WHERE'S THE MANUAL SQUARE?

Very neat RPG's although YOU LITERALLY NEED TO FIND THE MANUALS ON THE INTERNET YOURSELF!

FFL1 manual [archive.org]
FFL2 manual [archive.org]
FFL3 manual [archive.org]

Hello friends,

Today i will review the game Collection of Saga Final Fantasy Legends. This collection contains three games from the gameboy era. They have same graphics as back then, but somewhat cleaned up for pc. They also have re-translated and changed some translation mistakes and changes for the modern age. Although not a perfect port of the games, it is still a pretty good port. Anyways, below is my pro/con lists for the games:

PROS:

- Three games in one. The first time they have been available on pc legitamately.
- Each game is it's own seperate story and adventure.
- Original gameboy emulation.
- New features including making the game faster for easier grinding, and increasing the screen size and includes 4k resolutions.
- Custom backgrounds you can change.


CONS:

- No insctruction manuals for any of the three games. They should of included them for newer players of the series.
- There appears to be some text bugs where the text goes out of the text area in parts of the games.
- The spa in final fantasy legend 3 no longer heals the character as it did in orignal version of the game.
- Sometimes when saving, it does not save to the cloud correctly. A workaround i found is always exit to the main menu, then exit the game from there.

Note that the game might be better for retro gamers to get or nostalgia goggle gamers. Recommended for some old school games to play on pc.

Never played these until now. Working my way through I currently. Having a blast though. Definitely different than a modern JRPG, but still very fun. Makes you think since weapons aren't infinite use.

I'd say the only negative is nothing is explained, but that's just the era this game is from. It's not too hard to figure out as you play though by any means. Definitely a solid collection if the other 2 games are anything like the first so far!

SaGa 1 :

Sawing God in half never gets old, even 30 years later

SaGa 2 :

My favorite game of all time. Even today, it stills holds up really well. Great story(ies), great romance(s), great characters (including Indiana Jones!), great gameplay, really interesting mechanics, and delicious retro wonkiness

SaGa 3 :

Easily my least favorite of the three (prolly due to it having a completely different team, while the other guys were working on Romancing SaGa), it's still a great game since it was made by the Mystic Quest guys instead, but it's pretty different from the others, and I actually prefer the NDS remake

All grouped up in one glorious low-priced collection!

The wonderswan version of SaGa 1 should have been included, and the DS versions of SaGa 2 and 3 should have been included.

These games are quite old and archaic. If you're not a fan of old-school JRPGs, then this collection is not for you. However, if you are like me and enjoy grinding and challenging turn-based combat, then these games are really fun! With the 1st game, the very beginning is unforgiving. Expect to grind for 20-60 minutes or so before setting out on the journey. After that, I didn't have to grind much at all.

I own the 3rd game in the collection on Game Boy and have many fond memories of playing it as a child. Looking forward to finally beating it after I finish the first two games!

This is a hard review for me.

First thing, do not look a the time played. I have played Legend 1 and Legend 2 and beaten them many times. Using pretty much every party possible, including the ones the manual says to never use. Legend 3 I have only played through once, but enjoyed it.

The games are great RPGs and deserve to be played. They were my most played Gameboy games.

This is the problem, as these are the exact Gameboy games. There are better versions of each of these games that they could have ported to PC, instead you are getting Gameboy games. The other versions have monster bestiaries that list monsters, more characters, more story, more items and weapons and they ARE IN COLOR. There is not even a color option on this game, even if it was to play like you are on a Super Gameboy.

So are these games good? Yes, they are great. But there are better versions out there.

I use to play these on the Gameboy, god I am so old, it the hand held system that your Mommy and Daddy use to play. Anyway they still fun and can be a real challenge, check it out, it so retro.

Ahh. Now these games are absolute classics!!

As an RPG fan that grew up in a house with one TV and if it was being used by my dad, there was no way I'd be getting to play a video game on it that night... these games were pillars of my growing up. I had this entire set as carts. Even all the way up to the Gameboy Color, Final Fantasy Legend II was my favorite game for it. Comfort game today? Yes indeedy! For years if I could emulate on a device, the first game I would always try out was Final Fantasy Legend II.

That being said, though. As much as I love them because of my nostalgia. I have to say that they are a... not a little, but a LOT outdated. Unless you're a superfan of SaGa, Final Fantasy, retro RPGs, or something like that, I really can't recommend these games. The first game doesn't even tell you what growths your characters have after battle, if they do. The only stat you see in battle is your HP. The item carry limits feel *obscenely* low. The battles are simple, and slow if you don't use the system's speed-up feature. The first game's text is translated so simply to fit into the Gameboy's text box limitations that you'll be wondering how anyone could find that little information useful. I put up with them because I choose to, but I don't expect anyone else to want to choose something like this unless it's to study it as a piece of gaming history. And, yeah, there is a lot of history behind these games. SaGa 1 was Square's first million dollar success, being the very first RPG for the Gameboy.

I have a love/hate relationship with the developer of SaGa, Akitoshi Kawazu, and it's hard to go into detail about how I feel about these games without bringing him up. IYKYK.

All things considered, I love these games. But I love from from a sense of nostalgia. As rocky as it is to play, I find these games an odd comfort. But if you don't all ready love it, and you're not trying to see how the series got started, I'm curious as to why you would them any time.

...Legend II is the best one, and I'll die on that hill.

Developer: Square Enix, Racjin
Publisher: Square Enix

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3412084246

Introduction
==========
When I was a kid with my original Game Boy, one of the few games I managed to get ahold of was Final Fantasy Legend II. At that age, I was just BARELY getting into and learning how RPGs worked, but this title threw me for a loop with the systems in place. Experience Points? Nope! Those don't exist here! Your stats went up seemingly randomly after each battle, which more or less encouraged grinding. But as a kid, that wasn't fun. I don't know how, but I managed to get to and defeat the final boss. Maybe it was stubbornness, maybe it was luck in each and every battle, but I did it. That game taught me that some RPGs could be different, but still enjoyable. At least...back then. Nowadays, this set of games in particular are not all that fun to play, except for MAYBE Legend III.

Gameplay
==========
As I touched on above, gone is the EXP system, and in it's place it a somewhat random leveling system. The more you used certain things, the better you got at using them. Take a lot of damage? Defense and HP goes up. At least for some characters - some level up differently, like via items or eating monster meat). Generally you start with a set of characters and keep them the entire game, and their growth is entirely dependent on you and your choices. But like I said, grinding is very encouraged, and I think that's how I managed to get through Legend II as a kid under 10 back in the 90's. I went on to play and master other RPGs, but this set of games were always a little special to me due to what they taught me and exposed me to --- different approaches to game mechanics in my favorite genre.

Graphics
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If you've ever played old retro 8-bit titles, you know what to expect. Very little animation, limited color, and lots of sprite-based designs. Wasn't bad for the time, but by today's standards it's aged very poorly. You can setup a frame around your screen and choose the size, aspect ration, and more, but aside from that there aren't too many things to write home about.

Sound and Music
==========
As someone who grew up in the era these games came from, I'm used to the blips and beeps commonly used then, but for gamers today who did not grow up in that era...I don't know. It will depend on your individual preferences. It might be annoying or grating to some. The music isn't bad for what they had to work with, and the sound effects are OK. Nothing really stands out though, but that's okay.

I hope you end up liking the battle themes, as you'll be hearing them a LOT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8MJGYCysdY

The boss theme of Legend II is my favorite, as it gives that building dread feel of impending defeat as you struggle against a boss. It's a short loop, but memorable...at least to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNi2G0oXTiE

Performance
==========
I didn't have any issues running this game, and I don't expect anyone to run into any either. I suspect the entire package is just an emulator with the games packed in, and you could run a Game Boy emulator on hardware from the late 90's very easily. I didn't experience any crashes, screen-tearing, framedrops, or have any issues setting up and using my PC controller (Logitech F310, yes the submarine controller!).

Final Thoughts
==========
I only played this long enough to 100% it and nab all the achievements, as I had this long-term goal of 100%ing all the Final Fantasy games available on Steam back in 2024. I included this one in the bunch even though it's technically a SaGa title, which is a completely different franchise. It was fun to relive some older memories from my childhood with Legend II, and experience the other two titles I didn't get a chance to play back then. Legend III is by far the best of the bunch, and if you pick this up I highly recommend you focus your time on that one. The other two are very rough and not particularly fun in comparison.

Final Verdict:
==========