Makai Toushi SaGa - Act II

 

Next up is World 3, the Sky. Most interesting world, with the best artwork. Weird thing is that there are more world levels above the sky, including a large modern city. SaGa is weird.

Not only is it a cloud world, it's the home of my favorite fiend: Byakko the Air Lord.

While the other worlds just sort of existed in their oddball states with little reaction from the townspeople, this world is actively lorded over by Byakko (who forces people to do labor for him) and the people are trying to find a way to defeat him. In other words, this world actually kinda has a story!

Boco speaks?? The rare times our heroes talk in this game, they seem to be extremely rough around the edges. They kill off their foes without a second thought after boss fights and they get into bar fights.

....with giant mosquitos that are apparently part of Byakko's army. Let it be known that the SaGa series is very weird-ass.

Byakko is much more hands-on than the previous couple of world bosses, and recruits the party to join his legion. This leads to them working to undermine him from within while doing his busywork.

Next I get a jet plane. That's right, a jet in a game that was strictly swords and sorcery an hour ago. SaGa is WILD.

Siren runs into her evil mirror universe version, a flying goblin-naga. SaGa is WILD.

Boco's strength is maxed at 99 already. In the Game Boy version you could continue to accumulate Str, it would just stop the display at 99 (the real cap is 255, upon which it'll roll over back to zero). This is a great way to get wildly overpowered, just grind Str up to like 220 or so and don't lose count.

Well, in this version they fixed this, so things legitimately cap at 99 now. Not to worry, the party is still gonna probably be OP, it'll just be harder in the endgame than the GB version. Also the Glass Sword is fixed... so make that "MUCH harder in the endgame than the GB version"

Agility is now capped as well, so Boco's good with any weapon. From here it's just a matter of chipping away with HP200s every time I get bored enough.

Next up, I take on Byakko's airship. This involves pretending to work for him and infiltrating.

"I'm here to save you, girl!" says our hero. "Come be in Boco's world!"

Byakko shows up, and he's pissed that somebody is rescuing women from him.

...until the woman in question sells us out.

YOU SOLD OUT! YOU SOLD OUT!

Now Byakko puts our heroes into jail. Why not just kill 'em?

Here in D Block, Boco has to punch out the biggest dude in the yard to assert dominance.

Oh hey, Byakko no longer needs the turncoat. This guy has way more story (and is way more of a villain) than the first two fiends, which were just kinda...there.

The sister leaps in the way, and Byakko takes her out instead. What is with all this sudden storyline in SaGa 1?

Byakko is the coolest-looking of the four fiends, and the first fight in the game to really put up any resistance. However, this group is overleveled. The sky-high encounter rate keeps pushing them well beyond what they need to be.

So what became of Mireille? I think she became Emelia from SaGa Frontier.

I usually pause this game midway through and tediously grind out HP200s to get to 999 HP before continuing. It's about 60,000 G to go from 400 HP to 999. At least I only need to do it with one character this time.

This thing inflicts insta-death, but it ALWAYS MISSES. Considering how easygoing this game is with insta-death (Petrify and the Death spell pretty much always work, and target groups), I'm not sure why they were so stingy with this single-target attack actually working. It worked a lot better in the Game Boy version and actually kills some bosses there.

The next floor is a flooded world, where everyone's just kinda flailing around yelling "help me Forrest help me!" ...Why not go to a higher floor?

Turns out that this dingbat caused the flood by littering, which clogged up all the storm drains. Like those notorious pictures of flooded streets in Lagos, Nigeria.

And uh...that's it for this floor. You unclog it and everyone goes back to what they were doing. No dungeons, no fiends.

The next actual floor is the domain of Suzaku, the fourth fiend, who has an invincible forcefield.

This is.... City. In the Game Boy Players Guide coverage of Final Fantasy Legend they refer to this area as "Ruins". Not sure if that was a mistake, a translation, or if it got changed for this version. Why is a city above the sky? Why is an advanced city even up here when the rest of the game is at a medieval tech level?

This place has a pretty memorable look, sort of like 2300 AD in Chrono Trigger without the nuclear winter. Unfortunately, it's the worst area in the game. Here's my entry on it from The Top 11 Most Tedious Square Areas:

#3. World 4 (Ruins) (Final Fantasy Legend) - The world and dungeon design really take a nosedive with this part of the first SaGa game. You've got Suzaku harassing you on a constant basis on the overworld, the dungeons are confusing as hell with hidden passages, fake doors, fake stairs, and just general "where the hell do I go" at all times if you're not following a guide. The game damn near falls apart at this point, which is a shame because the area itself is pretty awesome in concept and visuals. Easily the most memorable location from the game...but also its worst.

Maybe they were running out of steam at this late stage in development, because the area after this (the final floors of the tower) aren't much better. They're just a bunch of conveyor belts that usher you to the next area, fighting a bunch of (way too frequent) random fights along the way with foes that cast Death and Petrify. Which is lots of fun (not). But overall I'd say the whole of World 4/Ruins is the worst part of the original SaGa and one of the worst things retro Square ever came up with. At least it's fairly short, like the game itself.

Suzaku attacks randomly (and frequently) and you've got no choice but to run away. The battle background here is actually quite impressive.

People here hide in subway tunnels because it's the only place Suzaku doesn't go, as he ravages the overworld. Don't they have a military? Why are they just letting Suzaku run the streets?

Chainsaw NEVER WORKS. Did I mention that? At this point I threw it away, because with a super-limited inventory, no way I'm lugging this thing around.

The shops here sell some of the best weapons in the game. Matter of fact there's only one shop after this with better weapons, and it's after the game's 2nd-hardest boss, so getting upgrades here is important.

They went for an Akira vibe here (much like the Akira chapter in Live a Live), with a biker gang posing the only resistance against Suzaku in this apocalyptic wasteland. Your hero begrudgingly earns the respect of the biker gang leader after bringing his little sister back from the nearby subway, where she was being menaced by...

...the dynamo of danger that is Gunfish.

...

From there, it's a matter of roaming the destroyed, desolate streets to find the components to assemble Erase 99. Not sure what Erase 99 is, but it'll remove Suzaku's barrier. There's a motorcycle you can drive around the overworld with at this point and it's supposed to prevent attacks by Suzaku, but I was still getting attacked by him. Not sure if the game was bugged or what, but it made this part very very tedious with a lot of saving and reloading.

This one thing is what brings this game down a bunch of notches and it's unfortunate. A game mechanic gone awry.

One part of Erase 99. This requires going through some short but obnoxious dungeons.

ROM is ALSO the only way an American can play this game, since they never gave us Wonderswan Color! Why do they KEEP GUNPEI FROM US??

.....

Plutonium??

"It's uh...to beat Suzaku! Yeah that's the ticket!" says the boss.

Another tedious dungeon follows, during which the gang leader goes Full Yang and sacrifices himself to break into the main chamber. Your heroes take his headband and put it on in solidarity. The headband is one of the best helms in the game.

Alright! Now we can build nuclear weapons assemble Erase 99!

Before we can leave, boss fight with WarMech from FF1. Luckily in this game it's significantly nerfed and nowhere near as deadly as that game. Wait a minute, was this an effort to connect the two game worlds? Is this the Flying City of FF1 in the distant past, since that place also existed above the clouds at one time? Eh, I don't know. I don't think so. The Flying City was far beyond this place in tech. It's just another example of FF reusing the same ideas from game to game.

Warmech will pop up again in FFL2, and it's waaaaay worse there.

Next up: The final tower ascent.

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