SaGa (Video Game Franchise)
SaGa is a popular
video game series from SquareSoft, now Square Enix. It was started by Akitoshi Kawazu in 1989, two years after its cousin Final Fantasy. It is graphically in contrast with Seiken Densetsu. As for release, the second three games (the Romancing SaGa trilogy) in the series were marketed exclusively in Japan. Originally in monochrome, the first game in the series, Makaitoushi SaGa (a.k.a. Final Fantasy Legend in the U.S.), was remade for Bandai Wonderswan Color being made over from monochrome 8-bit graphics to color 16-bit graphics. The original version is included with the enhanced version on the Wonderswan Color cartridge. Usually, the original versions are not included with the enhanced remakes. SaGa Frontier is the first SaGa game to be released in the U.S. since SaGa 3 (Final Fantasy Legend III). SaGa's creator Akitoshi Kawazu is the founder of Game Designers Studio.
SaGa is known to have gameplay superior to that of Final Fantasy. While Final Fantasy focuses on storyline, music, and graphics, SaGa primarily focuses on gameplay, concepts, and races. Characters and villagers can be humans, elves, monsters, aliens, cyborgs, or even robots. SaGa is less popular than Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Seiken Densetsu, and Chrono.
Release Chronology
- Makaitoushi SaGa (Final Fantasy Legend) - 1989, Gameboy
- SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend II) - 1991, Gameboy
- SaGa 3 (Final Fantasy Legend III) - 1993, Gameboy
- Romancing SaGa - 1992, SNES; 2002, Wonderswan Color
- Romancing SaGa 2 - 1993, SNES
- Romancing SaGa 3 - 1995, SNES
- SaGa Frontier - 1998, Playstation
- SaGa Frontier 2 - 2000, Playstation
- Unlimited SaGa - 2002 (Japan) and 2003 (U.S.), Playstation 2
