Full party wipes because an enemy screamed at you! Lets Play Saga Frontier

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Full party wipes because an enemy screamed at you! Lets Play Saga Frontier

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

dude789 posted:

They released a pretty complete storyline of what the 8th character's quest would have been in the big Japanese-only Essence of Saga Frontier book. Someone on Gamefaqs translated that part awhile back so I'll cover how the 8th character interacts with the main character at the end of their scenario and also point out some storyline differences. The portrayals of some of the villains and final bosses are particularly funny just because of how different they are from their in-game behavior, but that's something to be covered in more detail once we get there.

That was me. RedBoot's LP got me playing the game again, and I decided to give the story a shot. Feel free to use that material or post it. I can also send you my master file if you need it. It's got a few modifications and corrections since the Gamefaqs posts.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2013 07:51

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 13:48

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

To be fair grinding cash the normal way in this game is a huge pain. You don't get money for the most part, you just sometimes get drops you can sell if you're lucky.

I really hope you aren't actually going to grind out cash on an all Mec run.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2013 17:47

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

dude789 posted:

So that's about everything regarding Emelia's scenario in Fuse's adventure log. If there's anything I missed or something else you want to point out or address regarding Emelia's tale from any point in Essence feel free to share. This is really the only part of it I'm familiar with and I'm sure there's lots of cool information and other goodies inside that could help make sense of some of the poorly explained plot points.

The actual circumstance of Emilia being thrown into jail is kind of amusing. I'll just paste it verbatim here.

quote:

"How about you just 'fess up already? The evidence is all over the place, Miss Former Supermodel."

"You're nuts. Something's seriously wrong with you. Someone! Get someone else here!"

In a dimly lit room, my voice and that of an angry woman were running together.

I was in IRPO's interrogation room. It had barely been two hours since my face-to-face meeting with Cindy Campbell.

Ren had been killed. The first one to discover this was the woman in front of me - his fianc�e, Emelia. But judging from the scene, there was no mistaking it, the culprit had to be her. Sure, Ren had been drunk last night, but there was absolutely no way he could have been shot to death without drawing his own gun first... Unless the one who shot him was his own fianc�e.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but we're understaffed on officers, due to all kinds of reasons. With a good cop like Ren dead, the only people left to question suspects are myself and one other woman. With her out at the moment, that only leaves me!"

"And I'm telling you, I saw the culprit! It was someone wearing a mask that looked like a Joker on a playing card. He was running out of Ren's room!"

"Hahaha, I'd love it if you could introduce me to a jolly guy like that! Of course, this is reality we're talking about here. Or maybe you can explain to me why the only fingerprints found on the gun in question were yours?"

"That's... I was in a panic and picked it up..."

"Are you telling me there's someone dumb enough to pull a comic book stunt like that in this day and age!?"

"Well, excuse me! You're looking at that someone now! Let me talk to someone else already!"

The conversation had been going in this same circle, over and over. It was starting to seriously test my patience.

In the first place, going back to Ren, this Emelia woman never gave me a good impression. A straight-laced guy like Ren didn't belong with some floozy model - Just as I had been thinking that, tragedy struck.

And yet Emelia showed no humility or regret, continually denying things and insisting some imaginary masked man was the culprit. What a woman. Ren must be spinning in his grave. I'll pull all the authority I can to throw this woman in the slammer with a life sentence in Despair!

Just then, I got a contact from Doll, who was transporting Ren's body. Leaving Emelia to her ranting, I went to the access point.

[We've got a problem. You know that body? It's gone.]

"Say what!?"

[There was an accident while we were driving, and we got caught up in the chaos. Then, well, you see, Silence, umm...]

The way the story went, the ship had a near collision with the living legend Tanzer while traveling between regions. Then, of all things, Silence apparently opened the hatch and went out, in an effort to use a Mystic weapon to try and absorb it. When he did, the body slid out of the ship, flying way off into the chaos.

"God, how many times do I have to say it? Silence is a moron. A tremendously retarded cosplay freak. He's a narcissist who's so obsessed with absorbing things that if you leave him alone, he'll spend months on a stakeout with that sullen face--"

"Yes, yes, I get the point. The main thing here is that we have a problem on our hands."

drat right we've got a problem on our hands.

Ren's body had been shot through with large-caliber bullets so many times that there was no putting him back together. It was barely even distinguishable as a human corpse. With that fact, added to the fact that it was found in Ren's house, wearing Ren's clothes, all we could do was designate it as the victim. If we couldn't do a proper autopsy, then that put into question whether we could nail the woman for felony murder of an officer and send her to jail...

"Okay, Doll. I'll handle this."

[Wait, what are you planning to--]

I cut the line and placed a call to Despair. I had a hotline to the warden's office.

"Hello? Is this Mr. Million?"

[I'd recognize that crazy voice anywhere. Got a request?]

"Hey, good guess. Actually, I'd like you to admit one female prisoner as a major felon in the 50+ year sentencing category. Could you handle it as a favor to an officer?"

[I can't make any promises on the prison term, but sure. We haven't had many lively prisoners lately, so it's been pretty boring. I sure hope she's got some spunk and wits about her, like that man in the sunglasses who was here way back when--]

"I don't know if she'll meet your hopes or not, but I owe you one."

That settled that. All that was left was to send Emelia to Despair. An evil woman like that needs no trial. I am the law. Ren, consider yourself avenged.

Summary: They lose the (synthetic) body, but Fuse is so sure that Emilia did it that he has her thrown into jail without a trial and pats himself on the back for it.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2013 04:23

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

It's probably a corruption of Umber, but the spelling is intentional as far as I know.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2013 17:56

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

I dont know posted:

He is a high powered executive, he only has time for two things in his day, running his company and picking flowers with any stranger that comes into his office.

IRPO is a police agency. Fuse is a low ranking, underpaid beat cop who only gets away with the things he does because IRPO is so critically understaffed that there's nobody there to tell him no.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2014 21:20

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

"Well, later kids, no hard feelings. Sorry Princess Rei."

I see you picked the jerk route for Blue.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2014 16:36

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

I vote Asellus, and I say go all Mystic for it. All Mec for T260G.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2014 17:58

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

dude789 posted:

The big hack I've heard of is Romancing Saga 3.12 which basically mashes stuff together from all of the Saga games in the Romancing Saga 3 game engine. It includes attacks, bosses, characters, quests and songs from all of the games. It's pretty neat. Sadly it's Japanese only though.

I just tried patching this game and playing it for myself on Michael's scenario. I got stuck at the first boss because it has a gimmick that appears to be broken. Too bad, the game seems okay enough otherwise.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2014 02:31

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

I never noticed "Grain Cannon" there.

The word for "Particle" in Japanese can also be translated as "Grain". :v:

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 01:22

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

粒 can be defined as "grain" so it's extremely likely to be what Adryn said.

# ¿ May 27, 2014 16:31

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

W.T. Fits posted:

Dumb question, I apologize if this has been answered already but... are all these regions on the same planet? This is something I've always been confused about, since between needing space ships to get between regions and the abstract background whenever you're in transit, I've never been sure if each region is a separate planet/world, or if they're all taking place on the same world or what.

It's a place called the Region World. There's a swirly mass of stuff called chaos, and all the various regions float around inside of it. The region ships (and Tanzer) are the only things capable of safely navigating the chaos.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2014 02:43

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

Blaze Dragon posted:

A power-up for a mech called V-MAX? I sure did not expect a Layzner reference, nor am I complaining about it.

There are approximately a billion mecha anime references in attack names in this game. Starlight Shower is one, so is a martial arts attack named Triangle Kick, and you'll see a Bit system in a later story, among many other things.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 20:09

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

John Lee posted:

As opposed to SaGa games, which treat everything with a kind of dull sensibility, so 85% of the time it doesn't really have an impact, but the other 15% of the time it just serves to underline the bizarre settings/events.

You clearly haven't played Final Fantasy Legend 2 (SaGa 2), wherein you have to shrink yourself to drive badguys out of a woman's body, and the random encounters in the body include robots and terrorists.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 05:42

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

Chuu posted:

I love the BoF series and also really enjoyed V. Did this really kill the series like some others suggest suggest? The wikipedia articles makes it seem like it was well received in Japan.

It's not really specific to game reception, per se. It was the result of a growing competitive field in the market of RPGs, with much bigger and more well-equipped competition. Capcom was too small to keep up with juggernauts like Square, and they acknowledged that and decided to focus on other areas where they could thrive.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2014 09:11

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

They don't really say which people are depending on Lute. For all we know it could be Hamilton's pirates that are depending on him to be a resistance leader now.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2014 20:09

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

KataraniSword posted:

You missed the part where after that failed Buster Launcher, Slime (as in, the recruitable one from inside Tanzer) drips into the Spriggan's damaged cockpit and presumably melts Mondo, since he doesn't come out of the situation alive.

Essence has some really, really weird moments, and that's one of them. The main villain taken down by a useless snot bubble that forces itself into the party when nobody wants it.

It didn't drip into the cockpit. It spat acid at the head, and some of it got through the visor into the cockpit. Mondo also kept fighting for an entire additional phase after that action, and when he finally died, it was due to a combination of heat overload and a cockpit breach from unrelated actions.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 12:10

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

It's worth mentioning SF2's graphics as well. Every background looks like watercolor. The scenery is just incredible.

Pity about the halfassed narrative, really.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2014 02:38

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

Clarste posted:

On the other hand, I have to respect SF2 for having a story that makes sense and where stuff happens, unlike this game. Both approaches seem pretty flawed to me, but I respect that one more.

This is a very generous description of the game. The part about "stuff happens" is true, but there's a huge lack of logical progression from one event to another. It's very disjointed and makes a lot of plot jumps that leave out huge chunks of the story without ever explaining them. It's really hard to cite in specifics without spoilers, but it's got one of the worst narrative flows I've seen.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2014 21:12

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

a cartoon duck posted:

The artbook/guide thingy to the game, because nothing is ever in the actual game itself in SaGa Frontier.

If you could find the page where that's listed, I'd really be interested in verifying it. I have the book sitting on a shelf here, and I love uncovering more random gems from this game.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 07:31

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

Bufuman posted:

Wasn't someone giving details about each characters' bits in the book after each quest early on in this thread? Who was that and where the gently caress is he/she?

EDIT: Oh, it was dude himself. Get back on that, man!

I only remember one particular gem with Riki's story from the Fuse investigation log, but I'll let him cover that.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2014 08:11

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

MightyPretenders posted:

Asselus' escape here may not be how it was originally storyboarded, but I think it works well as it is. It brings up points like: how blind the outside world is to what Fascinataru is like, the general mystic dislike of advanced technology, and gives Asselus a reason to include White Rose in her escape scheme (even a small one).

Just to emphasize this, the dislike of machinery is a thing that comes up but is never explicitly stated. Essence has a term for it, calling the Mystics "Mechanically disinclined". All machinery is smelly and gross to them for some reason.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2014 01:51

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

The way I see it, it's more like a strategy guide that expands on content that's only briefly touched on in the game. It's nice to read bigger explanations that the game didn't shoehorn into the stories. I mean, this is before the era of in-game glossaries too.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2014 02:05

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

It also features the scrolling NO FUTURE text. It's pretty great all around.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2015 02:43

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

White Rose was tasked with looking after Asellus by Orlouge. She was carrying out his orders while simultaneously defying him, because Asellus wouldn't let her go back with the Sages. I vote B. She punished herself in the only way that could fulfill both conflicting obligations.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 05:29

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

Diva would be a noise complaint, as per her dancing and partying in Essence.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2015 13:10

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

W.T. Fits posted:

Although in retrospect, Red's initial argument kind of falls flat if you remember that Blue's supposed to have the Region Map to let him circumvent the need for a ship between Regions. Which in turn raises the question of why he's even bothering taking a commercial flight instead.

There's a good reason for Blue to board a commercial flight. He's trying to get that Rune Magic gift, clearly.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2015 22:43

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

That just incapacitates them until you stay at an inn.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2015 19:34

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 13:48

Hokuto: Jul 21, 2002; Soiled Meat

Glazius posted:

Seeing Moonscraper play out makes me wonder - does anything about the structure of your ally formation actually matter in this game? If not it makes sense for various boss battles to just line you up however they want to in order to show off their animations.

It matters, yes. Smaller AOEs hit smaller groups and it's possible to avoid splash damage with good placement on those. Moonscraper, not so much. That just hits everyone.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 05:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Full party wipes because an enemy screamed at you! Lets Play Saga Frontier