Grinding: it's not just for coffee anymore. Let's Play The 7th Saga!

I think you can kill yourself off and get the event with him as partner. I'm not 100% sure of that offhand, though.

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Like some others, I've read the LP of this game in the Archives, and I'm very interested in reading a more thorough (and open minded it seems) run through of the game. I tried to play this game many times when I was a kid, but I could never make it much further than the first boss before something else stole my attention.

I always loved the way the battles fade in; I still think its one of, if not the best, random battle transitions used in a JRPG.

As he's billed as one of the lamest of the lame, I'd love to see what a Lejes run takes. Because the box said so, he should be named Mogri, for maximum pride.

I suspect that the least complimentary character to team up with a glass cannon would be another glass cannon. Which I think means Mr. Demon getting busy wit' Ms. Busy.

Are there no incompatible combinations? I recall SaGa Frontier's weird recruitment rules where girls can't recruit robots and my brain keeps trying to say there's similar stuff going on here. Even though I really barely played 7th Saga.

Some combos are less compatible than others, but none are impossible. I'll get into the details in the second update.

It's rumored that Lejes and Valsu can never partner up, but that's not true.

I insist that you prove it.

Related to that: if Lejes doesn't end up being the protagonist or his/her BFF, I'd love to hear more about what makes him such a catastrophically sad opponent. I've read that before, but I've never had anyone explain it in any depth.

#1: The Gate of Earth

Backstory time:



No, wait, that's the intro. (Sorry for the mistimed cap on the second screen.) The backstory is only mentioned in the manual. (The intro continues, showing an old dude talking to ♪♪ The Seven Apprentices ♪♪. The old dude will be Lemele in a bit.)

The actual backstory is that a long time ago, a dude named Saro killed a bad dude named Gorsia. I couldn't find any scans of the manual, so you're going to have to take my word for this. It won't actually become relevant until the game is mostly over, though.

As you've probably noticed, Lux won the vote in a robotic landslide, so he'll be our star apprentice.



Things you didn't know about 7th Saga #1: Character naming

Leaving the name blank will allow you to use the default name. What's so special about that, you ask? Well, it's the only way to get lowercase letters into your name!



Yes. Yes, it is.


♪♪ Esuna Busy ♪♪ (I always thought this was Lemele's theme, but I guess he doesn't have one. Despite the name, this song isn't really linked to Esuna. By the way, I'll be bolding the songs I recommend! I will try not to bold all of the songs.)

Finally, the time has come to test your skills and knowledge. Your mission is to find the seven runes hidden somewhere on the planet Ticondera. When you have all of the Runes together, they will give you tremendous power and you will become the ruler of this world!



Lemele: They exist in many different forms, and it is difficult to identify them. I'll give each of you a Crystal Ball. It will help you find the Runes. Now get ready for the journey and bring the Runes back.

Each hero received a Crystal Ball.

Lemele thinks that once you get the runes that grant you absolute power, you'll bring them back to him. To which the savvy reader will reply: Ha ha. Spoilers: This is not, in fact, what happens at all.

The game cuts you loose at this point, and you're free to talk to the other apprentices, who will reveal their motives:

• Olvan wants to be young again.
• Kamil wants to show everyone that he's the best.
• Esuna doesn't mention a motive, but she does mention that she'll be OK on her own because Girl Power.
• Valsu wants to drive all evil out of the world. He wonders aloud what Lejes is doing here.
• Lejes wants power.
• Wilme wants power. (The manual explains that he wants to be respected despite his ugly, Predator-esque face, whereas Lejes wants power for stereotypical demon reasons.)
• LAVOS wants to learn what happened to the Tetujin. (Of course, you don't find this out playing as him.)

Despite the apprentices' varying motives, Lemele doesn't seem to care who wins. The apprentices have trained under him for the past five years, so failing to know what's up with them pretty much constitutes gross negligence on Lemele's part. Is he senile? Or does he really not care so long as one of his apprentices succeeds?

Once you leave this room, the other apprentices are gone, and wouldn't you know it, they're all way ahead of you. Pokemon totally copped off of 7th Saga here. But the joke's on them, since a careful exploration of the castle-town of Lemele yields some nice goodies. (Yes, the town is named after the king. We could call the guy vain, but this was actually a common practice throughout history. See: Alexandria, Constantinople, et al. Constantinople is now Istanbul, but that's neither here nor there since Constantine is now long dead.)



Some are more obvious than others:



Also in this town, some nice townsfolk are kind enough to explain the mechanics of the world you live in.



Vital Mechanic #1: Jewels

It's an Enix game, so you lose half your money when you die. Jewels buy and sell for the same amount, so buying jewels is like banking your cash. You won't lose them when you die, and you can later resell them to get that money back.

Vital Mechanic #2: Defend/Attack

I forgot to screencap this. Rest assured that there's a guy in town to explain it to you.

If you defend the round before you attack, then your base attack power is increased by 50%. At first glance, this sounds like a wash: you're taking and dealing 150% damage over two rounds. There are several reasons why this is not the case:

• Defense is only applied once. Let's say the monster's defense reduces your damage by 10. In this case, Defend/Attack means your attack is reduced by 10 once instead of twice. Because of this, your actual two-round damage may be more than what you'd get for attacking twice.
• Enemies never attack before you, so Defend/Attack means that you will kill the enemy on an Attack round, taking only the Defend round's damage.

What the game doesn't mention, and what you're expected to learn on your own, is that Defend/Attack is awesome but not a silver bullet. First, if you can kill an enemy by attacking, then that is always better than Defend/Attack. Second, if the enemy has a low defense, you're not getting much benefit from Defend/Attack. (Similarly, if the enemy only deals one point of damage per attack, there's no reason to defend.) Third, Defend doesn't reduce magic damage in the least.

So the end result is that Defend/Attack is an important but situational tactic. If this were the only nuance to the battle system, it would already be more interesting than most turn-based systems.

Anyway, we're done here. Let's take our leave of Lemele and check out the world map.

♪♪ Lux Tizer ♪♪ (but in fact the first overworld theme)

That circle is the Crystal Ball, 7th Saga's signature mechanic for random encounters. The white dots on the ball are enemies; they roam around semi-randomly, but with a bias towards chasing you. I don't know what the exact logic is for these buggers, but I swear they have a life of their own. Since a lot of my game is spent trying to avoid those dots, I've come to know those patterns well. Darned if I can explain them, though.

Other things you'll see on the Crystal Ball:

• Circles are locations of some sort. Most often, this means towns.
• Yellow dots are treasure chests. There may be walls in the way, but the treasure radar is nonetheless very handy.
• Seizure-inducing flashy red-and-pink dots are Runes. If a location has one of the seven Runes, you'll be able to see it from the world map and again within the dungeon (if the Rune is in a dungeon).

Running into a white dot causes horns to blare and the screen to swing around wildly, Mode 7-style. (The fact that it is named Mode 7 is a happy coincidence that has nothing to do with the seven theme this game has going on.)



♪♪ Battle in a World of Light ♪♪

If you examine this screen closely, you'll notice that the dark patch matches the grass from the previous screenshot. Battles on the world map actually take place on the world map. This is a cool touch, even if it sometimes means monsters are standing in the ocean.

Our first encounter has a Wyvern and a Hermit, in that order. Hermits are the weakest enemy in the game, with Wyverns right behind. This duo would seriously trouble some level 1 apprentices (Esuna and Valsu and also Esuna), but LAVOS only takes one point of damage from either, so he's okay with this.

♪♪ Victory ♪♪

Just a little further is our second town.



♪♪ Lively Village ♪♪ (I forget if this is the right song, but it's close enough)

Rablesk is our base of operations for the first segment of the game. It has better shops than Lemele and is located more conveniently to the dungeons we'll be visiting. It also has one very important hidden treasure:



Seeds give a permanent boost to a single stat (in this case, Defense), varying from 1 to 4. I highly recommend saving before using this Pr Seed and restarting if your boost is below 4. It's not necessary, but it will make your life much easier for the next while. LAVOS needs it less than others, and in fact I forgot to use it until a bit later, but it's still very helpful for him.

Other points of interest in Rablesk:



A man whose wife is menstruating stands outside his house. Did she kick him out or did he flee in abject terror?



A pimp runs the local tavern.



Baby's First Quest.



♪♪ Same Old Inn ♪♪

FORESHADOWING.

Several NPCs mention the Gate of Earth. Since you're the slowpoke apprentice, you're the only one who didn't make it through before it closed. This is true regardless of whom you chose or how fast you got here.

The Gate of Earth is southwest of Rablesk, though you have to go around an ocean to get there. You don't want to go there just yet, though, since you don't have the key. That key is in a castle to the east, our first dungeon.



Here it is. I found it for you.

At this point, LAVOS is still at level o--



♪♪ Level up ♪♪

Level two. LAVOS is still at level two.

Your stats increase semi-randomly on level up. What happens is that each apprentice has a fixed growth in each stat which is randomly modified by -1, 0, or +1 with what seems like equal probability. If you wanted to get all Fire Emblem on this game, you could reset until you liked your growths, but that's honestly unnecessary.



♪♪ Battle in a World of Darkness ♪♪

The most common enemy in the castle is this Chimera. It appears at first as an indistinct ghost shape, but as soon as it takes damage, it reveals its TRUE FORM:



This is purely an aesthetic difference, but it's an awesome one. Chimeras attack by throwing ghost clones at you, and they can also drain your MP with MPCATCHR. For LAVOS, that's basically a free turn because he hasn't learned any spells yet.



The other random encounter here is the Statue. In this shot, LAVOS is about to slug the Statue. As you might expect, Statues have a lot of life. Chimeras hit harder, but aren't as cool, because...



...Statues attack by falling on you. Stay classy, 7th Saga.



♪♪ Lejes Rimul ♪♪

The first thing I do in this dungeon is head to the basement area. From the entrance, head to the side, but not into the doors, then back to the rear. A staircase leads down to this area.

LAVOS can't equip this sword and it'll be long out of style before he finds someone who can. It's sale bait.

Meanwhile, level 3.



The real prize down here is the Topaz. It's a gem worth 500 gold, which is enough to get fully equipped if you're an apprentice that uses equipment. LAVOS has, I think, three pieces of equipment in the entire game outside of his starting set. You find two of them lying around. What I'm saying here is that LAVOS is very low-maintenance, with only Wilme competing for that title.



I head back to town after clearing the basement. I think I could've done this dungeon in a single run, but that'd just be showing off. If you plan on killing the boss, you really want to buy a B Prtct. For some apprentices, it's more worthwhile to let the boss kill you, for reasons I'll get to.

LAVOS has really high natural defense. So why buy the B Prtct? (Bottle of Protection, if you're wondering.) The spell cast by the item doubles your defense in battle, so LAVOS actually gets more mileage out of it than anyone else.



Level 4 gives LAVOS his first spell, LASER 1. This makes LAVOS spread his arms wide open, as if to give a hug.



But instead of hugs, destruction rains from the heavens. Pew pew pew!

I reached the boss at level 4, but noticed I was two battles away from level 5.



So I fought two more battles. This, right here? This is the grindiest I'll get for awhile.

Hey kids! Guides will recommend you don't set foot in this dungeon until you're at least level 5. Guides are dumb, and so are the people who write them, but they write them for people who are even dumber, so we can't fault them entirely.

I neglected to mention it, but there's a P Seed in an impossible-to-miss chest in the dungeon that raises your Attack. Again, I really recommend getting the full four points from it! This will become less important later, but those points make a big difference right now.



Here are my stats going into the first boss battle. The enemy is a truly fearsome beast, and the battle starts with one of the most memorable one-liners in video game history:



It strikes fear into the hearts of men.

♪♪ Epic Confrontation ♪♪ (If you only listen to one song, listen to this one!)

But not robots. Robots do not have hearts.

Open the battle with B Prtct for best results, then laugh at the damage the guy deals to you (unless you're not Lux, in which case feel free to quail in fear).



Also, shoot him with lasers. LASER 1 deals a good chunk of damage, but not enough to make it worth burning an MHerb 1 for more MP. Those suckers aren't free, you know!



The boss attacks by raising his arms into the air and showering you with electricity. Bam! This is a really cool animation, and when we see a palette swap of this boss later, I think it hits both party members.



He can also cast HPCATCHR to absorb health. The same stat is used for magic attack and magic defense, so this will take 15-20 points from a non-caster.



With the help of a few Potn 1s, LAVOS is able to beat the enemy into submission, gaining a level.




♪♪ Fanfare ♪♪
♪♪ Wilme Pelin ♪♪ (dungeon pacified)

Killing Romus has two effects: it pacifies the dungeon and gives us the Key of Earth. With the dungeon pacified, the Crystal Ball is gone, making it harder to locate treasure. If you took the basement earlier, you've probably cleaned out the dungeon anyway.

Secret Alternative Strategy: If Romus kills you, talk to the menstruating woman in Rablesk, then her husband. The wife explains that a wicked prince once ruled the castle, when one day a traveler and his dog visited. The prince slew the traveler and the dog's spirit still haunts the castle. The dog's name, if you haven't guessed: Romus.

That's right, we just killed a dog.

The husband will give you the Whistle after you've listened to the story. Using the Whistle kills Romus immediately. There's no disadvantage to doing so: you still get full XP and so on. This is a really great idea for apprentices who would otherwise have significant trouble with Romus.

Anyway, we have the Key of Earth now, which means we can continue into part two of the quest: opening the Gate of Earth.



On the way to the gate, we run into the third and final enemy of the first overworld area: the Demon. The Demon has a higher attack than the Wyvern and can also cast DEFENSE2, which (counter-intuitively) lowers your defense. Demons are worth as much XP as Chimeras, so if you absolutely have to grind, do it on the overworld, not in the castle.



The signature enemy of the Gate of Earth dungeon is this Undead. It hits hard -- the first regular enemy to deal more than one point of damage to LAVOS, and it's capable of two-shotting flimsier apprentices at this level. To make things more "fun," it also casts HEAL1 to restore up to 40 HP and REVIVE1 for a 50% chance at bringing back a dead ally. You don't encounter them in pairs for now, so revival isn't really an issue at this point. The next dungeon (yet a ways off) will pair them for double-revive hijinks.



♪♪ Frozen Depths of the Earth ♪♪

Here's the Gate. If we didn't have the Key, we'd be stalled here. Then again, we would have had to be overleveled or extremely lucky to survive to this point without the Key.



There are several rooms with treasure chests, but only one in the main tunnel. Everyone likes treasure, right?



Bam! This Trick can kill LAVOS in one hit.

Leave that chest alone for now. Whether you win or lose, the Trick is gone forever. (It drops a Topaz, if you're wondering.)

Here's our second boss, plus my stats going into the fight.



Speculation suggests that one of the apprentices is chosen at the start of the game to be the traitor. That character will never join you. Personally, I don't buy it. My guess is that the bad apple isn't set in stone until Patrof.

It doesn't make that big a difference, really, but it's yet another feature that's poorly documented.



Anyway, Pison is a yawnfest once you use a B Prtct. I like his whip animation, though.



Level 7 on the way out.

♪♪ World Map ♪♪

There are several overworld themes in the game, which is a very nice touch.

There's a moderate jog between the dungeon's exit and the next town. This is a trouble spot for me.



These Cyborgs are the reason why. They cast HEAL 1 and MPCATCHR in addition to hitting a bit harder than Undeads. This is where Demons can be really annoying: DEFENSE2 softens you up for some really hard hits.

LAVOS shows how poor his Speed is in this battle by failing to run away six times consecutively.

♪♪ Curse ♪♪



This awkwardly-worded line is your reward for dying. Get used to seeing it!

Next: The Wind Rune

Death count: 1

Grind count: 0


Hey readers! Who would you like to see as our first companion? As you vote, keep two things in mind:

• I will be changing companions at some point. Perhaps at several points. Who knows?
• One of the non-Esuna companions (randomly chosen) will become unavailable before long.

You may also vote "no companion." That's legal, too!

Demonwarf!

Congratulations! You are now further than I have ever gotten in this game. I always get annoyed and stop during the first dungeon.

You should team up with the dwarf, since dwarves are good with metal.

I vote for the one that you will hate the most.

In seriousness, this game looks like it has some decent ideas held back by bad fundamentals.

While that may be the case, my rose-colored glasses have a hard time picking out any real defects thus far. It doesn't hurt that you guys chose the most solid character for this part of the game, but I guarantee I could achieve similar results with any character.* I'm not joking when I talk about guides, by the way: go to GameFAQs and check any guide you want. They'll all tell you that you shouldn't enter the castle before level 5 and that you can't beat Romus before level 10 without using the Whistle.

I don't think I have any illusions about the game, so I'm interested in this discussion. Have you noticed any glaring flaws so far? Do you think I'm about to come up on any? And let's re-address these questions down the line as appropriate.

*That said, my initial experience with the game was not so smooth. I'm able to get these results because I'm intimately familiar with the game's mechanics. To what degree games ought to reward mastery/punish ignorance is more of a philosophical debate; my purpose in this LP is more to show that the game has a deceptively high skill ceiling that extends far beyond grinding until you can win.

The commonest problems in a JRPG are the parts that are easiest to skip over in a Let's Play: too-frequent encounters, a stingy economy, dungeons made out of retrofitted bullshittium mines decorated with ornaments of polished bullshit, that sort of thing.

I was really surprised by the first update - namely because every attempt I made at this game was adulterated by either a balancing patch or a brutal amount of grinding.

I remember 7th Saga having a pretty brutal encounter rate, especially circa Patrof, and an equipment system that made it difficult to know what you were shopping for. I could be wrong on that last one though. One of my favorite things about seeing a good Let's Play on a game I struggled through is being able to see when something doesn't actually require brute-forcing your way through. (See also: Soren's Legaia LP.)

Oh, right: let's go with the dwarf.

You can manipulate the encounter rate to a degree simply by dodging the enemy-dots on the crystal ball. Of course, this isn't foolproof.

Equipment shopping isn't fantastic, but it's acceptable: you select an equipment and it tells you how much it'll modify your attack/defense. One nice thing about the shop system is that it lets you sell the equipment you're replacing at the same time you buy the replacement. This means you don't need to have the money to pay the full cost of the new item and you don't have to sell something only to find out you don't quite have enough to buy the next piece.

Wow. It is hella surreal seeing people give recommendations to a thing I did/am doing. Thank you! =D

But anyway, this game has pretty nice music. I think the World Map theme (the last one in the update) is my favorite so far.

...Wow, you're gutsy. Blazing away like this, saying you don't have to FE out the level-ups... I look forward to being shown how to play this game right.

Oh yeah, dwarf.

Oh, yeah you can do that dwarf quest by self-destructing with LAVOS, and having him as a partner.

Yep, Olvan. Dwarf + robot = win.

Now I'm really excited.

No joke! These are compliments that should go over there I guess, but LoL is an underrated PS1 gem that I could never quite slog through. Seeing things I did wrong by virtue of seeing them done right is pretty great!

Thank you!

Man, I can't believe you just walked over Pison so easily. He always gave me the hardest time.

I bought this game a few months ago for like seven bucks at a local game store, so I might just plug it in and play along.

Loving it so far. The Mode 7 effect on the overworld for battles is the one thing that really sticks with me in this game. It's a shame, though understandable, that it can't happen in dungeons.

I know the TAS of this game does some crazy things (and skips entire portions due to glitches I believe), and it also uses Lux. I almost didn't vote for him because of that, but he's just too awesome not to use.

As for the next dude, everyone's voting Dwarf, but I want to see the Demon and get some talk about what makes him so darn sucky.

I always liked the design of the mimics for this game. Kinda makes sense that an evil sentient hand vine would take root in a chest.

I vote demon as well.