System:SNES

Type: JRPG

Developer: Enix

 Story/Premise.

Like other RPGs of its era, the core goal presented at the start is to collect some number of orbs, spheres, gems, crystals, sea bass, breakfast cereals….in this game its Runes. 7th Saga begins as a race between various treasure hunters looking for orbs presented by the king at the starting castle.  The quest obviously involves various fetch quests as you move from town to town with mixed in dungeons to explore and defeat evil characters.  Eventually you get a choice of different partners to join you on the remainder of the quest, offering some originality and variance.  There are a few options in those characters with magic, offense, and defense.  The collected runes offer reusable bonus for use in battle or the over world, but are lost if you fall to a boss like enemy.  I didn’t get to see much beyond the third rune, the game is unknown.  The third Rune boss requires a unique character build and punishes players for over leveling.  As for the Non-playable characters (NPCs) encountered throughout 7th Saga, they are as generic as they come, offering little mission support, hits, or direction instead repeating a common message of that town.  The main playable character has little depth and back story (at least up to the point I played), but the class is selectable at the start.  The overall evil character that must be defeated is unknown and instead each Rune is “threatened” by the other adventures in the quest.  The game is very reminiscent of Dragon Warrior with some updated graphics.  

 Gameplay/controls.

Dragon Warrior  I on NES. If you understand how that game operates as far as commands and functions you are fully ready for 7th Saga.  Talking, picking up items, and opening treasure chests all require menu actions, which build frustration when trying to hurry or avoid enemies.  Though similar to the NES game, a few updates have occurred since the 1986 NES release, but lacks compared to the interface and operation of other RPGs of the SNES.  Like the NES Dragon Warrior, 7th Saga uses only 2 of the buttons on the SNES controlling, which sports four additional buttons then the predecessor. Over world and dungeon movement is clucky but includes the added feature of a radar that shows enemy movements and locations.  The menus are sparse and annoying to operate, lacks a sorting feature, and limits items to nine each.  7th Saga plays like a NES port for the SNES.  

 Pros.

When analyzing pros, I like to compare the game to others in the genre and on the same system. For 7th Saga, comparing this to Crone Trigger, Secret of Mana, and Final Fantasy is not remotely close to fair.  Yes, the radar is neat, but it only offers small warnings to where enemies are located, it doesn’t give the ability to dodge or avoid.  The other nicety in the game is the low cost of Inns, usually cheap (6 gold) and an auto save tucked into every use, not really a reason to buy the game, but nice.  The battle buddy option offers some replay ability and uniqueness, but the one additional character limit even lacks compared to Dragon Warrior II and Final Fantasy I, which goes to the four-character norm.  

 Cons.

There are several areas lacking in 7th Saga: the battle system is bland with little options and annoying with constant enemy dodging, the spells are easy to obtain with levels, but require large amounts of magic points to utilize, and the lack of inventory management and quantity.  NES RPGs built on the originals and slowly improved and added features that made the game more enjoyable and fun. 7th Saga stripped all the improvements made in the NES era and started over, like the NES didn’t exist.  I get the idea that this might be a throwback to a simple style of game, but the SNES was a building block to greater and better games. More reasons there isn’t an 8th Saga.

 Rating.

Overall this is a decent RPG for the NES, only problem is that it’s on the SNES, with many great RPGs to compare against.  

Graphics – 6

Premise – 6

Gameplay – 6

Originality – 4

Difficulty – 5

Replay-ability – 6

Overall – 5.17