You actually can become an ally to someone you’ve beaten. Just the odds that they’ll want to join our unbelievably slim. It’s also based off of experience gain. Someone could want to fight you, then you can win a battle and get like 24 experience, talk to them again and they wanna be your buddy. Any amount of experience gain can change what the other apprentices will have to say in any given moment. But I can say that I have recruited someone I’ve beaten. I just think beating them tremendously lowers the odds that they will want to join you.
Yeah, to add on to what you've said here, 7th Saga's reputation is caused by the unconventional "Defend increases your attack, so defend first and then attack" mechanic, and the whole "Games from Japan were made more difficult in other countries to discourage rentals" situation (it was very controversial back in those days, especially because, at least at the time, renting video games was not legal in Japan). But all in all, I love this game, and there's also plenty of romhacks to customize the finer points of the game to the player's liking, so I think 7th Saga is worth a look for any RPG enthusiast, even today. Great video!
I remember being absolutely obsessed with SNES RPGs in the 90s and this one was no different. I love everything about it and although it doesn’t have much of a story; when you figure out what the story actually is including the ending (my friends were so confused), it’s amazing!
I rented this game like 17 years ago and never finished it with an emulator even though its on my phone. I had a friend say it wasn't a very good RPG, its one of the only RPGs i played back then but i always had fond memories of it. I used to stay in areas to farm monsters before I moved on was the only way i managed to deal with the difficulty of this game. I enjoyed watching your review on it. I think my only real gripe is the transition to battle sound and the battle music being very repetitive being your always in a battle outside of a city.
Grinding and farming was a necessity here for sure! I really enjoyed this one despite others telling me it wasn't good, but there were some points that I really struggled with like the apprentice fight. I liked the transition to battle since I got to see all the weird monsters come into view in an interesting way, but you're right: it was really repetitive!
Thanks so much! And you know, I didn't even get into a lot of the plot to keep spoilers at a minimum, but there were some pretty shocking moments throughout in terms of ways extra challenge was introduced. It was a lot more than I was expecting it to be too.
It's a tough game, that's for sure. I wish I'd played something like this as a kid. I didn't get to my first turn-based game until I was a little older!
I think the hardest part of the whole game that I couldn’t get past for my life was the castle where you get the star rune. I was playing with Lejes or Kamil and I had to fight olvan who would beat the shit out of me no matter what I did
Hey thanks very much for watching! I love hearing about Wilme and Valsu teaming up. I was a fool and didn't take Valsu with me, and he ended up being my apprentice fight.
The first time I went through this game was with Kamil and Valsu. I played it when staying at my grandma's house for christmas. I don't usually play RPGs but for some reason this one absolutely captivated me. There's a sense of wonder, adventure, and a huge world that I can't find in any other RPG of the era
I'm glad you got to experience it when it was new! That's really cool. I've played a few other SNES RPGs that felt pretty flat compared to this one in terms of excitement and risk, so this was a great game to experience. Hopefully you'll have more experiences like this in the future too.
@@blauesnavi3883 Oh right on! I grew up with an NES and a Genesis but didn't have an SNES until later in life. I'm really enjoying finding great games even if I'm late to the party by a long stretch.
I remember playing this as Kamil with Esuna. Near the end game Esuna, while a little squisher, she evaded nearly everything. Made for some epic battles.
I always wanted to get this game back then, but was never able to until my adult years. Seeing this in Nintendo Power intrigued me, and I really liked the character designs.
I always admired this game as a kid but was too intimidated after seeing how much my wiser, older brother struggled with it. I forgot the name of this game for most of my life but it just hit me the other day during a sudden rush of nostalgia which brought me to this video. Now I HAVE to actually play the game past the first 5 minutes :)
Oh right on! Good luck with your playthrough! I hope you have some fun with it. Despite some of the ridiculous difficulty spikes at times, it's a challenging RPG. Enjoy it!
That's my back story on all RPGs. I would watch my cousin play them while I felt intimated by the scope lol. Maybe that's why these days I insist on beating all the old games
I owned this as a kid, and beat it many, many times. I recently bought Elnard and will probably play it soon. I'd like to play the follow up as well. It's been a long time coming.
There's a lot to like about this game. Combat is actually fun between the defend mechanic and the rune buffs. Having 7 characters to pick from and picking up a partner means plenty of combos for replay value. There's also a lot of freedom in which order you get the runes later. On top of that characters have different paths you can take. Like there's a treasure filled tower that is only open to Olvan. The down side with Lux as a partner is he doesn't get his upgrade in the past unless he's your main character. The music is stellar and the enemy sprites are great. For me the real downside is jut the light story and the bland overworld graphics. The game is hard, but I have played far harder games even on the SNES. I think Final Fantasy 5 is harder and a grindier game for the sake of raising job class levels which is an absolute must.
I love this game. I was stuck on a rune fight with another character for over a year. I finally got a strategy together and beat them and then beat the game eventually by running from most in the final dungeons. It took me a few attempts throughout my life to beat, but it felt great when I did.
It's fantastic that you made it through eventually... I definitely ran from pretty much everything in the final stretch as well, trying to conserve resources getting to the last battle. I was so relieved when it finally happened for me. And I hear ya about those rune fights... my first one was up against the worst possible match for my party and it was about 2 hours of trying and hoping to get lucky with until it finally happened for me.
@@hungrygoriya This review makes me want to try this game. The only thing I ever heard about this game was that there was a mandatory rune fight with a character that scales with you, except that in the American version, they nerfed your stat gains on leveling but not that characters’, so you could create an unwinnable situation if you grind too much where that enemy is super powerful and leveling only makes him stronger! Stayed away just from hearing that, but now I wonder if it’s even true.
@@ozmahunter6940 There is a fight like that, and it was definitely one of the hardest parts of the game for me. It took me about 2 hours and getting lucky in the fight to make it through. Some people you fight against are a lot harder than others though, so some careful planning of who you have with you in your party can eliminate some of those potentially impossible encounters. Once I hit that fight I didn't do any more levelling and I tried and tried until I got it. I think I was around level 12 when I arrived, but the lower the better probably.
@@hungrygoriya if you mean the fight in the town against the "traitor" apprentice they actually have there level set once you go through the door the sage is blocking earlier. Its set to 5 more than whatever you are at that point you go through
@@procow2274 See from everything I've read online, if you keep levelling, they do as well so you can get yourself into trouble very quickly with a bit of grinding.
This game beat me up as a kid and I never completed it, but the soundtrack really did stick with me and I love going back and listening to all the great tracks now and then.
Look up the original Japanese version and see if there's an english patch out there (There probably IS!) and you'll have a much easier experience. The N/A version your character's growth was bugged, with +3 being the highest bonus. +3 should be the weakest, with +7 being the highest. Your NPC character opponents in the N/A version had that bonus while you as a player had the weaker one, hence the difficulty spike in general. Enemies later on were also expecting those larger stat gains. The game was still beatable but wow! I do reccomend trying to find the original version translated. You might find it too easy though!
If you can make it to the cave with metal pison, you can grind from level 40 to 80 in like a couple hours. One of the battles in that cave is one where you fight three of those knights in the scale armor. With a strong enough magic stat, you can kill all three in one shot with an area of effect spell. They give you like 1500 experience each. So each battle you’re getting close to 5000 experience points.
This might have the most engaging turn based battles I've experienced from the era. I'm doing an Esuna/Lux right now. Also, the grind is helped by the fact that you can stand right outaide of town, and the battles come to you. Lastly, the reusable rune abilities add a level of strategy to coming out of battle prepared for the next. I love this game! Great review!
Nice! Esuna's still a character I'd like to play as for this one, so I may play it through again one day and try to recruit her. You raise great points about the grinding and the rune abilities making the game a lot smoother if you know how to do it well. Thanks for sharing and good luck on your playthrough!
I can't help but truly love the actual world of 7th Saga. From the endless beaches of Ticondera, to the very alien creatures that stalk this bizarre Vancian wasteland. It really makes me think of what kind of world would produce such creatures through either natural evolution, mad science, or foul magics. It all contrasts so much with how very normal most of the towns are. There was some really inspired work that went into the creative end of this game.
This one's definitely not for everyone, but for those who cut their teeth on the older stuff, there's a lot to like. The plot was really cool in that it went a lot of unexpected directions, and how many games from the era let you play as a robot, demon, or alien, especially Medieval-themed fantasy RPGs? The challenge of losing half your money could be mitigated, too, by purchasing jewels in the item shops; you don't lose items upon death, and they are the only things that can be sold back at their full price, so their entire purpose was as money placeholders, and I can't think of many other RPGs that did this, either. Still, it came out as a brutal experience at a time when RPGs were still trying to find a foothold in the North American market, and never got a sequel. Sure, Mystic Ark has some similarities, and if you choose a male main character, the default name is Lemele (similar to Remeer), but the main character of Brain Lord is also named Remeer, so I think Produce just liked the name. I would still recommend Mystic Ark, if you can get your hands on it (and a certain walkthrough ;) for the occasionally confusing weapon/armor breakdown), but it is a pretty different experience.
@@hungrygoriya Thanks. It appears that I'll need it 😂 But difficulty aside I'm enjoying the hell out of it and I love the aesthetic and artwork that goes with the game.
The challenge is definitely what keeps me interested in an RPG, when I feel emotions as I play, when I want to explore the world but get scared of going too far in fear of losing everything because death can come so quickly. The earlier Dragon Quest games (1 to 7) are really worth playing exactly for these reasons. Dragon Quest 11 on PS4 on the the other hand was so boring that I couldn't play it more that 15-20 hours before giving up... Also, great review!
That's exactly what The 7th Saga provided for me... that fear, that wonder, that caution... it was fantastic for that! I can't wait to play more Dragon Quest games. I've gotten through most of the first one a couple of times but haven't played much beyond that yet.
Just because a game isn't difficulty doesn't mean that it's a inferior game to others in any way,more than being difficult the game needs to Be genuinely good with good story characters or Gameplay otherwise it's boring
Fun and in-depth review! Glad to hear you had an enjoyable time of it. I love replaying this game. My current goal is to beat it with each of the 7 solo, made it so far with Valsu, Kamil, my in-progress attempt with Wilme
I'm glad you enjoyed the video! I definitely liked this game more than I was expecting to based on what people had told me about it going in. It was a wonderful time! It sounds like you are well on your soloing quest! What a feat! Are you leaving a certain person for last because they're easiest/hardest?
Definitely trying to do the easier first, I may have also done Esuna, come to think of it. The magic users have access to healing and buff spells which helps them survive. I have had a harder time with Wilme even though he has, I believe, the best agility. Olvan might be easier as more balanced or tougher due to slow speed. I expect Lux, Lejes would be the hardest as they have no healing, buff magic and aren’t especially speedy.
@@Parallelepiped2 I'd still love to try a playthrough with Esuna. I was awfully disappointed I couldn't bring her along with me, but I hear ya about having characters with healing abilities being an easier adventure. I wasn't sure how each person's magic would progress through the game so I just went off the starting stats. And Olvan was so slow... I dumped all my seeds into him and made sure they were all the highest possible value and he was still moving like a sack of potatoes by the game's end.
I really appreciate this review. This was my favorite game as a young child, and it has kind of stung to see to regarded with derision by many in the modern era. It was difficult, but not impossibly so, and there are so many rich attributes under the surface waiting to be discovered. Thank you for treating The 7th Saga so fairly.
I honestly didn't get what people were so bent out of shape about it. So many folks kept saying how hard it was and how bad of a time I'd have, and other than those two areas where the difficulty felt vertical for a short time, it was pretty on par with other games. Did you have a favourite person/group to play through with?
@@hungrygoriya Esuna the Elf was my favorite to play, and for a partner I'd generally take anyone except Lux (clank clank) or Wilme the Alien just because his attack animation was a bit tediously slow. I think the difficulty of the game to some degree depended upon which characters one plays with (at least for the North American version). They're not exactly balanced, but I was always content to treat that as an embedded difficulty setting. Kamil the Human truly was as difficult as games got for me in that era.
@@jawjaw27 Esuna was definitely the person I wanted to bring along the most but lost the opportunity. If I play again, she's definitely at the top of my list without a doubt. And I agree with you completely: you could definitely make yourself disadvantaged a lot more with certain party members than others! What a cool idea though... it really brings in some serious replay value.
My copy arrives today and looking up reviews led me to your channel. Great write up, you have me really looking forward to firing it up and getting started.
Oh good luck! And thanks very much. I really enjoyed this game and truly feel like there's a great adventure there... just be ready for mayhem once in a while and you'll be fine!
One of the reasons why you died so much is because you had a party of Olvan and Lux. Every character has strengths and weaknesses; Olvan and Lux are both highly susceptible to magic, Lux more than any other character other than Wilme. Being susceptible to magic in this game is asking to get murdered by any enemy that doesn't use physical damage, which are a surprisingly large amount. Olvan has high HP and strong physical attacks, on par with Lux and beaten only by Wilme, but his magic is incredibly limited and mostly useless, typically failing when he needs it. Olvan's also known for his poor accuracy, causing him to waste turns whiffing attacks. Ideally as Olvan, you'd want Valsu or perhaps Esuna as a partner. Valsu, in particular, learns a spell called ELIXIR, which not only fully heals the recipient, but also fully refills their MP. As a priest, Valsu also naturally learns nearly every healing and support spell in the game, allowing him to buff Olvan's physical and magical defenses, followed by his own. Buffing is incredibly important in this game - while you can eventually get Runes that duplicate buff spells, it's best not to rely on them for spoiler reasons. Lux has impressive physical attack and defense, and outfitting him is cheap because he can't use most weapons and armor. He learns unique magic that nobody else has, but he doesn't learn a lot and it's not very strong despite its high modifiers, because his magic stats are poor. Lux suffers immensely if he comes under attack from magic; with weak magic defenses and no armor, his high HP can be swiftly cut down by magic attacks. Unlike a lot of other physical attack characters though, Lux's accuracy is actually really good, and against physical enemies, he's damn-near impenetrable. The way recruiting works is that when you reach a town, one of the other apprentices may be there. When you talk to them, a random roll is made to determine their disposition. This roll is modified by your chosen character's relationship to the other character. For instance, Olvan gets along with Lux and Valsu because they all have honorable dispositions. Lejes and Wilme are both fairly sinister, and so are pretty chummy - they don't get along with Valsu though. Kamil gets along with almost everyone but Wilme, and Esuna gets along fairly well with everyone except Olvan. Depending on the results of the disposition roll, they'll either offer to join you, tell you to come back later, offer to spar against you, or simply outright attack you. An apprentice that has a rune will always fight, and if you have runes, the chances of a fight occurring increase drastically. Defeating an apprentice permanently removes them from the game. If you're defeated, you'll revive as normal, but all your runes will be taken by the apprentice that beat you, and you'll need to roam the world to find the thief and beat them. Just be careful as they can, and will, use those stolen runes against you. If you don't like the apprentice's attitude, you can leave town and fight a few battles, then come back and talk to them again. They may make a new disposition roll with a better outcome. However, they could also just move on - if the apprentice moves on to another town, they won't come back, and no other apprentices will show up - it's a good idea to save before trying to recruit someone, if you happen to see someone you want as a partner in town. 7th Saga is a game that demands you learn its intricacies. While you can level-grind your way through it, and some grinding is absolutely necessary, the game gets a lot easier if you stack the deck in your favor. Savescumming for a good partner early, using a guide to find hidden items with the search command, knowing what fights to play out and which to run from, and carefully monitoring your status and equipment are all valid tactics against this game's brutality.
Without Valsu in your group the regular old SNES version is close to impossible later on because of the broken scaling. One of the hardest SNES jrpg's to complete but for the wrong reasons.
Great review as always. Makes me want to go back and give this game another shot (the difficulty rekt me years ago and I never went back). Also, I'm going to have to remember "torn to pieces faster than a dry napkin at a rib dinner buffet" for future use. 😂
I hope you will some day! It's worth it, especially if you have some folks to talk to along the way. Those horrible shredded napkins beside people's plates in those situations are pitiful, and also gross!
Love the review. I just started playing this game after having it in my to do list for a long time. I picked Kamil as my main and using Esuna as my partner. I love old school grindy rpgs and the atmosphere in this game is rather dark and excellent.
I'm gonna have to give this game a shot. This is the most positive review I've ever seen for it. I tried playing it a long time ago as a teenager and I got pretty overwhelmed pretty fast but I'm older, wiser, less prone to fits of anger. I think this game deserves a second shake! :D
I think the patience thing that comes around as an adult goes a long way into making these games more tolerable. I hope you have a good time with it! There are some parts that are show-stoppers like I mentioned, but if you push through, the rest of the game's pretty smooth sailing.
Yes, I put it down the 1st time. I started as Valsu, and found it very difficult. I do believe Kamil is the best character for the 1st time playing. As a youth, I beat it that 2nd time, as Kamil. As an adult I have completed it with all characters.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly Valsu is a little rough until you reach level 3 and get some offense but otherwise is fine. Lux on the other hand has the easiest start because of his stats and starting gear
@@procow2274, The 2 places I had it rough with Lux was the beginning and by Bonro. The wyverns at the beginning are too fast for him (if unlucky), the other robots are also fast. I suffered through the game with both Lux & Valsu. It wasn't fun.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly on the plus side lux is the only character that takes one damage from wyverns at level 1. Other characters can take 3 to as much as 7 damage a hit
I remember having to try three or four runs before I found a team that worked for me, and I eventually found another couple of viable teams. I would love a re-release of this with the option to turn off the difficulty increasing changes from the Japanese version to see what the differences are.
It's actually possible to get locked out of winning because of the apprentice battles. If the priest, Valsu, steals one of your runes (eg, the whole thing with the Sky Rune) and you are high-levelled enough, he'll have the Elixir spell. ... Which RESTORES ALL OF HIS HP AND MP. WHICH HE USES EVERY SINGLE ROUND BECAUSE HIS AI SCRIPT EVALUATES IT AS THE BEST MOVE. Which makes him impossible to defeat unless you can one-shot him (...not gonna happen) and locks you out of getting one of the runes, ending your run. Another fun bit is the first boss. You're not actually intended to lose the battle, then one-shot him with that whistle the old lady gives you. The whistle is a bit of a leg-up for newbie players having a hard time against the game's first real challenge. You'll have to grind just as hard to take down every other bosses.
Valsu was my apprentice, and thankfully I got to him at a low enough level that this didn't happen to me! What a scary prospect! And that's an interesting tidbit about the first boss. I had no idea!
One of my favorite SNES RPG experiences. My brothers, a friend, and I used to rent it and try to beat it before someone else rented it and saved over our game. We lived in a small town in Wisconsin with few RPG fans so most times we would be fine, but inevitably it would get deleted and we had to start over. Finally, the store sold the game for cheap and we beat it a bunch of times. Great times.
This game has a banking system, but you have to purchase gems. You "store" your money in gem form, but you need whatever denomination they're sold in. It's a bit strange.
I always tried to play this as Lejes or Wilme purely because they were so unique, which may have made things a little tougher. Ending up with Valsu as a late-game rival is rough. I haven't tried out any of the patched versions, but it's been on my list for a while to go back to, it's really a great game even if it is brutal!
You know, it's totally unique. The twists and turns on this plot were always completely unexpected and I appreciated how jarring some of them were, like The Big Change partway through the game that just bowled me over completely. I ended up with Valsu as my early game rival and it was hell on earth. I can't even imagine what it would've been like running into him later on. It was probably the worst pairing ever for my party.
Losing runes to Valsu and facing him later more or less makes him invincible. The AI usually doesn't cheese the full heal so it's possible, just unlikely. Great review btw! I've only stumbled on the channel fairly recently and I've really enjoyed it :)
I actually found that as Kamil I had to be at a higher level then when I played through later with Lejes. Maybe I was just paranoid that 1st time? I find the game really easy with Wilme, except a few points where the monsters are very magic based.
@@hungrygoriya, Valsu & Esuna are nearly unbeatable as enemies at almost all levels. They just CHEAT. They don't play by the rules. They defy physics. I have TH-cam videos showing how bad Valsu is in particular. Since eventually the stats cap at 255 for magic and speed, eventually they are beatable...but I am not playing that long.
I rented this game back in the day and yea, it was difficult to get into. I bought this game in recent years to have in my collection, but I don't know if I'll get around to it. This game had a sequel that was only in Japan.
It's definitely not a game for everyone, but I enjoy these tough as nails RPGs for some reason. I like having the stakes high I guess? I'm sure you have lots of other things on your list to enjoy so you might as well stick to things that really interest you. And yes, Mystic Ark! I have a copy of that lying around to play some day. I'm looking forward to that one!
@@hungrygoriya Great graphics, music, and an intriguing atmosphere, but you'll be grossly disappointed. It's disgustingly easy to the point that you can set battles on auto and forget about it.
BEST review I've seen on this game ever. Including the original game book and backstory. Best early console RPG I've ever played! I still listen to the soundtrack to this day because it's so good. A game ahead of its time and it's difficulty made for an incredibly rewarding experience for some but probably prevented the game from being a mainstream RPG.
Thank you very much for that! I really liked The 7th Saga and it's a great example of a time when I didn't listen to all the naysayers and gave the game a chance. I love love love the soundtrack and listen to it pretty often too. I hope more folks take this one out for a spin.
i loved this review so much!!! it really said everything that i've been thinking about the 7th saga ever since i got the game handed down to me when I was 6 years old. you put my love for this game into words, and i don't think its controversial at all to say it's a good game. it's a great game !!!
I'm so glad! I had so many people tell me I'd hate my time with it because it was too hard, and while there were a few really tough spots that tested my patience, I still really enjoyed my time with it! Always glad to meet another fan!
I was hoping you'd review this underrated gem someday! I bought it when it was released and it was a nightmare to finish but I also fell in love with this amazing game. I dust it off every few years and I've played with every conceivable line up of characters. Although my favorite strategy is still to pick Kamil and avoid souring relations with Lux. Then I will max out Kamil's levels and then recruit Lux who will have some seriously insane stats. This gets especially fun if you do this before getting his upgrade at Melenam. A super powered up Lux can kill just about anything in one attack and will make the final boss a joke. You can also do this with Wilme...but since his magic ability is so poor Lux is always my go to 2nd for this strategy. :)
I loved this game so much, and it's great to hear that there are so many potentials for subsequent playthroughs and so much more strategy to parse out. I was getting wrecked so badly early on that I just took Lux with me right away, and I wish I had been able to hold out on a partner for a little longer. It certainly would've been great to have Lux be an ultimate powerhouse by picking him up later. Oddly enough, he was the only person who wanted to come with me! Everyone else just wanted to fight. I'm glad he ended up working out for me though. I couldn't bear to let him go after a while.
I always wanted to tackle this one. I remember it in Nintendo power, and it looked awesome. You have given me the confidence to do it! You got a new fan!
Right on! I hope you enjoy your time with it. It's not easy, but I think if you go into it with appropriate expectations, you'll end up having a good time with it. Are you going to play with a patch or go for the North American difficulty?
I wanted to bring Esuna along with me but couldn't bear to make her my main character because I was scared to get obliterated. I think her and Olvan would've made a good team, but alas. I'm excited to get going on Zillion here too. It's my next project I've been working on so stay tuned for that! Thanks so much :)
@@hungrygoriya with Zillion, could you also touch up what the suicide option is for? I know that I could just google it, but i want to hear your take on it.
Several years ago I attempted 7th Saga, played for several days but eventually got to a boss battle that became literally impossible. At first I thought I was doing something wrong in the battle but after some research it appeared I got myself into an unwinnable state. I really wanted to like the game: the graphics are beautiful and the challenging battles make for exciting gameplay. However, the prospect of replaying hours and hours to correct whatever I did wrong was suuper demotivating and I haven't returned to it since.
Do you remember if it was the fight with the traitor apprentice? I got stuck there for about 2 hours myself and had to depend on a little luck to actually get through the fight. From what I understand, the person you fight each time is random, but I totally get what you mean about restarting. That would've been terrible. I understand your frustration though, and I'm sorry you had that experience. I don't think grinding helps either... it just makes them stronger :(
@@hungrygoriya I can't recall the exact situation but it was in Patrof. I tried finding the help thread that confirmed I was completely stuck but I couldn't find it, so it is possible I'm conflating 7th Saga with another game with a true unwinnable state. I can't even remember if I knew during my attempted playthrough that defend boosts your attack.
@@fandarzelig no, there is one of the apprentices you have to fight that can constantly heal himself if your level is too high, since his level is ALWAYS higher. it's really a case that if had to grind too much, then you can't win the game.
I remember playing through this shortly after it was released, and i was able scoop up a copy. Boy was it hard. I played through with Lux as my main and Valsu for healing. Fantastic game and soundtrack. Great review!
It's tough for sure. Lux and Valsu sound like a great pairing. I was worried to bring Valsu along but then he ended up being my rival apprentice to fight... I had regrets!
Fantastic review! Really well done! I played through this one when I was a kid. Of course I picked the giant robot to play as! I switched my companion out every chance I got. I ended up with Olvan by the end, but I think Esuna was the best. Going into the past and meeting the people who created Lux blew my tiny child brain. That was some Doctor Who level shenanigans for me! And having the opportunity to get the robot "repaired" was just amazing! I can't remember how much it increased your level, but it was a significant performance boost. I was pretty sucked into the game by that point because it was near the end, but that really sealed it for me in my memory. I'm never going to stop loving this game! I've probably played through it five times. I actually did try out the balance patch last year and I think it's very good. I didn't actually finish the playthrough with it, though.
Awww it's so nice to read about your positive experience with the game. Because I had Lux as my partner, I had to murder Olvan in the past and go and talk to the repair person with him to get the upgrade... it was a little extreme but I didn't know another way to put Lux at the front on the overworld :) Maybe a playthrough with the balance patch needs to be in my future. I could totally see that being a different and fun way to experience this game. Thanks so much for sharing!
One of my best achievements as a kid was besting this game. I initially gave up on it after a couple hours, then went back to it a few months later. I was determined to grind it out and spent hours just leveling up in every new area. When I thought I was leveled up enough, I went one more level. This game is that grind heavy for the beginning to middle. Towards the end, I really didn't need to level up as much cause I figured out how to use the runes and which enemies were susceptible to what. Was definitely a good game that could've been great if it was more balanced.
I'm really glad you spent some time talking up this game's strengths. Whenever it comes up, it seems like the difficulty is the only thing ever brought up. If you think about how early this appeared in the SNES' life is something people don't factor in enough; it predates Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger or Mario RPG. A lot of this comparitavly unfriendly design was par for the course in NES and SNES RPGs at the time. Also, I think the upscaled difficulty for the western market may have been an attack on the rental market. Keep in mind, at the time rental of games wasn't allowed in Japan, so a game being short and easy wasn't a problem, a lot of games got their difficulty ratcheted up in localization so they couldn't be beaten in a single rental period.
I was pretty frustrated by how scared I was made to feel to start this game and pleasantly surprised to find it totally approachable. And you nailed it: the difficulty is on par with other games with maybe a smidgen more trickiness piled on at certain parts. I had also heard that about attacking the rental markets... but good LORD did they ever do a number on the difficulty here compared to the Japanese version! I get it, but geeze!
@@hungrygoriya Actually, the endless war with the rental market is also the reason Virgin Games' Lion King is so infamously difficult: The game designers were told to make the second world disproportionately hard compared to the rest of the game xD
@@HybridAngelZero There's nothing that makes me laugh more than seeing Simba get hit in the neck by those invisible branches on the ostrich runs, hahaha
I love this game. Legitimately my top 3 favorite SNES games. I love the battle system and the difficulty just makes it even more fun. I could play this game over and over again and never get tired of it. If anything, I’d say the difficulty is what really sets it apart from other RPGs.
I remember watching the Snesdrunk review of 7th Saga, and he pretty much said the same thing: that it's fiendishly difficult and requires a LOT of repetition and grinding in order to progress through the story.
I honestly didn't find it that difficult except for a few stretches honestly... I found it to be like a lot of older more unforgiving RPGs, but nothing as heinous as I'd heard about. I really liked that about the game... it made it memorable!
I'm surprised you never mentionned the music in the review! I loooove the OST from this game. Maybe its just the nostalgia tho, but to this just watching this review i was enjoying the background songs haha also, this was a great review and i agree with all you said. U just earned a new subscriber =)
Oh right on! I thought I mentioned the music at some point, but it's been a while so I may not have. In short, I LOVE this soundtrack. Especially the battle and overworld music especially. Thanks for subscribing too! I've got a new review in the works and hope to have it out shortly here.
She did briefly when she talked about the art style for the enemies. She said they looked like they're dancing to a killer soundtrack or something like that.
Nice review! I still have my original copy of this one, and just never circled back to finish it. I remember running into multiple ways to essentially softlock it with bad stats or character choices, and couldn’t bring myself to restart again at some point. Now I wonder how many of those hidden upgrades I missed. Cool to hear that there are patched versions to fix the stat issues.
I can understand why you might have felt discouraged. I ended up having to fight Valsu (the priest) as my apprentice fight, and it took me two whole hours to get through without him killing me. It was annoying and I'm sure it could've been even worse with other character combos. A lot of folks would agree the way to play is with a patch these days, if you ever decide to try it again sometime. Thanks for watching!
Hey Hungry Goryia, I love your channel! I've been looking for a channel like this for a while, reviews of old school games by someone who does it in a nice chill way I can relax too. Thank you!!!! 🤣🤩🤩
I'm so glad you liked this one. Those 65 hours sure flew by... I'm so glad I was able to catch most of this playthrough live! Great review as always Hungry!
Thank you so much! Your positive reception of the game was heartening in a sea of people who insisted this game was the worst of the worst. I enjoyed hanging out with you when you played it as well.
@@Kronoan The VODs on Twitch expire for me after two months so they're gone from the channel, unfortunately. I have them stored locally but I don't upload those. I like to keep the livestreams as a separate experience because I am mostly just speaking to chat while I play... it doesn't make for the greatest watching after the fact.
I never did beat this game, but it's always been one of my favorite RPGs on a console known for amazing RPGs. It was the first game where I got to play as a "bad guy" (Lejes the demon) and it allowed for so much replayability just by choosing a different character. Of course, the game's difficulty varies from player to player and character to character (as a 12- or 13-year old, I couldn't beat Red Pison as Lejes, for instance, but managed to beat him as Esuna years later without trying too hard), but man, I remember that first playthrough being genuinely afraid of random encounters in a new area. Thanks for covering this great game! Hidden gems such as 7th Saga always deserve such in-depth reviews for (hopefully) new players to discover! And yeah, I still favor Esuna and Lejes as my preferred protagonists. Kamil is my third favorite because Red Mage is my favorite Final Fantasy job. ;) EDIT: I learned early on as Lejes to just avoid talking to any of the other heroes as most of them hate him. That little bit of PTSD still remains to this day, as I'd rather travel alone than chance a rune fight regardless of who I'm maining.
It sounds like you got a ton of mileage out of the game even though you haven't finished it. Any plans to take it to the end one of these days? I'd love to play through again some day with Esuna or Lejes... Lejes was one of my first choices but I didn't like how stacked in one direction he was. He made me nervous for a first playthrough. Kamil got on my bad side right away by joining my party even though I told him no... the translation was kinda wonky in that part and I accidentally invited him to come along with me. I actually reset :D
@@hungrygoriya I'm hoping to one day finish it. Unfortunately my back log of games has become ridiculously long since the PS1 days, and with life being what it is, it's difficult to set aside time for an old RPG (especially since I keep pouring my time into modern timesinks like Breath of the Wild and Dragon's Dogma). That said: I hope to reach a point when I can just set aside a few weeks to do nothing but finish games on that backlog, and 7th Saga is right up there near the top of the list. :) Lejes is sort of what I look for in a solo character: a sort of hybrid fighter/mage. Except his learned spells are far more offensive-minded than I generally prefer. My personality tends to be more in line with Kamil or Valsu (all-around or defensive/support), but either choice also requires having at least one other, more offense-focused party member, so as someone who is trying to avoid dealing with other heroes, I have to be able to carry myself, and Lejes combines magic might with the ability to use most weapons (even if he is quite squishy). Admittedly, I had no idea about all this my first time playing as I just liked the idea of playing a demon, but I quickly learned as I went. As I got older, I realized that Esuna fits the solo role a bit better as her magic is quite a bit stronger than Lejes, but unlike the demon, if she ever runs out of magic, she's toast. I'm sorry you had such a poor experience with Kamil. My first experience with Lejes had Wilme do the same thing to me (inviting himself along), and while at first I was really enjoying having someone just rip into enemies and saving me the trouble of using MP, when we managed to get a rune, that was when he decided to attack me for it before I had a chance to rest, and I ended up using most of my items just to beat him because he hits like a truck. Hence: I travel alone. >.>
@@LordSephleon I'm intrigued by the potential that seems to exist in trying out other characters... I'm not sure who I'd choose going forward in another jaunt but I'm still leaning toward Esuna or Lejes. I'd be scared to have MP be the one factor for success in battle, which is why I am also attracted to characters with a balanced skill set. We shall see!
@@hungrygoriya As a non-spoiler tip to hopefully help you make a decision, I can tell you that both Esuna and Lejes learn spells that let them steal MP from enemies relatively early on. Esuna is more efficient with it as she can steal more per casting than Lejes, but she also has a deeper MP pool. The only thing is that the target has to have MP to steal to begin with, so RNG can really make it difficult to get back much-needed MP while out and about in the world/dungeon. Of the primary casters, only Valsu has some issues getting back MP on the road, I think (I never used him, so I don't know if he learns any MP-restoring magic). Over the years, I've noticed that people seemed to like Lux for his story and playstyle, so if you can get past his clunking around in towns, he might also be a good choice. Wilme might be the most straightforward, but also the most boring as he doesn't really use magic, nor does he need equipment. However, he IS an alien, so if that story interests you... Maybe you could livestream/upload your next playthrough. ;) EDIT: One thing about Esuna: her magic gets really powerful, to the point that even Ice1 can level some early bosses and will likely carry you in many random encounters. She's the epitome of a glass cannon. You're not likely to have to worry about MP if you beeline it to bosses when you are, in fact, going to progress the story instead of XP/gold farming.
Great analysis of the game! I speedrun it, and there is definitely a lot of planning involved with the speedrun. At the same time, the RNG can vary so much that the game can become brutal at times. I agree with what you said that its an underrated RPG, and the ways it can be customized is great!
Right on! Congratulations on tackling such a challenging run by the sounds of it. Are you looking to reach a certain goal time or just seeing how fast you can get through it? And do you tend to go with certain characters over others? I know nothing about the speedrun!
I was going to buy this about 5 months ago, but I got Maniac Mansion instead. I am going back today and getting it. Thank you again for a great review.
This was also one of my favorites on the SNES when it came out... though my memories of it are fuzzy at best. I know I played once as the robot and once as the knight, though I'm not sure I ever beat it. It's nice to see it getting a little attention... for a while I never heard anyone talk about it and after loosing track of my SNES I was half beginning to think I had just dreamed the whole thing up.
It's cool that you got to play this one when you were young. I know a lot of people generally don't enjoy this game because of its difficulty factor but I really appreciated a lot of things about it, difficulty included. So many people told me I'd hate it coming into it and it turned out it was actually very fun.
i actually got this game in the box a little while ago and wanted to try it but was intimidated by what everyone was saying about it online haha...thanks for this video you've inspired me to give it a go!
Oh nice! I hope it's in good condition :) And I pretty much had a chorus of people saying this game was so hard and so impossible, and while it was in some places, it was also really fun and interesting too. Have fun!
One of the few golden era RPGs that I actually never got into. I love the enemy design shown in your video though. So I’ll probably give it a shot in the future. Hopefully it’ll be released for current gen consoles like other previous SaGa games have been.
Good luck with it when you get going! It's definitely tough in spots but well worth the effort in the end. I don't think it's related to the other SaGa games at all. Those are great too though!
your determination in beating this game on the original console, sans-emulation, is impressive. Even with fast forward + emulator saves, I couldn't do it; At least not a few years ago when I gave it another shot.. which was the first time in about 25 years. I found tecmo secret of the stars less monotonous!
Love this game, as rough as it is I always played Valsu. When he gets to level 40ish you get a spell that heals a party member for full hp/mp and it can work on yourself in or out of battle. He literally turns into a mobile inn.
Oh man... he's definitely someone I might consider partnering with when I finally get around to replaying this. He was my apprentice fight and he was ruthless!
This game looks very interesting although challenging by the sounds of it. I'm a "Sega Guy" and never had a SNES as a teenager. But, I'd like to start collecting for the SNES. I'll put this game on the RPG list for the SNES.
A cool thing about this game is that the strategic side changes drastically depending on who you pick and who's your ally. There's a lot of talk online about what the "best" team is but honestly it's beatable with anyone. Just know that the early game grind will be severe if you pick esuna or valsu as your main.
Yeah! I'm excited to replay it with different characters down the line. I think Olvan had access to a whole tower most characters don't get to go into. It's pretty cool, even if it's nuanced.
@Hungry Goriya i played it once using the demon Lejes, i finished the game solo but iirc i was never aware that its possible to recruit other characters.
I also enjoyed this game a lot, and as you said, trying to survive and seeing the progress in the beginning was really exciting and rewarding to me. I really liked the atmosphere and I felt the motivation to grind in order to feel more secure. This sense of making my company more immune is what I really love about cRPGs in general. Story telling isn't the best in this game but also it's just fine. I just didn't bother too much as I just wanted to skill up and have a good time with good, atmospheric music and nice, non-cartoon graphics. I guess it's not for everyone but I highly recommend this game. I work on a cRPG for Commodore 64 computers called Meonlawel that certainly will have some of the mechanics I really loved in the 7th Saga.
Glad to hear we had a similar experience. It's tough in places but definitely worth the effort, just as you mentioned here. Good luck on your game development!
@@hungrygoriya Thanks!! I wonder if I should also embrace this kind of uncertainty level and terror in my project. It’s going to be a horroresque game so I am willing to do so :D.
@@hungrygoriya Thank you!! Exactly, the 7th Saga rewards you generously after tough parts. The Wind Rune, Star Rune or the others. It really makes the effort worth it.
I had this game as a teenager. Coming from games like chrono trigger and final fantasy 6, 7th saga was a bit of a kick in the teeth. I never did get past getting the third or fourth rune. I recently picked it back up after researching some strategies. Despite struggling with it as a youth i really loved the medievil atmosphere of this game. Esuna is a blast to play with.
I'm happy you got to play as Esuna... :( If I ever do another playthrough I'm going to try to start with her so she's guaranteed to be my friend this time! It's nice to hear that you came around on it eventually. It really did take a lot of strategy and planning that I'm sure feels a lot more manageable with adult patience.
@@hungrygoriya Definitely make Esuna your main or at least your support. She's damn near the best apprentice in the game due to her high speed stat and stat growth. Powerful magic/buffs along decent physical damage. Unfortunately i ran into a bug/glitch in which I am unable to recruit Lejes, where he's supposed to have a 1 out of 20 chance to join Esuna, I spent nearly 2 hours attempting to recruit him with no success. This was using the fast forward feature on the emulator I was using, as well. I may have to just count my loses and accept that I can't recruit Lejes for some unknown reason. I even went as far as downloading a ROM editor and set the recruit rate to 100% and still no luck. I may stick with Valsu or Olvan as a partner.
@@postplays Esuna was who I wanted to play with initially but I accidentally fought her not knowing I shouldn't do that... soooo I went the whole game lamenting not having had the opportunity to see what she was made of. That's terrible about not being able to recruit Lejes... I have no idea what makes these games tick but I hope you can still enjoy the rest of the game with Valsu or Olvan. I personally loved Olvan because he was reliable in quite a few ways, but he's very slow! Between him and Lux, it was the slowest possible run I think I could've done :D
I never managed to beat this one (only rented it and I played US version since I was in the US at the time), but Fortress City is one of my favorite SNES songs. On the defense mechanic, my thinking is that maybe the developers realized that you will tend to be adventuring alone a good portion of the game or with just one companion making the defend option entirely or largely useless if it didn't have some benefit to using it here and there. I think it had a little too much of a benefit though, making it a dominant mechanic. It seems tricky to me to design a turn-based game that largely plays with only one or two party members. One of the things I really like about the game is the art style. I think it's a bit less cartoonish than ones like Zelda and Final Fantasy (we can't see massive pixelated eyes on the characters, e.g.). I think I prefer this kind of style more.
Do you think the game would've been playable without the defense option for melee characters? I only ask because it felt like I was doing 5% damage without it in some fights...it would've been a lot less playable for my party anyway. I also loved the style here too. The SNES aesthetic for RPGs I find very charming but this is also very cool in its own way. They did a good job with something different, and I especially love the enemies.
@@hungrygoriya It's a tricky one for me as very deeply opinionated gamedev (not that I'm necessarily right, just deeply opinionated with my own tastes -- I think we need them as gamedevs because it can take years to produce a game and we can't be the types to second-guess ourselves too much or else we'll lose motivation very quickly). I am imagining a whole new game if there was no defense mechanic. I have no idea how to design a TBS (turn-based system) to avoid very repetitive strategies if we're reduced in options/turn to control just a character or two. I always felt like the most tactical thinking in TBS is given in those that give users the maximum number of things to think about per turn, like having many squad members (say 6+) to potentially coordinate together. Or introduce like a time unit (TU) or action point (AP) system that allows one character to perform multiple moves per turn (same kind of thing to me at overarching design level; it effectively gives users a lot more to think about each turn before the enemy gets theirs). I think one possible mechanic but I still think it would become too potentially repetitive or risk being largely unused is defending increasing a chance (not guarantee) to counterattack, and perhaps the chance is increased by character level/class making it desirable to defend and possibly counterattack with certain character builds. Say there is a 30% chance to counterattack. In a lucky scenario, the player might be able to defend three attacks from three separate enemies and counterattack them 3 times in one turn in ways they can't if they get lucky (happens about 3.6% of the time to counter three times in a row with those odds, and about ~10% of the time to counterattack twice). They might get only one attack/turn but if they want to gamble, they can defend, reduce damage, and potentially counterattack one or more times/turn. That introduces a risk assessment factor if we balance it reasonably. The way I see it is mostly give players lots of options to think about so that they're not stuck repeating the same combination of things over and over. I like the ones we call tactical RPGs/SRPGs nowadays as a result where positioning units arbitrarily is allowed, since that adds a whole new dimension to what we have to think about per turn (as well as making things like AoE far more interesting than an ability which just hits every opposing enemy and ranged attacks and mobility far more interesting; positioning has to be factored into account).
@@darkengine5931 Yeah these are all good points. The small party aspect is a huge hindrance as well, but adding in a percentage chance offense increase might've resulted in even more death, haha... It'd just make the game even more hardcore! Not necessarily a bad thing!
@@hungrygoriya One of my more controversial opinions on game design (although it wasn't when I was younger, but I'm now in my 40s and ideas on game design have evolved a lot) is that I really like the RNG (in certain contexts) for TBS. I think it introduces a risk assessment skill requirement for the player. I often see gamers and even some developers pit RNG vs. player skill, but I don't think it's quite right. There is a certain skill required in risk assessment if the game challenges it properly. It's like the skill required for a leader whether he/she be general or project manager. They're faced with dilemmas that have no guarantees of success or failure, like whether a general should attempt a rescue mission for soldiers stranded in enemy territory. They have to weigh risk vs. reward to effectively make decisions that amount to more successes than failures in the long run; they can't just grab a gun and go Rambo and rely on their physical prowess to succeed or fail. But I think if RNG is used right in a TBS, it feels like it's challenging this type of skill. If it feels like we're playing a slot machine and mindlessly doing the same things over and over hoping to get lucky, then I think we've failed as gamedevs to use the RNG in an interesting way. I think used correctly, it should challenge the type of thinking required of a Poker player, for example, who might legitimately have reasons to take a full 5 mins of thought to make what seems like a simple decision as far as their options to raise/call/fold go (but not the things they should be factoring in to make their decision). I find games really interesting when they challenge this type of skill like X-Com (1994), Blood Bowl, etc. I take a lot of inspiration from those for turn-based systems.
Would you ever consider doing a play though of 7th Saga? Perhaps with a different character than Olvan? Just discovered your channel about a week ago and I absolutely love it, you have such an excellent voice for play throughs, and I adore the little chip-tune as your intro. Subscribed!
I livestream over on Twitch about 4 times a week playing different stuff all the time. I've been moving forward with different games instead of replaying much since I have so many others I'd like to experience, but I'm definitely interested in revisiting this one again sometime with different characters. Thanks so much for your kindness! I'm glad you're enjoying the channel!
The 7th Saga is a total classic! I picked Lejes as a kid and got locked out by an unavoidable boss fight with Olvan... When I came back to it years later, I selected Esuna and picked Lux as my companion- I was so satisfied when I finally beat it! My best friend in HS got locked out as well, he dramatically over leveled and was unable to defeat one of the companions holding a rune in a later part of the game. Very fun, but very punishing RPG!~
I actually managed to softlock this game back in the late 1990s. I played on emu but did not know how to cheat or use save states well at the time. Without spoiling, there is a point of no return with a massive difficulty spike. I saved before battling anything and found that I couldn't win any battles. I had survived the previous boss battle just marginally so I was essentially doomed by my own luck. If I ever try this again I will max level cheat to enjoy the story.
@hungrygoriya Haha, thanks. I can easily laugh at it now. It takes a colossal waste of time to make one realize the importance of saving. In fact that experience is what led me to discover save states.
Hey, could you please tell where the images from 1:29 in the video come from? I've looked around for the manual of this game but the only one I could find is missing pages
When I played this game for the first time, I played as Esuna Busy. Alone. Was one of the greatest RPG experiences ever. Every time I play this game, I play as her and ONLY her. It's so challenging and fun to play as a dainty female character against the world for some reason. Every single encounter I always wondered if I was going to make it out alive. A few things: Critical hits do double damage (obviously) but what they DON'T tell you is no special animation accompanies it, so sometimes you wonder how you got one shot. B Protects only cost you 100 gold, and you can buy them in bulk so you can survive things you normally would not be able to. With Esuna, I didn't buy any armor for her because it wouldn't have made a difference; there is a Tiara type item that gives her 10 defense, but it's past the cave with the Green Mimic item you showed earlier. I used a B Protect for Pison, and two more for the Androds I would immediately meet outside (HP/MP catches automatically hit Andriods). Once i have that and another B Protect, I had enough defense power to fight the Green Mimic for that 500 gold topaz (just using B Protect wasn't enough). There are certain earlygame bosses that can 1 shot you on a critical, and I would just rather take the RNG then grind for 3 hours. Another thing about bosses is they have limited MP; you can stall out thier MP until they use it all, so they can't cure themselves when their HP gets low. Last thing: sometime after you get Rune #3 you get to a town that has a Ring on the floor of one of the houses that makes you immune to instant death. Also, when you get the 2nd world, hold of on buying anything until you get to the wrecked Airship store with the last of your equipment to save on your money there.
I think if I play again, I'm going to try with Esuna and one of the other fighter/magic combo characters. Hopefully! These are all some interesting bits of advice too. I'll keep those in mind.
@@hungrygoriya Try doing Rainow Silk Road for the NES next,. its an RPG where you can't level up, you need to buy and trade and get better equipment that provides stats.
I remember Lux being my go-to choice hero for this game because his stats leveled very well without needing a ton of gear so he scaled really really well into the mid to endgame. Been a while though!
I can definitely see why you'd go with him! I also heard it's good to take him along so he doesn't end up being your rival. Apparently he's really hard to beat!
@@SirJoelsuf1 i dont know about slowest. Theres only 2 different character speeds and lux is no slower than kamil or olvan. And with the stat boost late on technically faster than those two outside of just getting speed maxed
My guess is a lot of ppl were in a similar situation to me. You were a kid and you'd rent this for a weekend, you'd fail to beat it, and then by the time you'd get it again, your save would be gone and you'd have to start over.
Ive been curious about this one for a long time. Most reviews online are negative but I've spoken to several people who completed it and they really enjoyed it. Thracia 776 on the Super Famicom is the hardest rpg I ever played. It's got a fan translation.
I really loved this game. I hope you give it a try sometime and enjoy it as well. And Thracia 776 eh? I can't say I've heard of it before, but I'm adding it to my list of things to look into.
@@hungrygoriya thracia 776 is a hard one to recommend. It's VERY long and difficult. It ate up my video game time for an embarrassingamount of time. But it is one of the most beautiful 16 bit games and is very well made.
I beat the game when it came out - US SNES release. The overall difficulty wasn't too bad, except for the one legendarily brutal battle in the middle. Once you cross that, though, it's smooth sailing.
If it's the same battle I'm thinking of, I got stuck there for a long time too. There were a few big difficulty spikes for me, but that might've been my party make-up.
I always thought it funny how the 'Stone Witch' enemies from this game could hurt you just by making a face at you. I can't recall ever finding a hidden item on the ground; I didn't even know they existed! Thanks for telling me (belated though that is). I know that in Lufia: The Fortress of Doom, there are items EVERYWHERE in towns, but you have a huge inventory space and the items are physical barriers if you bump into them, so it isn't so hard.
Yeah, this game was so unforgiving with its stat boosts that I permitted hints from my stream chat about when there was something hidden. They're definitely worth picking up! In Lufia, I loved that hidden stuff was at least obvious. That game has a lot of charm to it. I really enjoyed it for the most part!
"I'd recommend this one to anybody that loves hardcore RPGs like Ultima IV, Phantasy Star, or Miracle Warriors." Lol, unfortunately there are very few of us! Your channel is similar to ImplantGames, CannotBeTamed, and DariaPlays: your audience will sadly forever be limited by your own good taste :)
I’d always wanted to start this game, but rumors of its difficulty and “weird” premise prevented me from giving it a shot. You might have changed my mind. Thank you!
@@hungrygoriya Yeah. Also, delay getting a partner for as long as possible. They keep their JP growth rate and match your level when you join. So, if you recruit them early, they'll be much weaker later on (they also sap half of your xp).
Great video. It kinda' make me want to give this game a shot. And it's funny you mentioned Phantasy Star. Because as much as I love the original PS, now-a-days I turn to Game Genie/Shark to bypass the grinding. :D
Maybe try the patched version? I haven't tried any of them but I know of the few listed, each of them introduce various quality of life changes that you might enjoy.
oh that overworld music, one of the greatest game soundtracks ever.
This whole soundtrack is on in my house at least once a week. It's great!
You actually can become an ally to someone you’ve beaten. Just the odds that they’ll want to join our unbelievably slim. It’s also based off of experience gain. Someone could want to fight you, then you can win a battle and get like 24 experience, talk to them again and they wanna be your buddy. Any amount of experience gain can change what the other apprentices will have to say in any given moment. But I can say that I have recruited someone I’ve beaten. I just think beating them tremendously lowers the odds that they will want to join you.
What if they beat you though? Esuna kicked my butt!
Yeah, to add on to what you've said here, 7th Saga's reputation is caused by the unconventional "Defend increases your attack, so defend first and then attack" mechanic, and the whole "Games from Japan were made more difficult in other countries to discourage rentals" situation (it was very controversial back in those days, especially because, at least at the time, renting video games was not legal in Japan).
But all in all, I love this game, and there's also plenty of romhacks to customize the finer points of the game to the player's liking, so I think 7th Saga is worth a look for any RPG enthusiast, even today.
Great video!
Agreed wholeheartedly! There's so much here for anyone that loves the genre and I hope more people try the game out, with or without a patch.
I have beaten this game, and somehow this is the first I have heard of this 'defending increases your attack.'
I recognize the mantra song from Faxanadu in that intro. I already love this channel.
Faxanadu's my favourite!
WHAAAAT!? Loved the brief Faxanadu melody over your intro animation! Awesome!
Yessss!
I remember being absolutely obsessed with SNES RPGs in the 90s and this one was no different. I love everything about it and although it doesn’t have much of a story; when you figure out what the story actually is including the ending (my friends were so confused), it’s amazing!
The ending was definitely a treat! Always glad to meet others that like this one!
I rented this game like 17 years ago and never finished it with an emulator even though its on my phone. I had a friend say it wasn't a very good RPG, its one of the only RPGs i played back then but i always had fond memories of it. I used to stay in areas to farm monsters before I moved on was the only way i managed to deal with the difficulty of this game. I enjoyed watching your review on it. I think my only real gripe is the transition to battle sound and the battle music being very repetitive being your always in a battle outside of a city.
Grinding and farming was a necessity here for sure! I really enjoyed this one despite others telling me it wasn't good, but there were some points that I really struggled with like the apprentice fight. I liked the transition to battle since I got to see all the weird monsters come into view in an interesting way, but you're right: it was really repetitive!
I didn't realize how deep and detailed this rpg is. Great review.
Thanks so much! And you know, I didn't even get into a lot of the plot to keep spoilers at a minimum, but there were some pretty shocking moments throughout in terms of ways extra challenge was introduced. It was a lot more than I was expecting it to be too.
Oh boy, the nostalgia is strong with this one. This game is just flat out BRUTAL, but gods do I love it.
It's a tough game, that's for sure. I wish I'd played something like this as a kid. I didn't get to my first turn-based game until I was a little older!
It's brutal, but you have to learn to be the same. However, I have seen worse games.
I think the hardest part of the whole game that I couldn’t get past for my life was the castle where you get the star rune. I was playing with Lejes or Kamil and I had to fight olvan who would beat the shit out of me no matter what I did
So funny to picture a dwarf getting pissed at the constant clanking of a robot companion he needs to complete the quest.
Lux is very loud, but Olvan's probably a very patient fellow, haha
When i played that game for the first time, i said to myself: Wow !! Finally a challenge !!!
And i always liked the overworld to combat transition !!
It was an extremely challenging game that I enjoyed very much. And I also loved that view change! I don't think I've seen anything quite like it.
That review was really well done. Back in the day I beat the game using Wilme and I was lucky enough to get Valsu to join me later on.
Hey thanks very much for watching! I love hearing about Wilme and Valsu teaming up. I was a fool and didn't take Valsu with me, and he ended up being my apprentice fight.
The first time I went through this game was with Kamil and Valsu. I played it when staying at my grandma's house for christmas. I don't usually play RPGs but for some reason this one absolutely captivated me. There's a sense of wonder, adventure, and a huge world that I can't find in any other RPG of the era
I'm glad you got to experience it when it was new! That's really cool. I've played a few other SNES RPGs that felt pretty flat compared to this one in terms of excitement and risk, so this was a great game to experience. Hopefully you'll have more experiences like this in the future too.
@@hungrygoriya actually, that was just last year XD. I love playing the older consoles, even though I am of the playstation 2 generation myself
@@blauesnavi3883 Oh right on! I grew up with an NES and a Genesis but didn't have an SNES until later in life. I'm really enjoying finding great games even if I'm late to the party by a long stretch.
I remember playing this as Kamil with Esuna. Near the end game Esuna, while a little squisher, she evaded nearly everything. Made for some epic battles.
I wish I could've gotten Esuna to come along with me! It sounds like she really made the adventure exciting!
Same, I went Esuna/Kamil in the US version. Ice 1 is surprisingly good, even late in the game.
The monster at 5:45 is one of the most unintentionally terrifying things I experienced in a video game as a kid.
The monster design is one of my favourite things about this game. They're all unique and horrifying.
I always wanted to get this game back then, but was never able to until my adult years. Seeing this in Nintendo Power intrigued me, and I really liked the character designs.
Better late than never, right? I thought it was a nice visual change from pretty much every other SNES RPG.
I saw it in NP, too. I have it, but I have never played it because ofbits reputation.
The characters were well thought out...except for Lejes.
I always admired this game as a kid but was too intimidated after seeing how much my wiser, older brother struggled with it. I forgot the name of this game for most of my life but it just hit me the other day during a sudden rush of nostalgia which brought me to this video. Now I HAVE to actually play the game past the first 5 minutes :)
Oh right on! Good luck with your playthrough! I hope you have some fun with it. Despite some of the ridiculous difficulty spikes at times, it's a challenging RPG. Enjoy it!
That's my back story on all RPGs. I would watch my cousin play them while I felt intimated by the scope lol. Maybe that's why these days I insist on beating all the old games
I owned this as a kid, and beat it many, many times. I recently bought Elnard and will probably play it soon. I'd like to play the follow up as well. It's been a long time coming.
Nice! Mystic Ark, you mean? I'm really curious about what it's like too.
There's a lot to like about this game. Combat is actually fun between the defend mechanic and the rune buffs. Having 7 characters to pick from and picking up a partner means plenty of combos for replay value. There's also a lot of freedom in which order you get the runes later. On top of that characters have different paths you can take. Like there's a treasure filled tower that is only open to Olvan. The down side with Lux as a partner is he doesn't get his upgrade in the past unless he's your main character. The music is stellar and the enemy sprites are great. For me the real downside is jut the light story and the bland overworld graphics. The game is hard, but I have played far harder games even on the SNES. I think Final Fantasy 5 is harder and a grindier game for the sake of raising job class levels which is an absolute must.
I really don't feel like people give this one a fair shake and just write it off as too difficult. I agree with everything you've said here!
I have never heard of this game but it looks cool. Gonna have to check it out. Thanks Goriya!
My pleasure! I hope you enjoy it if you play!
Freakin loved this game when I was younger. Super difficult.great review ✊️
Definitely! I enjoyed it quite a bit too, even with its difficulty.
I love this game. I was stuck on a rune fight with another character for over a year. I finally got a strategy together and beat them and then beat the game eventually by running from most in the final dungeons. It took me a few attempts throughout my life to beat, but it felt great when I did.
It's fantastic that you made it through eventually... I definitely ran from pretty much everything in the final stretch as well, trying to conserve resources getting to the last battle. I was so relieved when it finally happened for me.
And I hear ya about those rune fights... my first one was up against the worst possible match for my party and it was about 2 hours of trying and hoping to get lucky with until it finally happened for me.
@@hungrygoriya This review makes me want to try this game. The only thing I ever heard about this game was that there was a mandatory rune fight with a character that scales with you, except that in the American version, they nerfed your stat gains on leveling but not that characters’, so you could create an unwinnable situation if you grind too much where that enemy is super powerful and leveling only makes him stronger! Stayed away just from hearing that, but now I wonder if it’s even true.
@@ozmahunter6940 There is a fight like that, and it was definitely one of the hardest parts of the game for me. It took me about 2 hours and getting lucky in the fight to make it through. Some people you fight against are a lot harder than others though, so some careful planning of who you have with you in your party can eliminate some of those potentially impossible encounters. Once I hit that fight I didn't do any more levelling and I tried and tried until I got it. I think I was around level 12 when I arrived, but the lower the better probably.
@@hungrygoriya if you mean the fight in the town against the "traitor" apprentice they actually have there level set once you go through the door the sage is blocking earlier. Its set to 5 more than whatever you are at that point you go through
@@procow2274 See from everything I've read online, if you keep levelling, they do as well so you can get yourself into trouble very quickly with a bit of grinding.
This game beat me up as a kid and I never completed it, but the soundtrack really did stick with me and I love going back and listening to all the great tracks now and then.
It's ruthless, but the music is definitely memorable. I put the soundtrack on pretty often!
Look up the original Japanese version and see if there's an english patch out there (There probably IS!) and you'll have a much easier experience. The N/A version your character's growth was bugged, with +3 being the highest bonus. +3 should be the weakest, with +7 being the highest. Your NPC character opponents in the N/A version had that bonus while you as a player had the weaker one, hence the difficulty spike in general. Enemies later on were also expecting those larger stat gains. The game was still beatable but wow! I do reccomend trying to find the original version translated. You might find it too easy though!
If you can make it to the cave with metal pison, you can grind from level 40 to 80 in like a couple hours. One of the battles in that cave is one where you fight three of those knights in the scale armor. With a strong enough magic stat, you can kill all three in one shot with an area of effect spell. They give you like 1500 experience each. So each battle you’re getting close to 5000 experience points.
This might have the most engaging turn based battles I've experienced from the era. I'm doing an Esuna/Lux right now. Also, the grind is helped by the fact that you can stand right outaide of town, and the battles come to you. Lastly, the reusable rune abilities add a level of strategy to coming out of battle prepared for the next. I love this game! Great review!
Nice! Esuna's still a character I'd like to play as for this one, so I may play it through again one day and try to recruit her. You raise great points about the grinding and the rune abilities making the game a lot smoother if you know how to do it well. Thanks for sharing and good luck on your playthrough!
The more videos of yours I watch, the more I lament we weren't friends as kids.
That's a really nice sentiment!
Really great review rarely found on TH-cam
Hey thanks so much!
I can't help but truly love the actual world of 7th Saga. From the endless beaches of Ticondera, to the very alien creatures that stalk this bizarre Vancian wasteland. It really makes me think of what kind of world would produce such creatures through either natural evolution, mad science, or foul magics. It all contrasts so much with how very normal most of the towns are. There was some really inspired work that went into the creative end of this game.
"Vancian"
Absolutely fantastic descriptor right there. Always a pleasure to find another Jack Vance fan out in the wild.
This one's definitely not for everyone, but for those who cut their teeth on the older stuff, there's a lot to like. The plot was really cool in that it went a lot of unexpected directions, and how many games from the era let you play as a robot, demon, or alien, especially Medieval-themed fantasy RPGs? The challenge of losing half your money could be mitigated, too, by purchasing jewels in the item shops; you don't lose items upon death, and they are the only things that can be sold back at their full price, so their entire purpose was as money placeholders, and I can't think of many other RPGs that did this, either. Still, it came out as a brutal experience at a time when RPGs were still trying to find a foothold in the North American market, and never got a sequel. Sure, Mystic Ark has some similarities, and if you choose a male main character, the default name is Lemele (similar to Remeer), but the main character of Brain Lord is also named Remeer, so I think Produce just liked the name. I would still recommend Mystic Ark, if you can get your hands on it (and a certain walkthrough ;) for the occasionally confusing weapon/armor breakdown), but it is a pretty different experience.
Currently playing this after watching your vid : )
Ooooo good luck to you!
@@hungrygoriya Thanks. It appears that I'll need it 😂 But difficulty aside I'm enjoying the hell out of it and I love the aesthetic and artwork that goes with the game.
The challenge is definitely what keeps me interested in an RPG, when I feel emotions as I play, when I want to explore the world but get scared of going too far in fear of losing everything because death can come so quickly. The earlier Dragon Quest games (1 to 7) are really worth playing exactly for these reasons. Dragon Quest 11 on PS4 on the the other hand was so boring that I couldn't play it more that 15-20 hours before giving up...
Also, great review!
That's exactly what The 7th Saga provided for me... that fear, that wonder, that caution... it was fantastic for that! I can't wait to play more Dragon Quest games. I've gotten through most of the first one a couple of times but haven't played much beyond that yet.
Dragon Quest 11 has a variable difficulty with a large number of adjustable parameters that can make it quite a challenge.
Just because a game isn't difficulty doesn't mean that it's a inferior game to others in any way,more than being difficult the game needs to Be genuinely good with good story characters or Gameplay otherwise it's boring
Cdromance has the stuff patched.
I AGREED
Fun and in-depth review! Glad to hear you had an enjoyable time of it. I love replaying this game. My current goal is to beat it with each of the 7 solo, made it so far with Valsu, Kamil, my in-progress attempt with Wilme
I'm glad you enjoyed the video! I definitely liked this game more than I was expecting to based on what people had told me about it going in. It was a wonderful time!
It sounds like you are well on your soloing quest! What a feat! Are you leaving a certain person for last because they're easiest/hardest?
Definitely trying to do the easier first, I may have also done Esuna, come to think of it. The magic users have access to healing and buff spells which helps them survive. I have had a harder time with Wilme even though he has, I believe, the best agility. Olvan might be easier as more balanced or tougher due to slow speed. I expect Lux, Lejes would be the hardest as they have no healing, buff magic and aren’t especially speedy.
@@Parallelepiped2 I'd still love to try a playthrough with Esuna. I was awfully disappointed I couldn't bring her along with me, but I hear ya about having characters with healing abilities being an easier adventure. I wasn't sure how each person's magic would progress through the game so I just went off the starting stats.
And Olvan was so slow... I dumped all my seeds into him and made sure they were all the highest possible value and he was still moving like a sack of potatoes by the game's end.
Olvan still has a special place for me. He was my very first character and first main character I completed the game with!
I really appreciate this review. This was my favorite game as a young child, and it has kind of stung to see to regarded with derision by many in the modern era. It was difficult, but not impossibly so, and there are so many rich attributes under the surface waiting to be discovered. Thank you for treating The 7th Saga so fairly.
I honestly didn't get what people were so bent out of shape about it. So many folks kept saying how hard it was and how bad of a time I'd have, and other than those two areas where the difficulty felt vertical for a short time, it was pretty on par with other games. Did you have a favourite person/group to play through with?
@@hungrygoriya Esuna the Elf was my favorite to play, and for a partner I'd generally take anyone except Lux (clank clank) or Wilme the Alien just because his attack animation was a bit tediously slow. I think the difficulty of the game to some degree depended upon which characters one plays with (at least for the North American version). They're not exactly balanced, but I was always content to treat that as an embedded difficulty setting. Kamil the Human truly was as difficult as games got for me in that era.
@@jawjaw27 Esuna was definitely the person I wanted to bring along the most but lost the opportunity. If I play again, she's definitely at the top of my list without a doubt. And I agree with you completely: you could definitely make yourself disadvantaged a lot more with certain party members than others! What a cool idea though... it really brings in some serious replay value.
My copy arrives today and looking up reviews led me to your channel. Great write up, you have me really looking forward to firing it up and getting started.
Oh good luck! And thanks very much. I really enjoyed this game and truly feel like there's a great adventure there... just be ready for mayhem once in a while and you'll be fine!
One of the reasons why you died so much is because you had a party of Olvan and Lux. Every character has strengths and weaknesses; Olvan and Lux are both highly susceptible to magic, Lux more than any other character other than Wilme. Being susceptible to magic in this game is asking to get murdered by any enemy that doesn't use physical damage, which are a surprisingly large amount. Olvan has high HP and strong physical attacks, on par with Lux and beaten only by Wilme, but his magic is incredibly limited and mostly useless, typically failing when he needs it. Olvan's also known for his poor accuracy, causing him to waste turns whiffing attacks.
Ideally as Olvan, you'd want Valsu or perhaps Esuna as a partner. Valsu, in particular, learns a spell called ELIXIR, which not only fully heals the recipient, but also fully refills their MP. As a priest, Valsu also naturally learns nearly every healing and support spell in the game, allowing him to buff Olvan's physical and magical defenses, followed by his own. Buffing is incredibly important in this game - while you can eventually get Runes that duplicate buff spells, it's best not to rely on them for spoiler reasons.
Lux has impressive physical attack and defense, and outfitting him is cheap because he can't use most weapons and armor. He learns unique magic that nobody else has, but he doesn't learn a lot and it's not very strong despite its high modifiers, because his magic stats are poor. Lux suffers immensely if he comes under attack from magic; with weak magic defenses and no armor, his high HP can be swiftly cut down by magic attacks. Unlike a lot of other physical attack characters though, Lux's accuracy is actually really good, and against physical enemies, he's damn-near impenetrable.
The way recruiting works is that when you reach a town, one of the other apprentices may be there. When you talk to them, a random roll is made to determine their disposition. This roll is modified by your chosen character's relationship to the other character. For instance, Olvan gets along with Lux and Valsu because they all have honorable dispositions. Lejes and Wilme are both fairly sinister, and so are pretty chummy - they don't get along with Valsu though. Kamil gets along with almost everyone but Wilme, and Esuna gets along fairly well with everyone except Olvan. Depending on the results of the disposition roll, they'll either offer to join you, tell you to come back later, offer to spar against you, or simply outright attack you. An apprentice that has a rune will always fight, and if you have runes, the chances of a fight occurring increase drastically. Defeating an apprentice permanently removes them from the game. If you're defeated, you'll revive as normal, but all your runes will be taken by the apprentice that beat you, and you'll need to roam the world to find the thief and beat them. Just be careful as they can, and will, use those stolen runes against you. If you don't like the apprentice's attitude, you can leave town and fight a few battles, then come back and talk to them again. They may make a new disposition roll with a better outcome. However, they could also just move on - if the apprentice moves on to another town, they won't come back, and no other apprentices will show up - it's a good idea to save before trying to recruit someone, if you happen to see someone you want as a partner in town.
7th Saga is a game that demands you learn its intricacies. While you can level-grind your way through it, and some grinding is absolutely necessary, the game gets a lot easier if you stack the deck in your favor. Savescumming for a good partner early, using a guide to find hidden items with the search command, knowing what fights to play out and which to run from, and carefully monitoring your status and equipment are all valid tactics against this game's brutality.
Without Valsu in your group the regular old SNES version is close to impossible later on because of the broken scaling. One of the hardest SNES jrpg's to complete but for the wrong reasons.
Great review as always. Makes me want to go back and give this game another shot (the difficulty rekt me years ago and I never went back). Also, I'm going to have to remember "torn to pieces faster than a dry napkin at a rib dinner buffet" for future use. 😂
I hope you will some day! It's worth it, especially if you have some folks to talk to along the way.
Those horrible shredded napkins beside people's plates in those situations are pitiful, and also gross!
This game definitely defeated me as a kid. I ought to get back into it now in my 40s.
If you do try it out again, best of luck! It's a hard one but definitely a satisfying adventure to put to rest.
You did a great job here. Excellent review!
Btw I'm replaying the game with Lejes, and the first teammate I got was, believe it or not, Valsu!
Thank you so much!
And really?! It's very cool that you got Valsu! He was my apprentice fight and I had the worst time trying to destroy him...
Love the review. I just started playing this game after having it in my to do list for a long time. I picked Kamil as my main and using Esuna as my partner. I love old school grindy rpgs and the atmosphere in this game is rather dark and excellent.
Oh man, you're in for a treat! I hope you have a fun trip through the game. At the very least, the soundtrack is top notch.
I'm gonna have to give this game a shot. This is the most positive review I've ever seen for it. I tried playing it a long time ago as a teenager and I got pretty overwhelmed pretty fast but I'm older, wiser, less prone to fits of anger. I think this game deserves a second shake! :D
I think the patience thing that comes around as an adult goes a long way into making these games more tolerable. I hope you have a good time with it! There are some parts that are show-stoppers like I mentioned, but if you push through, the rest of the game's pretty smooth sailing.
Yes, I put it down the 1st time.
I started as Valsu, and found it very difficult.
I do believe Kamil is the best character for the 1st time playing.
As a youth, I beat it that 2nd time, as Kamil.
As an adult I have completed it with all characters.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly Valsu is a little rough until you reach level 3 and get some offense but otherwise is fine. Lux on the other hand has the easiest start because of his stats and starting gear
@@procow2274,
The 2 places I had it rough with Lux was the beginning and by Bonro. The wyverns at the beginning are too fast for him (if unlucky), the other robots are also fast.
I suffered through the game with both Lux & Valsu. It wasn't fun.
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly on the plus side lux is the only character that takes one damage from wyverns at level 1. Other characters can take 3 to as much as 7 damage a hit
I remember having to try three or four runs before I found a team that worked for me, and I eventually found another couple of viable teams. I would love a re-release of this with the option to turn off the difficulty increasing changes from the Japanese version to see what the differences are.
There are some good patches that fix the difficulty and things available on romhacking.net
It's actually possible to get locked out of winning because of the apprentice battles. If the priest, Valsu, steals one of your runes (eg, the whole thing with the Sky Rune) and you are high-levelled enough, he'll have the Elixir spell.
...
Which RESTORES ALL OF HIS HP AND MP.
WHICH HE USES EVERY SINGLE ROUND BECAUSE HIS AI SCRIPT EVALUATES IT AS THE BEST MOVE.
Which makes him impossible to defeat unless you can one-shot him (...not gonna happen) and locks you out of getting one of the runes, ending your run.
Another fun bit is the first boss. You're not actually intended to lose the battle, then one-shot him with that whistle the old lady gives you. The whistle is a bit of a leg-up for newbie players having a hard time against the game's first real challenge. You'll have to grind just as hard to take down every other bosses.
Valsu was my apprentice, and thankfully I got to him at a low enough level that this didn't happen to me! What a scary prospect!
And that's an interesting tidbit about the first boss. I had no idea!
One of my favorite SNES RPG experiences. My brothers, a friend, and I used to rent it and try to beat it before someone else rented it and saved over our game. We lived in a small town in Wisconsin with few RPG fans so most times we would be fine, but inevitably it would get deleted and we had to start over. Finally, the store sold the game for cheap and we beat it a bunch of times. Great times.
This is why the Dragon Quest series added the Bank system. If you can store your money, then you can mitigate the consequences of death.
This game has a banking system, but you have to purchase gems. You "store" your money in gem form, but you need whatever denomination they're sold in. It's a bit strange.
I always tried to play this as Lejes or Wilme purely because they were so unique, which may have made things a little tougher. Ending up with Valsu as a late-game rival is rough. I haven't tried out any of the patched versions, but it's been on my list for a while to go back to, it's really a great game even if it is brutal!
You know, it's totally unique. The twists and turns on this plot were always completely unexpected and I appreciated how jarring some of them were, like The Big Change partway through the game that just bowled me over completely. I ended up with Valsu as my early game rival and it was hell on earth. I can't even imagine what it would've been like running into him later on. It was probably the worst pairing ever for my party.
Losing runes to Valsu and facing him later more or less makes him invincible. The AI usually doesn't cheese the full heal so it's possible, just unlikely.
Great review btw! I've only stumbled on the channel fairly recently and I've really enjoyed it :)
I actually found that as Kamil I had to be at a higher level then when I played through later with Lejes. Maybe I was just paranoid that 1st time?
I find the game really easy with Wilme, except a few points where the monsters are very magic based.
@@hungrygoriya,
Valsu & Esuna are nearly unbeatable as enemies at almost all levels.
They just CHEAT.
They don't play by the rules.
They defy physics.
I have TH-cam videos showing how bad Valsu is in particular.
Since eventually the stats cap at 255 for magic and speed, eventually they are beatable...but I am not playing that long.
I rented this game back in the day and yea, it was difficult to get into. I bought this game in recent years to have in my collection, but I don't know if I'll get around to it.
This game had a sequel that was only in Japan.
It's definitely not a game for everyone, but I enjoy these tough as nails RPGs for some reason. I like having the stakes high I guess? I'm sure you have lots of other things on your list to enjoy so you might as well stick to things that really interest you.
And yes, Mystic Ark! I have a copy of that lying around to play some day. I'm looking forward to that one!
@@hungrygoriya
Great graphics, music, and an intriguing atmosphere, but you'll be grossly disappointed. It's disgustingly easy to the point that you can set battles on auto and forget about it.
BEST review I've seen on this game ever. Including the original game book and backstory. Best early console RPG I've ever played! I still listen to the soundtrack to this day because it's so good. A game ahead of its time and it's difficulty made for an incredibly rewarding experience for some but probably prevented the game from being a mainstream RPG.
Thank you very much for that! I really liked The 7th Saga and it's a great example of a time when I didn't listen to all the naysayers and gave the game a chance. I love love love the soundtrack and listen to it pretty often too. I hope more folks take this one out for a spin.
i loved this review so much!!! it really said everything that i've been thinking about the 7th saga ever since i got the game handed down to me when I was 6 years old. you put my love for this game into words, and i don't think its controversial at all to say it's a good game. it's a great game !!!
I'm so glad! I had so many people tell me I'd hate my time with it because it was too hard, and while there were a few really tough spots that tested my patience, I still really enjoyed my time with it! Always glad to meet another fan!
What a great review! All the work you put into this is really impressive
Too kind! Thanks so much!
I was hoping you'd review this underrated gem someday! I bought it when it was released and it was a nightmare to finish but I also fell in love with this amazing game. I dust it off every few years and I've played with every conceivable line up of characters. Although my favorite strategy is still to pick Kamil and avoid souring relations with Lux. Then I will max out Kamil's levels and then recruit Lux who will have some seriously insane stats. This gets especially fun if you do this before getting his upgrade at Melenam. A super powered up Lux can kill just about anything in one attack and will make the final boss a joke. You can also do this with Wilme...but since his magic ability is so poor Lux is always my go to 2nd for this strategy. :)
I loved this game so much, and it's great to hear that there are so many potentials for subsequent playthroughs and so much more strategy to parse out. I was getting wrecked so badly early on that I just took Lux with me right away, and I wish I had been able to hold out on a partner for a little longer. It certainly would've been great to have Lux be an ultimate powerhouse by picking him up later. Oddly enough, he was the only person who wanted to come with me! Everyone else just wanted to fight. I'm glad he ended up working out for me though. I couldn't bear to let him go after a while.
I always wanted to tackle this one. I remember it in Nintendo power, and it looked awesome. You have given me the confidence to do it! You got a new fan!
Right on! I hope you enjoy your time with it. It's not easy, but I think if you go into it with appropriate expectations, you'll end up having a good time with it. Are you going to play with a patch or go for the North American difficulty?
@@hungrygoriya I'm gonna give it a go with the American release. That way I can test myself against those magazine editors from the early 90's
I've always picked Esuna when playing this game. Ah, good times. Looking forward to your thoughts on Zillion as well. :-)
I wanted to bring Esuna along with me but couldn't bear to make her my main character because I was scared to get obliterated. I think her and Olvan would've made a good team, but alas.
I'm excited to get going on Zillion here too. It's my next project I've been working on so stay tuned for that! Thanks so much :)
@@hungrygoriya I'm all for Zillion as well! :)
@@LordSephleon Right on! I just finished that a few weeks ago so I'm looking forward to talking about it.
@@hungrygoriya with Zillion, could you also touch up what the suicide option is for? I know that I could just google it, but i want to hear your take on it.
Several years ago I attempted 7th Saga, played for several days but eventually got to a boss battle that became literally impossible. At first I thought I was doing something wrong in the battle but after some research it appeared I got myself into an unwinnable state. I really wanted to like the game: the graphics are beautiful and the challenging battles make for exciting gameplay. However, the prospect of replaying hours and hours to correct whatever I did wrong was suuper demotivating and I haven't returned to it since.
Do you remember if it was the fight with the traitor apprentice? I got stuck there for about 2 hours myself and had to depend on a little luck to actually get through the fight. From what I understand, the person you fight each time is random, but I totally get what you mean about restarting. That would've been terrible. I understand your frustration though, and I'm sorry you had that experience. I don't think grinding helps either... it just makes them stronger :(
@@hungrygoriya I can't recall the exact situation but it was in Patrof. I tried finding the help thread that confirmed I was completely stuck but I couldn't find it, so it is possible I'm conflating 7th Saga with another game with a true unwinnable state. I can't even remember if I knew during my attempted playthrough that defend boosts your attack.
@@fandarzelig no, there is one of the apprentices you have to fight that can constantly heal himself if your level is too high, since his level is ALWAYS higher. it's really a case that if had to grind too much, then you can't win the game.
I remember playing through this shortly after it was released, and i was able scoop up a copy. Boy was it hard. I played through with Lux as my main and Valsu for healing. Fantastic game and soundtrack. Great review!
It's tough for sure. Lux and Valsu sound like a great pairing. I was worried to bring Valsu along but then he ended up being my rival apprentice to fight... I had regrets!
I never played it, and think only recently heard of it
Always look foward to your videos!
It's a hard go, but fun along the way. Thanks very much :) I was glad to get something out this long weekend!
Fantastic review! Really well done!
I played through this one when I was a kid. Of course I picked the giant robot to play as! I switched my companion out every chance I got. I ended up with Olvan by the end, but I think Esuna was the best.
Going into the past and meeting the people who created Lux blew my tiny child brain. That was some Doctor Who level shenanigans for me! And having the opportunity to get the robot "repaired" was just amazing! I can't remember how much it increased your level, but it was a significant performance boost. I was pretty sucked into the game by that point because it was near the end, but that really sealed it for me in my memory. I'm never going to stop loving this game! I've probably played through it five times.
I actually did try out the balance patch last year and I think it's very good. I didn't actually finish the playthrough with it, though.
Awww it's so nice to read about your positive experience with the game. Because I had Lux as my partner, I had to murder Olvan in the past and go and talk to the repair person with him to get the upgrade... it was a little extreme but I didn't know another way to put Lux at the front on the overworld :)
Maybe a playthrough with the balance patch needs to be in my future. I could totally see that being a different and fun way to experience this game. Thanks so much for sharing!
One of my best achievements as a kid was besting this game. I initially gave up on it after a couple hours, then went back to it a few months later. I was determined to grind it out and spent hours just leveling up in every new area. When I thought I was leveled up enough, I went one more level. This game is that grind heavy for the beginning to middle. Towards the end, I really didn't need to level up as much cause I figured out how to use the runes and which enemies were susceptible to what. Was definitely a good game that could've been great if it was more balanced.
I'm really glad you spent some time talking up this game's strengths. Whenever it comes up, it seems like the difficulty is the only thing ever brought up.
If you think about how early this appeared in the SNES' life is something people don't factor in enough; it predates Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger or Mario RPG. A lot of this comparitavly unfriendly design was par for the course in NES and SNES RPGs at the time.
Also, I think the upscaled difficulty for the western market may have been an attack on the rental market. Keep in mind, at the time rental of games wasn't allowed in Japan, so a game being short and easy wasn't a problem, a lot of games got their difficulty ratcheted up in localization so they couldn't be beaten in a single rental period.
I was pretty frustrated by how scared I was made to feel to start this game and pleasantly surprised to find it totally approachable. And you nailed it: the difficulty is on par with other games with maybe a smidgen more trickiness piled on at certain parts.
I had also heard that about attacking the rental markets... but good LORD did they ever do a number on the difficulty here compared to the Japanese version! I get it, but geeze!
@@hungrygoriya Actually, the endless war with the rental market is also the reason Virgin Games' Lion King is so infamously difficult: The game designers were told to make the second world disproportionately hard compared to the rest of the game xD
@@HybridAngelZero There's nothing that makes me laugh more than seeing Simba get hit in the neck by those invisible branches on the ostrich runs, hahaha
I love this game. Legitimately my top 3 favorite SNES games.
I love the battle system and the difficulty just makes it even more fun. I could play this game over and over again and never get tired of it.
If anything, I’d say the difficulty is what really sets it apart from other RPGs.
I remember watching the Snesdrunk review of 7th Saga, and he pretty much said the same thing: that it's fiendishly difficult and requires a LOT of repetition and grinding in order to progress through the story.
I honestly didn't find it that difficult except for a few stretches honestly... I found it to be like a lot of older more unforgiving RPGs, but nothing as heinous as I'd heard about. I really liked that about the game... it made it memorable!
I am going to play it with the elnard restoration Patch to see if the original vision of the game is good
I'm surprised you never mentionned the music in the review! I loooove the OST from this game. Maybe its just the nostalgia tho, but to this just watching this review i was enjoying the background songs haha also, this was a great review and i agree with all you said. U just earned a new subscriber =)
Oh right on! I thought I mentioned the music at some point, but it's been a while so I may not have. In short, I LOVE this soundtrack. Especially the battle and overworld music especially.
Thanks for subscribing too! I've got a new review in the works and hope to have it out shortly here.
She did briefly when she talked about the art style for the enemies. She said they looked like they're dancing to a killer soundtrack or something like that.
Nice review! I still have my original copy of this one, and just never circled back to finish it. I remember running into multiple ways to essentially softlock it with bad stats or character choices, and couldn’t bring myself to restart again at some point. Now I wonder how many of those hidden upgrades I missed. Cool to hear that there are patched versions to fix the stat issues.
I can understand why you might have felt discouraged. I ended up having to fight Valsu (the priest) as my apprentice fight, and it took me two whole hours to get through without him killing me. It was annoying and I'm sure it could've been even worse with other character combos. A lot of folks would agree the way to play is with a patch these days, if you ever decide to try it again sometime. Thanks for watching!
HG you have more patience than I do. I don’t think I’d have made it through this game. Thanks for the stream and video.
You're welcome! I had a blast with this one.
Hey Hungry Goryia, I love your channel! I've been looking for a channel like this for a while, reviews of old school games by someone who does it in a nice chill way I can relax too. Thank you!!!! 🤣🤩🤩
I'm glad you're enjoying your time here. Thanks so much!
I'm so glad you liked this one. Those 65 hours sure flew by... I'm so glad I was able to catch most of this playthrough live! Great review as always Hungry!
Thank you so much! Your positive reception of the game was heartening in a sea of people who insisted this game was the worst of the worst. I enjoyed hanging out with you when you played it as well.
@@Kronoan The VODs on Twitch expire for me after two months so they're gone from the channel, unfortunately. I have them stored locally but I don't upload those. I like to keep the livestreams as a separate experience because I am mostly just speaking to chat while I play... it doesn't make for the greatest watching after the fact.
I never did beat this game, but it's always been one of my favorite RPGs on a console known for amazing RPGs. It was the first game where I got to play as a "bad guy" (Lejes the demon) and it allowed for so much replayability just by choosing a different character. Of course, the game's difficulty varies from player to player and character to character (as a 12- or 13-year old, I couldn't beat Red Pison as Lejes, for instance, but managed to beat him as Esuna years later without trying too hard), but man, I remember that first playthrough being genuinely afraid of random encounters in a new area.
Thanks for covering this great game! Hidden gems such as 7th Saga always deserve such in-depth reviews for (hopefully) new players to discover!
And yeah, I still favor Esuna and Lejes as my preferred protagonists. Kamil is my third favorite because Red Mage is my favorite Final Fantasy job. ;)
EDIT: I learned early on as Lejes to just avoid talking to any of the other heroes as most of them hate him. That little bit of PTSD still remains to this day, as I'd rather travel alone than chance a rune fight regardless of who I'm maining.
It sounds like you got a ton of mileage out of the game even though you haven't finished it. Any plans to take it to the end one of these days? I'd love to play through again some day with Esuna or Lejes... Lejes was one of my first choices but I didn't like how stacked in one direction he was. He made me nervous for a first playthrough.
Kamil got on my bad side right away by joining my party even though I told him no... the translation was kinda wonky in that part and I accidentally invited him to come along with me. I actually reset :D
@@hungrygoriya
I'm hoping to one day finish it. Unfortunately my back log of games has become ridiculously long since the PS1 days, and with life being what it is, it's difficult to set aside time for an old RPG (especially since I keep pouring my time into modern timesinks like Breath of the Wild and Dragon's Dogma). That said: I hope to reach a point when I can just set aside a few weeks to do nothing but finish games on that backlog, and 7th Saga is right up there near the top of the list. :)
Lejes is sort of what I look for in a solo character: a sort of hybrid fighter/mage. Except his learned spells are far more offensive-minded than I generally prefer. My personality tends to be more in line with Kamil or Valsu (all-around or defensive/support), but either choice also requires having at least one other, more offense-focused party member, so as someone who is trying to avoid dealing with other heroes, I have to be able to carry myself, and Lejes combines magic might with the ability to use most weapons (even if he is quite squishy). Admittedly, I had no idea about all this my first time playing as I just liked the idea of playing a demon, but I quickly learned as I went. As I got older, I realized that Esuna fits the solo role a bit better as her magic is quite a bit stronger than Lejes, but unlike the demon, if she ever runs out of magic, she's toast.
I'm sorry you had such a poor experience with Kamil. My first experience with Lejes had Wilme do the same thing to me (inviting himself along), and while at first I was really enjoying having someone just rip into enemies and saving me the trouble of using MP, when we managed to get a rune, that was when he decided to attack me for it before I had a chance to rest, and I ended up using most of my items just to beat him because he hits like a truck. Hence: I travel alone. >.>
@@LordSephleon I'm intrigued by the potential that seems to exist in trying out other characters... I'm not sure who I'd choose going forward in another jaunt but I'm still leaning toward Esuna or Lejes. I'd be scared to have MP be the one factor for success in battle, which is why I am also attracted to characters with a balanced skill set. We shall see!
@@hungrygoriya As a non-spoiler tip to hopefully help you make a decision, I can tell you that both Esuna and Lejes learn spells that let them steal MP from enemies relatively early on. Esuna is more efficient with it as she can steal more per casting than Lejes, but she also has a deeper MP pool. The only thing is that the target has to have MP to steal to begin with, so RNG can really make it difficult to get back much-needed MP while out and about in the world/dungeon. Of the primary casters, only Valsu has some issues getting back MP on the road, I think (I never used him, so I don't know if he learns any MP-restoring magic).
Over the years, I've noticed that people seemed to like Lux for his story and playstyle, so if you can get past his clunking around in towns, he might also be a good choice.
Wilme might be the most straightforward, but also the most boring as he doesn't really use magic, nor does he need equipment. However, he IS an alien, so if that story interests you...
Maybe you could livestream/upload your next playthrough. ;)
EDIT: One thing about Esuna: her magic gets really powerful, to the point that even Ice1 can level some early bosses and will likely carry you in many random encounters. She's the epitome of a glass cannon. You're not likely to have to worry about MP if you beeline it to bosses when you are, in fact, going to progress the story instead of XP/gold farming.
This review makes me want to play the game. I love RPGs, and this is one of the most unique ones I have ever seen.
If you do end up playing this, enjoy it! It's a tough one but definitely worth the strife.
@@hungrygoriya I know some games are difficult but worth it in the end. At least with RPGs I can level grind for days on end if I need too.
Great analysis of the game! I speedrun it, and there is definitely a lot of planning involved with the speedrun. At the same time, the RNG can vary so much that the game can become brutal at times. I agree with what you said that its an underrated RPG, and the ways it can be customized is great!
Right on! Congratulations on tackling such a challenging run by the sounds of it. Are you looking to reach a certain goal time or just seeing how fast you can get through it? And do you tend to go with certain characters over others? I know nothing about the speedrun!
I was going to buy this about 5 months ago, but I got Maniac Mansion instead. I am going back today and getting it. Thank you again for a great review.
I hope you enjoy it! Like I said: there are a few mean parts but it's mostly down to luck, or pure grit to push through. Good luck!
Wow. Extremely well thought out review. Great stuff. Gained a fan and a sub. Keep up the great work!
Thanks very much :) I appreciate this game a lot and wanted to give it a fair shake.
This was also one of my favorites on the SNES when it came out... though my memories of it are fuzzy at best. I know I played once as the robot and once as the knight, though I'm not sure I ever beat it. It's nice to see it getting a little attention... for a while I never heard anyone talk about it and after loosing track of my SNES I was half beginning to think I had just dreamed the whole thing up.
It's cool that you got to play this one when you were young. I know a lot of people generally don't enjoy this game because of its difficulty factor but I really appreciated a lot of things about it, difficulty included. So many people told me I'd hate it coming into it and it turned out it was actually very fun.
i actually got this game in the box a little while ago and wanted to try it but was intimidated by what everyone was saying about it online haha...thanks for this video you've inspired me to give it a go!
Oh nice! I hope it's in good condition :) And I pretty much had a chorus of people saying this game was so hard and so impossible, and while it was in some places, it was also really fun and interesting too. Have fun!
One of the few golden era RPGs that I actually never got into. I love the enemy design shown in your video though. So I’ll probably give it a shot in the future. Hopefully it’ll be released for current gen consoles like other previous SaGa games have been.
Good luck with it when you get going! It's definitely tough in spots but well worth the effort in the end. I don't think it's related to the other SaGa games at all. Those are great too though!
your determination in beating this game on the original console, sans-emulation, is impressive. Even with fast forward + emulator saves, I couldn't do it; At least not a few years ago when I gave it another shot.. which was the first time in about 25 years. I found tecmo secret of the stars less monotonous!
I haven't played Secret of the Stars yet, but thanks for the warning, haha
Love this game, as rough as it is I always played Valsu. When he gets to level 40ish you get a spell that heals a party member for full hp/mp and it can work on yourself in or out of battle. He literally turns into a mobile inn.
Oh man... he's definitely someone I might consider partnering with when I finally get around to replaying this. He was my apprentice fight and he was ruthless!
This game looks very interesting although challenging by the sounds of it. I'm a "Sega Guy" and never had a SNES as a teenager. But, I'd like to start collecting for the SNES. I'll put this game on the RPG list for the SNES.
Good luck with the collecting... this one's fairly inexpensive as far as SNES RPGs go at least.
@@hungrygoriya That's a good thing. I've noticed that too. SNES games seem to be more expensive than their Sega counterparts.
A cool thing about this game is that the strategic side changes drastically depending on who you pick and who's your ally. There's a lot of talk online about what the "best" team is but honestly it's beatable with anyone. Just know that the early game grind will be severe if you pick esuna or valsu as your main.
Yeah! I'm excited to replay it with different characters down the line. I think Olvan had access to a whole tower most characters don't get to go into. It's pretty cool, even if it's nuanced.
@Hungry Goriya i played it once using the demon Lejes, i finished the game solo but iirc i was never aware that its possible to recruit other characters.
@@ianbuenav Oh nice! Lejes was someone I was interested in playing as too. Soloing this game must be so tough. Nice work!
@Hungry Goriya i honestly dont remember much, im not sure if it is possible to recruit a party with Lejes.
I also enjoyed this game a lot, and as you said, trying to survive and seeing the progress in the beginning was really exciting and rewarding to me. I really liked the atmosphere and I felt the motivation to grind in order to feel more secure. This sense of making my company more immune is what I really love about cRPGs in general. Story telling isn't the best in this game but also it's just fine. I just didn't bother too much as I just wanted to skill up and have a good time with good, atmospheric music and nice, non-cartoon graphics. I guess it's not for everyone but I highly recommend this game. I work on a cRPG for Commodore 64 computers called Meonlawel that certainly will have some of the mechanics I really loved in the 7th Saga.
Glad to hear we had a similar experience. It's tough in places but definitely worth the effort, just as you mentioned here. Good luck on your game development!
@@hungrygoriya Thanks!! I wonder if I should also embrace this kind of uncertainty level and terror in my project. It’s going to be a horroresque game so I am willing to do so :D.
@@hungrygoriya Thank you!! Exactly, the 7th Saga rewards you generously after tough parts. The Wind Rune, Star Rune or the others. It really makes the effort worth it.
I had this game as a teenager. Coming from games like chrono trigger and final fantasy 6, 7th saga was a bit of a kick in the teeth. I never did get past getting the third or fourth rune. I recently picked it back up after researching some strategies. Despite struggling with it as a youth i really loved the medievil atmosphere of this game. Esuna is a blast to play with.
I'm happy you got to play as Esuna... :( If I ever do another playthrough I'm going to try to start with her so she's guaranteed to be my friend this time! It's nice to hear that you came around on it eventually. It really did take a lot of strategy and planning that I'm sure feels a lot more manageable with adult patience.
@@hungrygoriya Definitely make Esuna your main or at least your support. She's damn near the best apprentice in the game due to her high speed stat and stat growth. Powerful magic/buffs along decent physical damage.
Unfortunately i ran into a bug/glitch in which I am unable to recruit Lejes, where he's supposed to have a 1 out of 20 chance to join Esuna, I spent nearly 2 hours attempting to recruit him with no success. This was using the fast forward feature on the emulator I was using, as well. I may have to just count my loses and accept that I can't recruit Lejes for some unknown reason. I even went as far as downloading a ROM editor and set the recruit rate to 100% and still no luck. I may stick with Valsu or Olvan as a partner.
@@postplays Esuna was who I wanted to play with initially but I accidentally fought her not knowing I shouldn't do that... soooo I went the whole game lamenting not having had the opportunity to see what she was made of.
That's terrible about not being able to recruit Lejes... I have no idea what makes these games tick but I hope you can still enjoy the rest of the game with Valsu or Olvan. I personally loved Olvan because he was reliable in quite a few ways, but he's very slow! Between him and Lux, it was the slowest possible run I think I could've done :D
I never managed to beat this one (only rented it and I played US version since I was in the US at the time), but Fortress City is one of my favorite SNES songs. On the defense mechanic, my thinking is that maybe the developers realized that you will tend to be adventuring alone a good portion of the game or with just one companion making the defend option entirely or largely useless if it didn't have some benefit to using it here and there. I think it had a little too much of a benefit though, making it a dominant mechanic. It seems tricky to me to design a turn-based game that largely plays with only one or two party members.
One of the things I really like about the game is the art style. I think it's a bit less cartoonish than ones like Zelda and Final Fantasy (we can't see massive pixelated eyes on the characters, e.g.). I think I prefer this kind of style more.
Do you think the game would've been playable without the defense option for melee characters? I only ask because it felt like I was doing 5% damage without it in some fights...it would've been a lot less playable for my party anyway.
I also loved the style here too. The SNES aesthetic for RPGs I find very charming but this is also very cool in its own way. They did a good job with something different, and I especially love the enemies.
@@hungrygoriya It's a tricky one for me as very deeply opinionated gamedev (not that I'm necessarily right, just deeply opinionated with my own tastes -- I think we need them as gamedevs because it can take years to produce a game and we can't be the types to second-guess ourselves too much or else we'll lose motivation very quickly). I am imagining a whole new game if there was no defense mechanic.
I have no idea how to design a TBS (turn-based system) to avoid very repetitive strategies if we're reduced in options/turn to control just a character or two. I always felt like the most tactical thinking in TBS is given in those that give users the maximum number of things to think about per turn, like having many squad members (say 6+) to potentially coordinate together. Or introduce like a time unit (TU) or action point (AP) system that allows one character to perform multiple moves per turn (same kind of thing to me at overarching design level; it effectively gives users a lot more to think about each turn before the enemy gets theirs).
I think one possible mechanic but I still think it would become too potentially repetitive or risk being largely unused is defending increasing a chance (not guarantee) to counterattack, and perhaps the chance is increased by character level/class making it desirable to defend and possibly counterattack with certain character builds. Say there is a 30% chance to counterattack. In a lucky scenario, the player might be able to defend three attacks from three separate enemies and counterattack them 3 times in one turn in ways they can't if they get lucky (happens about 3.6% of the time to counter three times in a row with those odds, and about ~10% of the time to counterattack twice). They might get only one attack/turn but if they want to gamble, they can defend, reduce damage, and potentially counterattack one or more times/turn.
That introduces a risk assessment factor if we balance it reasonably. The way I see it is mostly give players lots of options to think about so that they're not stuck repeating the same combination of things over and over. I like the ones we call tactical RPGs/SRPGs nowadays as a result where positioning units arbitrarily is allowed, since that adds a whole new dimension to what we have to think about per turn (as well as making things like AoE far more interesting than an ability which just hits every opposing enemy and ranged attacks and mobility far more interesting; positioning has to be factored into account).
@@darkengine5931 Yeah these are all good points. The small party aspect is a huge hindrance as well, but adding in a percentage chance offense increase might've resulted in even more death, haha... It'd just make the game even more hardcore! Not necessarily a bad thing!
@@hungrygoriya One of my more controversial opinions on game design (although it wasn't when I was younger, but I'm now in my 40s and ideas on game design have evolved a lot) is that I really like the RNG (in certain contexts) for TBS. I think it introduces a risk assessment skill requirement for the player. I often see gamers and even some developers pit RNG vs. player skill, but I don't think it's quite right. There is a certain skill required in risk assessment if the game challenges it properly.
It's like the skill required for a leader whether he/she be general or project manager. They're faced with dilemmas that have no guarantees of success or failure, like whether a general should attempt a rescue mission for soldiers stranded in enemy territory. They have to weigh risk vs. reward to effectively make decisions that amount to more successes than failures in the long run; they can't just grab a gun and go Rambo and rely on their physical prowess to succeed or fail.
But I think if RNG is used right in a TBS, it feels like it's challenging this type of skill. If it feels like we're playing a slot machine and mindlessly doing the same things over and over hoping to get lucky, then I think we've failed as gamedevs to use the RNG in an interesting way. I think used correctly, it should challenge the type of thinking required of a Poker player, for example, who might legitimately have reasons to take a full 5 mins of thought to make what seems like a simple decision as far as their options to raise/call/fold go (but not the things they should be factoring in to make their decision).
I find games really interesting when they challenge this type of skill like X-Com (1994), Blood Bowl, etc. I take a lot of inspiration from those for turn-based systems.
Would you ever consider doing a play though of 7th Saga? Perhaps with a different character than Olvan? Just discovered your channel about a week ago and I absolutely love it, you have such an excellent voice for play throughs, and I adore the little chip-tune as your intro. Subscribed!
I livestream over on Twitch about 4 times a week playing different stuff all the time. I've been moving forward with different games instead of replaying much since I have so many others I'd like to experience, but I'm definitely interested in revisiting this one again sometime with different characters.
Thanks so much for your kindness! I'm glad you're enjoying the channel!
Another fantastic review as always.
I love this game drive me crazy when I was younger.......took fooooooorever to beat thanks for this review ♥️
I think I put over 60 hours in to beat this one... it definitely wasn't short! I'm glad you made it through too.
The 7th Saga is a total classic! I picked Lejes as a kid and got locked out by an unavoidable boss fight with Olvan... When I came back to it years later, I selected Esuna and picked Lux as my companion- I was so satisfied when I finally beat it! My best friend in HS got locked out as well, he dramatically over leveled and was unable to defeat one of the companions holding a rune in a later part of the game. Very fun, but very punishing RPG!~
Excellent review as always! Thank you!
Thanks for watching!
I actually managed to softlock this game back in the late 1990s. I played on emu but did not know how to cheat or use save states well at the time. Without spoiling, there is a point of no return with a massive difficulty spike. I saved before battling anything and found that I couldn't win any battles. I had survived the previous boss battle just marginally so I was essentially doomed by my own luck.
If I ever try this again I will max level cheat to enjoy the story.
That must've been so frustrating. Sorry you got stuck like that.
@hungrygoriya Haha, thanks. I can easily laugh at it now. It takes a colossal waste of time to make one realize the importance of saving. In fact that experience is what led me to discover save states.
Hey, could you please tell where the images from 1:29 in the video come from? I've looked around for the manual of this game but the only one I could find is missing pages
When I played this game for the first time, I played as Esuna Busy. Alone. Was one of the greatest RPG experiences ever. Every time I play this game, I play as her and ONLY her. It's so challenging and fun to play as a dainty female character against the world for some reason. Every single encounter I always wondered if I was going to make it out alive. A few things: Critical hits do double damage (obviously) but what they DON'T tell you is no special animation accompanies it, so sometimes you wonder how you got one shot. B Protects only cost you 100 gold, and you can buy them in bulk so you can survive things you normally would not be able to. With Esuna, I didn't buy any armor for her because it wouldn't have made a difference; there is a Tiara type item that gives her 10 defense, but it's past the cave with the Green Mimic item you showed earlier. I used a B Protect for Pison, and two more for the Androds I would immediately meet outside (HP/MP catches automatically hit Andriods). Once i have that and another B Protect, I had enough defense power to fight the Green Mimic for that 500 gold topaz (just using B Protect wasn't enough). There are certain earlygame bosses that can 1 shot you on a critical, and I would just rather take the RNG then grind for 3 hours. Another thing about bosses is they have limited MP; you can stall out thier MP until they use it all, so they can't cure themselves when their HP gets low. Last thing: sometime after you get Rune #3 you get to a town that has a Ring on the floor of one of the houses that makes you immune to instant death. Also, when you get the 2nd world, hold of on buying anything until you get to the wrecked Airship store with the last of your equipment to save on your money there.
I think if I play again, I'm going to try with Esuna and one of the other fighter/magic combo characters. Hopefully! These are all some interesting bits of advice too. I'll keep those in mind.
@@hungrygoriya Try doing Rainow Silk Road for the NES next,. its an RPG where you can't level up, you need to buy and trade and get better equipment that provides stats.
I like how they used the overworld map for some of the battles.
There were lots of fantastic choices made in this game that made it feel truly unique from other stuff released at the time!
I remember Lux being my go-to choice hero for this game because his stats leveled very well without needing a ton of gear so he scaled really really well into the mid to endgame. Been a while though!
I can definitely see why you'd go with him! I also heard it's good to take him along so he doesn't end up being your rival. Apparently he's really hard to beat!
Lux also gets the upgrade in Past Melenam which is nice. But he is easily the slowest player in the game.
@@SirJoelsuf1 I had Lux and Olvan, so yes... I can attest to this.
@@SirJoelsuf1 i dont know about slowest. Theres only 2 different character speeds and lux is no slower than kamil or olvan. And with the stat boost late on technically faster than those two outside of just getting speed maxed
My guess is a lot of ppl were in a similar situation to me.
You were a kid and you'd rent this for a weekend, you'd fail to beat it, and then by the time you'd get it again, your save would be gone and you'd have to start over.
Yeah, that definitely sounds like a less than ideal way to play.
I enjoyed this review, thanks. :)
Ive been curious about this one for a long time. Most reviews online are negative but I've spoken to several people who completed it and they really enjoyed it.
Thracia 776 on the Super Famicom is the hardest rpg I ever played. It's got a fan translation.
I really loved this game. I hope you give it a try sometime and enjoy it as well. And Thracia 776 eh? I can't say I've heard of it before, but I'm adding it to my list of things to look into.
@@hungrygoriya thracia 776 is a hard one to recommend. It's VERY long and difficult. It ate up my video game time for an embarrassingamount of time. But it is one of the most beautiful 16 bit games and is very well made.
I beat the game when it came out - US SNES release. The overall difficulty wasn't too bad, except for the one legendarily brutal battle in the middle. Once you cross that, though, it's smooth sailing.
If it's the same battle I'm thinking of, I got stuck there for a long time too. There were a few big difficulty spikes for me, but that might've been my party make-up.
I always really wanted to try this, but I play on my psp and don't think I can patch sadly
Bummer :(
I always thought it funny how the 'Stone Witch' enemies from this game could hurt you just by making a face at you. I can't recall ever finding a hidden item on the ground; I didn't even know they existed! Thanks for telling me (belated though that is). I know that in Lufia: The Fortress of Doom, there are items EVERYWHERE in towns, but you have a huge inventory space and the items are physical barriers if you bump into them, so it isn't so hard.
Yeah, this game was so unforgiving with its stat boosts that I permitted hints from my stream chat about when there was something hidden. They're definitely worth picking up!
In Lufia, I loved that hidden stuff was at least obvious. That game has a lot of charm to it. I really enjoyed it for the most part!
@@hungrygoriya I never finished the game. Too hard.
"I'd recommend this one to anybody that loves hardcore RPGs like Ultima IV, Phantasy Star, or Miracle Warriors." Lol, unfortunately there are very few of us! Your channel is similar to ImplantGames, CannotBeTamed, and DariaPlays: your audience will sadly forever be limited by your own good taste :)
Those are all wonderful channels, and I'm honoured to be thought of as similar to them! Thanks so much for the high praise!
I’d always wanted to start this game, but rumors of its difficulty and “weird” premise prevented me from giving it a shot. You might have changed my mind. Thank you!
Good luck with it!
Protip. Save before you level up. Make sure you get enough speed. Some of the enemies scale with your level so you can get screwed by random growths.
Are the attributes you get with a level randomized? I seem to remember they were.
@@hungrygoriya Yeah. Also, delay getting a partner for as long as possible. They keep their JP growth rate and match your level when you join. So, if you recruit them early, they'll be much weaker later on (they also sap half of your xp).
@@IdeonFukkatsu Ah right right... I feel like when I played through I knew that but I'd forgotten.
Great video. It kinda' make me want to give this game a shot. And it's funny you mentioned Phantasy Star. Because as much as I love the original PS, now-a-days I turn to Game Genie/Shark to bypass the grinding. :D
Maybe try the patched version? I haven't tried any of them but I know of the few listed, each of them introduce various quality of life changes that you might enjoy.
I did Lux and Esuna and really liked that combo. Lux is awesome.
Lux was definitely a fantastic addition to my party. I'd love to play through again sometime with Esuna. She's still a dream party member for me.