The Wonder Years 07.24.08: Week 65 - The 7th Saga

Posted by Owain J. Brimfield on 07.24.2008

I hear it's not necessary to have experienced the previous six sagas.

Welcome to the column where all gamers of a certain age come to wallow in 16-bit nostalgia. I'm your host, Owain J. Brimfield, and I'll be discussing some of the hidden gems and instant classics of gaming's golden era. Some of these games may crop up in downloadable form at some point, some may be consigned to the annals of history. Either way, they're worth tracking down if you missed them first time round, or replaying if you were lucky enough to catch them. Let's take a trip to:

THE 7TH SAGA

(Enix, Super NES, 1993)

In seeking to give the world a strongly traditional SNES RPG based more in the tabletop/D&D conventions than in any other console role-players, Enix delivered unto us The 7th Saga, a somewhat brown and arcane title that nevertheless proves compelling. Of course, there's little point thinking about what the previous six sagas may have been (presumably it's some form of Homerian reference to the Epic Cycle of ancient Greek literature… or possibly to Harry Potter), and we should also distance ourselves from that joke about watching Malcolm X without having seen the previous nine Malcolms. The company hadn't gotten their perennial Dragon Quest franchise really underway on the console, with only the third sequel to that game having seen release in 1992, and that not performing too satisfactorily in its native Japan. It was left to The 7th Saga to provide the impetus for traditionally-driven RPGs, and the game feels somewhat unique as a result, distancing itself from the more story-driven output of Squaresoft that was prevalent at the time.

That's not to say that there's no story of course, although what there is seems pretty circumstantial at the game's outset, with seven apprentices being hired by the elderly King Lemele of Ticondera to retrieve seven mystical runes from seven malevolent tyrants (you see here the theme that lends the game its title) that were used long ago to imprison an evil monster named Gorsia, with the reward for whoever is successful being the heirship of the kingdom. Oh, and there's a bounty hunter on the loose tracking down the apprentices too, hired by a traitor amidst the seven to take out rival contenders to the throne. That's pretty much yer standardized, formulaic lot until the runes are eventually retrieved, at which point the plotline takes a number of rather intriguing twists and turns that make up for the paucity of imagination displayed thus far, much like in Superman 64 when it's revealed near the end that the game was developed as a post-ironic comment on the state of modern gaming (okay, so that didn't happen, but I still refuse to believe that "game" was coded with good intentions). There's even divine intervention and a Shyamalan-esque "OMG" twist right at the end of the game, which works pretty well when it comes to putting everything in context.

The seven characters, each of whom is selectable as your protagonist at the beginning of the game, run the gamut from the obligatory (knights and elves) to the slightly abstract (demons) to the abstract and a tad surreal (aliens and robots). There's actually a fairly neat dynamic at play, as whichever of the six characters you don't pick will be released into the gameworld as NPCs questing off on their own, and you'll be able to interact and team up with them, and even battle them for possession of the runes at some points. This goes some way towards offsetting the general lack of development of the story, as the majority of action takes place in the form of dungeon exploration rather than roaming through the towns, leading to a slightly ostracized feel as you work your way through the world map. Gameplay itself is pretty traditional, with the addition a neat Mode 7 battle screen that displays the combatants in 3D, or at least the closest the SNES could manage to the third dimension back in '93. There's also a crystal ball-esque radar introduced when you leave the safe haven of the towns and cities, to alert you to encroaching beasts n' baddies, so's you can avoid that most heinous of RPG staples, the random battle.

Unfortunately, random battles are a bit of a necessity in this game, for one sole detrimental reason - The 7th Saga's leveling-up system is merciless and unforgiving, like a tyrannical mother-in-law. Enix boasted at the time that the game possessed around 70 hours of gameplay, which is a rather fanciful claim, but were that true you'd have to imagine that at least 55 of said hourly time units would be spent laboriously leveling up. In reality, a typical game will last you maybe 25 hours, of which a good 12-15 will be spent murderizing baddies to get your EXP sufficiently high to tackle the next dungeon. I know people have mixed feelings on this mechanic - personally, I hate it, but the game is good and epic enough apart from that to render that point a mild annoyance rather than a point of disgust. Others, of course, love the process of leveling your little guys up to the max, and happy to accept the unnatural "challenge" it creates, will get a hell of a lot of enjoyment from this game. This takes us back to the roleplaying roots of the genre, of course, in which many an intrepid explorer has been killed in an undignified manner by a sole level 3 goblin. Whether or not that dynamic works is, I guess, up to you. Graphically, there is rather an abundance of brown to be found, but since you'll be too busy garnering the crucial few experience points to learn the next Thunder spell, that may be at the back your mind.

Not being outstanding in any particular way, The 7th Saga is essentially one of the RPGs that the 90s forgot, and whether or not that's a good thing is sort of up for debate. In an sense, of course it's never nice for a decent game to go forgotten in the history books of time, but in another, more accurate sense, the game's dated mechanics go a long way to ensuring it remains firmly in 1993, even if it's still an enjoyable playing experience. I doubt there are few younger gamers who would especially enjoy this title should it ever see release on a download service, mainly because it seems a lot of gaming these days is geared away from the "epic slog" experience (Oblivion and MMORPGs not withstanding). I know I probably wouldn't find time to play through this one again. However, as a snapshot of a slice in time, The 7th Saga is a solid RPG that at least has the decency to provide a satisfying denouement in recognition for all its troubles. Also: robots and aliens.


The 7th Saga trivia

• Okay, so Lux Tizer isn't actually a robot, technically speaking. The game calls him a 'Tetujin', which I believe is Japanese for "lazy translation".
  
• Enix released a semi-sequel entitled, somewhat goofily, Mystic Ark, which saw release only in Japan and whose script has long been a pet project for amateur translators.
  
• The game's world map looks suspiciously like a goose being attacked by a giant scorpion. Go figure.
  

The Videosphere

Let's take a look at this week's video highlight of The 7th Saga in action. This video some chap kindly made of his first time starting the game shows off the cast of characters, and actually reminds me after writing this column that the sprite design wasn't all that great after all. Ah well.




General indulgences

Every week in this section I'll endeavor to provide you, the faithful readers, with a fascinating insight into the various forms of entertainment currently dominating my spare time.

This week, I have been mostly enjoying:

...well, my E3 hangover is still in relatively full swing, so there's been little gaming this week, other than a brief revisiting of 7th Saga to see if there's as much leveling up as I remember. Turns out, there is.

Dirty Sexy Knights In Paris by Audiovent, better known by the eternal tongue-twister Brandon Boyd's Brother's Band. A straight-up rock album that brings back fond memories of being young, carefree and smoking pot being a respectable young chap.

Send in the Dogs, the world's simplest cop-based TV show - these policemen have dogs, and they get the dogs to bite crims until they give up. Awesome.

and playing the drums. Yes, after almost a decade as a guitarist, I've decided to branch out and become a cloth-headed pots-and-pans basher. It's surprisingly difficult, but if I master nothing other than 'Run To The Hills', I'll be a happy man.


And finally…

Thanks for reading folks; as always, reader feedback and suggestions are welcome. Next week in "The Wonder Years" - the pantheon of anthropomorphic characters is stretched to breaking point. Until then - keep it real, keep it retro.