sraëka's birthday 7th saga group playthrough!
what is 7th saga?
the 7th saga ("elnard" in japan) is one of my favorite games of all time! it's a turn-based rpg for the snes, developed by produce! (they made brain lord) and published by enix in 1993. it's about 7 fledgling warriors traveling the world of ticondera in search of the 7 runes. you choose which warrior to play as, while the other 6 embark on parallel journeys, periodically crossing your path as potential companions, rivals, and enemies. it's chunky-looking, notoriously difficult, and the single biggest influence on my rpg thinking.
to get into the personal side, 7th saga is the game that first got me excited to think critically about rpgs. it taught me (as i love to say now) that games don't have to be fun to be good, and made me realize that they have more varied and interesting experiences to offer than straightforward power fantasies. feeling small and fragile is distinctly valuable too, and 7th saga is committed to that feeling from start to finish, from the twisted creatures that threaten you with full-party instant death spells to the vast, barren overworld across which they relentlessly chase you. wandering this lonely, dangerous world and crossing paths with familiar faces in far-flung places... no rpg i've played since does this better! ultimately 7th saga is full of big, weird, bold ideas about rpg mechanics, aesthetics, and experiences and i'm excited to share it all with my friends and peers.
what's the idea with this group playthrough?
if you'll pardon me getting a little romantic... to me, it's kind of like a pilgrimage. old games, particularly rpgs, are invested with a sort of haunting bigness: so much thought was once spent on this world, by the people who worked together to make it, then by the players who absorbed its rules and atmosphere together. naturally, old rpgs don't see as much play these days, especially less celebrated ones like 7th saga. while i'm lucky to have lots of friends who share my affection for these kinds of games, our playthroughs rarely overlap, so when we talk about them the memories are remote for one or both of us. when i'm visiting one of these worlds, it's like there's nobody else there but me. all this bigness and i'm the only one who's experiencing it? that has its own sort of beauty, but it's lonely, too. what if we visited this forgotten place and experienced all its bigness and texture together?
so that's the idea of the group playthrough. i want to show you what i see in these ruins! there's life in there still.
but like, how does the group thing work?
in december, i'm going to start playing 7th saga at my own rate. at any point before or after this, i invite you to start playing too, at your own rate. that's it! ideally you share your thoughts with me, but you can enjoy it privately too, quietly knowing that others are braving the same wasteland paths as you. you can start or finish the game sooner or later than december, and you're not obligated to complete it (i never have), or really to stick with it at all if it's a joyless struggle (which for some players it totally is).
i'm going to make a discord server for co-players to talk about their feelings and experiences, but if you don't feel like group chat, you can chat with me directly through discord or twitter. maybe we'll have a hashtag for it? i want there to be lots of ways to engage, including following from the sidelines. it's up to you what it means to share in the adventure, do what suits you best!
if the game moves you at all, i invite you to write a poem or draw a picture or some other creative gesture to commemorate the experience. i'd like to write something about it afterward, but that depends on my energy levels, so i'm not committing to anything yet. no pressure, do what feels right for you. merely knowing the game exists is a small but meaningful act of remembrance and participation.
you can find the discord server HERE or tweet about your adventure on twitter with the hashtag #7thsagathon and i'll find it!
what should i expect for my playthrough?
abundant death, instant death, slow methodical battles (often culminating in death), aggressive miss rates, tight inventory limits, undescriptive item and spell names, frustration as you forget for the umpteenth time whether you defended last turn, boss fights that seem completely hopeless, having everything you love ripped away from you, and at least a couple grinding sessions. be careful about that last one though, it actually makes certain bosses harder.
if you're on board with all that, there are a million surprises and cool things to discover! but you have to make your peace with some fantastically hostile game design. that's the price of admission (or, depending on your politics, one of the main attractions).
why is the game like this?
different design values! you could call it old-fashioned, but to some extent it's also genuinely pursuing its own vision.
actually, there's another layer to it. a number of changes were made to stats in the north american version, with monsters generally getting buffed (some bosses have twice their original hp) and player stat growths lowered across the board. if you want a somewhat gentler experience, a patch exists that undoes most of the NA version's adverse stat changes (and a much newer patch that seems to undo the rest). i've never used either of them, so i don't know how they feel, but i trust that they keep (what i see as) the core experience intact, so i encourage you to play in whatever way appeals to you most.
you can find the relevant patches here. i believe that installing both should fully replicate the original difficulty. if you have any trouble getting them to work, let me know and we can figure it out together.
"easier 7th saga" hack (reverts most NA stat changes)"no elnard bonus" hack (fixes enemy apprentice growth bonus)
what character should i start as? who should i take as my partner?
great question! i'm not sure. i've forgotten a lot about the game, so i'm doing some cursory research on gamefaqs. i think the most important thing to know is that valsu, esuna, kamil and olvan can all use healing magic, while lux, wilme and lejes cannot, so consider starting as one of the first four. if you don't like the first partner you recruit, you'll have opportunities to replace them later. note that some characters get along better than others.
if you don't want to stress about character selection, try lux and valsu. they're two of the strongest individual characters, and as a tank and spellcaster (respectively) they complement each other nicely. lux goes CLANG CLANG CLANG when he walks but that's part of his charm.
where can i learn more about the 7th saga?
hardcore gaming 101 has a great overview of the game. gamefaqs of course has some useful guides and hosts a surprising amount of activity on its board, including some challenge-conscious discussion of the merits of each character. i also followed a 7th saga speedrunner years ago who's still pretty active, so i've included a link to their stream as well.
the 7th saga at hg101gamefaqs 7th saga board
zakky the kirin at twitch
that's all i can think of for now, but i'll update this page with more information and resources as i'm made aware of them.
