The 7th Saga

The Game

Most RPGs of this era make you the chosen one. The 7th Saga makes you one of seven candidates, and then lets the other six walk around the same world you do, hunting the same runes, levelling up while you are levelling up. Meet one and you fight them. They do not scale down to be fair about it.

That structure is the whole game and it is genuinely clever. Your choice of character is not a stat spread, it is a decision about which six rivals you have made. The apprentice you pick up as a companion may turn on you. The world is small but it is contested, in a way almost nothing else on the system attempted.

The problem is the balance. Random encounters hit hard, the rivals hit harder, and the North American release adjusted enemy statistics upward from the Japanese version, which is the sort of decision that turns a demanding game into an unreasonable one. Progress is measured in grinding rather than in discovery.

Box art

Notes on the box art to follow.

The People

Developed by Produce! and published by Enix — the second Enix game in this project already, and we have not left the number sign yet. It came out in Japan as Elnard before the North American localisation retitled it.

Notes for expansion: confirm the specific stat changes between the Japanese and North American releases, and find out whose call that was.

The Press

Reviews at the time were respectful about the ambition and blunt about the difficulty. To be filled in from contemporary magazines.

Screenshots

Screenshots to follow.