SaGaGaGa

So they're remaking SaGa 2. I'm not big on the art style they're using. I'm sure I wouldn't mind it in any other game. It's clean, colorful, nice enough. But I always think of SaGa being all flowery and watercolors, y'know? Maybe that's me applying my impressions from the later games to the earlier ones, cuz the GB games were just little pixel turds wandering around, but without that style...SaGa's retarded, right? As far as I can tell it makes no sense. But if you wrap it in an artsy craftsy art-style you trick me into thinking it's really just too deep for me to understand. Modern shonen art, though? That means it's probably just dumb.

I owned Final Fantasy Legend AKA SaGa 1 as a kid. I kinda loved it. It was the only game I had with me while at camp. Another kid had a Turbo Express with Galaga 88 and boy was I jealous of that kid. But SaGa was cool. I had a party with a mutant, and a monster, and I was climbing a tower so I could kill God? I was getting close to the end, too. Then some other kid stole it. I have no idea who it was. I'm sure they regretted it once they started playing the game.

So this remake announcement has inspired me to try SaGa again. I took a stab at it last summer, but didn't get more than a few minutes in. This time is different, though. I'm cheating from the start. I've got many tabs open with FAQs in each one. I will get over that opening hump and I am going to kill the shit outta God.

Two humans. One mutant. One monster - I went with goblin. We head out of town. We are battling. I need to return to an inn after the first battle. And then the third. And now...I can't afford to heal, because mutants randomly gain HP during battle, and healing at an inn costs 1GP for every HP you need restored. And the only way to level up my humans? By buying items. But I can't afford items, because I need to spend all my money on healing. This is like my life. I can't get a car cuz I don't have a job and I don't have a job because I never went to school and I didn't go to school because I had to get a job and I think Alice Cooper had a song like that. And this FAQ is like my parents, it has no good advice!

Eating the flesh of my enemies has turned my goblin into a skeleton, and now an albatross, and now back to a goblin. One of the skeleton attacks is "BONE" and the goblin's "NAIL". My monster has the lowest HP out of the entire party but he is the only one who hasn't died yet.

I have discovered that you can buy potions. They cost less than staying at an inn! These old UIs, they are tricky and make you feel dumb! But it is also my own fault, because I am not putting in the effort. Trying to learn the game as I should. I have the emulator set to turbo, and so I am missing a lot of what's going on. Like how my mutant learned some special abilities at some point, and has been using them instead of attacking, causing the battles to drag on for much longer than they were previously. I guess I need to pay attention!

Rather than buy armor I spent money on an HP increasing potion for my female human. Success through substance abuse rather than experience. My mutant has learned the ability "GAS" and it is killing enemies in one hit. I better use it every chance I get, because who knows how long it'll be before it gets randomly replaced by some lesser ability, like "QUEEF".

(I know if I ever re-read this post I'll want to kill myself for that last line.)

From a FAQ:

"If you are already at the maximum strength or agility (255), equipping a piece of armor that boosts that specific stat will temporarily reset that stat back to ~1, until you unequip that armor."

That's how you know it's a SaGa!

The king has offered me a reward of "anything I want" if I convince a girl in a southern town to marry him. The girl is an octopus. My mutant has 200HP. My humans have 60. My monster has 20. In addition to GAS my mutant has learned MIRROR. Then ARMOR, which was replaced by ELECTRO. Then ESP replaced MIRROR. Then MIRROR replaced ESP. This was over the course of 20 or so battles. SaGa! I've done little more than grind for money so far. I don't know if you do anything else in this game. I know I made a post this morning about how terrible grinds are, but this is different. This is black & white. This has a catchy 8-bit theme. This has monsters transforming through the power of meat, and a mutant with gas and short term memory loss, and drug-addicted humans, and towns and kings named HERO, SWORD, SHIELD and ARMOR. It endorses bestiality. This all makes it rewarding. It makes a difference!