This is a bit unfortunate, as I found myself really enjoying the game's combat. Feels a bit more stilted than contemporary JRPGs, but it's fluid enough to be engaging moment-to-moment. The strange statistical progression returns, as characters will grow based on what feels like random variables. You're essentially left to your own devices to go wherever you want, which is neat at first, but becomes a bit overwhelming due to how little feedback you actually get in terms of moving the plot forward. Since the script is almost entirely a 1:1 recreation of a 1992 game, the plot is already scarce enough. It appears most of this game's momentum comes from sidequests, which lead you to different storylines and rewards. However, because I was engaging the combat so heavily, I was inadvertently locking myself out of large chunks of content. Apparently there's a timer set on availability of these quests, and that timer is depleted as you continue getting into battles. I am not sure if this is explained in the game anywhere. Walkthroughs I decided to peek at, while I was stuck, emphasized avoiding combat encounters so that you could participate in a number of quests. Further strategies I saw in discussion boards recommended devoting resources to leveling up some stealth skill I had never even touched, as a means to get into as little combat as possible. The philosophy behind this feels strange, and I'm starting to think the SaGa series is one I will never be able to enjoy as much as others. I did play a bit of the original via emulation with a translation patch, but quit early on because the menu interface was somehow worse than the Gameboy games made before it... 3/6