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Why Everyone Hates It: SaGa Frontier is quite possibly the single-most reviled RPG ever released in the U.S., and definitely the worst thing Square ever released on the PlayStation. To ask most people, it has no plot whatsoever, no indication anywhere what you should be doing at any given time, and nothing to keep you from stumbling into areas you have no business in until late in the game where you will be killed instantly.
Legitimate Issues With the Game: SaGa Frontier is, legitimately, one of the hardest RPGs one is likely to encounter. There is a stark, spartan lack of lavish cutscenes compared to what other games were doing at the time, particularly by the same publisher, and depending which character one selects, it can turn out to be rather shockingly sink-or-swim.
Why I Like It Anyway: In order to appreciate SaGa Frontier on any level, there are two things that must be understood about it. First, that it's the 7th SaGa game. Second, that it it is, amusingly enough, Square's answer to The 7th Saga, an RPG for the SNES from Enix which spectacularly failed to deliver on an interesting premise. Even by the standards of these Devil's Advocate reviews, it is not a game for everyone, but the particular mix of sadism and ambition on display should be pleasing to the extremely specific audience at which it is targeted.
The main reason that SaGa Frontier is so deeply hated by the general populace is that it had the misfortune of being the next game Square released after Final Fantasy 7. It is an unfortunate running theme that FF7 casts it shadow on so many of the games covered in this feature, but in this case it's much more direct than usual. The Final Fantasy series has always been Square's perfect little angle. Over time, the games just get better and better looking, while also getting progressively easier, friendly to newcomers, beloved by all. For most of the series lifespan though, lurking in the darkness has been Final Fantasy's evil twin, the SaGa games.
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SaGa got its start on the original Gameboy, the first three games seeing release in the U.S. under the name Final Fantasy Legend. They were largely a showcase of weird experimental ideas, like breakable weapons, brutal difficulty, and monsters as party members. After Final Fantasy briefly flirted with (then ran screaming from) a use-it-to-improve-it advancement system in FF2, SaGa picked it up. As it ventured into polygonal graphics and pre-rendered cutscenes, SaGa became more and more determined to stick with 2D sprites. Most importantly, as Final Fantasy drifted towards final bosses with no realistic ability to wipe your party out, SaGa... ran with the other extreme. If your first experience with RPGs is FF7, SaGa Frontier is most certainly not going to be your cup of tea.
Aside from being so intentionally brutal, SaGa Frontier decided to take a stab at a rival's idea that had failed to deliver not long before. The 7th Saga (which, again, has no relation to the SaGa series, nor was it the sequel to anything) was a game with a very interesting premise. Players were given a choice of seven highly varied characters, to be their sole protagonist over the course of the game. The other six would be out there in the world, periodically encountered as potential allies or enemies. The game proceeded to completely squander this notion, with the game playing out more or less exactly the same for everyone, not even taking the trouble to give each character a unique ending... or even to make the game's single ending make any sense at all for most characters.
SaGa Frontier attempts to do it right. Again, we have a choice of seven different characters, again including a robot and a monster, along with a rather blatant knockoff of FF6's Terra. Here though, every character actually has a unique plot, traveling to different places, encountering different characters, fighting different brutally difficult bosses, and so forth. The setting itself deserves some mention too. SaGa Frontier is, oddly enough, set in a patchwork collection of small, interlinked pocket dimensions, which one must travel between by means of various odd reality-hopping ships. One could easily find themselves going from a magical fantasy village to a 1930s casino, with a brief stopover in a cyberpunk dystopia, all in the span of a minute.
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This leads in to the big problem. With some characters, the game begins with an introductory stretch of plot, giving you a chance to familiarize yourself with how the game works, pick up some party members, work out the overall structure of the games setting, particularly which is the main hub city you want to spend most of your time in, and generally figure out what you're doing. There are, however, two noteworthy exceptions. One character finds himself at his final dungeon roughly 10 minutes into the game following his story along, facing horrible death without immediately turning around and doing some sidequests. Another, Blue, is more or less immediately tasked with learning every form of magic in the game (a task which essentially amounts to running through every single dungeon in the game), with absolutely no real hints on how to get started. Matters aren't helped much by Blue being the de facto primary character of the game, featured in the cover art, and given the most clear-cut motivation for traipsing all over existence.
Assuming however that one begins with one of the more user friendly characters, and has a stomach for the sort of difficulty the series is known for, SaGa Frontier is actually a rather solid and interesting game. Hard but not impossible. Extremely non-linear but with some basic structure. A use-it-to-improve-it stat increasing system that actually works out quite well. Plus none of the seven plot paths are overly long, allowing each one to be completed in a day if one knows what they're doing.
SaGa Frontier also has the distinction of being the last game in the series which can be practically completed. SaGa Frontier 2 and Unlimited Saga went on to continue the tradition of having stats and abilities gained based on a random formula roughly equivalent to what a given character is using the most, instead of traditional levels. However, they severely restrict the player's ability to revisit old areas, grinding away at monsters, until they manage to get the abilities they'll need for the final boss. While traditional difficulty is all well and good, when luck becomes as much of a factor as it is there, one is forced to accept games they'll have to put down upon reaching the final dungeon.
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That being said, the bulk of SaGa Frontier 2 is quite enjoyable. It features two parallel story paths one can skip between at will and some really impressive faux-watercolor artwork. One is the story of a boy who's considered a monster due to his lack of magical ability, as he instead focuses on becoming a physical powerhouse and gets involved in some fun political scheming. The other follows a family through three generations as they battle a malevolent evil force that passes from body to body. Unlimited Saga on the other hand brings back the seven character notion, but opts to go with a strangely spartan, minimalist, abstract approach to the game, reducing all dungeons to an abstract game board being revealed a room at a time as you explore under severe time limits.
Going back to the gameboy iterations of the series, SaGa 3 (or Final Fantasy Legend 3 in the U.S.) is the black sheep of the SaGa family, taking the form of a surprisingly straight-forward, by the numbers RPG. Granted, an RPG in which you can change any of your characters into any given enemy of the game by way of either eating hunks of meat dropped by the organic ones, or giving them cybernetic enhancements with leftover robot parts. It also features a rather impressive airship which can be steadily improved over the course of the game, eventually allowing all sorts of travel options, mid-combat air support, and housing a number of shops. The earlier games have not aged nearly as well, and the three SNES entries have never been released in the U.S.
Again, SaGa Frontier is not a game for everyone. It is, however, far from the worst RPG Square ever released for the PlayStation.
