SaGa Emerald Beyond |OT| Beyond this door, a weird new Frontier

[SpoonyGundam]

I was so turned off by the demo, but how do we feel about the final game now that we've all had some time to play it? Scarlet Grace had one of my favorite battle systems, and I don't know if what I was quite feeling the changes for Emerald Beyond.

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I enjoyed the writing (Though I didn't love the story/scenario) and largely disliked the gameplay.

IMO EB gameplay is mostly about setting up your build. You don't get your entire list of situational, imperfect techs like in SG. You get a short list and have to chose what stays and goes, so you tailor it to a specific gameplan and execute that gameplan regardless of what the enemy is doing, and not all builds are equally strong in all situations. This isn't necessarily bad, except:

1. The UI is clunky enough that it makes experimenting with different builds kind of a hassle.
2. Shitting out combos with the default formation is already highly effective in all situations, so it didn't feel necessary or even worthwhile to experiment.

I think it's accurate that the game is less random than SG (And probably most other RPGs), but I actually think that's kind of bad. Turn-based battle systems really need some element of randomness to force players to adapt and keep the game from getting stale, whether it's dice rolls or card draws or whatever. But the RNG for EB felt largely inconsequential to me, and every battle pretty much felt the same as a result. The most significant bit of RNG IMO is with character positions on the timeline, but it doesn't take long to glimmer some movement techs and it stops mattering much after that. I barely paid any attention to what the enemy was doing, barely used any conditional techs, could count the number of times I used Deflect across all playthroughs on one hand, and just did the extremely simple positioning puzzle every turn to set up my combos. Never ran into any significant resistance. I did experiment with other kinds of builds while knocking out trials and it all felt much less effective than what I was already doing.

Put another way: I had tons of turns in SG where I felt like I had to hedge my bets by using multiple unreliable options to try to get through a dangerous turn in the best position possible. Maybe I'd throw out two stuns and still use Deflect to cover a chanting mage just in case. Maybe both stuns fail anyway and the enemy targets someone else, so nothing I did that turn ends up really mattering. That's fine! The unreliability is what makes working out those turns interesting, having to weigh the likelihood of an action's success while figuring out how to balance playing for the best possible outcome VS playing to avoid the worst possible outcome. I never really got moments like that in EB. Stuns don't really work against bosses, and it's easier/more reliable to just kill normal enemies. There's so much tech overlap that characters felt interchangeable to the point where I didn't really care about prioritizing anyone's protection via Deflect, and it's borderline good if someone dies anyway because it makes Showstoppers easier.

 

[Astral]

I think it's accurate that the game is less random than SG (And probably most other RPGs), but I actually think that's kind of bad. Turn-based battle systems really need some element of randomness to force players to adapt and keep the game from getting stale, whether it's dice rolls or card draws or whatever. But the RNG for EB felt largely inconsequential to me, and every battle pretty much felt the same as a result. The most significant bit of RNG IMO is with character positions on the timeline, but it doesn't take long to glimmer some movement techs and it stops mattering much after that. I barely paid any attention to what the enemy was doing, barely used any conditional techs, could count the number of times I used Deflect across all playthroughs on one hand, and just did the extremely simple positioning puzzle every turn to set up my combos. Never ran into any significant resistance. I did experiment with other kinds of builds while knocking out trials and it all felt much less effective than what I was already doing.

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Man I don't know if it's because I let my BR go way too high across all 9 playthroughs but I wish I had as easy of a time with the combat as you lol. I got my ass handed to me plenty of times, sometimes even on Normal difficulty battle because of some inflicting some annoying status ailment, or some fucked up enemy positioning, or not noticing that I put an enemy in Showstopper. I think the game has plenty of RNG that fucked me over constantly. The amount of times I could've won a battle had my party members just attacked the guy that was near death during overdrive…

 

[cozyduck]

I had largely a similar experience on my first playthrough and was initially a bit underwhelmed by the new battle system coming off of SSG, but once BR increases high enough my opinion changed dramatically. I find that focusing on defense eventually becomes absolutely crucial and as a result going for cheap combos all the time stops being a viable strategy (I straight up think that the basic combo formation convalescence is bad on high BR). Once that point is reached, I find that this game has easily as much depth and variety to its battle system than SSG had. It also does many things better: For example, on high BR almost every formation here has some use case, whereas in SSG most of them are pretty worthless. Others might discourage it, but in your case specifically I would definitely recommend carrying over BR on new playthroughs.
That being said, one thing that I do agree with is that gambling is more powerful in SSG than here. In SSG, if you gamble on a status effect landing in a clutch moment, or on an enemy targeting a specific character, and succeed with said gamble, the payoff can be enormous. This aspect has definitely been reduced. If anything, here the biggest gamble is whether you'll trigger an overdrive or not at <200% rate, which is definitely less exciting.

 

[Astral]

I carried over BR in all 9 of my playthroughs and it definitely felt like a mistake. The last 3 or so runs were a bit much for me. Too many encounters where you can be inflicted with multiple aoe status ailments, multiple enemies with powerful aoe, and multiple enemies all with different conditionals that sometimes made it hard to attack at all. Bosses also became so damn beefy that extremely powerful spells like Incineration and triggering overdrive with them was the only way to deal decent damage to them. Doesn't help that bosses are completely immune to everything.

 

[cozyduck]

Game definitely gets tough on high BR, no doubt about that.
I played SSG on strong difficulty and while this game started out much easier, once BR raised high enough I'd say it eventually got close to that level of difficulty, although I might still give SSG on strong a very slight edge. I definitely would only propose carrying over BR if you really want a challenge, otherwise it's better to listen to the games recommendation to reset it, I agree. But for me it was only when BR got high enough that I felt truly compelled to explore the many strategic options of the battle system, which is the aspect I enjoy the most in these games. It's just too easy to autopilot on low BR unfortunately (final boss nonwithstanding).

 

[SpoonyGundam]

IDK, I'm extremely skeptical that higher BR is actually going to make much of a difference for me, based on how surprisingly well my ~500 HP ~25 skill level party held up to a random Mr. S challenge at the end of my B&F run. I didn't win, but I knocked 1/3 of the boss's HP off doing the same stuff as usual. I can't imagine that actually being difficult with BR appropriate stats.

It also really contradicts how Jakenbakin was describing the game at high BR on the previous page, and it feels like my situation is going to be much closer to that if I continued with it. I get the impression that high BR can be brutal if you're undergeared/understatted/underskilled because you transferred BR early or to a fresh character, but it's not really a big deal if you've already played through the game multiple times and have developed characters and a bunch of fully upgraded gear to pass around.

That assumption could easily be wrong, but I would really rather not play for XX hours more to test that hypothesis. I played it for 80 hours and was already kind of sick of it by hour 40. I'm good. I'm done.

FWIW, I don't doubt that there are a many more effective strats than Coalescence combo spam in many situations. It's just the most basic thing the game starts you with, and it was very effective in every situation I came across. I am including the final boss in that. It's cool if the extreme late game encourages other strats eventually. I wish the earlier game did too.

I don't actually want to continue shitting up this thread with negativity, I just popped in because someone who already didn't like the demo was asking for impressions, and I feel like a dissenting opinion is kind of helpful in that specific circumstance.

 

[cozyduck]

I get the impression that high BR can be brutal if you're undergeared/understatted/underskilled because you transferred BR early or to a fresh character, but it's not really a big deal if you've already played through the game multiple times and have developed characters and a bunch of fully upgraded gear to pass around.

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Yeah, this is definitely true. A well developed party will not struggle much with any non-brutal tier fight even at high BR. That's precisely why I made sure to never reset BR when starting a fresh character, despite the recommendation from the game and from most players. It resulted in the experience I actually wanted to have, coming off of my SSG playthroughs. After reaching max BR and having done at least 1 playthrough with every character the difficulty has most certainly dropped significantly again.

FWIW, I don't doubt that there are a many more effective strats than Coalescence combo spam in many situations. It's just the most basic thing the game starts you with, and it was very effective in every situation I came across. I am including the final boss in that. It's cool if the extreme late game encourages other strats eventually. I wish the earlier game did too.

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The issue is that coalescence is easy to use and extremely powerful in any situation where the game doesn't punish you too harshly for not mitigating damage. But that really only happens when the differential between current BR and your party's strength is large. If the game had a BR increasing optional difficulty like SSG, it would actually go a long way to make the battle system more engaging even when using developed parties.

 

[Astral]

500 HP is VERY low when BR is high enough. Like, you'll literally die in one hit against some enemies. I've had spells hit me for over 900. Some Brutal bosses became DPS checks to get the kill before it killed my party one by one. Some Mr. S challenges would have like 500 damage aoe attacks. It could be that I was always under geared though. At least in armor. By the end I finally managed to get all my party with +3 weapons but my armor stalled because the game started asking for extremely rare stuff like Dragon Scale and Superalloy. I never got there trading level past 6 because I gave up on it. For armor, I just settled for multiple sets of status resistant stuff. My party absolutely needed to be decked out with at least 3 different status resistances sometimes. I didn't experiment with a lot of formations past Retainer's League and eventually Elemental Salvo for some spell overdrive spamming but I did have to experiment with more defensive ones sometimes. Coalescence got bad fast in my experience.

 

[SpoonyGundam]

If the game had a BR increasing optional difficulty like SSG, it would actually go a long way to make the battle system more engaging even when using developed parties.

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The difficulty options were added in SG: Ambitions, so hopefully this game gets a similar treatment down the road.

 

[Jakenbakin]

I beat Ameya's story last night! It was a pretty good ending finally, though it feels like there's not really any reason for it to have been so difficult to attain. It's not like the hoops you jump through add to her scenario at all, so it's just kind of a weird prerequisite. Followed Astral advice on the most fulfilling ending and can agree it was a very good conclusion to her story, though I'll check out her other endings that branched off from there later. Wasn't able to get full magic back unlike my previous run which I thought was weird though, not sure why the mana-filling scenario didn't match up to my last ending which let me get all the cats. So no Tower magic :(

On the subject of difficulty, I think you're just given so many tools and abilities to gain the advantage that it really can be made trivial, but that is also the perspective of someone who just finished their tenth playthrough lol. I felt competent but fairly challenged for my first several playthroughs, and constantly found great uses for the toolkit throughout my adventures so don't agree with the idea that Coalescence+combos is some kind of win button generally speaking, and I think general impressions from the community suggest it is still a difficult game for the average player. I find it easier through the use of an expanded toolkit, not some innate ease of the system.

I still think deflect is one of the most important abilities in the game (parry not so much), I think changing formations can be very advantageous in difficult encounters (early on when you lack the toolkit to say defeat a strong dragon throw on a defensive formation and it helped tremendously), and they can also change up your entire playstyle which is a lot of fun. Conditional techs never stop being important because so many (all?) are unblockable, they tend to be stronger than other attacks, and they can help you break up enemy combos (though you really only need to worry about 3+ combos or if it's the boss getting involved in a combo) or make your own (chain attacks are life). I can definitely attest to having high quality equipment making it much easier, too, as my B+F low equipment run was much more challenging. There's other fun things you get access to throughout the game that let you build up your strategies to break the game, but I didn't think this was the default experience. For example my party now has 3 silver watches, so by turn 4 I have 3 characters with a -1 BP cost, and I also gravitate to the Speculation formation so those characters might have a -2 or even -3 BP reduction. It's a lot of fun having someone do a showstopper with 8 2H gun/sword techs and just deleting what's supposed to be a super boss. On my Mido party I also had souls for BP reduction so that party is outfitted pretty well too (I wish I had put those souls on Boh for my Ameya run though!). I have multiple weapons that raise overdrive activation rate so can honestly just get those two characters in a combo and probably get an overdrive, much less a bigger combo. With Siugnas you can recruit a character whose support role does the same! Also there's an item you can acquire through trading that does the same. Having access to good techs is always important too, I like having two characters that can knock down defense, as well as a way of lowering enemy attack. I don't mess with magic much, but Hasten Time is critical because it gives you +2 BP, and can be pushed down to 1 round casting time, so if your formation can't build BP like with Speculation and there's no adds to kill, you can still build it up. Early in the game I used Song of Souls to increase my attack a lot but I don't make much use of it anymore because my powerhouses just don't need it.

So yeah I've mostly been able to steamroll the game lately, but I'm also excessively well outfitted for it lol. Party composition is super important here too, though. I didn't struggle with my Ameya run but also am nowhere near as capable with her party as I am with Siugnas/Mido, even though I have all the same equipment and stuff. I wouldn't even try the Mr S trials with her, even though with Siugnas I started just casually mopping them up whenever visiting the Junction to see if I got any cool drops. B+F I intentionally limited myself but their immediate party composition is pretty bad, and I found Diva's pretty insufficient too. At the end of the day I find the battles to be very engaging and the systems can still be volatile and fun to manage for the most part though.

 

[Bebpo]

500 HP is VERY low when BR is high enough. Like, you'll literally die in one hit against some enemies. I've had spells hit me for over 900. Some Brutal bosses became DPS checks to get the kill before it killed my party one by one. Some Mr. S challenges would have like 500 damage aoe attacks. It could be that I was always under geared though. At least in armor. By the end I finally managed to get all my party with +3 weapons but my armor stalled because the game started asking for extremely rare stuff like Dragon Scale and Superalloy. I never got there trading level past 6 because I gave up on it. For armor, I just settled for multiple sets of status resistant stuff. My party absolutely needed to be decked out with at least 3 different status resistances sometimes. I didn't experiment with a lot of formations past Retainer's League and eventually Elemental Salvo for some spell overdrive spamming but I did have to experiment with more defensive ones sometimes. Coalescence got bad fast in my experience.

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Yeah, I gave up on trading at rank 6 and I wonder how big of deal that is. You basically can't get any of the high end mats you need to upgrade beyond a certain point without getting your trading rank to I guess 8 and that is a huge fucking grind. Like it was bad enough to get to rank 6 after 40-50 hours, but the amount of trade xp you need for rank 7 and I just gave up there.

A re-release upgraded version of EB would need to redo the trading system for sure. But I doubt there will be a re-release. Scarlet Grace made sense since it was stuck on Vita which was a dead platform pretty quick. Emerald is on everything and there's nothing new to port it to. I doubt they'll do an upgraded port just for Switch 2 later on though it does run pretty shitty on Switch so who knows, maybe it has a chance, but the audience would be so incredibly small they'd be selling to I just don't think Emerald Beyond will get any additional versions.

At most Emerald Beyond could get some patch stuff, but I really doubt they'd do any massive changes like changing up the whole trade system or BR in a patch.

 

[PointlessEndeavor]

Finally finished my third Mido run.

Wound up doing the bad ending of his second wave , going for the good ending this time. It looks like that'll lead to a whole additional set of endings? Interestingly, the opening dialogue is back to the dialogue from the very first run, and I have the gold border that I thought indicated you'd seen all there is to see. Well, I'm not carrying BR, so hopefully I can make quick-ish work of this one.

Edit: Actually, wait, no, this isn't the same dialogue, it started like the first but shifted again.

 

[cozyduck]

Yeah, I gave up on trading at rank 6 and I wonder how big of deal that is. You basically can't get any of the high end mats you need to upgrade beyond a certain point without getting your trading rank to I guess 8 and that is a huge fucking grind.

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At high enough BR the game hands out obsidian like candy, even in normal play. Heck, on one crowrealm visit I got 3 superalloys from digging alone.
But for some of the other high tier materials the game remains stingy and outside of trading the only way to get lots of them is doing the Mr. S battles.
Still, I wouldn't say getting to max trade rank is necessary. It really does suck though.

 

[Schopenhauer]

https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_US/news/saga-emerald-beyond-interview-characters

So, a new interview with Kawazu and EBs producer. Bonnie and Formina having a story based on Thelma and Louise would have been pretty wild. Seems pretty doable too, as they are mostly just going from world to world anyway.

 

[Astral]

I didn't even realize the song Diva sings is real.

 

[Synohan]

SaGa Sale going on, includes Emerald Beyond

View: https://x.com/Wario64/status/1795874445535355287?t=DxRUdgQ9zgdRRqhdqSPrmA&s=19


So how are people starting new runs? Do you carry everything over and increase BR, or do you usually just start fresh?

 

[Jakenbakin]

That's crazy they're putting it on sale a month after its release dang.

I didn't carry over BR until I had beat every character at least once, just due to some people saying it was a huge struggle without better equipment and stats or whatnot on your parties. I kind of wonder what it would have gone like if I had started carrying over earlier but was too nervous to try at first.

https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_US/news/saga-emerald-beyond-interview-characters

So, a new interview with Kawazu and EBs producer. Bonnie and Formina having a story based on Thelma and Louise would have been pretty wild. Seems pretty doable too, as they are mostly just going from world to world anyway.

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Ichikawa: Siugnas's path allows you to enjoy the bonds of friendship between men!

Lmao

 

[Astral]

SaGa Sale going on, includes Emerald Beyond

View: https://x.com/Wario64/status/1795874445535355287?t=DxRUdgQ9zgdRRqhdqSPrmA&s=19


So how are people starting new runs? Do you carry everything over and increase BR, or do you usually just start fresh?

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I carried everything over including BR on all 9 of my playthroughs and I don't really recommend it lol. I think you should carry BR sparingly otherwise it gets a bit much. In my experience, the game became frustratingly hard during some encounters thanks to enemies having multiple ways to aoe hit me with status ailments or spamming interrupts and other conditionals. But others here have said that if you don't carry BR at all the game because too easy. That's not to say my game became impossibly hard, but it sure as hell felt that way sometimes before I persevered. Often because of luck though.

On the subject of other SaGa games, I think Frontier is generally well-liked right? What about Minstrel Song? Something about the dungeon design of that one puts me off honestly. Also the character modes. They're so ugly lol.

 

[Bebpo]

On the subject of other SaGa games, I think Frontier is generally well-liked right? What about Minstrel Song? Something about the dungeon design of that one puts me off honestly. Also the character modes. They're so ugly lol.

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Frontier remaster is incredibly good if you like weird stuff like Emerald Beyond. The characters and their stories are much more interesting and unique, the music is better (imo) and the combat is really fun and flashy. The pre-rendered stuff is kinda ugly, but otherwise it's a fantastic SaGa game.

 

[Jakenbakin]

On the subject of other SaGa games, I think Frontier is generally well-liked right? What about Minstrel Song? Something about the dungeon design of that one puts me off honestly. Also the character modes. They're so ugly lol.

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Yeah if you've liked the wacky vibes and unusual settings of EB Frontier is pretty fantastic with its mix of fantasy and sci-fi and modern settings, guns as weapons and mechs and monsters. It definitely hews closer to traditional RPG design but of course with obtuse SaGa design. I loved Minstrel Song, it's probably the closest you can get to a modern style RPG with SaGa design, what with actual traversable towns and dungeons in 3D, tons of voice acting, and probably my favorite battle system in the series before SSG/EB (and not counting The Last Remnant). Finding mission objectives can be a little weird, I didn't struggle with it too much but a lot of people apparently find it difficult to even start quests (mostly just look for notes on the wall in pubs). It's actually pretty rigid with its Event Rank system but for a first playthrough it's a lot of fun to just immerse yourself in the world and do what you can (quests will open and end depending on an in game event rank "clock" and then the ending just becomes accessible once it's high enough). Decidedly still old school in a lot of ways, especially the number of encounters on screen at all times o.o That said I know lots of people hate the models, but I love them and think they look fantastic, so I've never related to people thinking it's ugly.

 

[Schopenhauer]

Another new interview w/ Kawazu, the producer and localization manager. Seems like they are going above and beyond trying to drum up sales for EB.

View: https://youtu.be/ptgLNZKbHI4?si=ZyKf_MxEeE12EG7T

On the subject of other SaGa games, I think Frontier is generally well-liked right? What about Minstrel Song? Something about the dungeon design of that one puts me off honestly. Also the character modes. They're so ugly lol.

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Minstrel Song is basically the culmination of the SaGa franchise up to that point and the most complete/well rounded entry in the series. The SaGa team believed it was going to be the final SaGa game when they made it so they went all out, creating the most complex world/scenarios in the series. As Jakenbakin mentioned, the event rank system which works alot like BR, can take some getting used to because it controls not only enemy power but what events are available to the player at any given time.

I would say SaGa Frontier is a fan favorite. It is one of the best entry points into the series, easy to get into, with fairly simple systems and quick runs through each character.

 

[xstaticprocess]

Ended up starting with Siugnas campaign. Think I've completed 5 worlds in 13 hours and it just feels never ending?! I now have 6 others to choose to go to, finding it quite overwhelming. I know a lot are optional but every time I do an optional one another pops up and I can't help myself... Really enjoying the game though, after failing to get into about 3 other Saga games in the past this is the one that's felt the most accessible. Can't say I fully grasp all the systems in the game but I feel like I've started to get a good grasp of the combat system. Definitely becoming one of my favourite turn based systems that I've played.

 

[Astral]

Dammit. I'm sold on both. I think I'll get them on the next Switch sale, assuming they run well. Only reason I got this game on PS5 is because I didn't like how the demo ran on Switch.

 

[Bebpo]

Dammit. I'm sold on both. I think I'll get them on the next Switch sale, assuming they run well. Only reason I got this game on PS5 is because I didn't like how the demo ran on Switch.

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Frontier remaster is great on Switch. That's where I played it.

 

[Encephalon]

The book is out, but I guess people have already largely figured things out.

 

[Bebpo]

The book is out, but I guess people have already largely figured things out.

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I'm curious about a few things that I wonder if the book goes into. Basically full list of recruitable NPCs in each world, how to get the "best ending" version of each world (i.e. with Mido brutal spirit reward) and how many endings each character actually has.

Also what's the best current wiki to get info from? I'm assuming the wiki will fill out whatever it's missing from the guide book.

 

[Encephalon]

I'm curious about a few things that I wonder if the book goes into. Basically full list of recruitable NPCs in each world, how to get the "best ending" version of each world (i.e. with Mido brutal spirit reward) and how many endings each character actually has.

Also what's the best current wiki to get info from? I'm assuming the wiki will fill out whatever it's missing from the guide book.

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I have the book, so I can try to check this later.

I haven't been referring to the (Japanese) Wikis, so i can't say what the best one might be, but I suspect Tfritz might know based on their other posts.

 

[Encephalon]

I'm curious about a few things that I wonder if the book goes into. Basically full list of recruitable NPCs in each world, how to get the "best ending" version of each world (i.e. with Mido brutal spirit reward) and how many endings each character actually has.

Also what's the best current wiki to get info from? I'm assuming the wiki will fill out whatever it's missing from the guide book.

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Following up on this, but yes there is a list of all the recruitable characters in the game, who can pick them up, and where. There is also a guide for each world, with different sections for characters that have unique experiences. The full story charts are listed for each characters, including the calculus for the cats in Ameya's. But I've only played through two runs, so if it's missing anything, it might not stand out to me. It's physically bigger than most Japanese guides, but also less pages (ostensibly to better showcase the art).

 

[Astral]

I bet the art in the book is so good. I love the art and character designs in this series.

 

[Jakenbakin]

If I knew my way around importing I would be tempted to buy it just for the art so I'm doing everything in my power to not be informed about importing. I know people were disappointed with no Kobayashi on art duties (and I'm certainly curious if she's working on anything) but I thought Satoshi Kuramochi did a crazy good job. Part of what I love about Kobayashi's art is the focus on fabrics, cloths, and color instead of hard jagged armor, and lots of little ornate details, and while Kuramochi doesn't match that I think the presence of that design principal is in his art with his own style. Beautiful art in the game.

Haven't heard anything about surprising things learned in the book so would be interested in learning it the community did more or less crack the game in the first month or if there are still surprises left lol. Been a lot of fun having a global release where us non Japanese speakers could be here for the chaos of learning everything from the beginning.

 

[Encephalon]

You can probably just buy it off of Japanese Amazon. There is a fair amount of art, and what's there is good, but it's not a ton. There are some character models mixed in the section.

 

[ATXAlchemy]

You can probably just buy it off of Japanese Amazon. There is a fair amount of art, and what's there is good, but it's not a ton. There are some character models mixed in the section.

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S&S by Amazon are not allowing to ship it outside of Japan.

I'd honestly just pray for digital unless you want it for collection.

 

[Encephalon]

S&S by Amazon are not allowing to ship it outside of Japan.

I'd honestly just pray for digital unless you want it for collection.

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Wasn't aware, sorry!

 

[Valus]

If I really disliked Scarlet Grace but loved Minstrel Song, should I pick this up?

Things that really put me off Scarlet Grace were the shared BP in battle, the zoomed in battle camera, and the overall presentation of the game. I did not care for the lack of real exploration / towns, and how everything was told by the characters just talking to each other on left/right side of the screens.

 

[Disclaimer]

If I really disliked Scarlet Grace but loved Minstrel Song, should I pick this up?

Things that really put me off Scarlet Grace were the shared BP in battle, the zoomed in battle camera, and the overall presentation of the game. I did not care for the lack of real exploration / towns, and how everything was told by the characters just talking to each other on left/right side of the screens.

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Most of that is more or less the same in Emerald Beyond, barring the presentation being upgraded a bit. I'd simply try the demo yourself.

 

[Astral]

I miss the countdown from SG. But more importantly I'm shocked you don't unlock an option to speed up battles like in SG.

 

[PointlessEndeavor]

Well, I guess the JP wiki was a bit off about Mido's endings. While getting the "bad" ending of his first two leads to getting the good ending of the pair, getting either the bad or good of his second pair will move you on to his last set of endings. I have my old saves archived, so hopefully I can dredge up that last save and see the ending I missed.

 

[Shizuka]

View: https://x.com/asianrungames/status/1798710345181339724

 

[PointlessEndeavor]

Five Mido runs (and a couple pre-ending reloads) later, I've seen every possible ending, maxed my trade rank (blech) and unlocked the special door. Wasn't carrying BR which I'm thinking may have been a mistake, because I was still a bit below where I think I'd want to be for the trials, but that's fine.

Was considering running Siugnas, but I think it's time to put the game down for a bit. Just doing what I did I feel like I got plenty out of it, and I can definitely see coming back to it in the future. Especially since I never need to level trade rank again.

 

[MilkBeard]

I finally beat Diva no. 5's scenario.
This character took me about 22 hours to beat as my first scenario. People weren't kidding about that final boss.

Spoiler: final boss spoilers

Once I had beaten the second battle, I celebrated and thought, "oh, that's not so bad." Nope. Try again. A repeat boss encounter with a slightly different mob. Fuck, that was ridiculous.
But the good thing is that the game gives you a lot of tools to tweak your approach. I ended up finding the right formations. For the second battle, Phoenix formation helped a lot. I ended up winning once I switched formations with all characters alive.
But the third fight... At first, enemies comboing repeatedly left me frustrated. But I ended up settling on Fully Flanked formation, and I kept Boudica in the center so that she could do her high level attacks with low BP cost. I was finally on top of this battle and destroyed the mob with ease, then the boss did its Emerald attack, and then later paralyzed most of my remaining members until they were dead. I had whittled the boss down, however, and ended up with Diva in a showstopper position with a sliver of health left and crushed it.

Thank god that's over with. I ended up choosing Bonnie and Formina next.

Oh, and there was another update today fixing some things.

 

[Jakenbakin]

Oh, and there was another update today fixing some things.

Click to shrink...

Ooh. Patch notes from Steam:

Fixed an issue wherein certain battles would not end if the player engaged in an endless loop of overdrives.
Adjusted the combo rate for when a player enters their fourth consecutive overdrive and beyond.
Fixed several issues related to trading specific items in multiples.
Adjusted the trade menu hierarchy.
Added functionality to toggle between items on the Item Enhancement screen.
Added descriptions stating that damage taken will be also increased when under the effect of certain damage-increasing effects.
Fixed an issue related to which doors are chosen in the junction when only two doors are available in Tsunanori Mido's story.
Fixed multiple minor graphic display issues.
Fixed multiple minor text issues.
Adjusted various UI display elements.
Fixed other minor issues.

Sounds like trading might've been made marginally less awful? It will be some time before I come back for another run through the game*, but I like that they're continuing to work on updates for it and am interested to see if any more substantial changes come.

* Haven't deleted it off the PS5 yet though so maybe...

 

[MilkBeard]

Ooh. Patch notes from Steam:

Fixed an issue wherein certain battles would not end if the player engaged in an endless loop of overdrives.
Adjusted the combo rate for when a player enters their fourth consecutive overdrive and beyond.
Fixed several issues related to trading specific items in multiples.
Adjusted the trade menu hierarchy.
Added functionality to toggle between items on the Item Enhancement screen.
Added descriptions stating that damage taken will be also increased when under the effect of certain damage-increasing effects.
Fixed an issue related to which doors are chosen in the junction when only two doors are available in Tsunanori Mido's story.
Fixed multiple minor graphic display issues.
Fixed multiple minor text issues.
Adjusted various UI display elements.
Fixed other minor issues.

Sounds like trading might've been made marginally less awful? It will be some time before I come back for another run through the game*, but I like that they're continuing to work on updates for it and am interested to see if any more substantial changes come.

* Haven't deleted it off the PS5 yet though so maybe...

Click to shrink...

It's nice they've been able to support the game with patches despite the small budget.

According to Steam stats, 39% of people who played the game have beaten Diva no. 5's scenario. That's pretty high? SaGa does have a pretty small but hardcore fanbase, so it makes sense, I suppose. Most people playing this game know what they are getting into.

 

[Schopenhauer]

It's nice they've been able to support the game with patches despite the small budget.

According to Steam stats, 39% of people who played the game have beaten Diva no. 5's scenario. That's pretty high? SaGa does have a pretty small but hardcore fanbase, so it makes sense, I suppose. Most people playing this game know what they are getting into.

Click to shrink...

That is substantially higher than the PS5 Diva completion stat, at least the last time I checked a couple weeks ago. But it makes sense, Diva was the PC demo character so people were carrying over their demo saves.