Romancing SaGa 3™

omancing SaGa 3™ is a fascinating relic of the golden age of JRPGs, reintroduced to a modern audience through its long-awaited official localization and HD remaster. Originally released in 1995 for the Super Famicom in Japan, this entry in Square Enix's unconventional SaGa series remained a hidden gem to Western audiences until its global release in 2019. With a focus on non-linear storytelling, open-ended exploration, and experimental mechanics that break from the mold of its more famous RPG siblings like Final Fantasy, Romancing SaGa 3 stands as a bold, sometimes baffling, but ultimately rewarding experience for those willing to engage with its quirks. At its core, Romancing SaGa 3 is defined by its open structure. Right from the outset, players are given a choice of eight protagonists, each with their own background, starting location, and narrative threads. This choice fundamentally shapes the early hours of the game and offers unique scenes and character interactions, encouragi...

I spent 90 hours with this game, and it blows. After the opening, you will have to scrounge for things to do. You can't explore the world - you have to unlock fast travel destinations by having an NPC tell you about them. If you do manage to find a quest and complete it, your reward will be a small sum of money or a recruitable character. These characters hardly differ at all, with progression only existing in terms of gear and weapon skills transferable between party characters. Sadly, the money stops having an impact early on as well, because shops will almost never stock more than 8 items, and most of them share inventory. Fans try to say this is a "JRPG sandbox". Sure, if that sandbox has no fucking sand. There is no leveling up, no overall story, and no reward for spending time here. Apparently some of the quests have different dialog if you pick other options, but that's not even close to enough to get me to play this again.