i have a very unfortunate issue when it comes to writing about games. there's a very arbitrary threshold on where i think my words have any real meaning and where they start to feel they're just extremely cheap. that is usually proportionate with how much i like the game itself, I don't think I've ever written anything meaningful about Mother 3 all these years and I don't know when I will, it's my favorite game after all.

so, when a game is just "me" like SaGa Frontier is... yeah it becomes super hard to even try to talk about it. especially harder when this is some weird niche game a lot of people can't get into. like if i can't even feel like any words i write about it will be worthy of me reading them, who would it be for then?

it's a bit like trying to talk about myself, i think i know my strong points but it feels weak when i externalize it. so i usually mask it with a joke so that's what i'll do here i'm just gonna tag each route like they were in doujinshi or fanfiction websites:

Asellus: rebirth, vampire, obsession, power exchange, harem, yuri
Red: super sentai, vanilla, revenge, martial arts tournament, evil organization, alien
Lute: slice of life, relaxed, women in power, political, giant robot
Riki: monster, innocent, corruption, inspired by the lord of the rings
Blue: twins, assassination, magic, training, heaven, hell
T260: robot, colosseum, amnesia, found family, virtual reality, doomsday device, power-up
Emelia: marriage, murder, prison break, casino, martial arts tournament, harem, commando, secret organization, ancient mask, devi
Fuse: detective, comedy, alternate universe

After fiddling with this game on and off to little success in my teens, I found an approach that worked for me: pick it up once every three years or so, beat one scenario, and put it down. This keeps me from burning out on the relatively slim amount of content (i.e. torturing myself with back-to-back Rune quest runs) and preserves the mystique of the intricate mechanics, the postmodernist style mashup, the cryptic staccato dialogue, all the stuff that makes Frontier special. The only character I have left is... Riki. (I doubt I'll play Fuse, since I've cleared four of the other characters on different platforms and I don't much feel like doing it again.)

Anyway, Lute blows, but everyone knew that already. See you in 2026!

I feel like i cant really dislike this game, as i enjoy how enigmatic it can be and it introduced me to one of my favorite artists (Tomomi Koyayashi) however i really just did not find it fun to play. The gameplay itself, while poorly explained, was fairly fun. But i often found myself becoming really frustrated with the strange difficulty jumps, particularly with some of the bosses. Im not sure how I would of gotten through this game without the new QoL features of the remaster. A lot of the game felt very repetitive and needlessly obtuse...and then there is the plot. The writing felt all over the place. The only story i kind of enjoyed was Asellus', but it felt like such wasted potential for something that could of been really really cool. T260G and Riki's events seemed okay enough but the rest were confusing... Blue's just ends randomly and i think i only played as Lute for around 15 minutes. I could not even finish playing as Fuse because this game was wearing me thin. People talk about unfinished games, but this one to me felt like entire chunks were taken out of it. It's such a shame too because this game has some of the best character designs i've ever seen, and i really wanted to enjoy it.

This was also the last game my old dog Nico watched me play. I was holding him on my lap the day before we had to take him to the vets.... when i think on my time with this game, it makes me feel kind of sick. I wish i was playing a more comforting game.

What's with Square's recent obsession with AI upscaling? And here its looking more like one of these xbr shaders instead. I realize some people may prefer it like that and is fine to have options like that, but it's ridiculous to not have the option to play it with original graphics...

Other than that, its probably one of the best remasters square has made(not that it means much considering how mediocre these are in general), they actually added content that had been planned for the original ps1 release, but cut due to time constraints. And there are some legit great QoL improvements. It suffers a bit from having a very mobile-ish default interface, but pretty much everything can be disabled except the auto-save circle every new screen and the generic font, which can be a bit annoying.

This remaster is a really good version of this game. There are quite a few quality of life changes that make the experience more streamlined and some restored and expanded content that add quite a bit to the experience.
I played the original release of SaGa Frontier when it came out on the Playstation 1, and I liked it a lot. It is a very unique RPG that does a ton of interesting things that aren't like many other (non SaGa) RPGs. SaGa Frontier doesn't come through with complete success, but it still has a lot of great stuff in it.

SF has of 8 characters to choose from, each of which has a fairly short, personal story to play through. The stories can be a bit ridiculous or lighthearted, but some have some poignant moments and fun (if campy) events. The new character added in the remaster (Fuse) adds a lot to this, since his story is actually a series of very short narratives in which he investigates each of the other characters, giving more context and depth to them.
Most of the characters also highlight a specific system (Blue is collecting all the magic in the world, T260G's quest focuses on robots and how their advancement works, Asellus does the same for Mystics), so playing through all of the chapters ends up being a tour of the world as well as a tour of the mechanics throughout the game. The human chapters seem to want to focus on each of the weapon types, but don't do a super good job of making this an actual part of the story or as mechanically necessary as the non-humans do, which is kind of a bummer.

Mechanically the game is straightforward, with most of the interest coming from how you build and set up your characters, rather than the individual battles. Learning the nuance of each of the different character types and what works best in certain situations is very rewarding. However, once you have this figured out the combat drags a bit, since you can just smash through everything with overpowered techniques.
You do have to recruit and outfit each character you want to use in every chapter and reacquire any magic you want to use, which is very tedious (especially in Fuse's case files, where he rifles through them so quickly).

The world and style of SaGa Frontier is very unique. It has a low-tech, sci-fi, magic heavy aesthetic and takes place in an open world that consists of multiple planets, each of which are different and somewhat interesting.
It is colorful and wild, with enemy designs that are often very surreal or just strange. They have a very mashed-up feel that can be somewhat off-putting, but worked well for me in this eclectic group of sci-fi worlds.

I had a lot of fun playing through SaGa Frontier again in this remaster. It delivers very well on the open world RPG experience, which is rare, even if the gameplay itself is fairly simple and straightforward. If you want a quirky, unique experience that isn't much like any other RPG you have played, SaGa frontier is worth checking out.

Really solid remaster, there are some thing that I don't like but the good definitely outweighs the bad for me and the bad is just a small nitpick like them nerfing how much gold sells for lol. The translation is still rough around the edges even in the new scenario that was cut from the original game but it is what it is not a huge issue to me.

Anyways SaGa Frontier was already one of my favorite games and remastered did the original justice while adding in optional stuff that was cut. If you're looking for something non-linear with tons of wacky mechanics look no further.

Also I recommend you start with either Red, Asellus or Emilia first.

Played through Asellus's story. I will return to other scenarios later so I don't get burnt out. I was interested in Asellus based on Miwa Shoda's work in Nights of Azure and reading her interviews and drafts on the work in The Essence of SaGa Frontier/The Complete of SaGa Frontier. While it doesn't delve much into the eroticism or sensuality that you'd find in Nights of Azure, the focus on much more of a subtly queer identity struggle makes sense for what's a more conventional JRPG coming of age narrative that's just a bit quietly subversive of the gendered dimensions that usually surround such stories. It's really funny to imagine Miwa Shoda writing the scene after White Rose stays behind in the Dark Labyrinth and Zozma interrogates Asellus on her internalised homophobia while in the next room over in Division 1, the FF7 team is cooking up the Honey Bee Inn.

Played three routes: Red, Emilia, and most of T260G.

Really interesting but not especially fun to play. Feels like a reimagining of the Game Boy SaGa games with its mosaic setting and four unique character types, but no one type is as satisfying to raise as humans were in the Romancing SaGa games (and monsters are just awful). The structure of the game encourages you to play it once for each of the eight (!) protagonists, but playthroughs are too long and repetitive for that to feel worth doing. Also, the remaster is kind of ugly, sleek UI aside.

A long underated, and instant classic to me. The games obtuse nature only spurred me to play it more. Many discouraged at the open or vague nature of the game Id implore you to explore and give it a chance. Many surprises despite being light on story and heavy on combat mechanics, a guide would prove useful to many if they feel like its all too much. Just make sure you don't start the game using Lute or Riki! I hope to return one day to conquer the super bosses but I have completed all 8 scenarios right before Romancing SaGa Minstral Song Remastered dropped and went straight into that.

Octopath Travelver but good

(I have not played Octopath)

Will continue to update after each campaign

I've only played 4 of the 8 campaigns (Red, Emilia, Asellus, and T260G), but I can safely say that this game is fantastic. The world of SaGa Frontier was so much fun to explore.

For those that haven't played it, SaGa Frontier has seven campaigns; each stars different main characters with their own unique stories in the same world. Well, the world isn't EXACTLY the same; each character will have a few areas and quests that are exclusive to them.

It's a unique style, and it works brilliantly. On your first run, you're presented with a vast world with tons of secrets to discover: sidequests, optional characters and dungeons, schools of magic, etc. In fact, the majority of the content in any playthrough is optional. Enemy strength more or less scales with how many battles you've fought too, so you can tackle content in any order you see fit.

But how about subsequent playthroughs? Outside of the main stories (which are pretty neat, by the way) and related areas, the world is largely the same. So what's the appeal of multiple playthroughs? The answer is simple: experimentation. After your first playthrough, you'll have a better grasp of all the mechanics and what the game has to offer. You can more easily make the most out of each race of character or school or magic. You can build characters differently, or even recruit all new characters. You can finish content in different orders than before. You can find new secrets in areas that had nothing in previous campaigns. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

Oh and the music is great. The final bosses' difficulty is compounded by the fact that you have the fight off the urge to break out in dance.