Makai Toushi SaGa (WSC, Replayed on Oswan on RG350)
There is a tower that is said to lead to Paradise. You’re gonna climb it.
This was originally released for the Game Boy, and localized as Final Fantasy Legend. (Which I did a Let’s Play I’m really proud of.) I was inspired to replay it when the Collection of SaGa came out and folks were talking about it. I had played this specific version a decade ago, though I think the translation has been slightly tweaked since; it feels more polished.
I did a two humans/two mutants run; opting out of dealing with monsters entirely. I used the trick of starting with a human female, selling her saber for a rapier and three Agi-Ups, and using that as a kickstart. The humans still didn’t ramp nearly as quickly as the mutants did.
I hadn’t noted this last time, but the King’s Armor is a key item in this version, and gets to live on its own side list, separate from your time list of regular items. That’s definitely an improvement. (Keys, the airseed, etc. all get the same treatment. You can still move them to people’s equipment list, though.) I’ve heard rumors for decades that the old man’s riddle in the Ocean world can be different and have a different answer, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen it. (It’s been the Battle Sword in every play-through of the original I’ve ever done. Here the riddle was different and the answer was a Gold Needle.)
Spells have individual animations that were clearly redrawn for this. The barrier around the cloud world is mountains rather than a void (is it a valley?) The Tower and some areas feel distinctly different in this art style than I always imagined them. They kept the bit where certain afflictions (including blindness and stone) shuffle your party order, and I hate that. They also properly coded stat caps; I could easily max my humans' primary stats in Ocean world. But then I barreled on ahead to Ruins world (Or “City”, in this translation) and was definitely underpowered, with my humans and one mutant still at less than 400 HP. (My mutants were definitely a mixed bag-abilities changed constantly, though I didn’t have any elemental attacks for long. I got a number of useful rounds of Stone Gaze and Death Gaze and a long stretch with oChange on both of them; but also a lot of time with Surprise, Telepathy, Telekinesis and the like.) I had gotten Teleport on one mutant and actually returned to Cloud world, grinded and reequipped, and then returned to Ruins. I hate Su-Zaku mostly for his ability to inflict blind, because you can be immune to his fire attacks when you’re running from his constant appearances on the overworld, but blind stays after battle.
Excalibur has unlimited uses and hits a group, but seemed strangely weak, even in the hands of my Str 99 Human. A mutant with 80 mana was doing more damage with a magic staff at that point. When I boosted that human’s Agility to 99 also, the Excalibur damage caught up. When we got the Masamune after Su-Zaku2, it had the same setup.
Ashura murdered one of my mutants with 6heads but then wasted the rest of his turns cursing me. I used save states for the final ascent rather than grinding more; critical hits from the Sun Sword are still the best way to kill the undead fiends. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to kill God, because he restored all of his health and my party was a mix of injured, blinded and confused after his first half-dozen turns…but then my confused human used the Chainsaw on God and I won. (I hadn’t planned that exploit, but found it hilarious that it still worked.)
As a side note: Oswan (the WSC emulator on the RG350) is fantastic. The Select button maps to the emulator controls, it supports save states, the image scaling is good. I just wish there were more translated WSC color games to play.
Overall: I’ll admit, I like the broken bits of the original Game Boy version better (particularly uncapped Human stats); and my nostalgia is for the black-and-white graphical set. But I can’t argue that they made the game smoother and prettier in this incarnation. It’ll be interesting to see if this or a newer remake appears during the SaGa renaissance we’re seeing now.
This was originally released for the Game Boy, and localized as Final Fantasy Legend. (Which I did a Let’s Play I’m really proud of.) I was inspired to replay it when the Collection of SaGa came out and folks were talking about it. I had played this specific version a decade ago, though I think the translation has been slightly tweaked since; it feels more polished.
I did a two humans/two mutants run; opting out of dealing with monsters entirely. I used the trick of starting with a human female, selling her saber for a rapier and three Agi-Ups, and using that as a kickstart. The humans still didn’t ramp nearly as quickly as the mutants did.
I hadn’t noted this last time, but the King’s Armor is a key item in this version, and gets to live on its own side list, separate from your time list of regular items. That’s definitely an improvement. (Keys, the airseed, etc. all get the same treatment. You can still move them to people’s equipment list, though.) I’ve heard rumors for decades that the old man’s riddle in the Ocean world can be different and have a different answer, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen it. (It’s been the Battle Sword in every play-through of the original I’ve ever done. Here the riddle was different and the answer was a Gold Needle.)
Spells have individual animations that were clearly redrawn for this. The barrier around the cloud world is mountains rather than a void (is it a valley?) The Tower and some areas feel distinctly different in this art style than I always imagined them. They kept the bit where certain afflictions (including blindness and stone) shuffle your party order, and I hate that. They also properly coded stat caps; I could easily max my humans' primary stats in Ocean world. But then I barreled on ahead to Ruins world (Or “City”, in this translation) and was definitely underpowered, with my humans and one mutant still at less than 400 HP. (My mutants were definitely a mixed bag-abilities changed constantly, though I didn’t have any elemental attacks for long. I got a number of useful rounds of Stone Gaze and Death Gaze and a long stretch with oChange on both of them; but also a lot of time with Surprise, Telepathy, Telekinesis and the like.) I had gotten Teleport on one mutant and actually returned to Cloud world, grinded and reequipped, and then returned to Ruins. I hate Su-Zaku mostly for his ability to inflict blind, because you can be immune to his fire attacks when you’re running from his constant appearances on the overworld, but blind stays after battle.
Excalibur has unlimited uses and hits a group, but seemed strangely weak, even in the hands of my Str 99 Human. A mutant with 80 mana was doing more damage with a magic staff at that point. When I boosted that human’s Agility to 99 also, the Excalibur damage caught up. When we got the Masamune after Su-Zaku2, it had the same setup.
Ashura murdered one of my mutants with 6heads but then wasted the rest of his turns cursing me. I used save states for the final ascent rather than grinding more; critical hits from the Sun Sword are still the best way to kill the undead fiends. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to kill God, because he restored all of his health and my party was a mix of injured, blinded and confused after his first half-dozen turns…but then my confused human used the Chainsaw on God and I won. (I hadn’t planned that exploit, but found it hilarious that it still worked.)
As a side note: Oswan (the WSC emulator on the RG350) is fantastic. The Select button maps to the emulator controls, it supports save states, the image scaling is good. I just wish there were more translated WSC color games to play.
Overall: I’ll admit, I like the broken bits of the original Game Boy version better (particularly uncapped Human stats); and my nostalgia is for the black-and-white graphical set. But I can’t argue that they made the game smoother and prettier in this incarnation. It’ll be interesting to see if this or a newer remake appears during the SaGa renaissance we’re seeing now.