Leveling up and building your characters
So, how exactly do we build our characters in SaGa Frontier Remastered?
Not your traditional leveling system
SaGa Frontier Remastered has the following attributes for you to take note of:
- HP (health points) – Self-explanatory; you lose all of these, you die. Healing spells and items restore HP and bring back downed characters during battles. At the end of battles, though, HP is fully replenished.
- LP (life points) – A character loses LP if they’re downed; any damage done to them while downed causes them to lose more LP. If a supporting character loses all their LP during battle, they’re considered “dead” and no healing spell or item can bring them back (you’ll need to rest at an inn). However, if your main character loses all their LP, it’s a game over and you need to reload your save.
- WP (weapon/waza points) – Think of WP as your “mana” for weapon skills. You can replenish WP by resting at an inn.
- JP (jutsu points) – Think of JP as your “mana” for magic spells. You can replenish JP by resting at an inn or drinking mage beverages.
SaGa Frontier Remastered retains the core concepts of the original when it comes to leveling (it’s definitely not something you’re used to in the traditional sense). There’s no EXP bar that you need to fill, followed by a bright light signifying that you’ve leveled up. Instead, you increase the stats of your characters depending on the actions you do in battle. For instance, HP tends to increase normally every other fight you finish. Meanwhile, WP and JP tend to increase whenever you use guns/weapon skills or magic spells respectively. Other stats include STR, INT, WIL, and the like.
Note 1: Characters can still have stat boosts as long as they “attempt” an action. For instance, let’s say you want to increase a caster’s JP. But, because that person has low MOB/mobility, they might not be able to unleash a spell before the rest of the team pummels all the enemies. However, as long as your action is queued (i.e., you chose to use a weapon skill or a magic spell), that’s still taken into consideration for any stat gains.
Note 2: SaGa Frontier Remastered still uses the “enemy rank” system. Enemies scale depending on how much you’ve leveled up. As such, you can expect old locations to have newer and stronger hostiles once you revisit them. The ideal grinding locations are usually the Swamp in Yorkland and the Bio Research Lab in Shrike (these tend to have slightly higher enemy ranks).
Races and abilities
You’ll want to keep in mind that the game’s four (er, five) races differ in how they level up and acquire skills:
- Humans – Have straightforward stat growth depending on the actions you take during battles. They tend to be the most versatile of the bunch.
- Mystics – They can only increase HP, WP, JP, and CHA (charisma) normally after a fight. However, they have abilities called “Faeblade/Mystic Sword,” “Mystic Gloves,” and “Mystic Boots.” You’ll want to use these against mobs once they’re a bit low on health. If successful, you’ll “absorb” that foe to gain an ability as well as stat boosts (i.e., the Dullahan in the Bio Research Lab provides great stat boosts). Lastly, they can’t learn weapon skills like humans.
- Monsters – These characters can absorb the abilities of various mobs you defeat. They can also transform into a particular monster. This can be used to great effect, such as transforming into a Kraken by having “Ink,” “Maelstrom,” “Feeler,” and/or “Mighty Cyclone.” Just remember that there’s an overlap when it comes to mobs having similar abilities, so you wouldn’t necessarily need to farm the same enemy over and over just to turn into it. This is just the gist but, to be frank, this system is a lot more complicated (i.e., checking for monster ability “body parts” and whatnot, and that’s going to be information overload for newcomers).
- Mechs – These robots are also straightforward in that they can equip almost any gear piece out there (even stacking bonuses). Plus, you can give them circuit boards that provide extra effects (i.e., gaining an extra skill slot). There’s also a chance for them to absorb the abilities of mech-type enemies.
- Half-human/half-mystic – Asellus is the only character who belongs in this category in SaGa Frontier Remastered. She’s more like a human in terms of stat growth and learning weapon skills, but she has the mystic abilities to absorb enemies for stat boosts. In order to make use of this during battles, she first needs to use any of the three mystic abilities to undergo a “mystical transformation.” She still looks the same, but the absorbed skills will now be usable during that specific bout.
Unlocking new techniques and combos
So, what about unlocking weapon skills and magic spells? Well, much like the leveling process, this is also done by committing to certain actions during fights. As a general rule, you’ll be using weapon attacks, weapon skills, and basic magic spells to unlock and learn new ones (somewhat randomly, I might add).
Be sure to check the “Arts” menu in SaGa Frontier Remastered so you can rearrange and “seal” certain abilities. Since you can only learn new weapon/martial arts skills during battle if you have free slots, you’ll want to seal those that you don’t use (you can still select them later).
Note 1: If a character has six or more of a certain skill type (i.e., lots of weapons skills or lots of magic spells), they’re considered proficient in those techniques. This will reduce the WP or JP costs by one point.
Note 2: Randomness also comes into play when we’re talking about combos. It’s possible for characters to unleash devastating combos with weapon techniques and spells. It can be a lot more common if, say, you’re using similar skills or magic spells that are from opposing schools.
Magic types and learning the “gift”
SaGa Frontier Remastered has several types or schools of magic. Some are even in direct opposition to each other, which means you can’t learn counterparts (there are ways to do this, but these are relegated to specific characters or a few tricks which I won’t explain here).
Likewise, certain schools of magic allow you to have the “gift,” a golden star on a character when selecting/buying spells. This allows them to learn more advanced spells that can’t be bought from any vendor:
- Rune vs. Arcane (Devin) – You can talk to the fortune-tellers in their tents to start the quest for the gifts. The characters who are with you once you’ve finished the quests will obtain the gift for that respective school of magic.
- Light vs. Shadow (Luminous) – You can undergo a trial for these gifts. If your main character is not a human/mystic, or they have a spell from the opposing school, they can’t go to the trial area. Instead, the supporting characters that meet the requirements will just go off-screen before returning. They’ll have the gift once they come back.
- Time (Mosperiburg) vs. Space (Devin -> Kylin’s Paradise) – Time Lord and Kylin have the gift of time and space magic respectively. Blue is able to learn the gift during his main quest. Other main characters, meanwhile, can either recruit Time Lord and Kylin, or buy basic spells from them.
- Mind (Kyo) vs. Evil (special) – You can visit the Doujou in Kyo to learn the gift of mind magic. All the humans in your entire squad (including Asellus) will be able to undergo the trial. It involves a 1v1 fight with a mob. Beating the enemy lets you acquire the gift; losing means you’re out of luck. As for Evil magic, only the character Zozma has these spells.
- Realm (special) vs. Mystic (special) – Only Blue and his counterpart, Rouge, have access to realm magic. As for mystic magic, all the mystic characters in the game (including Asellus) automatically have the gift for this.
- Mirage (special) – Only Rei can use mirage magic.
- Life (special) – Only Blue can learn these spells after fighting Rouge.
Anyway, the next section of our SaGa Frontier Remastered beginner’s guide talks about some easy methods to acquire a lot of cash.
