Romancing SaGa

Romancing SaGa is a role-playing video game where the player takes on the role of eight different protagonists, playing through their narratives and an overarching story in a nonlinear style. After choosing a protagonist, the player explores the game's overworld freely, triggering narrative events, engaging in battles, and performing side activities. Over the course of the game a party of characters is built up, with some recruitable members being the unchosen protagonists. Progression of the main narrative is based on the number of events the player completes, their current strength, and speaking to certain characters. This free exploration is dubbed the Free Scenario System.

Battles trigger when the player encounters enemy sprites in field and dungeon environments. The party engages the enemy in a preset formation arranged on a 3x3 grid, which impacts both attack range and defence from enemies. Equipment for playable characters includes their current weapon and armour. Abilities use a pool of Battle Points (BP).

Romancing SaGa is set in the fictional world of Mardias. One thousand years before the game's opening, a war raged between three evil gods—Death, Saruin, and Schirach—and the benevolent deity Elore. By the end, Death and Schirach are stripped of their powers, while Saruin is imprisoned through the combined effort of ten Fatestones and the sacrifice of the hero Mirsa. The Fatestones become scattered through the world, and the powers of darkness gather themselves to free Saruin from his imprisonment.

The game focuses on eight characters, each with their own narrative who are drawn into the quest to recover the Fatestones and defeat Saruin once more. They are Albert, heir to a noble lord in the region of Rosalia; Aisha, a peace-loving member of the nomadic Taralians; Jamil, a thief operating in the city of Estamir; Claudia, a woman raised by a witch in the land of Mazewood; Hawk, a notorious pirate; Sif, a warrior from the snow-covered region of Valhalland; Gray, a treasure-seeking adventurer; and Barbara, member of a travelling band of entertainers.

Production of Romancing SaGa began in 1990, when Nintendo approached series developer Square about developing a new SaGa title for their in-development Super Famicom. The request was due to the success of the previous SaGa titles on the Game Boy. Series creator Akitoshi Kawazu was pleased at Nintendo's request, as he could make substantial improvements to his gameplay design on better hardware. There was also demand for a third Game Boy SaGa, so two projects began in parallel; Kawazu led a team on Romancing SaGa, while Square's new Osaka studio developed Final Fantasy Legend III (known in Japan as SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha).

During early production, Kawazu wanted to break away from the SaGa brand and call the game something different, but ultimately it retained the SaGa name. The game's "Romancing" title was suggested by Nobuyuki Inoue, inspired by the adventure movie Romancing the Stone. Kawazu was a little mixed on the impression given by the title, but the illustrations and music helped make the game more in line with the "romantic" style implied by the title. Kawazu acted as director, lead designer, and scenario writer.

Upon release, the game topped the Famitsu sales charts from February 1992 to March 1992. By 2002, Romancing SaGa had sold 970,000 copies in Japan, ranking as the fifth best-selling SaGa title at the time. As of 2004, the Super Famicom original has sold over 1.3 million copies worldwide; over 1.1 million were sold in Japan, with further overseas sales adding 150,000.

Famitsu magazine's panel of four reviewers faulted the game's graphics as inferior to those of Final Fantasy, but lauded the freedom of choice given to players through its narrative and gameplay progression. Super Famicom Magazine praised the game's Free Scenario System, which allowed players to repeatedly enjoy the game however they wished. In March 2006, readers of Famitsu voted it the 53rd best video game of all time as part of the magazine's "All Time Top 100" poll. Writing in a 2017 retrospective on the original game, Tristan Ettleman of Vice praised the game's ambitious open-ended structure compared to other titles of the time, but faulted its execution and confusing battle mechanics.

Romancing SaGa proved to be a popular and influential title within the series, popularising the SaGa series and introducing mechanics and a scenario structure which would be repeated by later entries. Following the success of Romancing SaGa, two further titles were released for the Super Famicom: Romancing SaGa 2 in 1993, and Romancing SaGa 3 in 1995. A manga series based on Romancing SaGa was released in two volumes by Tokuma Shoten in 1994 and 1995, written and illustrated by Saki Kaori.