SaGa Emerald Beyond

[Pajaro Pete]

It certainly feels the same way to me. Administrator Gold is the only character I've really gotten multiple times so far, and Mechs don't exactly benefit from being active in multiple runs as much as everyone else does.

Checking this guide, it does appear that Emily can join Bonnie and Formina too, but it does appear to be something that happens in a different time and place.

 

[YangusKhan]

This could be a biased viewpoint caused by the routes I've played first, but I think this is a smidge too stingy with extra party members relative to Scarlet Grace.

I think this is also compounded by how complex the scenario writing and choices can get. I did Mare Nostrum with Siugnas last night, it was my 2nd time visiting it across my 3 files, so it was a new remix of the story. In the end I didn't end up getting any new characters, even though I know for a fact that both Ivar and Azure in there are recruitable, somehow, so I'm pretty sure it's because I just didn't make the proper choices to get them. I wasn't about to reload some earlier saves just to replay like 2 hours and hope for a different outcome.

 

[estragon]

Checking this guide, it does appear that Emily can join Bonnie and Formina too, but it does appear to be something that happens in a different time and place.

I think this is also compounded by how complex the scenario writing and choices can get.

Interesting. This particular one could definitely be a case of there being so many variables that most guides aren't complete yet. In any case, I still do wish it seemed a little easier to identify an optional party member who you could pick up relatively consistently across routes.

 

[estragon]

I'm now immediately happier about the party members across runs situation because when I went to the world connected to the default member of Siugnas' party I like the least, I got the option to ignore his quest entirely and just do a quest to recruit one of the other protagonists instead. Minor gripe resolved.

 

[estragon]

Finished with Siugnas, which ended with a three phase boss fight where the second and third phases both gave separate achievements (Thrill Seeker and The Ultimate).

I ended up not making any party members into Knights. I've heard that something about making people into Knights makes something about Siugnas' last boss easier, but I gave it a blind run in the hope I could get through the run without doing any more party tinkering or upgrading, and it ended up working out. I had Mido as a longsword/rapier user, and Humans have a longsword skill that hits all enemies that move after him with a chance to Stun (effectively just hitting all enemies most of the time, because he moves early and had a Role to help him go even earlier), and a rapier skill that hits all enemies and undoes all Reserve arts. Between those two skills, it made the accompanying boss support enemies with a high guard rate a lot easier to deal with. If I understand correctly, he woud have lost those as a Knight because those are Human exclulsive, so I'm glad I gave it a blind run before converting everyone into Knights, since those skills carried me through. Plus, now I have more materials in reserve for whatever comes next.

I'm playing scenarios from the ones I'm least interested into to the ones I'm most interested in, but I ended up really liking Siugnas' scenario. He seems to get a lot of unique events because of his role as a Dark Lord, and the focus on exploring the worlds his initial party members are from adds even more, creating something resembling the companion system in Scarlet Grace, which was an element that was missing a bit for me during Mido's run. I also liked that the tone was more Adams Family for readers of Boys Love comics than actually edgy. It's comedy dark, not actual dark.

I feel like I have a grasp on how magic works now, and by the end of the run Philospher was a pretty effective mage. It definitely feels toned down a bit from Scarlet Grace, but I think the flilpside of that is that it's now possible to be a good mage and a good melee character. Also, if you have strong spells in your skill list, there's a chance of using them during an overdrive, so you can end up firing off a spell that normally requires two turns of charge time for a low BP cost with 0 charge time. There's a luck element to that so it's not very reliable, but when it happens it's very satisfying.

In Siugnas' final area, there was a hilarious fight that kept scaling to ridiculous levels every time you won, to the extent that the time I lost that enemy was doing damage in the multiple 1000s. Maybe it's theoretically winnable if you've done countless loops and have the best of everything with some very tweaked build to reliably Stun or Paralyze, but I thought it was a funny way to do a "you're not actually meant to win" style encounter.

I was a bit unsure which of the next three to start next, but I think I'm going with Ameya since it sounds like even more than the others she's built around doing multiple loops before it opens up, so I want to get at loop in rather than putting her off.

Also, FYI, there is at least some support for this game planned, because Kawazu is very active on Twitter taking bug reports and talking about some UI changes planned for the next update, like having some visual indicator of what equipment you currently have materials to upgrade.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1787487062545018904

 

[estragon]

Finished Ameya and started Diva No 5. In general, I'm liking this more the more time I spend with it. It definitely has more friction than Scarlet Grace due to its complexity, though, for better or for worse. I'm enjoying it and growing to like it more over time, but I can see why someone wouldn't.

Ameya was hilariously short for me, because the first world was one I'd already done with both Siugnas and Mido, and Ameya had the option to just say "I'm just here to find my cats" and leave without doing anything there, and the next world was new but fairly short, especially with my party equipped with stuff from two prior runs and knowledge of how to efficiently learn spells. Doing Ameya 3rd really drives home just how busted her scenario's unique equipment is, because the run itself was very short, but already everything but her HP is more or less equal to a character ready for endgame. They really set her up to be the ultimate mage.

Question: Does Ameya keep equipment, stat boosts, and newly learned spells from her previous runs if you do a second run with her, or does she start from scratch every time due to her scenario until you find cats again? What about if you're carrying her over into another character who can recruit her, assuming that's possible?

With, Diva No. 5 I basically just experience the intro cutscene, looked at her party, and decided I needed a break. Even though it's my 4th scenario, she has enough weird stuff going on with her intial team that I was too overwhelmed to start equipping anyone and setting them up for encounters. There's two characters that seem human-ish, but seem to have monster abilities also, and I think one of the two is also an Ephemeral I saw in the PR materials. Diva's initial group really throws you into the deep end of a bunch of new character types. Plus, I never really used a mech in previous runs, and there's a full on monster and I barely scratched the surface of monsters in Ameya's brief run. I don't think this is necessarily bad, but the variety of character types introduces a lot ot friction to Emerald Beyond across multiple playthroughs, just because there's so much to learn.

It's not bad friction, but there's a lot more to master. Ameya's brief run was like a little victory lap where I could just apply what I learned and also the carry over equipment from the previous two scenarios, but now with Diva it's like I still don't know anything at all. The game is very stuffed full. As someone who played Scarlet Grace an obscene amount, this is probably better for me because I don't feel like I'm immediately just coasting through, but it's definitely daunting.

 

[YangusKhan]

Does Ameya keep equipment, stat boosts, and newly learned spells from her previous runs if you do a second run with her, or does she start from scratch every time due to her scenario until you find cats again? What about if you're carrying her over into another character who can recruit her, assuming that's possible?

She loses all the things she gets from her cats when you re-start her own file, but if you find her in someone else's she has everything. So, she retains all her spells minus the Metal ones in her own file, and in other files she keeps the Metal ones. (I am pretty sure). You certainly get to keep her Cat gear when playing as someone else, though she is the only one who can equip it. Knowing what I know now about Showstoppers and BP management, she is incredibly set up to do some disgusting things with Showstoppers.

 

[YangusKhan]

Finished with Siugnas, which ended with a three phase boss fight where the second and third phases both gave separate achievements (Thrill Seeker and The Ultimate).

I ended up not making any party members into Knights. I've heard that something about making people into Knights makes something about Siugnas' last boss easier, but I gave it a blind run in the hope I could get through the run without doing any more party tinkering or upgrading, and it ended up working out.

I also finished my Siugnas final yesterday. I Knighted 2 people. There's a lot going on with his final boss, but the game does an excellent job at throwing you bones to deal with it. All his Blood techs are Unblockable, and his Sanguine gear grants Death immunity roles on top of various status effect resistance. I dunno if the boss does Death for other characters, but yeah that's a real dick move to throw on top of everything else. But anyway, that meant phase 1 was super easy for the most part since I could just ignore the Haniwa monster's block timing (when they Tackle, they block until after their turn). There was also definitely something going on with the boss' actions on the timeline and being right or left of its attacks, but I didn't really figure that out.

I ended up having to fight its 3rd phase two times, and the last time it came down to the wire with Warrior only alive and Siugnas petrified. But Warrior popped off a Showstopper and got to use all of his interrupt techs, which dealt just an obscene amount of damage.

For my next file I've decided on Bonnie & Formina. I've switched around their initial weapon types slightly and gave Formina martial arts instead of guns, and Bonnie guns instead of martial arts. 3 cats is entirely too many monsters for one party in this game, so I'm looking to dump 1 of them ASAP.