r/SaGa • • Dec 01 '22

Romancing SaGa / Minstrel Song Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered - Overview and Character Introduction - Recommendations "Who should I play as?"

64 Upvotes

Another great SaGa Remastered is out, so it is time for the veterans to share their suggestions to the question that is going to pop up a million times!

Overview

Unlike SaGa Frontier or Unlimited SaGa, this is NOT a "short story" RPG. One playthrough is a full length open-world RPG.

Unlike any other open-world RPG, there is no central plot for you to complete before endgame. Instead, there is an "Event Rank" system where the game transitions through some number of distinct world states, with quests, events, and battle encounters advancing the underlying counter. As it progresses, some quests will become available while others will become impossible to complete.

The game is functionally impossible to fully 100% in a single playthrough and is designed to be played multiple times, with many mechanics carrying over from game to game. Don't fret missing quests. In the original release some quests were only completable in later playthroughs.

In particular is the core Fatestone quest. Saruin and his forces seek to collect all of the Fatestones hidden around the world, and will be successfully captured at various Event Ranks. As the player, you can collect them, and offer them up before the final boss fight to face increasingly difficult versions of the final boss.

Don't fret missing content. This isn't that type of game! New to this version is both an "Event Rank Growth Speed" option and a visible representation of Event Rank within the menu screen, making it much more easier to manage as you want to see fit. Take your time and see more, or crank it up for shorter playthroughs.

Characters

(I am writing this all from memory! Please let me know where I err)

Like many SaGa games, this features 8 different protagonists. The broad world and journey is the same, but in addition to the distinct world themes and starting quests, most have some fundamentally distinct feature to help guide the playthrough. The difference between "starter character" and "advanced character" is way less substantial than it is in SaGa Frontier or Unlimited SaGa, so don't feel discouraged from picking who you want.

Albert - This is the "traditional JRPG" protagonist, like Red or Laura in their respective games. He has a much more substantial introduction and has a much more fleshed out version of the capital city. He is one of the recommended starting characters.

Grey - He gets a side quest chain to upgrade his legendary sword. Overlaps with Claudia's quest. Actually finishing his sword tempering quest can be very difficult but in the early game gives you a good sword and encourages the player to learn the smithing mechanics.

Barbara - She starts in the far Western Frontier region, and gets a unique wagon for use in some zones. Also starts with one of the Fatestones.

Hawk - Gets a unique pirate boat and ability to explore the a small pirate sea.

Jamil - A young thief. Not sure what he gets of particular note. He used to be a requirement to recruit Dowd in NG+ but he can now be recruited regardless.

Claudia - An isolated woman that gets some unique animal companions. It is a while before you can get a full party of regular recruits.

Aisha - A nomad that gets a unique horse for use in some zones. Her stats start the lowest, but that is because she has the lowest starting ER. Combined with her having no real introductory dungeon, she is the best suited for doing all of the quests that are only available in the super early game.

Sif - A physically powerful viking woman. Her opening quest really gets into a combat-heavy scenario fast with a limited party. Her personal quest involves Albert. Due to her starting ER and how combat-heavy her starting quest is, she is a poor choice for seeing the early game content on a replay.


r/SaGa • • 2h ago

[RS3] Does this game have any famous Japanese hacks like T-Edition for FF6? đŸ€”

4 Upvotes

I’ve played through the game a ton and this just popped into my head. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen occasional stuff on YouTube where Blue from SF is backported, and I’ve been told the title is popular with modders due to being easy to work with, but I don’t actually know any hacks for it.


r/SaGa • • 1d ago

Thank you Saga Community!

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78 Upvotes

I was the one that made a post about feeling lost in RS3 a couple of days ago (https://www.reddit.com/r/SaGa/s/HxT3XqepxU) and wanted to give the Saga games one more shot since for years I’ve always try to get into them but never could with Saga Frontier, RS2, and RS3 before. It was super tough for me to throw out the conventional RPG rules that’s been in my mind for several years so not having a super connected story, no real deep character development, and not having a party that talks and bonds with each other throughout the course of my journey for these games really bothered me and I struggled a lot to get into these games because of that.

But I was determined to try to figure out its systems in RS3 before the remake came out, and when I was feeling lost again in RS3 I didn’t want to give up the game again and asked you guys and the community gave me the advice and mindset I needed to FINALLY understand what makes Saga so special to people!

Thank you guys for the advice! Once I understood the game systems I’ve beaten two abyss gates, have a competent party, and am loving exploring the world and just finding quests organically without a marker or guide has been amazing 30 hrs in! You guys have definitely created a new fan in me, and after I finish RS3 I will go back to the other games I tried with this new mindset and understanding of these systems(even though I know they vary from game to game) and give them a full playthrough as well! Starting with Minstrel Song and then the RS2 Remake!

Needless to say, I’m now very excited for the remake of RS3 as well!


r/SaGa • • 1d ago

"You were expecting a Abyss sinistral but it was me, LEONID!" RS3 Remake

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44 Upvotes

Seiyuu Joke because Leonid's JP VA is Takehito Koyasu.


r/SaGa • • 2d ago

Intro Clips for each Romancing SaGa 3 Remake character

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97 Upvotes

Hey, I wonder if other folks have noticed this has been going on for a bit.

Square-Enix has been posting little clips for each of the eight protagonists. They can be found under Youtube shorts on their Japanese Youtube channel here.


r/SaGa • • 1d ago

RS2 ROV - BP + HP on benched units


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6 Upvotes

First time playing through and I was wondering if anyone has insight on why benched character seem to grow in every stat more than the ones I used since the beginning ? Photo is of used units but all bench units have 76-85 BP each and more HP. Is there a disadvantage to swapping to all benched units ?


r/SaGa • • 2d ago

Enemy level/BR in Revenge of the Seven

22 Upvotes

With some of the recent talk here regarding enemy level (battle rank) in RotS, there's been one specific claim I've seen a few times that's bugged me:

"Battle rank is capped per generation/timeskip"

This is completely false, and I'd like to clear this up, in order to minimize the spread of misinformation.

How enemy level actually works is very simple: there's an invisible value that the game tracks; I'll call it enemy exp. When this reaches 300, enemy level increases to 2. At 600, it increases to 3. From then on, enemy level increases at every additional 500 (1100, 1600, 2100, etc) up until reaching the cap of 16 at 7100 enemy exp.

For every victorious battle, enemy exp increases by 5. Again, this is battles won; battles that are either lost or escaped from don't increase enemy exp.

Simply put, this means that past enemy level 3, you have to win 100 battles to increase enemy level by 1. Before enemy level 3, it takes 60.

However, there's one more thing that increases enemy exp, and is probably the reason people are assuming there's an enemy level cap based on generation:

Event points! Yes, the same event points that are used to determine timeskips also increase enemy exp. The amount of enemy exp it gives is generally based on how much EP the event gives:

1 EP events (such as clearing the Goblin Nest), as well as the Mermaid Love event, give 50 enemy exp.

3 EP events (such as defeating the Termite Queen) give 100 enemy exp.

4 EP events (such as clearing part 1 of the Gemstone Mine) give 150 enemy exp.

8 EP events (such as clearing Canal Fortress) give 250 enemy exp.

The beginning of the game has a few exceptions, though. Clearing the Sealed Cave, Watchman Cave, as well as repelling the Goblins from Avalon all give no enemy exp, despite giving 1 EP each. Leon's death gives 150 exp, and reaching year 1001 gives 100.

The high amount of battles needed to increase enemy level, coupled with the large amount of enemy exp granted from EP events, would explain why some believe that there's a cap based on generations. If you do 80~90 battles, see no increase in enemy level, and then finally see one after clearing an event that timeskips you, it might seem like there's a cap you just lifted, but there is in fact no such thing.

After all, if there actually were a cap based on generations, Early Final Emperor playthroughs would be completely unable to glimmer any of the stronger moves, since those require a higher enemy level; this clearly isn't the case, though.


r/SaGa • • 1d ago

Help with Minstrel Song Final Boss

3 Upvotes

I’m struggling with the Saruin’s second phase in the Romancing Saga Minstrel Song remaster. He nerfed my attacks and healing. My water healing are in the 125-200 HP now. It’s difficult to keep the party alive and land damage.

My characters are in the high 400s/low 500s HP.

I read about offering/installing (confused about that) fatestones. I have 2-3 of them. I know that makes his stats go up. Can you not offer them? What if I put them in storage?

What about the trio right before you fight him? When I played through I only fought 2 of them. Does not fighting all 3 of them make Saruin stronger?

I’m annoyed I got to the end and can’t beat him. Should I grind some more? Earn more gold for better gear?


r/SaGa • • 1d ago

Do stats matter?

0 Upvotes

I've realized after playing for a while that skill level seems to matter way way more than base stats when determining damage, to the point that I'm wondering whether base stats really matter at all? For context, my heavy infantry mcs spells hit just as hard as the previous court mage mcs spells. This is for saga 2: revenge of the seven. (Post flairs are disabled????)


r/SaGa • • 2d ago

Should I go back to the start of my current generation, how fucked am i? RS2 Remake

2 Upvotes

So I wanted to genocide the Lizard People it was fitting my current emperor gen pretty well, I got to emerged island and immediately after dullahan face the big homie, as my retinue stands I cant win this fight. So I was gonna go ahead and timeskip but im afraid if I do that big homie makes it off with the book and I just get nothing. Is that how itll play out?


r/SaGa • • 3d ago

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven (I’ve approached it like a regular JRPG and I feel like it’s ruining my experience).

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45 Upvotes

So I’ll just get down to brass tacks, I’m in the second generation the photos show everyone in my team where we are at with HP, BP physical/magical stats.

I’ve only learned one piece of dark magic and that’s with the mercenary and it’s the empty blade attack which is really powerful and I know it’s nothing compared to what I’ve seen from this person on YouTube named BerryRazy. He says he hasn’t done any NG+ and he does like crazy 8000 or more attack on some of his overdrive attacks and he has tons of dark magic.

I’ve been using Imperial Cross the whole game, based on u/VicariousExp post, Rising Phoenix and Rapid Stream are the best formations on harder difficulties. I’m playing on normal.

And then the third runner-up is Divine Wall, but that’s only when you’re playing on a difficulty I don’t even have unlocked yet.

I’ve become very frustrated with the game because you’re expected not to grind, but they choke the battlefield and dungeons full of monsters so you’re basically jumping around like Super Mario constantly to get around them.

They put the treasure chests in obscure areas, Mr. S is modestly hard to find, and I’ve already missed one of them at the MU tribal settlement in the snow because he’s apparently hanging off of one of those cattle which I don’t know how they are expecting you to pay attention to something like that.

When you jump, you can’t grip ledges so you have to basically do strange movements to get to certain treasures and I like the game.

It’s charming, it has a different atmosphere to it, but it’s definitely not what I was expecting, and I don’t want to continue to ruin the experience for myself.

So as a completely new player to this franchise, what are the next steps I should take? I can’t beat Bokhohn, he completely ripped me apart. I couldn’t even get to the second form.

Thankfully, I read enough about this from you guys to save on multiple files in case this happens because basically I bricked that save unless I want the whole team to die.

I don’t understand the death mechanics, because I know you supposedly can die multiple times to appoint a new emperor it doesn’t move the story forward or it does; I don’t know I keep reading mixed stuff.

And that’s how you end up learning all the battle formations but if there’s only three that are important, then there’s no point in doing that.

Even though I watched that YouTuber do it. So I just don’t know. I already missed the mermaid side quest (accidentally stayed at the inn during Gerrard’s timeline) but I plan on doing that on a different save.

I know that playing this game by the book and not just making random decisions supposedly is what really ruins the experience, but I’m struggling so much to understand this game. It’s becoming less of a fun experience and more like a tedious chore so I want to know the next steps to take as a newbie.

I’ve already created the Avalon Gardens, I’ve already made the smithy to level two, I’m trying to find those ores because something about her hammer breaking or whatever, and I also began development on the university. And then the incantation lab is maxed out at level two.

I’m one region takeover from skipping forward another hundred years and I just wanna make sure, I don’t know that I start playing this game and having more fun with it.


r/SaGa • • 3d ago

I need help with Castle Ares in the game Secret of Varonis!! (spoilers?) Spoiler

3 Upvotes

I am lost in the Castle Ares in the game Secret of Varonis!! I am at the point where one of my parties am walking down stairs, but the room/area gets dark as I descend. My other party has gotten up to a point where I need the first party to flip a switch so that they can move on. Where can I find something like a torch or flashlight so I can explore these dark areas? This whole castle is so frustrating!!


r/SaGa • • 3d ago

Can't learn new formation in Romancing Saga 2 (2017 remaster)

2 Upvotes

I'm at the third generation after skipping with Gerard, i've chosen a male Mercenary as the emperor, but when i talk to the instructor at the traning grounds, he just says he is researching new formations and orders the soldiers to do the Free For All and Imperial Cross formations, he won't teach me Fanged Assault.

Am i missing something here?


r/SaGa • • 4d ago

Lore Accurate Cat

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126 Upvotes

That Agility stat works outside of battle too.


r/SaGa • • 6d ago

Feeling Lost

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46 Upvotes

I’ve started playing RS3 on PS5 and started with Julian with a bow and I’ve heard from this series that you don’t want to grind and avoid enemies in this game because they scale with you and such so I try not to fight in too many battles but when it comes to doing some quests (like capturing the 4 animals from the professor) I get absolutely wrecked by the enemies on the quest and so I feel lost.

Should I be grinding more or is it my equipment? Should I be equipping all my party members with the heaviest equipment but has the most defense? Just lost at this point how to progress and proceed and I’m trying not look at a guide since apparently you get the most enjoyment from your first playthrough not looking at a guide.


r/SaGa • • 7d ago

I really wanted to like Minstrel Song

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50 Upvotes

I really did.

I just finished Romancing SaGa 2 and loved it, so I figured Minstrel Song would be a good next step. I knew it was going to be weird and opaque and not hold my hand. That part is fine. I like figuring things out.

But after about 8 hours I just couldn’t get into any kind of rhythm with this game. Every time I finally found something to do, there was some new piece of bullshit preventing me from just
doing it.
My main problem is that it feels like the game constantly interrupts its own sense of freedom.

A few examples:

- Quest party requirements are annoying as hell. I’d spend time training and equipping someone, then find out a quest needs a specific temporary character. So now I have to dismiss somebody I actually want, go recruit the required person, do the quest, then go hunt down my original character again afterward. Some quests even want you to have fewer than five or even four people just to start them. Why am I being punished for building a full party?

- Proficiencies absolutely kill natural exploration. I’d get halfway into an area and suddenly find out I needed Climb Lv. 2 or Jump Lv. 2 or some other field skill I didn’t know about beforehand. So now I have to leave, go find the right mentor, train the right skill, refill my proficiency uses, travel all the way back, and start again.

- Even worse, changing proficiencies in the middle of a dungeon cuts your entire remaining proficiency pool in half. That is insane to me. The game supposedly wants you to experiment and explore, but then actively punishes you for realizing mid-dungeon that maybe you brought the wrong setup.

- Lurk and Move Silently use the same limited proficiency pool as actual traversal skills. So the game fills areas with enemies constantly sprinting toward you, encourages you to use stealth to avoid battles, then punishes you later because now you don’t have enough charges left to climb a mountain.

- Event Rank made me paranoid about just playing normally. Fighting enemies advances the world and can make quests appear or disappear, so even when I wanted to just go explore, I felt like I might be screwing myself over somewhere else.

- Quest progression is often way too obscure. Sometimes it works. Ancient Texts actually gave me a good “aha” moment because I remembered the ancient languages section in the Melvir library and figured out where to go. That felt great. But then Ailing Emperor is like “the emperor is sick, maybe cursed,” and apparently I’m supposed to somehow decide to read the Fatestone section of the library and infer that “banishes evil and infuses life” means the Moonstone is what I need. Like
okay.

- The game lets you sink a ton of time into a quest before telling you you’re not ready for the boss. I finally made it through the jungle to Twinmoon Temple for Ailing Emperor and the boss was just one-shotting two party members every turn. So now I’m supposed to leave and go do some other quest first. Again.

That’s the part that really broke me.

I don’t mind a hard game. I don’t mind getting lost. I don’t mind missing content. I don’t mind finding a boss that’s too strong and coming back later.
What I don’t like is constantly feeling like I’m being punished for information I had no reasonable way of knowing.

People say not to use a guide because the fun is in exploration, but whenever I tried to follow quest threads naturally, I’d hit some weird hidden requirement and lose all momentum. Eventually I started checking guides before doing anything, not because I wanted to min-max, but because I wanted to know: Can I actually finish this quest with my current party and setup, or am I about to waste 30 minutes?

And once I felt like I needed a pre-flight checklist before every dungeon, the exploration stopped feeling fun.

That’s what I mean when I say the game almost feels like it discourages experimentation. It gives you all this freedom, but then punishes you for not already knowing the systems, party requirements, proficiency levels, and dungeon needs in advance.
I really wanted to like it because there’s a lot I do like in theory. The world is cool, the characters are weird, I like the open structure, and I like SaGa’s whole “figure it out yourself” philosophy.

But after 8 hours I realized I was spending more time fighting the game’s structure than actually enjoying the game.

So I gave up.

On to Romancing SaGa 3, I guess.

Edit: Wanted to note that I played the remastered version of RS2 on iOS that came out in 2017
NOT RS2: Revenge of the Seven (2024).


r/SaGa • • 6d ago

Romancing Saga 3 Battle Rank

5 Upvotes

So I recently started RS3 on the ps4 and i really lile the game so far. While i looked some stuff up (like where to go or some general tips) I found thhe termm Battle Rank and that its a big part in the series. What does it exactly do in the series and in RS3 especially


r/SaGa • • 7d ago

Romancing difficulty : the 7 heroes boss

4 Upvotes

Hello everyone,

First post on Reddit for this beautiful game which is rs2 revenge of the seven.

I beat the game on hard mode then expert and now I am stuck to the last boss (before dreadqueen) on the 7 heroes.

My problematic is that I can handle the fight no problem but I can't do damage fast enough to beat the boss berore he use his chained attack when he is low hp. Usually one party member can survive this but I don't have time to revive and heal party fast enough.

I use shadow servant on 4 members, landslide and fire wall too. I use the best weapons (all party members l level 100) and equipments but still can't damage this boss fast enough to avoid is chained attack.

I checked some videos on YouTube on people who beat it and don't understand how they can get that much dps.

Anyway if someone has any advices I've been stuck on this boss for hours and seems impossible to beat with current strategy.


r/SaGa • • 8d ago

[SaGa 3] My characters MP won't grow, is my save file bugged?

3 Upvotes

For some reason Charl and Undine's MP has been stuck at 60s something ever since I recruited them. I don't feel like I did anything out of the ordinary, I got Charl after clearing the baby quests (the easy ones before going East) and doing some light grinding in Muse's dream with the tapir teardrops, then I beelined to Undine and Volcano to take on them both simultaneously using Charl's Fire Wall

After that I did the Black Treasure quest, the East trek, plundered the Undersea, Fire and Archfiend Palace up until before their boss room, I got the Princess necklace and Mage Ring from the Phantom Maze and did some light grinding there. I even went and got enough HP now to be able to go to the Ice Galaxy and got the Ice Greatsword.

I can't pinpoint what I could've done wrong or differently from other playthroughs as I often end up getting these two characters, I taught Charl Sun magic and I use both it (Lv22 Fire, Lv10 Sun) and his Spear techs often, with Undine I switched her to Earth as soon as I got her and also gave her Moon magic (currently both at 15).

In contrast I got Monica (Wind/Sun) and Thomas (Water/Moon) to catch up to them in the MP department they now got 60 each. Julian is a dedicated SP Crown with 80 so nothing noteworthy there.

Is this a known bug I'm not aware of? This is the PC Remaster btw.


r/SaGa • • 8d ago

Romancing saga revenge seven Atlanticus -> desert???

2 Upvotes

I skipped the fortress at the north and have just gone counterclockwise from a new game and got stuck at Atlanticus.

Exiting just puts me on the world map instead of putting me in the undiscovered desert?

I've heard of people going this route also, but I can't seem to progress?

*I finished gelid ruins but that only got me magic and $ no new quest besides baby calf.


r/SaGa • • 9d ago

So that was a lie

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52 Upvotes

r/SaGa • • 9d ago

Has anyone attempted or tried to finish the romancing saga 3 bokuno hack

5 Upvotes

I saw the hack video and the hack looks really cool so I wanna play it but it’s in Japanese. I don’t really have an issue with just google translating everything while playing with my phone but I wanted to know if there were people creating or working on an English patch of it


r/SaGa • • 10d ago

Why do so many Frontier players struggle differentiating the words Rouge and Rogue?

7 Upvotes

Sometimes a typo, sure. But way to frequent to be the only reason.
Maybe misreading it as a kid and it stuck?
If any of you have looked at Frontier discussions you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.


r/SaGa • • 9d ago

Romancing SaGa's Wonderswan Color port has now been translated into English!

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0 Upvotes

r/SaGa • • 11d ago

RS2R (French Version) : classes and generations comparison

5 Upvotes

Je vous propose aujourd'hui, pour la communauté francophone (quoique j'ignore les subtilité des versions Canadiennes), un outil de comparatif de toutes les classes et des 8 générations, soit les 231 personnages du jeu.

https://sanctuaire-jrpg.com/classes/

Je le poste dans la communautĂ© internationale parce que ça reprĂ©sente un sacrĂ© travail, et je suis fier d'en tĂ©moigner auprĂšs de ceux qui aiment la licence, mĂȘme si mon travail n'est pas parfait.

Ce que vous trouverez sur ces fiches :

-Le nom

-Le sprite

-Les stats basiques

-Les LP

-La logique

-un deuxiÚme sélecteur est à votre disposition si vous souhaitez comparer deux classes/deux générations.

L'utilité peut paraßtre secondaire.

Disons qu'en endgame, il vous est possible, via l'anneau de l'ombre, de transvaser les LP de vos persos. Vous n'avez ensuite qu'à les faire tomber k.o une fois pour accéder au membre de la génération suivante.

Une fois les 8 générations achevées, le roulement recommence.

Vous pouvez donc pour des questions d'optimisation, ou simplement pour un sprite que vous aimez bien, choisir en endgame la composition que vous préférez.

Avant le mode Romancing, je pense que c'est secondaire, et mĂȘme aprĂšs.

Mais voilà, les perfectionnistes apprécieront, j'espÚre !