video is related, but maybe not obviously, so like.
in a "normal" rpg, you prepare until you can win. or maybe even until you basically can't lose! sure, you aren't gonna walk into a boss in
shin megami tensei nocturne hd remaster and have a party that's readymade to beat it (well, probably. there was a pretty good cheese combo i found that worked on a LOT of things when i first played it and the most finicky requirement assuming it was adequate was waiting till new moon before walking through doors with a prompt), but after the first time, you slap together a team that doesn't take any fire damage and that's pretty much it. and, admittedly, in post-gameboy saga games, you can still do that a lot of the time. and there are parts where you have to have some build-up beforehand.
but these are universally regarded as the worst and hardest parts of the games. stuff like the magma slimes in this game, or rs2's final boss, really do require immense power and specific abilities or contingencies prepared to finish (if not also a decent dose of luck). and i admit that i'm a stubborn player who often approaches games like a very slow and stupid machine learning algorithm; i'm sure that i'm strong enough and just need to come up with the series of actions that works until my last idea fails. so saga already kind of caters to the experimental approach i tend to go for, while the approaches that other rpgs encourage tend to be less productive. they're generally not self-defeating; fighting battles to get stronger really doesn't
hurt you. but unless you're basically getting killed in one hit constantly it probably doesn't help as much as you'll expect either
but i feel that the spark system is basically the most consistent recurring "saga" mechanic* for a reason: it kind of represents the power of what you
don't know. maybe it is too hard, or you get unlucky, or you didn't really know how to prepare for it. but then one of your characters busts out something totally sick that turns the battle around. i actually beat unlimited saga's final boss the first time after a bunch of defeats clearly
because my dog learned the best move in the game (along with everything else i'd figured out). obviously that fades as you figure out what's useful and how to get it faster, but on a first playthrough it's one of the game's most important tools for explaining things, and rewards the process of trying to win a hard battle rather than just gaining more stats to win it.
though i think the even bigger reason i like it is just that it feels truer to my life. i've never been the kind of person who can study things, or try to memorize them on purpose, but i can keep persevering until i get the inspiration that makes it work out, and usually that's the thing that carries forward for me. even in
scarlet grace, where sometimes sparking things is "bad" (because you always get the best effect possible at the moment when you learn it and various things can become way less useful when used normally, so it kind of wastes that opportunity)...well, that makes sense to me too. sometimes you just don't learn something at the time it would've really helped.
*(obviously the LP thing has been around longer, but also gets changed up a lot more. it's very different in unlimited or rs2 than it is in rs3 or frontier, for example)