That Skyrim is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills Thalmors and doesn't afraid of anything.
Yes old meme is old, but I don't care.
Anyway, welcome to a very overdue Wreckonomics article! Today we're covering SaGa Frontier 2.
SaGa Frontier 2 is copyright/trademark Square Enix. All mentions, discussions and shenanigans are for review purposes only.
Ah, SaGa games. One of the delightfully wacky RPGs series from that epicenter of eccentricity known as Japan. Unfortunately, this series let its quirks completely overwhelm everything else and is effectively dead, especially outside of Japan itself. This particular installment has just enough quirk to have, well, character. The combat is your usual turn-based monster mashing, centering around skills called "arts." These arts come in three basic flavors, Weapon Arts that allow you to deal damage in flashy ways, Spell Arts that do magic stuff in flashy ways, and Hybrid arts that do extra flashy things to the poor monsters.
The monsters themselves are mostly well-done, with just enough whimsy and animated tones without looking like something that crappy cartoon villains toss out in dozens to be wrecked by spunky teenagers. Though to be fair, they do get wrecked by the dozen by spunky teenagers... That said, they typically pose a good challenge, requiring a decent amount of strategy.
The story is split into two simultaneous parts. The first part is the one highlighted by everyone, a unusual mix of politics from something like the Holy Roman Empire's formation and the plot from the Darksword Trilogy. If you don't believe me, Google both while you play this thing and you'll see exactly what I'm saying. It's actually fairly interesting, but unfortunately gets bogged down and confused in Square's signature "silence means profound" storytelling strategy, leaving us with the second storyline, the usual "dudes go out to get rich, wind up saving the world from certain doom" that's done to death ten years prior, but with interesting twist of following three generations of adventurers. There are some losses, some victories, and in the end, a horrible abomination dies in an appropriately flashy fashion. If you're me, usually from getting whacked with a stick.
Theoretically Unlimited Wealth: Yes, but with severe barriers. Encounters are quasi-fixed, and respawn upon leaving and entering zones.
Limitations: Hoo boy. First and foremost, you have two currencies to deal with. Crowns (shortened to CR in-game) act as the traditional gold pieces for use in shops. You start with a decent amount (typically 1000) for each storyline, but earning more is extremely slow and difficult, especially starting off. This is exacerbated by gold farming being viable in only two dungeons, and the drops are so low as to be painful. The second currency is Chips; the primary way to get those is to break your gear.
Oh yeah, this game has breakable equipment, actually semi-justified. Magic is so prevalent in the game world that melee weapons made of wood and stone are actually quite effective. The downside is that the vast majority of weapons wear down upon use, and upon breaking yield Chips. Chips have a good amount of uses, primarily to be cashed in for CR (the more you can cash in a given time, the better a rate you get too), and for special "custom" weapons and items. Chips are also shared by all parties in the game (unlike CR), as does the inventory.
This inventory, unfortunately, is actually fairy limited in space, egregiously so for a JRPG with a random drop system in place. A streak of good luck can actually result in things like a choosing what to throw out.
The final blow to the shinies is both the least important and the most infuriating. This game actually came with a mini-game for the Pocketstation that would regularly yield all sorts of goodies, including some the best stuff in the game. The problem being that Pocketstation was never released outside of Japan and your average schmoe couldn't get one without ridiculous amounts of time and money. You can tell the loot system is balanced to account for a regular influx of items, but since you don't get that influx, things just sort of plod along. Total bullcrap.
Gas Pedals: Really, there isn't much to be had. Gold farming is tedious, even by JRPG standards. The best farming strategy for gold drops is to hunt for Ghouls and Ghoulas (local zombie equivalents) in either Hahn Nova (thankfully a starter dungeon) or the Ghoul tower (a revisitable optional dungeon). Be advised that the drops are pretty damn low, and you have to bring either steel or Quell (local artifact equivalent) equipment if you want to spend any prolonged time doing this.
A much better option exists, however: The Frito-Lay Factory. This relies upon deliberately breaking gear for Chips. The game has a habit of constantly throwing low-level weapons plus "trinkets," magical accessories that can be used to either fuel basic Spell Arts (one type of trinket for each magic type) with limited charges, or to enable higher level Spell Arts without using charges (bassackwards, I know). Advanced Spell Arts merely require access to the magic type on the user's person. Take all these little disposable bits and use 'em up! the best place to do this is the Vogelang Desert, with has a town with a free inn, a shop you can buy the usual stuff, turn in Chips for CR, and have custom tools made. To sweeten the deal, there is also a vendor after the first visit that can directly trade any non-steel, non-Quell item (including most armor) for it's Chip Value right then and there. The other real advantage is that just about any party can go there between story chapters, whether it makes sense or not. All this serves to both hand you all the Chips you need and clean out your inventory space. Oh, and your party gets a good bit of training out of using up all those bits on the mostly hapless monster population.
By way of closing, a question. Who in their right mind is going to hand out magic crystal bits for a hat or a pair of work gloves? These vendors are crazier than normal...
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