SaGa Frontier Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

SaGa Frontier Remastered Switch NSP Free Download For someone who talks about loving JRPGs, it’s surprising how few of them I’ve actually finished. I’ve made it to the end of a few of the Final Fantasy series and Skies of Arcadia, but I’ve never completed Ni No Kuni or any of the Breath of Fire games. I’ve not even got around to starting Chrono Trigger, let alone finishing it!ROMSLAB.COM BEST SWITCH GAMES

SaGa Frontier Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

And so it is with SaGa Frontier; a classic RPG that I’ve just never managed to get round to. In my defence, the title never got a PAL release so it passed me by in the 90s and it has never quite made the top of my ever-growing ‘to play’ list since then. This remastered version of the 1997 Square PlayStation classic makes up for the lack of a release by coming to pretty much every platform worldwide simultaneously; including mobile devices. I played the Switch version for this review, but the features are the same across all versions.

At the top of Frontier

You select one of seven protagonists to play through their story. There’s Red, the punk-turned-superhero, or Emilia, the supermodel framed for her fiancé’s murder. There’s also a monster option with Riki, a robot option with T260G, and a few more besides. You may have heard about a new 8th character Fuse added to the remaster, who works a little bit differently than the rest.Astro Aqua Kitty Switch NSP

SaGa Frontier Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Unlike the Romancing SaGa games, SaGa Frontier’s individual character stories are quite a bit more unique, with each character having their own goal to pursue and unique ending. Each story opens up a little bit differently, and you might start in a location completely different from one character to the next. What other characters are available to join you can also change depending on the ‘route’ you chose.

GamePlay

Gameplay is pretty straightforward as far as 2D JRPGs go — explore several locations, battle enemies via turn-based combat, find new members for the team and progress the story. Granted, this might not be as easy as it sounds since the necessary actions to progress can be obtuse. It’s sometimes unassuming actions like walking into a room enough times or speaking to a character after having visited enough locations. Indeed, this is a case where locating a walkthrough might be necessary. Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky DX Switch NSP 

SaGa Frontier Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

This remaster of SaGa is reminiscent of classic JRPGs in another way, in that Square-Enix didn’t think to add a tutorial of any kind. This is not a welcoming title for newcomers to oldschool design, especially with the sudden difficulty spikes in the combat. It’s pretty common to encounter random enemies which will wipe the party in just a couple of moves, so grinding up experience points ends up being mandatory.

Graphically,

This is a reasonable upgrade from the original release. The character models are now super high res and seem to have been redrawn from scratch, but many of the enemies look like they’ve been upscaled from original assets. Square Enix has already stated that some AI upscaling has been used and on occasion things look a little out of place. In some sections there are what look like 90s digitised sprites placed on top of ostensibly redrawn environments and it’s a little jarring when this occurs. Atelier Lulua Arland no Renkinjutsushi 4 Switch NSP

SaGa Frontier Remastered Switch NSP Free Download Romslab

Not enough to be off-putting, but it reminds you every now and then that this is a remaster and not a whole new game. The important thing here though is how does it play? The SaGa series is a different kettle of fish to most JRPGs, with no XP or levelling. You gain new abilities from using the ones that you have, with new moves ‘glimmering’, which is to say that sometimes you’ll cast an attack, and suddenly learn and perform a different one.

Add-ons (DLC): SaGa Frontier Remastered Switch NSP