MS Saga: A New Dawn for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

The Gundam saga is somewhat akin to a hydra in its development: every time a storyline seems to conclude, one or two more spring up in its place. For more than twenty years, their various anime cartoons, movies and other products have locked giant robots in combat on Earth, the moon and in space. However, the franchise's translation from anime to games has been extremely hit or miss, ranging from average to abysmal. Unfortunately for the latest entry in the game series, this mediocrity curse continues. MS Saga: A New Dawn removes itself from just about every previous connection with the Gundam series, save the robotic machines themselves. It also decides to go the role-playing route instead of the faster paced action of the previous Gundam games, but the resulting disconnect from its source material is so jumbled that it barely distinguishes itself from worn out plot and genre elements.



MS Saga initially introduces players to a cataclysmic energy surge known as the Great Fall that literally wipes out ninety percent of humanity. The source of this destruction seems somewhat linked to an incredible invention known as the G System -- a technology that allows its user to create virtually anything they desire, including robotic weapons known as Mobile Suits. After the Great Fall, most of the G Systems and mobile suits disappeared, and the survivors of the cataclysm tried to rebuild their lives as best they could. For the most part, life slowly returned to normal, and some communities even established major towns and ports that bridged the gaps between continents, using the few remaining G Systems to foster their growth. However, one day a large number of rogue Mobile Suits started appearing all over the world, launching attacks and terrorizing encampments.



The main character, Tristan, happens to be one of the victims of these seemingly random attacks. Both he and his brother Fritz are the only survivors of an attack on his orphanage, where they witnessed the death of their benefactor, Miss Natalie. A year later, vowing to seek revenge on the machines that destroyed their home, Tristan and Fritz stumble upon a hidden G System and create a mobile suit of their own, which they then use to pursue the mysterious robots. Along the way, the duo discovers the name of their target, a criminal known as Vladi Zarth who is part of the Dark Alliance. Two against an entire alliance doesn't make for particularly good odds; fortunately for Tristan and Fritz they come across a number of companions (each with their own Mobile Suits) who have similar goals and desires to bring the Alliance down for their own reasons. These friends include many characters of the standard RPG genre: the amnesiac girl whose mystical connection to Mobile Suits makes her more important than anyone realizes; the strong yet silent bruiser; and the character who arrogantly inserts herself into everyone's life, deciding that they have to be friends.



One of the largest problems with this homogeneity of characterization is that the development of each is bland and tepid, leading to rapid disinterest of the plot and the people involved. For instance, Tristan's dedication to his quest for retribution is much akin to that of a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. You don't really detect anger, fury or even righteousness for his actions whenever he expresses himself; instead it comes across more petulantly, and you don't really see him growing into the leader of this group of misfits. Fritz is slightly worse, appearing as a wimpy kid that always wants to run instead of fight, even if his life depended on it. He'll also take potshots at Tristan's character flaws when it's relatively safe for him to do so, which is understandable as a younger brother but quickly becomes tiresome.



While you'll probably want to throw something at every single character in your party, the option to create and modify their mobile suits is perhaps the most unique facet of the game. In just about every city there's a person that allows you to tweak your suits, such as modifying the durability of each system, or interchange pieces of machines you've created in Mini-G systems or acquired through salvage. MS Saga features more than 30 customizable suits, as well as more than 200 parts that you can interchange. While some suits are more suited for ranged or melee combat, you can literally rip apart and reconstruct every limb of the suit to create new robot configurations. For instance, you can take the speed of a ranged system and give it hardier arms to become a faster melee robot. You can also provide additional enhancements to protect yourself against status ailments, such as overheating, acid attacks and confusion.



What's also creative is that your decisions will specifically affect the kind and number of weapons that you can equip in battle. Each weapon takes up a number of slots based on its power and its configuration, and it's something that you'll have to take into consideration when you acquire a new armament. Select a claw arm and you're dramatically reducing, if not eliminating entirely, the number of slots that you'll have to equip a melee weapon such as a tomahawk, acid sword or iron lance. The same applies to range weaponry also -- so if you're looking to take along that ultra powerful bazooka, you might need to lose some of the suit's machine guns.



Battles are handled in one of two ways. There are "randomly" occurring fights, which I place in quotation marks because thanks to the radar in the team's mobile suits, players can reasonably discern with relative security when they're getting close to entering a fight. The other way is by specifically scripted battles, indicated by large rotating structures of various color levels (yellow indicating trouble, red indicating serious danger, etc.). In some cases this helps because you have a sense of just what you might be facing, and you can adequately prepare yourself for it.



MS Saga takes the standard turn-based format and throws in a few little twists to make combat a little more interesting. Each suit can perform defensive stances to protect against incoming strikes, as well as use "magic" (known as techniques) to offensively or defensively change the balance of a fight. Since it only allows three members of a party to be engaged in a fight at any time, you'll have the option to switch out weaker suits from the front to the rearguard for more effective fighters. Attacks are a wee bit more complicated -- each suit requires a certain level of energy to trigger different attacks.



Some basic guns or melee weapons have an inexpensive energy cost and can be used every turn at the trade off of not causing a lot of damage. More powerful guns, by contrast, take much more and can only be fired by saving up your energy or charging your suit up to gain additional juice. This extra power can also be used to trigger what's known as boost, special moves that are often more powerful than most attacks or techniques. Some of these are offensive in nature, such as bypassing an opponent's armor entirely to land an attack, while others are solely defensive, like protecting the party from incoming bullets and shells.



For the most part, fights are straight forward, and fans of the Gundam Saga will probably pick up on the numerous mobile suits you'll fight against from the different franchises, such as Mobile Suit Gundam, G Gundam and Gundam Wing. Unfortunately, the variation for opponents is rather minimal (usually defined by color changes or minor additions to the basic frame of the character model) so only the hardcore might notice the serious differences between suits. What's more, once you get used to the nuances of the system, you'll also discover some of the rampant mismatched game pacing flaws that permeate most dungeons. Typically throughout every single dungeon, regardless of the level you're on, you'll be either evenly matched or slightly given a challenge that, with adept forethought, you should be able to overcome.



I give you this warning: There will be some sections that will arbitrarily ramp up the difficulty so dramatically that your party will be crushed utterly. For instance, if you run into opponents that are gold or metal, you're practically screwed. Not only will these enemies often shrug off your most powerful attacks, their compatriots will usually break out attacks that will shatter your defense, often times attacking two or three times with insane strength. There are other opponents that will simply disregard any protective measure that you can throw up and obliterate your mobile suits. Just prepare to make the load screen your friend whenever these sections happen. Even more infuriating is that the game will swing back to normal or even over towards the easy side once you've bypassed these sections for no reason, turning combat into either a temporary annoyance or a torture session.



There's also a visual tease that the game simply doesn't live up to. Upon starting up the disc you're treated to an impressive anime focusing on Tristan, Fritz and the other party members as they and their mobile suits adventure throughout the land. Taking advantage of the character design of Akira Yasuda (of Street Fighter fame), the opening CG promotes a visually vibrant, cel-shaded influenced number of cutscenes and gameplay, with decent voice acting. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth during actual gameplay. Not only are the spoken lines and the cutscenes few and far between, but the character models are relatively short and non-detailed during gameplay.



Even worse, the perspective on rendering these mobile suits is ridiculously skewed. Some sections of the game depict them as dwarfing towns, mountains, trees and buildings, yet in cutscenes, battle and other places they come across as super deformed characters. The same can be said of your opponents, many of whom exhibit aliasing issues as they stand opposite you on the field of battle. In fact, the amount of jaggies that you'll encounter continually through the game really gives MS Saga an original PlayStation title kind of feel. Simply moving across the map will make these problems readily stand out like a sore thumb.

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