SaGa Frontier

Expanding on the selectable protagonists of past SaGas, and reminiscent of Live A Live, SaGa Frontier's 'Free Scenario System' effectively splits the playable cast into seven individual mini-journeys, retaining the non-linear elements while also revisiting a few concepts from The Final Fantasy Legend trilogy. Despite the novel format, the result is a mixed bag: On one hand, it enabled a lot more creative liberties, boasting all sorts of ideas without ever really sacrificing tone or integrity. On the other hand, these stories are largely thin and self-contained, only loosely related to each other by their world and supporting cast. Nevertheless, the format yields a fair few creative displays, particularly the comedic Super Sentai-tinged melodrama of Red's scenario, and Blue's collection of wild and varied gameplay detours. Equally as varied if not more bizarre are Asellus' and Emelia's routes, while the rest are either dull or half-baked sketches. The weaker moments are at least somewhat redeemed by the experiments and visuals.

Unfortunately, combat suffers from the same issues as previous games: Too much emphasis on random chance determining builds without enough clarity needed to make them meaningful. Too often you're just repeating attacks in battle in hopes that a new skill or upgrade activates. The brutal difficulty also detracts from the experience. Level scaling systems can work in JRPGs - especially within a non-linear format, but here it seems more annoying than challenging. The major slip-ups prevent this monolith from standing above the sea of Squaresoft releases.