Review of "Saga Emerald Beyond" The more you challenge yourself and understand the game, the more interesting it becomes! An RPG that gets deeper as you play around!

The story becomes more enjoyable the more you play around with the huge number of branching patterns.

There are five sets of six main characters in the game. They live in different places, in different positions, and in different ways, but one thing leads them to another world, where they fight for their own goals. There are 17 different worlds in total, but the one you visit each time you play is random. The storyline is basically the same; after heading to one of the worlds that appear in the choices, the player should complete the main mission that appears there. There are also sub-missions along the way, which are small side trips, and missions that only involve battles with enemies.

There is also a pattern in which the main mission offers several choices, allowing the player to decide how to proceed with the story. I won't go into details because it would be a spoiler, but when acquiring a certain object, do you fight the enemy head-on, or gather information and make a plan? When helping people who have been disabled by a special power, who will use the limited tools available to them? Who will use the limited tools available to them when they help people who are stuck by special powers? All of these choices greatly affect the course of the story, and it was not unusual for me to spend a while trying to decide which one to choose. This is even more so in the main mission, where there are multiple choices, because once you choose one of them, the other patterns disappear.

In addition, the story of this work is a series of such developments, and while I felt pressured by the weight of the choices I had to make, I also felt a considerable sense of immersion from the realization that my will was driving the story.

Incidentally, I first chose the story of Tsunanori Midou, who has been supporting the government from behind the scenes. Tsunanori Midou, a young man of the Midou family who has been supporting the government from behind the scenes, visits another world with a doll called "Kugutsu" in order to stop the strange phenomena that are frequently occurring in various places. His goal is to collect four spirits with powerful powers there.

The other worlds in which they appear are diverse and not coherent in a good way. You may come to a town with iced-over humans and hear a mysterious story about a "final emperor," or you may be sent to a sci-fi base with lots of unknown technology, or you may suddenly be thrown into the ocean, or you may come into contact with a mysterious life form that speaks an unexplained language. The story of this work is a series of surprises.

The story of this work changes as you go around the world. For example, in Tsunanori's story, early in the first lap, the sister involved calls Tsunanori by name, but she mistakes "Tsunanori" for "Kouki" and corrects him. In the second lap, however, she calls him "Tsunanori" from the beginning. Furthermore, in the scene where Tsunanori's uncle explains the circumstances of the incident early in the story, the reason why Tsunanori is going to the other world is a little blurred in the first lap, while in the second lap that I experienced, the father appears and it is mentioned that there are no conformists in the generation older than Tsunanori.

While it is fun to explore the foreshadowing in the different lines of dialogue and to ponder the worldview, the real appeal of this work is to visit the same world again and make different choices than in the first round. In the second round, you may be able to make choices that you had given up on because of enemies you could not beat in the main mission, because you have inherited the training from the first round. If you choose it and win, you will be able to see a new aspect of the story and also be humiliated from the first round. In addition to the story of Tsunaki, there is also a pattern in which the development of the story was abrupt and unclear in the first lap, so it is important to complete as many laps as possible in order to get the full picture.

In this game, the number of laps is indicated for each story and the total number of laps for the entire game, and the system also encourages laps play. In fact, I finished the Midou Tsunaki story in about seven and a half hours, even while doing a fair amount of submissions, so one to three days should be enough time to spend completing a lap of each story.

The fast-paced dialogue and rewind function make it easy to play around.

The tempo is an important factor in completing laps, and this title has been well thought out in this regard. First of all, the tempo of the story dialogue is good. In addition to the necessary details such as where to go and the purpose of the trip, most of the conversations are simple, with just a few words added at the end, so there are no interruptions. Therefore, I had the impression that the stories, which are moderately voluminous in anticipation of the round-trip tour, were developing at a high speed.

The conversations can be rewound, including the parts where choices are made, so it is not difficult to follow up on mistakes made or differences from the player's imagination. If the protagonist is different this time from the last time, the status itself is not reflected, but the equipment can be carried over. As mentioned earlier, this is quite a useful feature, as it makes it easier to start the second round with the same protagonist as last time and take on options that were not cleared in the first round.

A well-developed battle system in which cooperation determines victory or defeat.

The battle system, which revolves around the order of actions, is also indispensable when discussing this title. In battles against enemies, icons of both sides are randomly placed on the "timeline" at the bottom of the screen. After the player selects the party's share of attack methods such as "jutsu" and "waza," the party moves along the timeline in order from the left to the right. After everyone has acted, the icons indicating the order of action of the allies and enemies are placed on the timeline once again, and the players again select the means of attack for their allies. The battle proceeds in this repetitive process.

The order in which they are placed is not fixed, but rather varies depending on the performance of the attacking means, such as techniques and jutsu. The techniques and jutsu have a "linkage range," which is indicated by a green bar directly below the target character when an attack is selected. When these linkage ranges are connected or overlap, the "linkage" is triggered and all the target's companions attack in succession.

The more friends are linked, the more damage is dealt by the techniques used. Another advantage is that the "linkage rate" increases with linkage, with a certain probability of activating at 150% or more, and a certain probability of activating "overdrive" at over 200%. Overdrive" is an extremely powerful technique that simply increases the number of attacks by having allied companions repeat their attacks.

There is also the "solo" element, which is the exact opposite of coordination. If a character is isolated in the timeline, with enemies and allies some distance away, he or she can launch a coordinated attack on his or her own. This is random, but it has the potential to turn a cornered situation on its head by unleashing a succession of techniques and arts that can be used by the character.

The various elements such as coordination, overdrive, and solo play are powerful, but they are also used by the enemy, which is a problem. Just when you think you've coordinated with your opponent, they coordinate with you and you find yourself in a pinch, or your friends may be killed in an instant by the boss's dictatorship when you had the advantage.

The fact that the order of actions on the timeline is dependent on the performance of the techniques and jutsu chosen by the target character is important here. For example, by shifting the position on the timeline and daring to get in between the enemies, you can prevent them from working together instead of giving up your own coordination.

When you are able to think about the order of actions in the timeline, including techniques and jutsu with special abilities such as "bumping," which shifts the position of an attacker to the back of the timeline, and "interrupt," which reacts to a specific attack and interrupts the target just before the target, the battles in this game become more interesting. You can come up with a variety of strategies, such as interrupting the enemy side, which has a fixed coordination on the timeline, with techniques with interruptions, pushing the opponent out with techniques with bumps, and setting up the conditions for the activation of the ally's solo position by force. Then the enemy does the same thing, and the plan falls apart, and the thrill of hastily devising countermeasures is a promise that is hard to resist.

During battle, allies can also trigger "inspiration. When an inspiration occurs, a new technique is revealed and can be used in subsequent battles.

Each technique and art uses BP, which is shared by the party, so if you only choose attacks that use a lot of BP, the rest of the party will not be able to move as fast as you can. On the other hand, the BP required for jutsu and waza ranges from 1 to 4, so if you attack without thinking, you will not be able to make a plan at all.

With timelines, techniques, jutsu, linkage, overdrive, and solo play, battles in this title are complex and complicated, so it is difficult to fight the way you want to at first. Furthermore, although you can check information in the tips and glossary, this title does not have much in the way of tutorials, but rather a rigid style that drills the skills into your body through actual battles.

Each character has a LP, which decreases by one each time he or she loses a battle. When the LP reaches zero, the member can no longer participate in battles. If you are not a member of the main party, your LP will gradually increase as you go through battles, so you can use it when the time comes.

The main party can retry on the spot by consuming one LP of each member of the main party. Retrying again makes it a little easier to increase the party's coordination rate.

This is an RPG that offers a compact yet powerful storyline, a number of convenient functions to encourage players to repeat battles, and thrilling battles where the order of actions determines the winner. This title is especially recommended for RPG lovers, as well as players who are not afraid to play through the game and play around with it.

• Title Information
• Saga Emerald Beyond
• Genre: RPG
• Release date: April 25, 2024 (Thursday)
  Steam version: April 26, 2024 (Friday)
• Compatibility: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation4, PlayStation5, Steam, iOS, Android
• Publisher：SQUARE ENIX CO.

(C)SQUARE ENIX