Square Enix announces SaGa Frontier Remastered coming to Nintendo Switch summer 2021

Played it back in the day, and played it recently.

Combat is turn based. There are 4 races to the game, all of whom progress very differently. There are no levels and no experience points.

Humans gain stats on a luck basis at the end of battle based on performing certain actions. Physically attacking gives you a chance to raise strength, getting his gives you a chance to raise HP. They’re the slowest to grow, but have the highest potential in the end. They learn abilities in a similar way. Whatever action you take has a chance for you to spontaneously learn, and use instead, a more advanced special attack down the same tech tree. swords, fists, guns, magic schools, etc. Say with swords, after using the basic slash, you’ll eventually midfight spontaneously use double slash instead. Start using that, eventually you’ll use something more advanced instead and learn gale cutter, or one of a bunch of other more advanced skills.

Mechs’ stats are based purely on equipment, and they have an absurd number of equip slots. They can also learn “programs” by scanning other mechs after battle. These can either be passive or active abilities.

Mystics (vampires, basically) learn three different abilities that they are completely based around. mystic sword, mystic kick, and mystic glove. Any time they deal the killing blow with one of those moves, they absorb that monster into that piece of equipment (replacing any previous absorption) They gain one of that monsters’ attacks, and their stats raise based on what monster that is. So, go and absorb three awesome things and you’ll have an endgame mystic very quickly, but they’ll never be as powerful as a human who slowly grinds up all the way.

Finally, monsters absorb abilities from other monsters after battle. You can equip those abilities permanently, or swap out one of your existing abilities for the new one if out of slots. Your monster will transform into whatever monster in the game’s database its abilities most closely match.

That covers the combat pretty well. As for the story itself, the game has I think 7 choosable protagonists at the start of the game, each with their own completely different stories. They all exist in the same world and some can even be recruited in each others’ quests. Some of them are *MUCH* more fleshed out than others, and this is where the game was clearly rushed as characters like Red have a big game’s worth of content, but characters like Lute basically start their quest with nothing but 1 endgame dungeon to do and all the sidequests. Anywho, the overall goal is to complete every characters story. Back in the day they saved all your completions to a special file on a PS1 memory card so you could unlock the final ending after beating them all. As such I have a dedicated “SaGa Frontier” memory card in a drawer somewhere, because you max out the card basically on just the one game.

It is a very much NOT a Final Fantasy game. It doesn’t handhold, a lot of the content is optional, and there will be spikes in enemy difficulty because you are expected to be leveling on your own just for fun. Not for everyone, but I really like it.