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SaGa Emerald Beyond

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)


It would be unconscionable not to warrant a new thread for a new SaGa. Its existence had been intimated before, and now the newest game in the series has materialized... and despite it looking just about what was expected--very Scarlet Grace-inflected in everything shown--there is not a hint of disappointment in it being so, because staying true to one of the best games ever made doesn't seem a terrible proposition. Beyond excited and full confidence in the finished work based on just the glimpses shown.
 

Kazin

did i do all of that?
(he/him)
I still have so much of Scarlet Grace to play, and yet I'll still be getting Emerald Beyond pretty much as soon as it releases. Great series.
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
I am thrilled to see we're going back to some sci-fi stuff and especially that Mechs are back. I'mma main Diva No. 5
 

ozacrot

Jogurt Joestar
(he/him)
The drastic differences in fashion across characters and mention of travel across 17 worlds has me thrilled - the multiverse setting of SaGa Frontier is one of my favorites from any video game. With the returns of guns and (as characters, at least) Mechs, I'm curious to see what other mechanics may make their way into the new one.

I'm also looking forward to having an enormous black house cat as a party member:

Screenshot-20230914-114036.png
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
Hell yeah! My impression is the world design/structure and character types hews closer to Frontier/Gameboy SaGa, while the everything else is very much Scarlet Grace.
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
SaGa is usually excellent with gender parity in its playable casts, but when the pendulum shifts away from a binary split, men tend to receive the slight preference in perspectives and stories present. Emerald Beyond is the first time there's a female majority, with or without counting both Bonnie and Formina as a unit in their buddy cop dual scenario.
 

spines

cyber true color
(she/her, or something)
i saw a screenshot of the battle screen before the trailer so i wasn't sure if they were changing the battle system a lot more but it seems more like the visual representation is more "scaled" to give a better idea of whether or not certain actions will change the turn order without having to check every single move you have manually, haha. although watching the trailer it also looks like unite attacks are being replaced (?) by a combo system like the ones the series has commonly had since frontier

incredibly excited about this game
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
Hmmm. I wonder if this will get a physical release outside of Asia or if it will still be digital only like every other SaGa release now?
 

demi

(She/Her)
I don't know, but GameForce Boulder has stocked the Asia region physical releases for SaGa and many others pretty darn consistently, if not immediately. We'll definitely be checking with them as the release draws near.
 

Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
Some bits from a Famitsu interview that I forgot to post here:

The main characters are credited with voice actors, which I don't think we knew? Yuki Ono (Josuke from JJBA4) as Vampire Guy and Ayaka Suwa (A2 from Nier Automata) as Diva #5 are the only particularly big names. I don't really care about voice actors but some of y'all might.

"We decided on character designs during a drinking party"

Slightly fewer party members than in Scarlet Grace (I think that's what it says), but there are a lot more variety because of races.

They came up with more than 17 worlds, but they knew that wasn't feasible for development - some folks even suggested cutting a couple more, but Kawazu was like "naur it has to be 17"

Interviewer: ScarGrace's protagonists all had unusual jobs, it kind of feels like the same is happening with EmaBeyo
Kawazu, speaking about a game with a Robot Songstress Who Lost Her Voice And Body and Literally The Prince of Darkness: Eh, I think they're pretty normal?

Bonnie and Formina exist because Kawazu wanted a girl best friends like how Balmante and Arthur are boy best friends in ScaGra.

Siugnas's party is all men. They decided from the start his team would be all goodlooking men. I wonder if this means just his starting party or if characters have a set list of people they can actually recruit?

The character artist keeps referencing someone named on the art team named Takahashi, who did some of the design work - she apparently designed Siugnas and the Puppet masks. Kuramochi's Siugnas design was apparently a lot sluttier lmao.

Siugnas is the only vampire in the game? So it seems like less of a SaGa Frontier Mystic and more of a Vampire Guy From RS3? He can suck blood in combat, but they don't clarify anything about it.

The world is supposed to feel different depending on which characters you're playing - they specifically mention how in ScaGra, Balmante and Talia may have different storylines, but ultimately the various events that happen in the world are largely the same between games, but EmeBeyond it's supposed to actually feel different. Progress is also different if you play the same character story.

Kawazu: Don't worry, if you follow the Green Line, you'll reach the end.

Emerald Vision exists because Kawazu was like "ok we use these lines during development, so it's fine for the player to see them too"

Kawazu: Games today are really long, and they make me say "I'll take me 3 months to beat this game" and so I wanted to bring back the feeling of being a young person who would be like "I'm going to beat this game in 3 days this weekend"

Tsunanori is essentially a tutorial character like Urpina. Ameya has a lot of endings for her scenario.

Originally they were planning on having the game out in 2021, but the pandemic happened so development slowed down. Preproduction began when they were working on ScarGrac Ambitions.

The rewind feature lets you make different choices in a cutscene, but you can't rewind out of a battle.
 

Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
Rewinding SaGa cutscenes? That's a pretty surprising feature ngl.

It seems like he says he wanted a way for players to be able to reread text/rewatch events, but since actual rewind features aren't that common in games he wanted to give it a shot (versus, i guess, an event viewer/message log).
 

Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
The full press kit mentions that Showstopper is more likely to happen as towards the end of battle as fewer units are on the field, which makes me worried that the end of boss fights might just be rocket tag to see who can self combo the hardest

Really want to know more about those ...fox people ... I'm not too keen on the "beginner friendly" guy Tsunanori yet.

those are his puppets!
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
The full press kit mentions that Showstopper is more likely to happen as towards the end of battle as fewer units are on the field, which makes me worried that the end of boss fights might just be rocket tag to see who can self combo the hardest
That article from rpgamer did a terrible job of explaining what Showstopper actually is. It's a... chance? for someone to combo with themself? How would that work if you can only pick 1 action per turn?

those are his puppets!
Oh. Well then... I can re-consider...
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)

Already made note of it from that great bunch of screenshots on RPGamer, but I'm unreasonably excited that Guanyin is back.
 
Kobayashi Tomomi is not involved with this game, but she was to TGS just as a general audience member and wrote a blog about it including a sketch of the panel event.

C9Wyrnv.jpg


Presumably whatever reason she's not involved is probably some factor no one has hard feelings about, because she's delighted to meet the SaGa team again for the first time in a while. She also excited to run into some promotional banners with Cloud and Sephiroth, so apparently the part of her that was inspired to draw her FF7 doujin back in the day is still alive and well.
 
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About the game itself: As someone who played through all four character scenarios on the original Vita release of Scarlet Grace and then again with the Ambitions release and still occasionally fiddles with an ongoing save just because the battles are fun, I'm obviously extremely hopeful for this. Scarlet Grace is the result of stripping down things to the bare essentials, and here they're clearly using that framework as a starting point but bringing some of those cut elements back in. It will be a delicate balancing act, but the initial pitch is very promising if executed well. Visually, as much as Kobayashi is missed, I think the initial designs here are quite song and clearly they've developed a team that Gets what SaGa is about.
 
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