Who needs seven wonders when you have seven stars?
July 2, 2018
Incredible…
July 2, 2018
Author’s Note: This review was originally published on July 14th, 2003. I’m not sure what it was that made me decide to review The 7th Saga. Was it boredom? Was it an urge to let the world know my thoughts on this long-forgotten RPG? It’s hard to say, but I happily admit that my opinion of the game has improved with time.
The 7th Saga is one weird game that Enix just popped out of nowhere. For it’s time, it may have been an ok game…but it would’ve been better if it wasn’t so flawed.
Story: 4/10
King Lemele has gathered seven adventurers to his town to embark on a quest. They are to find the seven magical runes of the elements. These runes hold the balance of the world together. The person who finds all the runes will get a fabulous reward.
No matter who you choose, you will end up performing the same order of events. You’ll meet up with the other six adventurers later in the game as well. This story seems familiar to the *gasp* Final Fantasy stories revolving around the four crystals. Basically, it’s very cliche and un-original. There is some depth to it, but it’s an early Enix game, so don’t go expecting something deep.
Gameplay: 5/10
The menus can be a bit frustrating to use. Also, talking to people is really annoying. On the field, you’re represented as a small circle inside a crystal ball. The white moving dots are enemies. This is a nice way of avoiding enemies, although they still manage to catch up to you. But overall, the gameplay in the field is pretty basic.
Battles: 6/10
Your battles are your standard turn-based battles. Your options are Attack, Magic, Item…stuff like that. One interesting thing is that if you defend, you can charge up for a critical hit. But other than that, it’s all the same old same old. The battles really can get tedious and annoying. Also, a lot of the enemies are HARD. You’re going to have to do a lot of leveling up in this game if you want to finish it. What’s worse is that you have can only have ONE person join you. That’s right, just one. The most terrible part of the battles is that if you encounter one of the adventurers and lose, you’ll end up losing half of your money and all of your runes. And chances are that you will lose those battles. So overall, the battles are basic and easy to grasp, but they can get very annoying VERY quickly.
Characters: 2/10
Sure, there are seven different characters and all…but they all talk and act the same. They have no development over time mainly because they have just one mission: get the runes. But as I mentioned, it’s an early Enix game so what can you expect?
Graphics: 8/10
The graphics are actually quite impressive. In battle, the characters are highly detailed and have some nice motions. They haven’t been ”chibified” and actually look like real people. The spells look ok, they’re pretty much all the same. The backgrounds are good for an SNES game. While in town, the characters look really odd. They walk the weirdest way I’ve ever seen. If I saw someone walking ”The 7th Saga” I’d raise an eyebrow. But overall, the graphics are good.
Music and Sound: 7/10
The songs in this game are ok. A lot of them seem out of place at times though. You’ll be hearing the tracks a lot though, because they DO repeat.
The sounds are really annoying. They can really get on your nerves because they just pierce the physics of sound waves.
Replay Value: 1/10
Unless you wish to try a new character, you’ll never play this game again. There are no secret endings, no extras, no nothing.
Difficulty: HARD!!
This game is one of the most challenging games you’ll ever play. You’ll be doing so much leveling up, it’ll make your head spin! If you’re interested in this game, you better get ready for a challenge.
Buy or Rent: Rent
Umm…I don’t know of any movie stores that still have SNES rentals. But I’ll just tell you to not go out and buy it. Chances are that you won’t like it too much. And let us not forget that there are always emulators for you to use.
Overall, 4/10: So overall, The 7th Saga is not the greatest game ever. If you want a challenge however, then I say you should give this game a shot.
1 Comment
It’s unfair to pick on a decades-old review for an even older game, but I did want to correct two omissions:
1. t7S was a modified Elnard; the original Japanese game had much higher battle rewards, stat growth rates, and fewer battles. Enix America must have been masochists.
2a. The characters, and one shared event, are actually very variable. Some of this is RNG (when you recruit another hero to be your partner, each hero has a different rejection rate depending on who they are and when you ask), but for the most part replays can be different. Each character has unique access to at least two detours (some overlap); Olvan the old locksmith can find a shortcut through Grime Tower and can bypass the cost of ship travel (a bonus also shared with Esuna); Lux the robot even has an entire side story to discover.
2b: The warring mining towns/dragon in the mines can have 3 outcomes. You can make peace between the towns before locating the Rune, you can get the Rune from clearing out the dragon, or you can find a Macguffin IOU after seeing the dragon corpse because you took too long (and now have to search for the hero that beat you to it and fight them).