Letâs talk about the elephant in the room first. This is a very expensive game by App Store standards. Indeed, at $49.99 USD this is the exact same price that SaGa Emerald Beyond is selling for on other platforms. From one point of view, this makes perfect sense. Itâs a new game, it came out on the same day on mobile that it did elsewhere, and itâs the same game content-wise. Why should it be cheaper? In a way, wanting games to be cheaper on mobile is simply feeding into the image of these platforms being inherently lesser somehow. Thinking of it that way, price parity almost seems like proper acknowledgement that mobile isnât just a dump.
On the other hand, this is mobile gaming. Weâve seen games cease being updated before, and weâve seen games pulled before. Heck, The Last Remnant, a SaGa game in all but name, vanished from the App Store ages ago with some vague promises from Square Enix that it would return when it was fixed. Perhaps as you read this sometime in the future, it has returned. But the possibility of games breaking and getting delisted is a more real concern on mobile than it is elsewhere, and one we have to consider. It stings a little when you lose a game you paid five or ten bucks for; losing one you paid fifty for, even temporarily, would be a real test of oneâs patience.
Ultimately, youâre going to have to dig deep and answer that question yourself. I want to tell you not to worry, but I canât. Iâve been covering this beat for over a decade now and I am not naive to its problems. Square Enix is better about this than some publishers, and thatâs the only real reassurance I can give you. I wonât blame anyone for the price affecting their decision of whether to buy the game on mobile or not, and Iâm sure Square Enix was prepared for such hesitation when it priced the game the way it did. Thatâs all Iâve got to say about that. The absolute state of things that I have to spend three paragraphs talking about prices in a game review.
Iâm of the belief that the SaGa team might have been caught off-guard by the response to SaGa Scarlet Grace. This series is not typically well-received in the West, after all. Indeed, more often than not it is reviled by most of the media and the general audience. Over in Japan it tends to fare better, though it certainly has had its highs and lows with fans and critics there as well. But SaGa Scarlet Grace was different, wasnât it? I daresay that people kind of⌠liked it? Look, Iâm a SaGa Sicko. I always like these games (not Unlimited). But Iâm usually only joined by my fellow SaGa Sickos, and that isnât what happened with SaGa Scarlet Grace. A lot of people really enjoyed it, a fact made all the more impressive by how clearly modest its budget was.
I think that might be what brought us to SaGa Emerald Beyond, at least broadly speaking. This game feels like it was made on a similarly shoestring budget, but thatâs not really too surprising. I think one of the reasons SaGa survives, beyond the series creator Akitoshi Kawazuâs senior position with Square Enix, is that even when it fails it doesnât leave the publisher holding a big bill. And if a streamlined approach worked last time, why not this time? Whatâs more unexpected, given the history of the series, is how⌠safe?⌠this game is in its basic structure. Relatively speaking, of course.
If SaGa is known for anything, itâs that itâs very uncommon for any two games to be terribly similar to each other. Sure, there are persistent elements. Sparking new skills, the unusual character growth system that sprung out of Final Fantasy II, multiple playable characters, and so on. But those systems are usually fit into new frameworks, a double-edged sword if ever there was one. Thatâs not what happened here. SaGa Emerald Beyond isnât exactly like Scarlet Grace, to be sure, and Iâll get into that shortly. But it presents itself an awful lot like it, and Iâm not sure why but I feel a bit disappointed by that. Itâs like asking your wild friend to surprise you at Baskin-Robbins and getting a scoop of French vanilla. Hey, itâs a good flavor. I love French vanilla. Itâs just that I was just expecting Boogers & Caramel Melody or something.
Okay, so. Emerald Beyond. Youâve got your choice of characters, a sum of six in the end. You are going to get a very different experience based on who you pick. You are going to get a different experience based on whether youâve finished the game with certain characters already. Playing the game again with the same character will often lead to different results. Thereâs one character whose true ending wonât even open up for you until youâve fulfilled some very particular conditions (donât choose Ameya for your first playthrough, trust me). If there is one way this game separates itself from prior games in the series, itâs in this wide variety of potential routes through the game. If you only do one playthrough of this game, youâve missed most of it. If you only do three playthroughs of this game, youâve missed most of it.
A single playthrough can be very short but rarely longer than fifteen hours, but you are assuredly meant to keep on playing it again and again with new characters and new paths. This is something some players will love and others will hate, but it certainly helps the developers get a lot of soup out of a rather small amount of ingredients. It runs rather thin storywise, but I doubt youâre coming to a SaGa game for the story no matter how much text this particular entry likes to throw about. Youâve easily got over a hundred hours of game ahead of you if you want to see the game all the way through to its intended conclusion, and thatâs both the value for money you want to see but also a crushing commitment.
Itâs fascinating from a design standpoint because on the surface this is a very linear game, penning you into small locations until you fully see them through rather than letting you run about. But it turns out to be very non-linear in a deeper sense, and the way it achieves this is completely bonkers. I respect that, because Iâm a SaGa Sicko. Others might be less thrilled, particularly since these repeated playthroughs lead to a lot of recycling that can wear on oneâs soul. The story thatâs here is well-written and the localizers have again done a bang-up job, but thereâs not enough substance in it as a whole to keep one sated on their fifth or sixth run. You really have to be in love with the mechanics to keep sticking it out, or really like connecting thin strands from the stories of different characters.
The battle system is the star of the show again. Structurally itâs a lot like the combat in Scarlet Grace, with a heavy focus on offense and making sure you set up your big moves (called Showstoppers here) while trying to interrupt the enemies in such a way that they canât bust out their own on you. Thereâs no healing in battles here, so you really have to plan your moves carefully. Any damage taken is serious business, particularly in boss battles. On the whole, Iâd say Emerald Beyond is a lot more lenient in difficulty than Scarlet Grace, but when it starts cooking (and it will) it demands good strategy and serious situational awareness. Of course, there is a bit of the olâ RNG in here as usual as it pertains to picking up new moves via Sparking and stat increases, but your brain is going to be your most powerful weapon. Youâre going to have to fall in deep, but thatâs nothing out of the ordinary for SaGa.
Man, I donât know. Iâm sitting here trying to think if Emerald Beyond is an RPG I would recommend to the average person or if itâs just something for SaGa Sickos and Iâm torn. Personally speaking, I love this game. I donât know if I love it quite as much as Scarlet Grace, but thatâs one of my favorite RPGs of the past couple decades. Emerald Beyond not quite living up to that is not a knock on it. But I really do love this game. Itâs so mysterious. There are so many surprises to find, and small details to pick up. You absolutely have to lose yourself to it in order to find its best qualities, and that is something that is right up my alley. The thing is, I donât know if thatâs up the average playerâs alley. I found the repeat playthroughs in Bravely Default brilliant narratively and mechanically, but most people hated them. So Iâm having trouble finding my compass here.
Hereâs the thing: if youâre a SaGa Sicko, get in. I canât say where youâll end up ranking it in the series, but itâs not Unlimited and I think thatâs probably enough for you. If youâre not, you have to ask yourself how into digging out opaque mechanics and non-obvious narrative elements you are. If you take SaGa Emerald Beyond at face value, youâre not going to get much out of this. A single playthrough is paltry and itâs just easy enough to wave you through. The story isnât going to do much for you, either. Just like with the mechanics, you really have to work to get things out of the narrative here. And unlike with the mechanics, Iâm not fully sure the effort is worth the reward. But those mechanics! That combat system! Itâs all amazing stuff, the kind of meat an RPG fan dreams of when theyâre having particularly lovely dreams at night. Itâs SaGa, baby. No one else bakes these pies.
Alright, let me try to sort this out. If youâre a total SaGa beginner and donât want a game to beat you up too much, youâre probably better off going with Minstrel Song. If you donât mind getting beaten up, Scarlet Grace is still the high-water mark. I like its story better, and I like how it handles its outside-of-combat mechanics more. So I guess what Iâm saying is that those who are new to SaGa probably shouldnât go with Emerald Beyond as their first choice. But once youâve cut your teeth on SaGa one way or the other, do make sure you play this one. I think itâs better than itâs getting credit for at the moment, and to be fair that is on the game for hiding too much and being too subtle on the whole. This is way up there in the series rankings for me, and thatâs after carefully digesting it for a lot longer than optimal traffic dictates I should have.
Itâs the most obvious thing in the world to say about a SaGa game at this point, but SaGa Emerald Beyond isnât going to be for everyone. Setting aside my personal feelings, I can say that itâs probably opaque to a fault, and itâs trying to stretch itself a bit too thin for how much time it wants you to put in. Itâs a fantastic little RPG puzzle box in the mechanical sense, and players who come to RPGs for strategic battles will get their fill here. I think even outside of that, there are a lot of neat non-obvious aspects to this game that are waiting to be found by the observant player. In the end Emerald Beyond is another SaGa game that is preaching to the choir, but itâs a choir worth joining if you think youâve got the patience for it.
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