this might be the perfect introduction to kawazu and his wild approach to the often more simplified rpg style of other jrpgs we all know. beside the romancing saga and saga frontier series it's more easily and immediately grasped, almost bite-sized. choose a starting character, and then enlist 3 more: human, esper, or monster. humans need to chug potions purchased from merchants to increase stats; espers have stat growth something like that of final fantasy 2 and randomly learn, replace, and relearn spells as they battle; monsters eat the flesh of other monsters to evolve and change form. weapons (swords, axes, etc) for the humans and espers have 'charges' like in a vancian magic system, which is a bit odd, but it works. your first quest soon becomes clear: collect 3 items needed from different castles to proceed. this is quickly achieved, a gateway into other worlds is opened, and thus your legend unfolds before you.

i won't spoil the rest. final fantasy may be known for its adventurous nature, but this trend started with ff2 and then kawazu began work on a long series of games one might describe as final fantasy's weirder sister series. many of the saga games feel a bit soberer than this one—saga 1 is a wild journey and it is all kinds of fun. that this began life on the game boy in 1989... it's almost like a poem, simple and elegant, offering a little dream-window into a surprisingly expansive world of weird and wonderful things. and far more so than something like the first dragon quest, another game i feel achieves much through charming minimalism: this game literally goes places.

ascend the tower!