Well, I'm not looking at the game itself, because the screenshots I've seen so far look pretty damn terrible.

also, what was the last original turn-based from Square (or published by Square) that you enjoyed? Just curious.

The issue, I think is that everyone in the thread felt that a new SaGa was a foregone conclusion, and it turned out not to be. I imagine they'd have been almost as disappointed if it had been say, Grandia 4, but that it's at least in name Another Damned Final Fantasy Offshoot has made the letdown a bit more bitter.

The project doesn't offend me nearly as much, but the FF3DS engine has only gotten worse with time and I hope S-E puts in effort to speed it up, at least.

The only S-E project that really has my dander up is the Front Mission third-person shooter coming to 360, but that's a topic for another thread altogether.

That would be The Last Remnant.
Great game that, if you can get past the framerate and loading issues.

They recently released it for the PC through the Steam downloading service, and I wonder if they might have fixed any of the slow framerate/loading issues on the PC ver?

I'd be much happier about Grandia 4 than this game. This just looks ... absolutely lame.

Apparently so. Now an accomplished game in that regard too after good story, graphics, story, battle system, etc. before. Still, it punishes you for playing it too much with the monsters insanely levelling up.

Did somebody really want SaGa 4? I mean SaGa series is Square Enix's worst, there's not a single good game there.

Yea, SaGa is really really not a good thing as far as the games themselves are concerned.

The Gameboy SaGas have their moments... but yeah, the rest of them don't exactly pass the quality test.

(Some would argue for Romancing SaGa 3 but I don't see the appeal.)

By SaGa, what games you specifically mean?

I'd give you Unlimited Saga and Minstrel Song (and I even think their respective highly acclaimed soundtracks suck), but SaGa games were very good, at least in those days, and deserve being called classics rather than worst. Romancing Sagas were a bit too rough but except for 3, I enjoyed them. Saga Frontier 1 was even rougher but I personally liked it lots (the soundtrack, characters and battle system <3), and Saga Frontier 2 was really flawed yet had one of the best gaming graphics of all time and best Hamauzu soundtrack ever. The setting and story were curious, too.

SaGa 1-3 were pretty awesome, 2 being my personal favorite.
Frontier 1-2 were both good, but definitely had some issues.
Unlimited was a mess. Too complicated and deep for its own good.
Minstrel Song was good, but they could have made it so much better.
I haven't played any of the Romancing series.

I'm surprised it took SQEX this long to get back into the series. They were pretty popular in Japan. SaGa 2 remake in a nice way to return, too bad its for the DS.

Um, I think we've already established they're NOT getting back into the series.

Even though this turned out not to be Saga 4, I still think they will make another Saga game this gen. I needs me some Ito tunes (although SD4 kinda sucked).

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you have no idea what you're talking about. As other posters have commented, the GameBoy SaGa series (FF Legend) is pretty rad, with 2 being the best (hence why it's getting a DS remake).

I'll also argue in favor of Romancing SaGa 3 and SaGa Frontier 2. Not just the music, but the games themselves, are lots of fun.

Ramza

I didn't like SaGa 2 or 3 for GB when I played them back in the day.  Unlimited SaGa was terrible.  Minstrel Song was bad.  SaGa Frontier was not so hot.  SaGa Frontier 2 was the most interesting of the bunch that I played, but it was still ridiculously flawed.  I never have played the others.  Still, that's more than half of them, and that's enough for me to say aside from some of the soundtracks, the series doesn't make me think "quality".

1. Final Fantasy Legend 3 isn't really a SaGa game (it's the Final Fantasy Mystic Quest team)
2. I'd be interested to know how much time you put into Unlimited SaGa and Minstrel Song.

To answer the question of the last traditional turn-based Square RPG I've played, I don't think there's been one since FFX that I've played (have there been any, other than the aforementioned Last Remnant? [I haven't gotten around to that one]).

Anyway, I've not really touched the Gameboy SaGa games (I think I may have dabbled a bit in one of them, but way too long ago to remember).  The Romancing SaGa games were what broke my foolish thought that all of Square's games that didn't get Western releases were robbed from us and were actually probably amazing things - I got fan translations of 1 and 3 and didn't like the games at all.  SaGa Frontier did nothing for me and Unlimited SaGa just seemed to encapsulate a whole lot of things that I can't stand in games.  I can't blame anyone for liking the series (everyone has different tastes... I can't stand TRPGs and lots of people love them), but I, for one, am happy to see Square trying a totally normal classically styled RPG since they've not done one in so long.  Completely ignoring the name, I'm far more excited about this (graphics be damned) than if they'd done another entry in my least favorite series in their lineup.

What didn't you like about them?

(aside from the fact the translations are hardly complete)

Combat, mostly.  Then again, I'm sometimes kind of picky and random when it comes to that.

I think what puts a lot of people off the SaGa series is the random levelling element.
Not being bound by a set amount of experience points but instead levelling up stats at random is something a lot of people could have trouble coming to terms with, especially if it means enemies will become a lot stronger quite rapidly.

Though I do love the games, I think that's my main problem with them, is that you can't really level up to compensate easily, because you need to get lucky in the way you do.

well, the games have usually tried to make the battles less a matter of overpowering your enemies and more a matter of outsmarting them, as you might surmise from the large amount of party formations in RS3 and the necessity of combination attacks in some battles in SaGa Frontier (not to mention the latter's different stat gain systems for different character types).

Unfortunately, as with an unfortunate number of games worked on by Kawazu and his close associates, this design philosophy usually ends up causing major playability problems when mixed with other major gameplay features, like non-linear gameplay (or "free scenario", as it's known in Japan).

It's less problematic than, say, Oblivion, the game where I had to wonder why we ever needed leveling.

well, in defense of Bethesda, they're well aware that no matter how badly some part of a game they make is designed, the desperate fan base will rush to fix it as soon as they can with patches and mods

okay, maybe that's not in defense of Bethesda

I like to see this FF Gaiden game somewhat parody the FF games with a little bit of cheeky humor mixed in with old school gameplay.

It seems like a cousin to Mystic Quest which was literally FF 101 made for the USA.