How to play

[Recoil36]

So I have never played a saga game for long. How does one play it? Can you completely hose a play through? I was told to never grind your levels. How do you know if your characters are strong enough? Are these games really as open as people say? Thanks

[Darkling]

1. Play the game by wandering around and completing tasks in the main story for each character and various side quests. Consult the plot journal for help, it's in one of the config submenus. Otherwise it works like most JRPGs, only instead of random battles there are enemy icons you run into to start a fight.

2. To my knowledge the only ways to hose the game involve starting both the Rune and Arcane quests at the same time, especially in Riki's scenario. Having the gift for Rune or Arcane magic is not necessary for Riki, so you can just ignore them. Despite that I would play Riki's quest as my third or fourth character if I were a beginner.

Another way to hose yourself is to save on the Black Ray during Red's quest, which is beyond the point of no return. Just keep multiple saves and switch slots every 3 hours and you should be fine.

3. It doesn't matter if you grind your stats (you grind individual stats, not levels), but only Humans can increase all their stats by grinding. Mystics can grind some of their stats, but otherwise get stronger by KO-ing tougher enemies into their mystic weapons. Mecs increase their stats (and indirectly their skill slots) by equipping better gear. Monsters increase their stats in an indirect and convoluted manner by absorbing more skills, which increases their base HP by 4 per new skill learned, and with higher base HP and the correct skills in the right order they can unlock better monster forms with better stats and hidden equipment.

The only reason you would suffer from grinding is if you increase your battle rank too fast, which could be a problem if you don't have good gear and defensive skills, you're stuck in a hard to escape area, or you missed out on some rare monster skills or monster item drops.

4. They're pretty open, but the amount of content is paltry after the 4th quest or so.

It's best to start with someone like Red or Emelia if you want more structure, or Blue if you want more freedom. Save Riki and Asellus for later. T260 is a decent start too. Lute has no structure.

[Recoil36]

Wow. Thank you for the long and detailed response.

[no1schmo]

I'd like to add that the general structure is sort of odd. Almost every character has a story, set places they need to go that no one else can go to, but much, if not most, of your playtime with each character is going to in the same world, doing alot of the same activities (especially unlocking magic). So the "openness" comes from the main world acting as a very large hub filled with characters to recruit and side-content available to basically everyone, and then most of them having a unique intro, end area, and a few things in-between (and a few of them are forced to do what is side content for other characters). This is why it may not be a good idea to decide you will definitely play through as every character, as there is ALOT of repetition if you do. Lute has the least amount of unique content, probably followed by Blue, which is unfortunate as I like them both. Riki, Asellus, and T260 are more unique being non-humans, and you can mix it up by really leaning into that, playing the game entirely with a non-human party, so this avoids some of the repetition from using humans (although they can be more challenging).

[Recoil36]

Thank you