Graphically, this game is fantastic. It is like a picture book. Even today, it looks fantastic.
What the screenshots don't show you are neat little details like insects crawling up walls and stuff like that.
Also, this was I believe Masashi Hamauzu's first soundtrack and he sure does knock it out of the park. One of my favorite VG soundtracks.
The story itself is well down. Its a lot more linear than previous SaGas. The story is that of two young men, one is an archeologist-type fellow trying to follow in his father's footsteps while trying to find the mystery of his parent's death. The other is a story of an exiled prince. The stories are intertwined with each other and follows the lives of these two as they grow up and become successful and powerful, kind of like Dragon Quest V.
The gameplay is pretty neat, though I strongly recommend using an FAQ because learning techniques is a bit more complex than other JRPGs.
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Like Deathmore, only cooler sounding. Kuronichi Harunobu, The Rabbit of Kai
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Never underestimate the power of stupidity in numbers. ~War13104 Never stoop to the level of idiots. They will drag you down and beat you with experience.
Yeah, SaGa Frontier 2 is miles above SaGa Frontier 1 in terms of presentation. I mean, the environments in SaGa frontier 1 were good (kind of FF7-esque, really). But the character sprites and battle graphics were pretty bad. SaGa Frontier 2 is an alround attractive game.
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Like Deathmore, only cooler sounding. Kuronichi Harunobu, The Rabbit of Kai
I just started SF2 again because of this topic... never got through it before.
How does sparking magic work? Like if I use anima in weapons, will I spark something eventually or no?
SaGa games are grindy, and this game has limited equipment uses, so I'm paranoid of getting stuck in a situation where I have to grind but my weapons are almost out of uses!
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No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.
Go through first story bits. Get an ally. Go to the first dungeon. Get slaughtered by the first enemy I see. Give up, put the game away, and never touch it again.
Feldschlacht III is much better than Feldschlacht II, Angelo.
The best way to learn techniques is by doing duel battles, Ness. If you insist on sparking techniques, there are three factors that play into it, since glimmers are essentially random.
Factor 1: Is the weapon/spell type one of the character's favored weapons/spell types? On the status screen, in the top right corner is a panel that has your anima/weapon levels. If a type has a plus on top of it, that means its their preferred weapon type. This means they'll gain levels with that weapon/spell faster (which means increased effectiveness). It also means they spark techniques faster.
Factor 2: Each spell art/weapon art has its own hidden value that plays into its chance of sparking. Obviously the higher the level of the weapon/spell art, the lower the value, meaning it will be more difficult.
Factor 3: Each enemy has a hidden value that determines your chance of sparking techniques against it. For the most part, the more difficult the enemy, the higher your chance of glimmers.
As I mentioned before, dueling is much more effective for learning arts. Techniques are used for selecting correct commands. for example, the bow skill aim shot is "Ready, Shoot". This is a much more reliable method for grinding skills.
i'm not entirely sure about spell sparking. IIRC, I don't think spells CAN be sparked. Rather, you learn them after battles. Pretty sure you have to use spell arts to learn new spell arts.
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"Don't freeze up girl, you're looking quite a sight." - Adam Ant. "Baby, can you dig your man? He's a righteous man." - Larry Underwood
From: RevolverSaro | #016 The best way to learn techniques is by doing duel battles, Ness. If you insist on sparking techniques, there are three factors that play into it, since glimmers are essentially random.
Thanks for the help, Saro. I'm used to SaGa Frontier 1 and this game is a bit weird in comparison.
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No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.
Yeah, there is a heap of differences between the two games, not that thats a bad thing.
Here is a bit more advice:
First and foremost, I can't emphasis enough having a 'two save system" set up going. One save is dedicated EXCLUSIVELY to inbetween-chapter saves, the other dedicated to saving as you normally would, such as before a major fight. If there is one complaint many people have with the game, it is that it is incredibly easy to get stuck in a situation where you can't complete a chapter due to lack of foresight conserving SP/WP, running out of weapons, etc. Having two saves makes it so you can simply restart a chapter if for some reason, it is unbeatable in your current run. If for some reason you can only have one save file, make it so you only save between chapters. My first playthrough I was screwed by this and got stuck.
As for the chapters themselves, I reccomend switching between characters, attempting to keep the years even between the Knights side and the Gustave side. The reason being is that there are a small handful of short scenarios that require that there only be a total of 3 or less scenarios active when you beat certain chapters. Keeping the Knights section and the Gustave section equally maintained will ensure that you don't miss any chapters. One of my favorite chapters, Gustave and the Pirates, can be missed if you aren't careful.
Finally, an extra note on glimmers. I haven't confirmed if this is true or not, but apparently not every character can learn spark every technique. I think this is to prevent characters from early on in the story from sparking something like "Tide and Time" at the beginning of the game. So basically, I guess, if you keep trying to get a character to learn a technique but they aren't learning it, it might be because the game has a hidden lock, preventing them from learning said technique.
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"Don't freeze up girl, you're looking quite a sight." - Adam Ant. "Baby, can you dig your man? He's a righteous man." - Larry Underwood
SaGa games are grindy, and this game has limited equipment uses, so I'm paranoid of getting stuck in a situation where I have to grind but my weapons are almost out of uses!
eh, tbh I had to throw out most of the weapons I got because my inventory was full.
not to mention quells and metal weapons have infinite uses.
And yes at the very least keep a separate save file with all the towns open before going doing "Into the Northern Continent" since that's the point of no return.
I didn't really think it was very hard besides the Battle of South Moundtop (which is blatantly unfair) and didn't have to grind too much. I stopped by the Anima Tower at the end of the game to grind up to a little so everyone had over 500 HP. It isn't quite like Romancing SaGa 2 constantly kicking you in the balls, there's just some bosses that have tons and tons of HP so you have to pace yourself so you don't run out of steam and die.
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The only certain death in the universe is Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons. Not changing this line until I beat Seven Heroes (2/24/07)
