Variation and Engagement in The 7th Saga
A downloadable essay
In December of 2020 I revisited Produce! and Enix's unsung classic The 7th Saga, a game rarely celebrated in discussions of Super Nintendo RPGs but dear to my heart and influential on my world. As a sort of experimental birthday party and celebration of forgotten game worlds, I invited my friends and wellwishers on Twitter to join me in a shared experience of the mysterious, hostile, long deserted wastelands of Ticondera. (You can read more about 7th Sagathon here and here.)
This essay is a piece of game design analysis focused on understanding how The 7th Saga kept me so engaged with its RPG action and its systems even though they were so simple. The short answer is, good fundamentals. The longer answer starts to get into what "good fundamentals" might mean in a traditional JRPG and spills over in some other directions. This is my longest, most self-indulgent, and least edited essay to date and I'm thrilled to share it.
| Status | Released |
| Category | Other |
| Rating | Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (3 total ratings) |
| Author | sraëka-lillian |
Comments
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I haven’t played this game myself, but this essay makes me think of the way certain older games like Dragon Quest II, Super Hydlide, Zelda II and Rogue feel more immersive to me than “immersive” games that go out of their way to placate the player.
absolutely. i think if a game really wants you to be "in" it, it has to make you slow down and take what you're doing seriously.. the stakes and pacing and precarity of these old rpgs.. are not perfect, but they're really good at *that*. also your avatar is cute :3