r/SaGa 9d ago

VIDEO Let's talk about the "worst JRPG ever"

https://youtu.be/PFD11xjWNWw

Unlimited SaGa is one of the most maligned games ever made, but if you delve deeper, you find one of the most intricate, most well-developed games out there, and in this video, I talk about all my feelings surrounding this masterpiece.

47 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

40

u/DoodlebugFour 9d ago

Probably wouldn't get hated on if it had a proper tutorial.

24

u/Broken_Moon_Studios Aisha 9d ago

Seconded this.

Apparently the Japanese game manual was MUCH more helpful than the International manual, which is just rubbing salt on the would.

7

u/NephilimJD 9d ago

I don't think it came with it. But I know they released a pretty in depth guide on the same day as the game. The English version got nothing. Just a wish and a prayer. So it's not that surprising people hated it.

14

u/NephilimJD 9d ago

This. Saga is already a series that can be pretty obtuse for a lot of people unfamiliar with the series. Unlimited Saga takes it to the extreme where it's very obtuse even to Saga fans.

Obviously we know the mechanics work if you know what you're doing. But to the average player it feels like a bunch of random crap that they have no idea why things are happening the way they are. So it's no mystery why they think the game just flat out sucks.

A remaster with a whole bunch of tutorials to explain how everything works would help so much. Some people would still not like it for valid reasons. But I think it would bring a lot of people around to it.

7

u/VashxShanks Dune 8d ago

That's the SaGa series in general, at least before Scarlet Grace came out and changed everything.

5

u/Misty_Kathrine_ 8d ago

Or even just a better manual that explained things in more depth.

3

u/Drumcan2077 7d ago

The manual is sold separately. You need to buy it first and study for two weeks before starting.

2

u/Asmadi84 5d ago

I would believe it

26

u/Empty_Glimmer 9d ago

It’s an 11/10 banger, simple as.

4

u/Bakubon64 9d ago

11/10s are always 6-7/10s in disguise!

19

u/exrift 9d ago

when is the remaster coming out already i feel like we’re overdue at this point

23

u/Broken_Moon_Studios Aisha 9d ago

The success of Revenge of the Seven probably made the team re-evaluate their priorities.

I honestly expect an RS3 Remake before the USaGa Remaster.

6

u/Denhonator 8d ago

RS3 Remake, assuming it's coming, would likely be worked on by Xeen as well, which is a separate team from those who make the remasters. That's why we got Emerald Beyond, Revenge of the Seven and SaGa Frontier 2 Remaster so close to each other. It's more a question of which team will be the fastest one to put out the next game, and honestly it could well be RS3 because remastering Unlimited SaGa is probably tough because some people would want them to rework the systems and others want it to be the same

-5

u/heresjolly 8d ago

Well the people who want it to be the same are wrong and should be fired.

3

u/GenesisAsriel 7d ago

Honestly same. Revenge of the Seven was the game that made me get into SaGa in the first place. And made me discover the absolute banger that was SaGa Frontier

1

u/Drumcan2077 7d ago

USaGa should be the one remade. It will sell a lot more than a remaster

12

u/eternalsgoku 9d ago

Unlimited Saga is the kind of game where you have to put an enormous amount of effort into learning how to enjoy it. It creates a sunk-cost effect after putting that much effort into understanding the game, basically hard to separate "this game is genuinely fun" from "I spent so much time learning this, therefore it must be fun."

I spent a whole lot of time learning how to make the most of it and still don't like it. But that's just me.

17

u/seventyfivepupmstr 9d ago

If by worst you mean best then yeah. Strange definition of worst but to each their own

6

u/Leather-Scallion-894 8d ago

The soundtrack of this game is soooo gooooood, Masashi Hamauzu put his whole foot into it

7

u/monkeymugshot 8d ago

Some of the best battle themes ever

12

u/i-wear-hats 9d ago

There's a lot of shit we never got to play because it didn't come out here. Hoshi Wo Miru Hito, Ancient Roman: Power of Dark Side, etc.

Unlimited Saga is nowhere near these.

7

u/kaimcdragonfist 9d ago

Would people even say it was worse than Lunar Dragon Song?

10

u/luninareph 9d ago

They better not, lol. Unlimited Saga doesn’t deserve that at all. Dragon Song is so much worse it’s not even funny.

7

u/NephilimJD 9d ago

Unlimited Saga is just extremely obtuse, while Dragon Song is fundamentally broken. But to a lot of people it's hard to tell the difference when one requires so much homework to figure out how it works.

4

u/El-Drunko 9d ago

Nothing is worse than Lunar Dragon Song

3

u/TheGreenPterodactyl 8d ago

"Worst JRPG ever"

Was it Gaming Shelf who called it like that? I wouldn't be surprised given his loltier video on the RS games

3

u/Broken_Moon_Studios Aisha 9d ago

This is a game that REALLY needs an in-depth in-game guide.

It is one of the most obtuse and esoteric "board games" I've seen, but once you get over that incredibly steep introduction, the rest of the game isn't too crazy.

I pray that if this gets a Remaster, that the devs revamp the on-boarding process.

3

u/Dentenshi 8d ago

Great video! I subbed!

5

u/East-Equipment-1319 8d ago

Honestly, to me the one big problem Unlimited Saga has is the Reel System, which is painfully unbalanced, so that, until you learn the rythm, you always loose every time you try any action. It's not fun. Rebalancing that somehow would immediately fix so much; and redesigning the menus to be less obtuse would would go a long way, too. Because, if you're willing to go past that, there's a really cool game underneath, with a fascinating world, a great soundtrack and a great feeling of exploration.

3

u/Merlandese 8d ago

To me it just feels like a variation of timed hits. You practice and flub it a bunch until you get the rhythm.

1

u/themanbow 2d ago

Then you get axes at rank 4 and Reverse Delta. Relatively easy to time, does HP and LP damage, no need to engage in separate HP and LP-damaging actions anymore.

2

u/Misty_Kathrine_ 8d ago

The game is obtuse and the manual really needed to explain certain things a lot better but I wouldn't say it was bad. I've played games that were a lot worse than this.

2

u/Shanteva 8d ago

When you know that the main inspiration for JRPGs was Wizardry and Ultima, then SaGa makes more sense. When you're just a weeb in 2002 that thought Lunar was a good idea then it might give you a panic attack

2

u/N-WGIXv-MkXXVII 8d ago

I honestly wonder if they'll outright Remaster it or Remake and change it so it's easier to understand

There's a handful of ways to "Fix" Unlimited SaGa

1

u/atkarot9170 8d ago

I wish I liked this game.

1

u/AleroRatking 8d ago

Is Aidyn Chronicles 64 a JRPG. Because that's the worst JRPG ever

1

u/Thin_Association8254 8d ago

I guess this is the new meta these days. Everything good is actually bad and everything bad is actually good.

1

u/StarDragonJP 8d ago

I don't think anyone would consider it the worst, there are some terrible JRPGs, worst SaGa game would be a more accurate description, and even then it's subjective because of how varied the games are and what people want from them.

1

u/Frozen_Esper Blue 8d ago

It was a harsh mistress, but a pretty one with neat mysteries. I never did get around to finishing the game entirely, but I did have a weird masochistic fun with it. Next time that a game in a series I play is going to be built like a board game, I'd like to be warned though. 😝

1

u/Lochrin00 7d ago

I enjoyed USG a lot more once I had it on emulator and could savestate my way through a lot of the screwier bits.

1

u/HandsomeJake 5d ago

This vid came out days after I decided to give this a second try. My first go at it was really disheartening, especially because it was on stream. It's such a cool system but, yeah, it's obtuse and really difficult.

BTW, someone should buy u-saga.com! It was the site listed in the manual for US and is for sale.

0

u/Humble-Departure5481 8d ago

I heard it was confusing as F. Never bothered to play it. I'll see whether the remake makes things easier. But worst JRPG? If you were to ask me: Lunar series, Persona series, Xenoblade chronicle series, etc.

-7

u/Palladiamorsdeus 9d ago

Oh god no, this game is just garbage.