#28

7th Saga (Originally released in 1993 on the SNES.)

Ok, first of all I don not really consider this game to be a great game....but it has one thing that many rpgs tend to lack: difficulty. The 7th Saga is one of (if not the), hardest rpgs I have ever played. For that reason I consider it a classic, and a game I enjoy to play every now and then for the sheer curve of difficulty it brings to the table.

The game has a very cookie-cutter story. The leader of the world has collected seven brave warriors for a special mission. There are seven runes scattered around the world, and he promises whatever these warriors can dream up of as a reward for gathering all seven runes. It has a rat race type of feel for it and the seven adventurers are all fighting against each other till the end. The catch is, you get to pick who you want to be at the start. It doesn't matter who you choose, the story stays the same.

You characters range from a knight, an elf, a dwarf, a priest, a demon, an alien, and a robot. Everyone is different in some way or another. The knight is the most well balanced character in the game. He does not excel in any category, but he has no glaring weakness either. The priest acts as the best healer in the game, but has very poor offense and defense. The elf is the only female character and is the best offensive magic user. The demon is able to cast every offensive spell in the game, but he never gets any healing spells and has a bad selection of armor to pick from throughout the game. The dwarf is similar to the knight, except he is stronger, but slower and has less spells to choose from. The alien has the highest HP total from everyone, but his magic is very bad. The robot has the highest attack and defense rating in the game, but his magic is bad and he gets no armor upgrades until near the end of the game.

You can pick whoever you want. The only differences in play will be who wants to join you and who will want to fight you as you progress through the game. As you start to collect the runes, the other characters might want to join you or fight you. It is random who does what, so if you really want a character on your team, you can reset a lot until they decide to join up. The demon and priest are the hardest group to pair together because they are polar opposites. When you confront them, you will usually be forced to fight one another because they do not see eye to eye on any subject. That isn't to say they can't ever pair up, it's just harder to do then any other team combination.

The game starts off easy enough, but by the time you are able to recruit a teammate the game hits a huge difficulty spike and it barely ever diminishes. You are forced to grind a lot in this game or you will fall behind and regular enemies will crush you. I can say with experience that I often avoid certain paths because there are some annoying random encounters that are able to wipe your team with a single spell. When you reach a certain part of the game, and the plot twist occurs you are sent into the past where you can no longer back track. The game gets even harder form this point, so if you aren't sufficiently leveled by this time, the random fights may too hard for you to beat which will cause you to be stuck with no means of getting stronger. If this happens, you might have to just start all over since you can not advance any further. The game is hardly kind in any regard. It is meant for those who enjoy a challenge and do not mind failing every now and then.

The 7th Saga has nothing as far as an engaging story or interesting characters. Everyone is basically the same, and the story is there I suppose. It's a fun game to play with if you don't mind grinding a lot. I guess there is some sense of replay ability since you can mix teams around and see who goes best with who. This game is not for the faint of heart. if you get annoyed at challenges, then you might want to skip this game altogether.