Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered

Played this on the PS2, again during COVID, and am now playing on Steam here with the QoL improvements, and I appreciate this game more each time. Ever since I played SaGa Frontier on the PS1, I always hoped that other titles in the series would be similar, and I would say that RS: Minstrel's Song is probably the closest (the biggest difference being the shift from sci-fi to more traditional fantasy) The story is simple, no long-winded back stories or friendship monologues, the towns and dungeons are just the right size and variety- large enough to give you a sense of scale, but your destination is still within a minute's stroll. The enemy encounter dodging/chaining system is intuitive and engaging, easy to master without getting dull. You can equip and use proficiencies like Climb, Pick Locks, etc which make each dungeon more distinct and interactive The game operates on a hidden "Event Rank" system - fighting battles causes time to pass, and, likewise, enemy difficulty scales with ER. These elements stress people out, but it's all in their heads. You can complete the game through grinding and persistence without mastering or monitoring all of the game's systems. For example, the crafting system was something I almost completely ignored when I played this on the PS2 because it takes so much time and attention to detail to actually level up your weapons, but now that you can carry equipment over in NG+, it's perfect. The battle and party mechanics layer several very simple systems to make something unique. Each character levels their skill in any number of weapons and magic schools to unlock Classes, who each have a Passive benefit. Besides increasing damage and sparking techniques more often, it reduces the Cost of skills, which includes BP (which resets each battle and accumulates each turn) and DP (your weapon's durability). There is a balance of incentives: you want your characters to be able to use their strongest skills without breaking their weapons, but you're not strictly limited to the weapons and spells within one class, so grabbing off-brand stuff to make wacky hybrids is also worthwhile. You have a lot of control over the game's difficulty. If you think you invested your Jewels poorly and are getting overwhelmed by random encounters, you can go to any field or dungeon map and use Lurk and/or Move Silently to grind for Jewels without fighting enemies. I like to use this method early to get characters the first couple levels of skills since they only cost 10/25 jewels. If your entire party's Covert levels is 0, it is much faster. I leveled up the Minstrel's Covert because you can just have him leave if you want to use this trick again later (if you level up your main character's Covert, then you'll have to do something else) The music is wonderful. Very orchestral soundtracks usually lose the melodic charm that sets Golden Era FF apart from other JRPGs, but here you get the best of both worlds. I wish there were more songs. The different instrumentation to set different areas apart is really effective, but it's still a bummer that a dozen towns are sharing one melody despite being so visually and culturally distinct. The main/common dungeon theme is very lame and cheesy, but it only stands out as so bad because every other track in the game is 10/10, especially the battle themes, ESPECIALLY the Skorn battles Visually, this game has aged so well. They made some daring choices and committed to them. Maybe it's offputting at first, but you don't even remember "getting used to it" because it's too easy to love The final fight with Saruin is one of my favorite JRPG boss battles, and he's a favorite villain overall. He's just a big horrible evil bastard, and that's all that matters. No matter how cheesy and sweaty you are, he is always cheesier and sweatier. It really encapsulates the thing that makes the SaGa franchise great: they have a "show don't tell" approach to drama- we didn't unravel multiple amnesia plots and pour over hours of deep lore to understand that he's evil and want him stopped, he's a massive horrible demon god that just picked up your party member and crushed them with his hand. The game doesn't really care if the hero knows or understands that they're part of a story, and why would they? Everything's just laid out and allowed to speak for itself, whether it speaks to you or not Overall, the game gives you just enough of everything you would expect from a SaGa title and with confidence. You could imagine this game with more characters, more quests, more variety in how your choices impact quests, and more distinction between the scenarios of the main characters, but, for the most part, it's really not so obvious that any of this would actually make this game better. If you don't like incremental stat growth, open-ended/thread-bare stories, or any number of other systems that set SaGa apart (HP/LP, Sparks, Combos, Power-scaling, and group Healing is rare/non-existent). Some of these can be deal-breakers or really ruin the experience if you have specific expectations, but if you love JRPGs, this is a great entry into SaGa that stands alone well. Fine at full price, at 50%+ off a no-brainer

This game is so fun, instantly became hooked on it. Wanted to leave a positive review for this because quite frankly it deserves it and some. I just finished with my very first playthrough with Albert, there was some very challenging parts, and there was a bunch of stuff to learn and god only knows what quest was going to pop up around the corner, but by the end, it felt so satisfying that i'd have to recommend the game, its a JRPG lovers paradise, it sets itself apart from any other JRPG and if you are tired of the formulaic approach to JRPGs, this whole series is for you, its so unique while also keeping the fundamentals intact. 9/10

ミンサガは初見。ロマサガ１は、リアルでクリアしてるので、かなり違和感ありましたが、大分いい印象。閃きがクセになります。ただ、ラスボスの迫力は、ロマサガ１よりは低下するのは、３ｄになったからかも。 ＮｅｗＧａｍｅ＋があるので1周だともったいない。そんなゲームでした！

全く面白くない。戦闘システムが特殊、装備や目的が不明確、レベルに合わせて敵も変わるので戦闘は金を稼ぐだけですぐせん滅する、3Dが未成熟でやりにくい等、すべてにおいてお勧めできません。 ある程度まで進められれば慣れもあるでしょうが、やり込む理由が見つかりません。レベルを上げ過ぎると先に進むのも大変、戦闘もただただ間延びしているだけで面白くもありません。※HP等の表示もしません。 購入はお勧めで出来ません。

開始まもなく行けるところばかりやたらめったら一気に増えて、30～1時間で15個くらいファストトラベルポイントが解放されたんだけど、その割にはやれる事が少なかったり手に入る金とジュエル（ジョブポイント）が全然貯まらなかったと、5時間ほど遊んでいつ面白くなるのかわからない。 戦闘回数を重ねるほどサブクエが消滅するらしく、気軽に能力上げも出来ない（そういうゲームデザインなのかもしれないが）行く先々の適正レベルがわからないままサブクエを探すも未だに3つしか埋まらないし、何なのだろう。ザコが弱いマップでボスらしきキャラに挑むとワンパンされるし（トキワの森で10レベ越えの逃走できない中ボスと戦う感じ） 「探索スキル（ジャンプやクライミング）を覚えると先の暴言が楽になる」とNPCに教わり早速習得。早速実践しようと思ったら「パーティーに、探索にまつわるスキルレベル3の習得者がいないと使えない」とヘルプメッセージ……ふざけやがって。上げようにも先述のジョブポイントがあまりにも足らないので上げられず。上げたキャラが死別したら別キャラでまた1から上げなおし。 戦闘も強スキル使うのに最低1ターンまたなきゃいけないから長引く。 ヒント少なめの洋ゲーオープンワールド系は割とやるのでほっぽり出されるのには慣れてるんだけど、投げやりすぎんか？過大評価でしょ。 唯一解禁されてた実績も61％しか取られておらず、投げ出したプレイヤーの多さが伺える。 2のリマスターは見ていて面白いですしかなり高評価らしいのですが、実際やってみたらどうなんでしょうね？

原作が名作なのでゲーム自体は面白いです 気になる点がいくつかあって、その点でオススメしないとしていますが、気にならない方なら普通に買っても良いかと思います ・マップアビリティをダンジョン内で付け替えると回数が半分に減らされる点は無くすべきだったかなと思います。マップアビリティは「全てあらかじめ知っている人が使うもの」ではなく、「初めて探索を行う人が手探りで使うもの」だと思います。攻略を進めた段階で「このマップアビリティが無いと進められないよ」となるのはさすがに不親切極まりないなと感じました ・３Ｄ操作のゲームなのに視点の回転ができないです。ＰＳ時代にすら出来ていた技術なので正直驚きました。改修が難しかったのかな、とは思いますが、それなら地図をもっと入手しやすくすべきでした。グレートピットなど不親切極まりないマップがいくつかあり、ちょっともったいなかったなと感じました ・とんでもないレベルのグリッチがあり、正直ゲームを継続するやる気が失せてしまいました。ゲーム内で出来る範囲のことであればエッセンスとして別に悪くないかなと思うのですが、ありえない数値の防具や武器を簡単に作成できてしまい、スキルレベルも上限を超えて上げ放題、ジュエルを貯める稼ぎ行動すら必要ないというのはさすがに…もっともこのゲームの評価を下げた点です。修正してもいいんじゃないかなーとは思います。ひどいグリッチが無くなればかなりの良作ではないかなと思います