The 7th Saga

           while this game definitely deserves a warning label, its a bit misleading.  At no point was I excited, nor was there any complete enjoyment.  I did however experience: shock - at how infuriating this game is; disbelief - at how long my pain endured; confusion - as to how anyone could enjoy this piece of shit game.

Release:  August/September 1993
Genre:  Role Playing Game
What the Internet says it’s worth (avg.): $12.25
The most you should pay for it: Don't pay for this game, don't even let someone give it to you
Should you play it?: Not unless you are a masochist who enjoys spending 30+ hours level grinding
Best part:  Beating this piece of shit and promising myself I never have to play it again
Worst part:  Forcing myself to play it everyday

Interesting fact:  This game is based on the Japanese RPG Elnard.  Typically the Japanese version of a game is like 90 times harder than its American counterpart.  Not so with this game my friend. In Japan, Elnard is supposedly a fun RPG, in America Elnard is an evil demon cartridge designed for the sole purpose of destroying you as a human being.  It's name is The 7th Saga, and he's a total sociopath with roid rage.

Also known as Elnard Schwarzeneggar 

Overall:  C

Let me start off by saying that if I were to judge this game solely on its merits as being a functional video game, I would say it is a decently well put together game. It is a minimum of a 30 hour game that obviously had a lot of time and thought put into it.  The controls, while very basic, are responsive and never directly hinder gameplay .  There is a wide array of enemies, and the whole concept of the game is semi-interesting.  The plot centers around 7 "apprentices" trying to find 7 runes for a king.  In classic RPG fashion you get to choose one of the 7 characters.  The interesting part is that the remaining six "apprentices" are also searching for the rune as NPCs, and depending on your character they will either want to join your party, or they will want to fight you and take any runes you have already found.


With all that in mind FUCK THIS GAME!!!!!   Seriously, I have never been so pissed off at a video-game in my entire life, and I've played Battletoads and Ghouls n' Ghosts extensively.  This game has garnered a reputation over the years as being the hardest RPG for the Super Nintendo, if the not the hardest RPG of all time.  And don't get me wrong, I don't hate this game because it's hard, I hate this game because it is needlessly difficult. Right from the beginning of the game, you are severely under-powered and the enemies rape your face with a cheese grater.  The solution to getting your ass kicked by every single random enemy attack?  Level grinding.  Most RPG's require a certain amount of leveling to progress against difficult enemies, but that is literally how you will spend the majority of the game.  If you don't spend countless, mind-numbing hours of repetitive battles that are literally limited to selecting defend-attack-defend-attack-heal etc...  any time you spend trying to progress inthe game is utter frustration.  As with any RPG you go from village to village on a world map, usually some dude in a tavern will tell you where to got to get the next rune.  It is the time spent going between villages and dungeons that will make you want to stick your hands in a wood-chipper just so you can assure that you will never have to play this game again.  There is a "radar" in the upper left hand corner of the screen that "shows" you where the random enemies are, but all that amounts to is instead of playing the 16-bit game, you get to play the pixel game of "run from the dots"

fuck those dots

And by all means, you will spend a large portion of the game running from those bitch ass dots.  Once you come into contact with said dots, you will engage in a battle.  I hope you like selecting things in menus, because youre going to be doing a lot of it as you attempt to kill them. Eventually, the game gets to a point where even if you are super high-level, most of the enemies have one-hit kills that are nearly impossible to defend against.  On top of that, most of the enemies have a ridiculously high speed, which means that half the time your attacks don't even find their mark, giving them the opportunity to kill your whole party with one move.  To make matters worse, many of the enemies have "revive" spells, so when you finally manage to hit an enemy and kill it, his dickhead buddy raises him from the dead with full stats.  To sum things up, making it one from one village to another is almost the most frustrating part of the game.  That is, until you manage to make it into the dungeons where the enemies are 10 times more difficult than the ones outside and most have poison.  So, after barely making it to the cave/dungeon/castle to get the Rune you need to progress, you will most likely get killed.  The only way to save your game is to stay at an inn in one of the villages, so when you die you get transported back to the nearest inn.  And of course, because they are random enemy encounters that means any "work" you did to make it into the dungeon has to be repeated all over again.  The one plus side is that when you die, it doesn't make you load from your save; you just lose half of your gold and are back in the village.  This is a plus because any of the miniscule amounts of XP you managed to get before you die you get to keep, meaning that after many hours attempting to make it into (much less beat) a dungeon, your character will be slightly less shitty.  In regard to the loss of gold problem, apparently monsters are really into gold, but not jewels.  So, you can buy jewels in town and then resell them later, which is just one more pain in the ass system of clicking through menus.  That's pretty much what this game is, click through menus and run from the dots.  To make matters worse, the NPCs in the towns are slow, stupid, and are like concrete blocks.  You can't walk through them, so expect to spend a fair amount of time screaming and cursing at your television because some asshole is standing in front of the only exit to the town, refusing to move.

And that's just the shitty gameplay, then there's the whole mess of the convoluted, almost non-existent story.  The whole game takes place on the planet called Ticondera.  5000 years before your involvement with the story, some magical being named Saro killed some dude named Gorsia with 7 runes.  Cut to 4900 years later, and somehow the almost 5000 year old Saro gets all up inside some of that future poontang, and has a sun named Lemele.  Lemele kills this demon named Gariso.  Lemele becomes king, and on his 100th birthday he assembles seven apprentices who have been training for five years to hunt down the seven runes used to kill Gorsia 5 millennia ago.  Whoever finds the runes will become king, and have great power or some bullshit like that.  So after you suffer for about 25 hours, you will arrive at a castle to fight the supposedly dead demon Gariso for the 7th rune.

Lemele is a really shitty King, and his claim to the throne is predicated by lies of demon slaying

And this is when things start to get really stupid, once you defeat Gariso and get the 7th rune, Lemele shows up.  But wait, it's not Lemele, it's Gorsia!  He traveled from the past, killed King Lemele (Saro's son), and pretends to be him.  Disguised as King Lemele he trains and sends out the 7 apprentices to gather the 7 runes.   That sneaky son of a bitch!  Then, instead of just killing you, he sends you 5000 years into the past.  Of course, by looking at things you would think he just sent you a couple of days back in time.  The villages basically have the same shitty, boring layouts, and same items in the stores.  Anyway, you have to fight your way back across the dot-laden landscape to see Saro in a cave that doubles as hip monster hangout.  It seems that Gorsia really worked Saro over and left him for dead; with the last few ounces of his strength before he dies, Saro gives you the 7 runes.  Once you have those, you must once again flee the dots until you make it to the castle where you fought Gariso in the future, to have a pseudo-final showdown with Gorsia.

he's so powerful he has to chain himself to the wall

He's a total dick, and will require a ridiculously high level to beat him (47 at least it seems).  But once you beat him, he kills you with his last dying breath.  But wait, the benevolent being Saro tells you not to worry, your body may have been destroyed, but he will reincarnate you, as his son Lemele 4900 years later.  Try and wrap your brain around that.  Saro killed Gorsia with 7 runes, and had a son 4900 years later named Lemele.  Lemele kills Gariso and becomes king, but then Gorsia travels into the future and kills Lemele and takes his place.  Then Gorsia, disguised as Lemele, sends you to find the runes.  Then when you kill Gariso for the 7th rune, Gorsia shows up and he sends you back 5000 years to when Saro killed Gorsia.  Gorsia kills Saro, and then you kill Gorsia, who kills you.  Then Saro sends you 4900 years into the future, you kill Gariso and become king.  Then Gorsia shows up using his flux-capacitor or some shit and kills you, and then disguised as you, sends you out to find the runes. When you find them and kill Gariso again (?) he sends you back in time so you can kill him and so you kill him but then he kills you, and then Saro sends you to the future... 

and well you see where this is going.

To sum things up, I have never hated a game so much (to date).  I don't usually take my own opinions very seriously, but in this instance I will totally curb stomp any nerds who try to argue with me.  It's hard to believe, but there are some assholes who have not only gotten to the highest level possible (80), they have done so on each of the 7 apprentices.