First, but definitely NOT my last SaGa game.

"I can never show my Face within these walls again" -Final Emperor (F)

It's been a few months since I actually finished this game, just getting to a review now, but...

...Yeah. Wow. Incredible. A good reminder of what Squaresoft was, before Square Enix. I grew up on the Final Fantasy games, but never really touched a SaGa game before this.

I could definitely see how the Classic difficulty (Hard mode), would have been deemed "too hard" (not too mention possibly too complex, given that this game was made in a time where Japanese game developers did not have the highest opinion of western gamers) to make the game successful in the west at the time of the game's original development. The game is fairly unforgiving, even on normal (which I played on, as it was recommended by the game itself for a more 'standard RPG experience').

I found the systems enthralling, and the lighter focus on narrative and the open-ended nature of how you can interact with the world to be incredibly refreshing, and pretty mind-blowing for 1993. I love many of the pre-PS2 Final Fantasy games, but, after being introduced to the series by my brother when I was very young with a mix of VII and IV... none of the classic FF games ever surprised me. There's many I loved after that, but I always knew, generally, what to expect. This game, however, shattered my expectations. The audacity of some of the ideas, for the time, is staggering. A real eye-opener to the nature of Squaresoft at the time, and it really puts into stark relief just how much the Final Fantasy games were the "made for widest consumption" version of what the company was actually capable of. Not necessarily "dumbed-down", but just... simpler. Easier to pick up and engaging for a broader audience. Hence their wild popularity.

This is exactly the game I needed at the time I played it, and I will definitely revisit it in the future. There is just something perfectly magical to me, personally, about this era of 90s JRPGs. Even, apparently, when completely remade. As long as the remake does the game justice and pays service to what made the game special in the first place, and this game very much does.

I came to this came because I was a bit burned out on games, and was craving some sort of systems-heavy, turn-based JRPG experience. I left the game reminded of why I fell in love with games- and RPGs- in the first place.

Nostalgic JRPG. Smooth visuals, interesting story, addictive turn-based game-play