You ever wonder why certain games are titled as such? Honestly I wonder why Square would think to market it as another Final Fantasy game even though the gameplay of this game does not coincide with the rest of Final Fantasy as a whole. For what it's worth though, it did offer an alright experience.
It is a game with character classes and expendable weapons. So basically speaking, you only get a finite amount of what you can attack enemies with, while certain character classes get certain traits to them. The human classes are incredibly basic, and don't actually get anything good for them except for things that would boost their stats. This could make them hard to train up, but then again, they get the full eight slots for their equipment and generally can equip the top-of-the-line stuff. Mutants, or Espers in remakes (I think) only get four equipment slots, but have the ability to get or lose abilities after each battle. While random, these don't necessarily make mutant's bad characters, as they can get things the human classes cannot. The random stat gains become more prevalent in the future games, especially Romancing SaGa games utilize them almost fully. Then we have monsters. Oh boy, I personally hate these since I prefer to amplify my characters via equipment. Sure you can get some of the toughest monsters when it comes to their abilities, but they have to change themselves by eating monster meat, which thankfully tends to show up after every battle. Personally though, I would rather not have such a wildcard type of creature for my party anyways, so when I played, I stuck with the party of two humans and two mutants.
And speaking of such, well, you can actually remove said party members permanently by having their hearts deplete, meaning you have them die in battle. As heartless as it sounds, it's a mechanic that at least allows you to experiment with other classes to see which works best. I stick to the humans/mutants combo though, they are worthwhile for what they do. The types of equipment achievable in this game spans several different aspects, so it's not just fantasy. Who would imagine that a SMG would be in the same vein as a fantasy sword, or more so, an insta-killing chainsaw?
The game's plot has shades of Final Fantasy in it, helping out numerous kings, fighting off four fiends, which are named after the Four Chinese Constellations. There's a few interesting tidbits here and there, such as breathing underwater, helping a resistance movement, running away from an unkillable fiend in order to get help from...a biker gang of all things, as well as collecting of spheres. All this because the hero and companions want to climb a tower. What's at the top you ask? Some form of paradise, guarded by the head demon. Or so you think. There's the help of friendship with characters met along the way, and then fighting off the fiends one more time, and then the Creator,.because he just had to be that kind of douchebag to make a game out of something that shouldn't really be considered a game. Still though, the fact that the main character is looking for that paradise, never finding it, then deciding to live in the world below at the very end was some kind of plot deconstruction. Overall though, the first game in the SaGa series, and the first of three Final Fantasy Legends is quite a fun experience.
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