FUKIN ESP REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEI love this game so much but it's kicking my ass, my mutants aren't learning any decent spells, one has 58 mana and has only known ESP since the start of the game.
>>2860643
I always take 4 mutants. 2 men and 2 women and never had problem with magic. But you must be ready to use swords if necessary.
>>2860643
Put them in the front of your party, and rotate them as one lags behind. Also, play on a GBA SP, since the RNG is not the same across all Gameboys.
The RNG in this game is pretty awkward. Mutants will always get stuck with shit abilities regardless of how far you are into the game. You'll have to rely on weapons and spell books instead. Since mutants are afforded few equipment slots, I would recommend using just one piece of (chest) armor, then reserve the remaining slots for any weapons and spell books you want to use.
Some other general tips for your playthrough:
- Instant-death skills (DEATH and STONE books) are very effective, even against bosses. By "effective" I mean exploitable. Humans normally don't gain any Mana points, so they tend to suck with magic. They can nonetheless use status spells like STONE and DEATH just as effectively as mutants can.
- The (chain)Saw that you can buy from World 4 can kill the strongest enemies and bosses in the game,including the final boss.
- Characters recruited from later worlds have higher stats than the characters recruited from the starting town. If your party is relatively weak by the time you reach a certain world, you may as well kill some characters off and recruit newer, more powerful ones. May save you some time with grinding, especially if you're using humans.
- Monsters are very easy to manage due to gaining all their ability uses back with inn stays, and they're also very exploitable if you stumble across the right sequence of meat drops. There's nothing stopping you from evolving your monsters to the highest tiers before you even leave the first world.
- The Dragon armor you can purchase from World 3 provides multiple elemental resistances. It's useful for the rest of the game. Similarly,
- If you choose a female mutant as your main character, she starts equipped with a Saber, which can be sold for a ridiculous amount of gold. You can then use the gold to buy yourself a Rapier and a full set of armor.
>>2860643
> one has 58 mana and has only known ESP since the start of the game
>dat SaGa RNG is real
give it time. Get towards the end and they will learn something OP like Flare.. and 3 fights later, unlearn it and replace it with weak ass cure.
>>2861679
Thanks, finally lucked out and am on world 2, did some grinding near one of those HP pools for some good meat, party is okay now.
I normally can't stand JRPG's but I really like Saga 1-3, haven't tried romancing.
>>2861849
Mutants can't learn Flare. It's not in their ability learn list. The strongest attack they can learn is P-Blast, and I don't think the bugged out RNG will even allow them to learn that. The only way I've been able to produce that ability on a mutant is by recruiting a new mutant from the final town, as they come with the ability already learned.
Bear in mind that - unlike in FFL2 - mutant abilities in FFL1 aren't learned in tiers. i.e. As your mutant gets stronger, the game does *not* increase their chances of learning more powerful abilities. They'll cycle through weak abilities during the entire course of the game.
>>2861943
Is the RNG any better in the WS remake? I know they fixed a lot of things in that version of the game.
>>2861952
Mutant abilities are more diversified from what I noticed. Not sure if mutants actually become more likely to learn powerful abilities later on, though.
The WSC version fixes most every bug, but retrofits the chainsaw glitch, since I guess it was so iconic. Stat overflow as also fixed, so humans can no longer raise their stats above 99.
I used to have this game back in the day, I remember it having a pretty cool manual too. Please tell me its not worth a shit ton of cash right now.
>>2861970
>Please tell me its not worth a shit ton of cash right now.
It's not. You should be able to grab it for under $10 USD. Same for the sequels.
>>2861679
>There's nothing stopping you from evolving your monsters to the highest tiers before you even leave the first world.
There absolutely is. You do not have access to the meat you need to reach the highest monster tier.
>>2862076
>You do not have access to the meat you need to reach the highest monster tier.
I didn't say the final tier of monsters, just some of the highest tiers. If you collect meat drops in a specific sequence, you can indeed evolve your monster pretty high up there. The only way to reach the final tier is by consuming meat dropped by the revived fiends.
>>2861952
I can't for the life of me find a place to straight up buy the WS version, I saw one floating around Yahoo.co.jp's auction section, seems the only way to get it is to have some jap buy it and ship it.
>>2862803
I haven't seen it on eBay for quite some time. Last time it was listed, it was going for $40+ USD.
I just did a quick worldwide search on eBay and didn't come up with any results. There's the guidebook, which is going for $50+. The WSC port of Romancing SaGa is also outrageously overpriced.
Your best bet is to invest in a GB/C and play it.
>>2862808
Oh I have all 3 Gameboy versions but I can read a bit of japanese so I really wanted to try the wonderswan remake.
>>2860643
I still have the mini poster that came with it
>>2860643
Use a monster with an FAQ on how to transform to a tier-4 in the first world if you hate randomness.Otherwise just buy a fucking spellbook already.
Surprising amount of content.
The overworlds seemed really huge, like with regions possibly unexplored by any gamer ever.
>>2861596
>since the RNG is not the same across all Gameboys.
What is even going on here? That is very strange.
>>2861906
Romancing games are longer, don't hold your hand with progression, and lacks races.
I still highly suggest the Romancing SaGa remake none-the-less.
>>2865310
I find it fun stumbling around. I found monsters MUCH more useful in the first game than the second game. I could easily get a monster that could at least hold their own in the current world unlike in FFL2 which I often got a weak monster. Though a more recent play through of FFL2 I did go with at least one monster in my party and midway through the game I actually got a pretty damn good transformation and the monster was carrying the party for awhile.
That is what I partly like about SaGa, something that you don't expect happens and you can get good results due to it.
>>2861679
You forgot:
Humans can break the limit of 99 for stats. You have to keep track of their stats manually once they hit 99, but they can go all the way up to 255. Just don't go over, or they roll back to 0.
A single human with all stats maxed will steamroll the entire endgame solo.
>>2865491
I'm not sure the specifics, but it's about as far from 'Random' as you can imagine.
The RNG's initial conditions persist across saves as well. So, if you get some stats to your mutant, it's often the case case that you can spam save-reset-save-reset-etc and get stats every time you start up. It's a weird little gem.
>>2861906
>Saga3
Wot? S3 is basically normalfag's JRPG. It's linear as fuck, and all the party members level up as normal. It's not even produced by the same people as S1 and 2.
>>2861679
There's 2 monsters forms that have Saw as a move/weapon, so you can get saw in world 1. But it won't work on most enemies earlygame because of their low STR. You can actually kill ALL the bosses with saw.
>>2865976
When I played this game onemulator, I had to use the soft reset in order to cycle the RNG; the routine of save + hard-reset didn't result in different outcomes to randomized events in most cases. I remember because I had to connect a keyboard to my tablet just so I could map a button that would do the soft reset (A+B+Start+Select), as I had to reset often to try different meats or to experiment without using up all my weapon and spell charges.
Buy them a spellbook or wand then.
Also, it depends on who you fight.
By late-game, you're guaranteed to get good spells.
Maybe.
>>2861965
I played the WSC glitch, and I'm almost sure the chainsaw worked against end-game bosses as well.
Or maybe they were just easy to sunsword the fuck out of.
>>2865459
Anon, just wanted to echo this. Considering how small the game is, this feeling is a huge achievement that's nearly unmatched today
>>2870619
>glitch
Whoops, meant version.
>>2870625
Not him, but I also wanted to add in that the Shinjuku overworld is way too fucking huge for how little content is actually in the place.
Fucking SuZaku
>>2861679
>Characters recruited from later worlds have higher stats than the characters recruited from the starting town. If your party is relatively weak by the time you reach a certain world, you may as well kill some characters off and recruit newer, more powerful ones.
Holy crap. I've played through FFL so many times over the years, but never even realized you could do this. I've always kept the party I got in the first town. Time for a replay with added murder!
>>2871651
I didn't bother. Only relevent if you want to recruit specific monsters, or you didn't grind at all. Mutants are best trained from start of the game anyway.
I need to get back to SaGa 1. I stopped playing in World 3, right around getting the airship thing. It was pretty fun.
