Also, yes, I loathed SF2. It looked pretty, but something about it rubbed me the wrong way. The sort of unexplained arbitrary weirdness, for example (why are my magic-users regaining mp?), and, as you mention, the TERRIBLE strategy battle crap.

I didn’t like SF1 very much, either. Playing that game is like groping about in the dark trying to find something you’ve never seen, never heard described, and have only a vague idea that it might–might–turn the lights on. But the official strat. guide got me through it all right. As far as I recall, there was nothing for beating all the storylines except for the credits. But I may be wrong.

HAIL ODIN!

Also, you really didn’t like SF2? It had all of the random and kind of janky SaGa stuff, but beautiful watercolor artwork. There was that annoying strategy RPG battle stuff, but the regular battle system wasn’t bad really. It just seemed like an awkward, but decent for SaGa RPG to me.

Also, also, did SF1 have some sort of ending for finishing all the scenarios? I finished a whole bunch of the, but it was the PSX era and there were more than a few ~$40 awesome games to play at the time.

And I had to mention the music. It’s fantastic.

I really like the SaGa games for GB. I wish they had stuck with that formula, because once you start hitting the end of the SNES era, things are getting kinda weird, and by SaGa Frontier I (which I finished, by the bye), things had gone from weird to terrible. SF2 was abominable. As for Unlimited SaGa, what EP said.

I’m glad Deimosion mentioned the music, because these GBA games made that shitty little sound chip SING.

And because he probably missed it in the podcast thread: Evilpaul, where’s my 3DDGH Cait-Sith!? I neeeeed it!

Enjoyed all three. Found FFL1 to be the most unique, and at times frustratingly random, of the three. FFL2 was the most memorable and the most difficult. FFL3 was the most polished in every aspect.

FFL1, random but interesting. I still do not recall how I figured out a lot of things in that game back in ’90 or whenever (bought game day of release). Standing infront of the statue in world 1 manually clicking the Kings gear in your inventory screen….wat? How’d I even figure that out, how did anyone? In Ocean World, clicking every single orb till you found the right one, which could take hours. I wouldn’t be surprised if people gave up there and looked around in other areas trying to figure out what to do next. World 4 was a gongshow of epic proportions. Su-saku….you son of a bitch. Limited inventory screen and having to buy HP200′s to upgrade a humans health by 1 after 600 health was a broken pain in the ass too. I really liked all the worlds though, and all the mini worlds and rooms you came across in the tower. I liked all the tidbits of information you would get about Ashura and Creator as you went on. Wish they had showed us what was behind that door at the end.

FFL2 was hard. Really hard. So many memorable areas and characters though. Masked Man, Ki and her MAGI, Edo, Bananas, Shogun and Magnate, Valhalla and Odin, Underwater Volcano, Dragon Race, Venus, Apollo. List goes on. The Nasty Dungeon…heh epic. F*ck you Haniwa.

FFL3 was a more standard affair / modern RPG imo. Of the three, easily the most polished in every aspect, but lacking the staying power intrigue of FFL2.

As for GB games carrying the “Final Fantasy” name despite not being part of the series, Seiken Densetsu was easily the best of all of them. The first three Saga’s don’t even come close to competing with Final Fantasy Adventure, imo.

The later SFC games never came out in English officially, and trying to play the fan-translated version time I spent with them they seemed subpar compared to the many better 16bit RPGs.

SaGa Frontier 1 & 2 were weird, but OK. Both had plenty of weird randomness (learning skills, etc). SF1′s scenario system made you redo a lot of quests using different characters a lot. SF2 had an elemental system I didn’t understand at all. It had an interesting, multi-generation scenario which I liked until I couldn’t beat the game’s final boss. Bested by an omelette. /sigh

Minstrel’s Song seemed pretty bad, but I didn’t play much of it. Unlimited Saga can only be described as utterly fucking terrible. Pedophiles should be forced to play it in prison until they find a way to castrate themselves with a Dual Shock 2 controller.

I may check out the import remake of SaGa 2 on the DS (there’s a translation available for it) as I remember hearing they made some of the random stuff less random and made the monster evolution make a slight amount of sense.

@evilpaul @SN It’s not nearly as bad in FFL2 as in most games with weapon durability. Weapons are really easy to come by (unlike Fire Emblem games) and I’ve never really even come close to running out.

@Lusi I swear I checked that. I’m really sorry that happened, I’m not sure how I could have missed something that easy.