A witch, a vampire king, and a singing robotic stroll right into a bar in an RPG and produce a tedious story.
The final decade of SaGa ports and remakes have been illuminating within the west, shining a shiny gentle on a sequence that has by no means been on the high of the checklist of Sq. Enix’s famed franchises. The final model new entry within the SaGa sequence predates the Swap (the Japan-only 2016 Vita launch SaGa Scarlet Grace) and now, eight years later, comes SaGa Emerald Past – the primary model new SaGa recreation on Swap after greater than a half dozen different re-releases on the system. Sadly, the wait won’t have been value it as a result of Emerald Past is an uneven, oft boring recreation buoyed by a stable fight system.
Very like any entry within the sequence this century, Emerald Past includes a nonlinear construction the place participant selection guides you in several instructions for every story. You choose between 5 totally different characters, starting from aspiring witch Ameya Aisling to the singing robotic Diva No. 5, after which select between a number of totally different choices to discover totally different worlds resulting in an open-ended narrative conclusion that then encourages you to play with a unique character or replay one of many characters you could have already accomplished. In my expertise, every playthrough took round 5 hours (give or take), however the deeper I obtained into every replay, the extra bored I grew to become. The playthroughs do construct up an overarching story and are full of sufficient totally different areas to go to and issues to try this aren’t simply an identical runs, however the overlap in gameplay and presentation begin to blur all of the worlds collectively, turning it right into a veritable soup of an RPG quest.
The character selection is wacky, as along with the aforementioned teen witch and singing robotic, you even have a vampire king, a magical puppeteer, and a pair of rookie cops. To have the ability to go from vampire battles to cops investigating a homicide must be thrilling, however in execution, it’s simply bland. A variety of this comes from the flat presentation, each in how the 3D characters are introduced within the 2D overworld but in addition within the dialogue itself. All the pieces is overwrought and overlong, a far cry from the robust localization in SaGa Scarlet Grace that was one among my favourite elements of the sport. Sadly, the dialogue in Emerald Past unfolds with an nearly eerily logical precision, missing the pure hesitations of human dialog. Additionally would it not kill somebody to clarify to the Western viewers what a kugutsu is (for the report they’re simply summed up as demon puppets, which is possibly what they might have been referred to as in recreation and even simply described as in recreation).
Whereas Emerald Past boasts 17 totally different worlds to discover and plot threads that join collectively within the background, the moment-to-moment gameplay in every world may be very comparable. You enter a brand new space, press a button to mechanically scan for factors of curiosity, choose between one of some factors of curiosity, sit by gradual, lengthy dialogue, and sometimes combat a battle. Rinse and repeat. One time I collected logs discovered by wandering the overworld. One other time I seemed for cats. All of it’s simply point-to-point wandering round flat areas. Additionally, once in a while you must resolve a easy tangram puzzle. That’s principally the sport.
A few of that setup is much like how Scarlet Grace operated, nevertheless it’s streamlined to the purpose of obsolescence. Scarlet Grace had cities and blacksmiths to interrupt up the stream. In Emerald Past, you simply improve your weapons by the primary menu. This simplifies the method but in addition makes it so the sport is narrow-minded. A variety of my complaints about previous SaGa video games are that they are often too inscrutable for their very own good, however after taking part in Emerald Past, I’m coming to the belief that these video games are based mostly on layers of inscrutability. Making it simpler to know alters the alchemy that makes these video games enjoyable and fascinating.
All that being mentioned, the fight’s gratifying. The turn-based battles are constructed off of the bones of Scarlet Grace’s excellent fight system with a variety of good tweaks that make it slightly extra pleasant, however nonetheless adequately inscrutable as like previous video games, there are not any expertise factors and relying in your character’s race, you earn new talents semi-randomly. So far as the brand new tweaks, characters can equip two totally different weapon varieties now, combos are simpler to drag off, and totally different character varieties make for lots extra party-building selection. The fight fairly frankly saved this recreation for me.
It’s a disgrace that SaGa Emerald Past doesn’t stick the touchdown exterior of the gratifying turn-based fight as a result of it’s nonetheless a captivating and distinct sequence. I want I used to be extra engaged within the story, as a result of the potential of bouncing between 17 worlds and criss-crossing replayed tales sounds cool. It simply doesn’t coalesce into one thing all that enjoyable. Possibly the SaGa sequence is one thing finest left to ports and remakes.