About 30 years ago, during the SNES era in Europe, I would frequently rent games for a week. This was awesome on multiple levels. You got to try games without buying them and you never knew beforehand what you were going to get.
It’s how I got acquainted with Final Fantasy IV (or 2 as it was called back then) and RPG games in general.
It also introduced me to The 7th saga. A pretty unique game for the time with a pretty good soundtrack (for the time) and a few innovative ideas.
One, you get to choose on of 7 characters who all play very distinctively. You’ve got your mage types, tanks, knights and a demon. As combat is a huge part of the game, this will make a difference as to who you’re going to choose. Also, random encounters happen when standing still, so the enemies actually move as well. Combat happens in mode 7 which is a pretty nice addition.
The story is simple; the King sends you off to find 7 runes. You get them, and you’re the successor to the throne. Pretty basic really.
What will strike you is the difficulty. There are enemies literally outside your doorstep than can waste you with one swing. A far cry from contemporary games. Level grinding is required, otherwise you will die. Think turn based Dark Souls but 30 years ago.
Many reviewers at the time saw this as a problem, but in hindsight it added to the mystique of the game, and certainly the longevity. Why is everyone else so much stronger? Why do the other characters – who you can fight or join – grow at such accelerated rates?
A little sidestep here, but years later I found out. The reason for this is in localisation to the US version – the game was originally called Elnard in Japan – some dubious changes and (likely) errors were made.
For one, monsters were made much stronger. As this requires changing values in tables, this one seems intentional. Starting stats for all characters were reduced and, here’s the kicker; for every 10 levels your max stats on level would increase by 1. So let’s say you gain 4 power on average from the onset. From level 11 onwards this would be 5, from 21 it would be 6, and so on. This actually made Elnard a pretty easy game, in start contrast to The 7th Saga.
To add insult to injury, the last point holds true for just you. All the other characters STILL get these bonuses and so will get progressively stronger than you. You HAVE to fight 2 other characters at some point so this can become pretty nuts.
So everything is stacked against you. Monsters are stronger, you’ve been made weaker and the other apprentices will always be stronger than you. I’ve always sensed that something was “off” in terms of stats and leveling and now I’ve finally found out why. Pretty cool all in all. It seems intentional as the box art mentions the difficulty over and over. Pretty refreshing as usually games were dumbed down when localized from Japan.
For me though the difficulty is what made The 7th Saga. I remember all those childhood hours of seemingly limitless time, grinding away and resetting to get “good” levels. For that alone I will always rate this SNES game highly. Throw in pretty good graphics that are serviceable even now, a pretty good soundtrack and loads of atmosphere with some replayability to boot, and you’ve got a pretty good game.
End review: 7.5