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slimequestIn another diabolical attempt to market directly to my childhood, SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu - Goddess of Destiny for DS came out on the 17th in Japan, and it's a game I've been shamelessly looking forward to for a long time. In a bizarre twist of events, instead of a former console game being remade into portable form, it's a portable game remade... and it's still portable!
The upgrade from the original Gameboy version, which was released over here as Final Fantasy Legend II (it's not a Final Fantasy game, repeat after me, IT'S NOT A FINAL FANTASY GAME), is pretty significant, although at the same time it retains all the awesomeness of the original. Naturally the graphics have been improved; having color added is a pretty big step up, I'd say. It's also 3D with a somewhat similar style compared to FFIII/FFIV DS, and the character designs have been redone by the artist from The World Ends With You.
But SaGa 2 has always been about the gameplay and customization of your characters, and it's all still here. You can still build a party consisting of humans, robots, espers/mutants, and monsters, and your main character can be any of these. So yes, your human parents can have a slime or robot child (adoption?) and you can break as far away from the typical RPG party mold as much as you want. You can also attack using swords, magic, guns, rocket launchers, and martial arts, which can freely be equipped by anyone (Bazooka-wielding mages? Karate robots? YES WE CAN)
One of the most interesting things is that in the original every human male or esper female looked exactly the same, in the remake we have four design choices for each race/gender combo (robots included), and furthermore, four color choices to choose from as well. It's entirely possible for two people to have the exact same party but have them look totally different.
The music's been redone of course. Kenji Ito's original Gameboy tunes were catchy and rather good considering the constraints the old brick was under. I've been pleased with all the updated tunes so far, some of them are really well (re)done, and there's some new songs such as an actual town theme.
New content includes a monster dictionary which fills up as you evolve your monsters via EATING THE MEAT, a few new storyline scenes, new party combination moves, and the Muse system which powers up your party via blessings from goddesses.
Overall, being a huge fan of this game, I'm very pleased. It's a good example of a remake that's long overdue (SaGa 2 came out in 1990), so the improvements and chance to play the game again are much more appreciated than many of the portable ports we've gotten lately. The only thing that would've been nice/interesting for them to include is the original version of the game playable on the same cart, the remake of Makai Toushi SaGa for the Wonderswan Color did this (as well as Metroid Zero Mission, to use a completely different example), and I thought it was incredible. But, no harm done by excluding it, it's not like I don't still have my old copy of the original kicking around anyway.
There's no word currently on if/when this game will be released internationally, but it seems like almost all of the Square-Enix remakes have been coming over here, especially DS ones, so I'm hopeful. The Japanese release also included a limited edition set which includes the game as well as a SaGa 20th anniversary DSi, and a DSi accessory set.
Official Site: A lot of the links are in English, so you can at least look at the characters and download some of the awesome wallpapers. The blog also has wallpapers not featured on the main site.
Now after typing up all those words about it, I think I'm going to go play some more <3
The upgrade from the original Gameboy version, which was released over here as Final Fantasy Legend II (it's not a Final Fantasy game, repeat after me, IT'S NOT A FINAL FANTASY GAME), is pretty significant, although at the same time it retains all the awesomeness of the original. Naturally the graphics have been improved; having color added is a pretty big step up, I'd say. It's also 3D with a somewhat similar style compared to FFIII/FFIV DS, and the character designs have been redone by the artist from The World Ends With You.
But SaGa 2 has always been about the gameplay and customization of your characters, and it's all still here. You can still build a party consisting of humans, robots, espers/mutants, and monsters, and your main character can be any of these. So yes, your human parents can have a slime or robot child (adoption?) and you can break as far away from the typical RPG party mold as much as you want. You can also attack using swords, magic, guns, rocket launchers, and martial arts, which can freely be equipped by anyone (Bazooka-wielding mages? Karate robots? YES WE CAN)
One of the most interesting things is that in the original every human male or esper female looked exactly the same, in the remake we have four design choices for each race/gender combo (robots included), and furthermore, four color choices to choose from as well. It's entirely possible for two people to have the exact same party but have them look totally different.
The music's been redone of course. Kenji Ito's original Gameboy tunes were catchy and rather good considering the constraints the old brick was under. I've been pleased with all the updated tunes so far, some of them are really well (re)done, and there's some new songs such as an actual town theme.
New content includes a monster dictionary which fills up as you evolve your monsters via EATING THE MEAT, a few new storyline scenes, new party combination moves, and the Muse system which powers up your party via blessings from goddesses.
Overall, being a huge fan of this game, I'm very pleased. It's a good example of a remake that's long overdue (SaGa 2 came out in 1990), so the improvements and chance to play the game again are much more appreciated than many of the portable ports we've gotten lately. The only thing that would've been nice/interesting for them to include is the original version of the game playable on the same cart, the remake of Makai Toushi SaGa for the Wonderswan Color did this (as well as Metroid Zero Mission, to use a completely different example), and I thought it was incredible. But, no harm done by excluding it, it's not like I don't still have my old copy of the original kicking around anyway.
There's no word currently on if/when this game will be released internationally, but it seems like almost all of the Square-Enix remakes have been coming over here, especially DS ones, so I'm hopeful. The Japanese release also included a limited edition set which includes the game as well as a SaGa 20th anniversary DSi, and a DSi accessory set.
Official Site: A lot of the links are in English, so you can at least look at the characters and download some of the awesome wallpapers. The blog also has wallpapers not featured on the main site.
Now after typing up all those words about it, I think I'm going to go play some more <3
