SaGa Emerald Beyond Review

SaGa Emerald Beyond is my first SaGa game. To be honest I had never heard of the series before, but watching a couple of trailers on YouTube piqued my interest enough to get me to volunteer when the review code came up.

Off the bat, SaGa Emerald Beyond looks to be your middle-of-the-pack AA game, similar to the many games like Diofield Chronicles that Square has been releasing in the recent past to tide JRPG fans over between Final Fantasy games. It isn’t a big-budget blockbuster JRPG that fans will be talking about for months and years, but it is a game that does some interesting things that just may make their way into those big-budget, blockbuster Final Fantasy games.

SaGa Emerald Beyond starts you out with you having to choose between six protagonists, two co-protagonists, and five stories. Each story starts you out on a different world in the multiverse with a storyline to unravel for each. This is the weakest part of SaGa Emerald Beyond as each story plays out as an almost independent story with little to no connection to the other stories or an overarching narrative.

For an RPG this could be a fatal flaw, but each story is good enough to stand on its own and yes this does allow you to play out five different games in the same world. This may not play to the traditional story strengths of a JRPG, but each story is good enough to stand on its own.

Each protagonist’s starting world is, I want to say remarkably simple. You play out on the world map, but instead of travelling to towns or dungeons to go through the usual dungeon crawl to get to a boss, you simply scan the world and identify points of interest. Each point of interest either leads to a conversation or some other plot device to move you forward or a battle. In a way this simplified structure reminds me of an ARPG where your task, your focus is simply on moving through the area, clearing the enemies and collecting the loot.

In this case, the loot is XP to level up, but you get the idea. For a first time player of the series, it was a surprise to see something so simple, but it became something refreshing to play through without having to worry about save points or extended playtime hunting for a save point.

SaGa Emerald Beyond party piece is the battle system, a turn-based system but not one that feels old-fashioned or slow. Like the recently released Eiyuden Chronicles the system has you choose your actions before each turn plays out. To add a layer of strategy to the battles each action you take moves you up and down the action timeline with some magic spells taking a turn or two to power up. This last part is a risk/reward calculation as you risk having the casting party member getting knocked out before they can cast but if they get it off they can do significant damage to the enemy.

Choosing your actions so that you can stack up the actions of your party one after the other unlocks team attacks that multiply damage on an enemy. This is reminiscent of certain tactics game mechanics that allow you to do additional damage if you have party member surround the enemy. Again, lining up the attacks has an element of risk attached as party members you want to team up with may be towards the end of the timeline so moving your attacks to later in the timeline could leave you vulnerable to having party members KO’d.

You also have to be careful as the enemy has the same thoughts as you and they can and will use it to their advantage. This can be particularly galling as you often roll into a battle significantly outnumbering the enemy, but they usually are stronger and more cunning than expected. It was surprising how often I experienced a Total Party Kill because I underestimated the strength and tactics of the enemy.

SaGa Emerald Beyond sets itself apart from other AA JRPGs through its fun and tactical combat system, the various stories are decent, but can be short and the fact that they are disconnected makes SaGa Emerald Beyond a little disjointed. However, for a genre that is heavily dependent on storytelling, this flaw in SaGa Emerald Beyond is not fatal. It is weaker for it, but it is not a game that cannot be recommended.

The battle system does much of the heavy lifting to redeem SaGa Emerald Beyond, the impact of the decisions you make at the start of each turn is acutely felt and leads to a sense of uncertainty and danger something that turn-based games can lack. For anyone itching for a JRPG that will challenge them while allowing you to switch off your brain for a few hours at a time, this is highly recommended.