exception of HP, JP, WP and the rather useless Charm) are permenantly set. HP, JP, WP and Charm however, grow in the same way as a human's.

For a mystic to grow in power, she must absorb an enemy with her mystic equipment. All mystics have three pieces of mystic equipment; Mystic Sword, Mystic Glove and Mystic Boots. Monsters are absorbed by attacking with any of the three Mystic items and dealing the killing blow with them. The more powerful the monster, the greater the resulting increase in stats. To the game's credit, this method of progression is acknowledged in the story, a one character's backstory involves his failed attempt to absorb a particularly powerful monster.

Mystics learn abilities in two distinct ways. Firstly, they learn half their abilities through their mystic equipment. Depending on the absorbed monster and the item used to absorb them, the character will learn a particular skill. However, these skills are not permenant; absorbing a new monster into the same piece of equipment will wipe the previous skill. Secondly, mystics have four ability slots that can be used in the same way as a human's. However, mystics cannot learn physical skills and may only rely on magical abilities. Furthermore, only having four slots means they cannot gain Mastery.

Asellus

As a half mystic, Asellus is a unique race unto herself. For the most part, she plays like a human; her stats grow incrementally after battle and she has eight ability slots. However, she also gains access to the three mystic equipment. By using her mystic equipment in battle, she undergoes a process called Mystical Change, which unlocks the corresponding abilities she may have learnt through absorbing enemies as well as corresponding stat gains.

By combining the stat gains of both her human and mystic side, Asellus can reach game breaking heights of power. There is a downside however, she cannot gain stats after any battle where she uses Mystical Change.

Anyway,this post is getting rather long, so I'll save Mecs and Monsters for another day.

Much as I usually hate the Tiny Unbuttoned Short-Shorts style of dressing characters, I'm finding I adore this picture. Sure, it's yet another underdressed woman, but she looks confident--or downright smug--in a way that a lot of posed women with giant weapons don't at all.

I have no idea what's going on with the feather-cape thing (even if I sort of want it), but her sneaker-boots look practical. This looks like a person I would happily see as a protagonist in a story.

What I learned: Mystics are fabolous and lives in the 18th century.

Asellus is prettiful~

All I can say is that it is a credit to the artist that she managed to convey Annie's personality so well in a single drawing, because confident to the point of smugness is exactly how I'd describe her. Also, she totally would have been our deutaroganist if a few more votes had gone Emilia's way =P
And the world could do with a few more feather cape/practical boot combos

PREACH IT, SISTER.

*swirls away in a feather cape and stompy boots*

They hail from a realm that is literally made out of roses. Did you expect any less? =P

Everytime I come to this page I always end up back to Captain StellarTits up there. I can't even focus on anything else I'm trying to. Please tell me he's an obtainable character. I need to own that guy. And his freaky star nips.

Anyway, as I'll be flying back tomorrow and will be able to continue the LP, I'll take this opportunity to finish my coverage of the four races of the game with the remaining two; mecs and mystics!

Mecs

Moreso than any other race in the game, MEcs are heavily dependent on their equipment. Like Mystics, a Mec's stats are permenantly fixed and never grows organically. Instead, each item equipped on a Mec will cause a corresponding increase in stats as long as that item remains equipped. Mecs have eight slots with which to equip weapons and armor. As a result, mecs are very easy to build up, but are also equipment intensive and can end up hoarding a lot of your best gear.

Mecs learn new abilities by downloading software from defeated enemy mechs. Some enemies have only a single skill to download, whereas others may have multiple skills. Furthermore, some skills only have a small chance of a successful download.

Monsters

Monsters are easily the most complicated class in the game. Similar to mecs, monsters learn new abilities by absorbing defeated enemy monsters. However, the skills a monster absorbs also influence the form a monster takes.

Monster forms are variable and dependent on the skills a monster knows. The form a monster assumes influences all of the monster's stats, meaning finding a strong form is crucial to maximizing a monster's full potential. Unfortunately, the game is unclear on what skills are needed to maintain a powerful form, meaning it is very easy for a powerful monster to suddenly turn into a piece of crap by absorbing or forgetting the wrong skill. This makes monsters powerful but unpredictable allies.

Despite the difficulties in using monsters, it should be noted that a well built monster can be a very powerful character with high stats and a varied skill set.