Many mobile games have made the co-release to consoles with wild success, like Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact. Now, SaGa Emerald Beyond wants to join those titles played across multiple mobile and home gaming platforms, but its lack of any sense of enjoyable game flow along with ugly and boring static dialogue screens will make it very difficult to stand alongside those extremely popular multi-platform titles.
Those looking for longer stories may enjoy it, but most players will likely be put off by the excessive amount of dialogue for each mission, the amount of running back and forth that is required, and the not-so-pretty art style during those long dialogue scenes. It’s an entry into the SaGa franchise with many flaws, but its turn-based combat is a bright spot when players are fighting.
Fans of turn-based combat will undoubtedly enjoy what they find in SaGa Emerald Beyond, as the game relies heavily on it for what little positive game flow there is. Players can view the enemies and everyone’s attack order before combat starts, allowing players the opportunity to change the order using specific attacks that come out quicker, and be able to play a little defense the same way. It is not intuitive at first, but it can be a pretty rewarding experience if players delve deeper into it. Having an attack order with numerous player-controlled characters together can shift the entire flow of the battle in both directions.
There are also a ton of different mechanics that change the ebb and flow of fights named things like Overdrive, Interrupts, Glimmers, and Protects. Some are pretty self-explanatory, but others are not and can cause some real confusion when things go back and forth. Developer Square Enix tries hard to explain these, but a lot of them are couched in wordplay like: ‘in battle allies will sometimes…’, which doesn’t explain in firm detail when these actions can be expected to occur. It makes mechanics players can’t rely on, and these random occurrences never seem to happen when most needed.
Most players will more than likely end up ignoring these combat actions, accepting that they are merely up to RNG luck. This just leaves the core mechanics and abilities, and luckily, these make for some useful and engaging fights. Spells and attacks, abilities that let characters go earlier in the turn list, or shift their position for chaining group attacks will be the go-to actions, as well as some of the harder-hitting ones.
The cinematic-style camera shifts that Square Enix uses when characters attack is an interesting visual trick to keep users engaged with the turn-based fights, and are usually quick enough that they don’t really ever get too boring. But fighting enemies that are at a much higher level than the party almost always feels entirely hopeless and, by extension, pointless. Some enemies and characters that join the hero’s party have attacks that can drag on a bit long, but they are usually on the more powerful side and thus deserve an extra second of focus.
SaGa Emerald Beyond has an eclectic mix of characters featured throughout the game, both human and decidedly non-human alike, and their personalities are all over the place. There are only a few memorable ones, as most fit neatly into the cookie-cutter tropes that some find endearing while others despise. It’s then odd that some users may feel a sense of sadness when they begin to find themselves more attached to the non-human members that make up the party when first starting out. While lacking any real personalities, these animated puppets, also know as kugutsu, might tug at the heart-strings a bit when players begin to replace them with characters they meet along the way. Perhaps it is due to them being extremely helpful as users begin to learn combat basics in the beginning areas, or just that they’re more fun than some of the teammates found during the journey, but the lack of memorable characters hurts the game overall.
The biggest letdown, though, is the art style used during the various story beats and when players are talking to NPCs about their quests and missions. These are extremely dull moments, and whether an aesthetic choice or one needed due to the size constraints of mobile games, those playing on PC will likely be a bit horrified at what they see. The flat, story-board style has no personality, while also looking rather washed out and dull. And there is a LOT of talking, so players will spend the majority of their time looking at scenes that don’t engage their minds or eyes at all.
Some of the other static scenes and art dip into a mix of modern and ancient styles, but these are few and far between to the point that they’re hard to even remember. The various area art styles are a bit hit or miss as well, as some feel more like flat 2D art plastered into a 3D space. Some games do this combination well, like the Paper Mario games, but SaGa Emerald Beyond struggles to find a comfortable mix of the two. Certain areas will be much more memorable visually, but it will be more about the fights within them than the story itself.
A definite bright spot in SaGa Emerald Beyond is the enemy designs. Be it the smaller critters, or the much larger boss fights, Square Enix doesn’t disappoint with its monster designs. Each enemy animates smoothly when attacking, and each area has a unique style that shows up earnestly with the enemies the player must face. Everything from the automaton style enemies, creatures of the night, and even standard creepy crawly bugs have a uniqueness to their design and a combination of beauty and ugly that is hard to define. Some of the smallest enemies can pack giant attacks as well, which can be entertaining to watch the first few times before it destroys the player’s party.
The story within SaGa Beyond Emerald is serviceable enough, but the whole premise requires an odd suspension of disbelief that feels much greater than in other games. Even Tsunanori Mido, the main character users are introduced to at the beginning of the game, feels odd with how he accepts his fate as the protagonist. The way the game jumps into the story without any character development makes him feel rough and devoid of any personality. Throughout the game, he just seems to ping-pong from one situation to another without much growth as a character. RPGs have a tendency to live in players’ minds and hearts for years if the protagonist is interesting, but SaGa Emerald Beyond doesn’t seem interested in creating many characters that will be memorable.
This odd take on making people not interesting expands into the game’s quest givers and missions. Most fall into the standard fetch, kill, or discover quests, and some manage to be fun by combining a few different aspects into one quest. It still relies pretty heavily on the standard tropes for each mission type, and most will fail to grab players’ attention easily. There is a ton of running back and forth in each mission area, and while the areas are not overly large, the backtracking tends to get stale quickly. There also isn’t any way to skip past the dialogue scenes – there is a rewind option in case something is missed – which means that multiple playthroughs will take an exorbitant amount of time. What is there is solidly built, with few bugs to be found through normal playing, though that may be a side effect of keeping the games’ non-combat systems on the simple side.
It’s hard not to suspect that deciding to put SaGa Emerald Beyond onto mobile gaming platforms hurt the game in many ways. From its lackluster art style, to a bevy of mostly un-engaging characters, the few hints of that Square Enix touch can’t be found anywhere except within the cinematic combat moments and the length of the story overall. While interesting combat can carry a game a long way, there isn’t enough of it to satisfy the majority of users. There will be some players who don’t mind the pages and pages of dialogue, and won’t care about the seemingly made-for-mobile art styles, but it’s hard not to see these dragging SaGa Emerald Beyond down towards mediocrity and below.
SaGa Emerald Beyond
The 11th mainline entry in the franchise, Square Enix’s Saga Emerald Beyond features six playable characters, five story arcs, and 17 worlds. The combat system builds on the series’ previous mechanics to provide a dynamic and strategic package that emphasizes player choice.
- Released
- April 25, 2024
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
- Publisher(s)
- Square Enix
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes
- Fun combat system
- Excellent enemy designs
- Boring dialogue art
- Excessively long quest conversations
- Very few memorable characters
SaGa Emerald Beyond is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, iOS, and Android. Game Rant was provided a PC code for this review.
