i hate this game.

#1mirthanderPosted 2/20/2012 1:10:29 AM
i bought it when it first came out, played it, was like yeah its kinda cool maybe ill try and finish ALL the sidequests! so im doing my thing, then half way through i thought i'd check out how my progress was, then i read that if you dont side with some chick instead of the dude you miss out on ever being able to complete ALL THE SIDEQUESTs! so that pissed me off and i left the game for about a year, i went back to it, started playing yeah some battles got annoying and i had to stat grind and stuff, no biggie, i figure ill just pass it get the achievement for passing then i can just like have some satisfaction. kill the boss NOTHING HAPPENED. TURNS OUT that too even get acknowledgment that you passed the game you have to get the final version of the boss and to do that you have to do ALL THE SIDEQUESTS! so i took the game out and happy to be rid of it from my life.

im not so fussed about the achievement, ITS that you can miss so much by just answering a question wrong! just venting atm. say yes if you agree, no if you think i missed the point thanks for reading if you did.

TL;DR i was unable to do everything in the game because i answered a question wrong.
Gamertag & psn: Mirthander
#2Bloody_SkyPosted 2/20/2012 3:34:42 AM
I agree that it sucks that if you forget to do one thing before a certain point, or do one thing wrong, it can sometime end up costing you big time. Sometimes to the point that you have to completely start over.

My first time through the game, I completed the game just doing the story and a few side quests here and there. And then the 2nd time I went through trying to do everything. Now this was before a lot of the internet walkthroughs came out for it, so I just tried to wing it and go it my own. And then I get towards the end, when a few walkthroughs start popping up around here, and sure enough. I missed out on the Duke of Ghor quest (I would of never thought to talk to him before each base battle. I mean... who really would?) and, like you, the quest for siding with that chick in the 3 quests. So I too got pretty frustrated. Especially since I wanted the 1000 Gamerscore too, since me and my friend were kind of having a friendly Gamerscore battle back then.

But thankfully I loved the game so much that I eventually (like 6 or 7 months later) went back and followed a side-quest walkthrough to make sure I got everything. Cause really there are lots of quests that need to be done before a certain time or you lose them forever. I admit that it's a bit annoying, but it keeps you coming back to the game, lol. Well, it kept me coming back, anyways.
#3KatelloxPosted 2/20/2012 6:18:57 AM
This game has a hell of a lot of flaws -- no denying it. I can't tell you how pissed I was last week after realizing I missed Bravery & Loyalty when I did everything else flawlessly throughout disc 1. Ugh.

It is way too easy to miss things, and there are way too many things you can miss permanently. Some of them makes sense, but a lot of them don't, and it never clearly tells you how to go about certain things (Roberto and Ophelia comes to mind immediately). It's way too vague sometimes.

If you know what you're doing, though, the game becomes really fun. It's just unfortunate that you have to grind like nuts to get really good characters and the battle system is flawed a bit even though I LOVE the idea of it and it's really fun at times. Thanks to stat/skill grinding I got Blackout II twice last night and then Blackout III six more times within just a couple hours of playing. First time ever taking out 7 enemy unions at once, I felt like a god.

I wonder how well-received a sequel would be with these flaws addressed and things more fine-tuned. The game does feel half-finished sometimes.
#4sunziPosted 2/20/2012 7:10:06 AM
If that's the case, games like Romancing SaGa would likely be the end of you (go figure, it's the same team). Some quests are exclusive to certain characters, and there's a hidden time counter based on the number of encounters that can open some quests and close others (and one triggering this monster that rampages through about 1/4 of the world. Goodbye Frontier!). The game's meant to be played multiple times. That's why there are so many different units up for hire; it's for you to experiment with the game while figuring out what you might have missed the first time through. My first run, I missed at least half the sidequests because I was happily running along with the main story, though surprisingly I managed to trigger The Fallen. Got the Rank 5 fight out of that.

Roberto and Ophelia was just annoying, especially in this version. Recruit Roberto, no Rank 8! Which is really too bad since Roberto's a decent unit, and quite happy that they fixed that for the PC (he makes an awesome Bard). Ghor's sidequest triggers were pretty strange too, but it was very lightly hinted at if you had talked to him right after the cutscene. And it's not before and after every Base. It's really after you take 1/3/5 Bases that he will have something to say. But even that is rather non-indicative of what you're supposed to be doing. You can also close certain quests if you take the associated Remnant before they're completed. Liafort for "The Dreaming Rose", Flachonelle for "Kate and Rhagoh" and Dead Heart for "Hearts". It's really only the most obscure quests that don't end up being mentioned in the pubs. And I'm still trying to figure out which one had the bartender in Athlum freaking out about a murderer being on the loose. I should start recording everything those barkeeps say. Already got all of them for "The Distant Promise", but that was because it was one of the last quests I had left.

For the grinding, that's actually not true. If you know what you're doing and know how to construct your party well, you will not require any sort of grinding at all. It's already been demonstrated by at least 2 published playthroughs (X360 on Youtube, PC on NicoDou). The PC run is even more interesting because the player never use the Drill past its required one use. The grinding is really to get the absolute most out of your units, in both stats and skills. You would more than likely require some level of training if you want to deal with the fights with extreme damage output and/or Turn limits though, which is where good team management comes into play.

As for a sequel? Well, let's see if that would make it out of Japan in the first place! I've pretty much given up on them releasing anything that's even vaguely SaGa related here (*looks at SaGa2DS and SaGa3DS*).
Now playing: LasRem - SOIAO Ransatsu, Skyrim
Hoyt GMX 23", SF Premium Carbon 28lbs, 8125, Easton XX75 1416
#5justin2k9Posted 2/20/2012 11:42:40 AM
I'm playing the game but after starting and not getting too far, i restarted with one eye on a sidequest guide. Just to tell me exactly what i shouldn't miss.

As far as I can tell you need to...

- Do Emmas quest before nest of eagles
- Do a lot of disc one quests before you start disc two
- Side with Ophelia even though it makes more sense to side with Roberto
- Do not take the dead heart from the forest (yeah, punished for exploring ftw) before doing "Hearts"
- Recruit Loki, Nora, Ragoh, Glenys when only Glenys is all that cool.
- Talk to Duke Ghor between every base even though you are specifically told not to.
- Do not attempt the Fallen until doing Underwalt, even though it would make more sense to fight it at end-game.

And thats really off the top of my head. So far its going well, I'm locked out of the game atm though because I can't beat the Fallen and I've done everything else, so I just have to grind and grind and grind.

It's bad game design at the end of the day. Which is a shame because overall it's a very cool game.
#6Bloody_SkyPosted 2/20/2012 1:21:29 PM
sunzi posted...

True, but he doesn't have the red bubbles on the 360 version, so I just talk to him after each base just to be safe.

It looks like you got everything I could think of, justin2k9.
justin2k9 posted...

Remember to not set foot in Undelwalt until you have completed The Fallen or it will disappear.
Oh and Nora isn't too bad, IMO.
#7sunziPosted 2/20/2012 1:36:30 PM
You don't have to do that many quests on Disc 1, just the ones that don't carry over. There aren't that many of them, but it's figuring out which ones that don't is the hard part. But that's what guides are for. And if you're smart about how to approach all the quests, you will end Disc 1 quite comfortably under BR30. In a way, Ophelia's responses during the quests was a bit of a hint that if you follow her, she would eventually want to chase after the perpetrators. Of course, it's a little hard to tell, so it's very easy to miss.

Concerning Ghor's quest, I've tested this on both the PC and X360. There's no need to go talk to him before and after every Base fight. You can do so if you're really that paranoid, but I wouldn't waste my time doing that. Then again, I know what I'm doing about half the time. The other half is spent winging it, which is admittedly a bad idea when you're doing a challenge.

Concerning "The Fallen", the placement is actually near perfect because you're practically at endgame by that point. Any earlier and it would have been more difficult than it should be, any later and it would pointless since you would be able to steamroll over it (if you want to do that, you're playing the wrong game). Holy Plains is a joke, Icy Idol isn't that bad, and then all that's left is the final battle. If you can beat The Fallen with relative ease, you're already set for endgame. Except maybe The Lost and the White Conqueror.

Glenys is pretty good. Nora can hit harder though. If both are combat focused, Nora beats Glenys when combining ATK+STR. Her downside is a lack of a healing skill until she asks for it (Lotions, BR47) and a much weaker (but unblockable) WA. If Nora had Rem, I'd take her over Glenys in an instant. Fun fact, Nora's 28.

The number of missables isn't that bad. It could be a lot worse. At least quests don't disappear on you without notice when you're stuck in a large number of fights. I don't think you could ever get as bad as the Zodiac Spear. That was a nightmare to miss.
Now playing: LasRem - SOIAO Ransatsu, Skyrim
#8darglorPosted 2/21/2012 9:00:14 AM
Justin, I'd add "recruit Jager" onto your list as well.

If I remember right, there's 18 specific quests I think that must be done before getting on the second disc, although the ones that always stick out in my mind is the (town)'s Witch questline. Either way, I always did all the available ones before switching over to disc 2. Still usually finished disc 1 in the high 20s for BR.
#9sunziPosted 2/21/2012 11:23:41 AM
You also have to recruit Caedmon for his Silver Falcon quests. But most players would recruit him regardless, so it's really a moot point.

Let's do a count...
Bravery and Loyalty (This actually needs to be done before returning to Athlum Castle after the meeting in Nagapur)
After a Day's Work
Slumber of the Lost Fragment
A Voice from the Past
Blooming Flower, Singing Bird
The Losing Game
The Wanderer
Into the Abyss
The Fiery Revolt
The Ancient War
The Broken Seal
The Disappearing Knights
The Reviving Legend
At Hatred's End
Athlum's Witch
Celapaleis's Witch
Elysion's Witch
Nagapur's Witch

That's 19. Of those, only 6 don't have any sort of fighting. It's 18 or 19 on the PC though.
Now playing: LasRem - SOIAO Ransatsu, Skyrim
#10AnnuvynPosted 3/14/2012 8:49:30 AM

its a big game and fun to play, so I no care about the achievements

if you are hung up on achies then you are hung up on life, too. let it go. enjoy life.
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