And while the major points of each story are more or less set from the start, you’re given free rein between those beats to explore a dense world full of curious characters and little side-stories, your choices about what to do and who to recruit creating a dynamic, non-linear adventure. Seven (or eight, in the remaster) different protagonists come with seven (or eight) different stories, but they all overlap and intersect in ways that don’t become fully apparent until you play through all scenarios. Even as it picks up old pieces from the cutting room floor, adds some little modern conveniences, and gives the game a spit-shine, this remaster resists the urge to “fix” the messiness of the original-a messiness that stems from the original’s turbulent development, but nonetheless gave it its unique character.Īt the heart of SaGa Frontier, in both its original and remastered forms, is the Free Scenario system. How can you modernise a game like SaGa Frontier without unwittingly polishing away a soul that derives in large part from how unpolished it was to begin with? And yet, SaGa Frontier Remastered, somehow, manages to walk that tightrope effortlessly. The risk in remastering such a game is that you lose all of that. Related: Collection of SaGa brings three classic Game Boy RPGs to Switch that have aged surprisingly well, in all their 8-bit, black-and-green glory. The obvious holes left behind from content cut at the last minute coupled with open, deliberately undirected storytelling that took inspiration from everything from classic JRPG fantasy to cyberpunk to tokusatsu hero shows created something that was messy and uneven, but all the better for it: a fever dream of different ideas, all pulled together in ways that work well precisely because, on paper, they shouldn’t. Nigh-unrestrained ambition and an constrained development cycle clashed to create something wholly unique, even within the inventive SaGa series. The original SaGa Frontier is a fascinating game. The best thing about SaGa Frontier Remastered isn’t the new content or features, but how it stays true to the scrappiness of the original.
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