Retro Review! - The 7th Saga

The 7th Saga is a RPG that got to see the light of day from Japan via Enix. I remember picking this title up as a kid and enjoying it a lot. I thought it would be nice to go back in time and try it out. Oh my, how nostalgia has a way to make things seem better than they really are.

First off... check out the box's back text

"The graphics are eye-popping, breath-taking, stunning and unbelievable, not to mention incredible. This is no hack-and-slash, rip-your-guts-out fighter! This is the future of RPGs, right here in your hands! With music this good, you won't turn the sound off--you'll turn it up! No more small elves leading your team! This game contains real, believable figures. You won't be embarrassed to use your own name; you'll be proud. It's just you against six other characters in search of the 7 Sacred Runes. Whoever finds them... Rules the World. It's that simple, that easy. The only problem is you have some enemies, and I don't mean a few. I mean an army of things you've never seen before ready to raise the hair on the back of your neck and take you out the one swing. This is one powerful RPG. Can you handle it?"

Uhm, are we talking about the same game? There is so much wrong with that. The sound is garbage, the graphics are mediocre. No elves leading your team? I'm pretty sure Esuna is an elf. Real? Believable? That's why you can be a 5000 year old robot, demon, or dwarf. Y'know, because they're all real things! The only thing they aren't lying about is how the enemies will kill you in one hit. This game is hard, and not in a good way. The enemy scaling is terrible. In some dungeons you'll fight some of the beginner mobs, but go outside and you'll fight some huge mob that will rape you. The game's story is lame! It's hard to want to continue when you need to grind for hours just to get a few sentences of story.

The game is just ugly and clunky. Maybe I'm spoiled by modern RPGs but the whole user interface is just counter productive. Shopping is counter productive. Not like you'll be able to afford anything when you start the game off, anyway. Good luck, you'll need it!

The verdict? I should have never went back and played this thing. Maybe it was the RPG drought going on? Maybe it was just the only game I had at the time? All in all, this is one to be avoided, go play Mario RPG or something else.

1/10