Written by Patrick Orquia
Title: Mercenaries Saga Chronicles
Developer: Rideon
Publisher: CIRCLE Entertainment
Genre: Strategy RPG
Number of Players: 1 player
Release Date: February 08, 2018
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Price: $14.99
Mercenaries Saga Chronicles is a collection of three games: Mercenaries Saga: Will of the White Lions, Mercenaries Saga 2: Order of the Silver Eagle, and Mercenaries Saga 3: Gray Wolves of War. The last two were previously released on the Nintendo 3DS, while the first one was only released on mobile in Japan and is debuting on a console. All three games are of the tactical RPG genre, wherein you move your characters on an isometric grid, similar to Final Fantasy Tactics games. The games all play and look the same, and you play one game, you have played them all. But the games all share the same engaging gameplay which makes it worth playing them all.
The games have different storylines, and as far as I know, are not related with each other. These storylines are also a bit clichéd already, and are pretty much there to kick start the games, but you will probably forget about them not soon after. The stories are presented in dialogues between characters and there are tons of text to read through, but fortunately, the developers included the option to make the lines of text go through fast, practically allowing you to skip them. That is unless you are really interested with the story. The premises are clichéd yet good, so if you want to know how the characters would fare in their own stories, read on, though that would be hours’ worth of you playing the game less.
The gameplay is what really makes these games worth playing. Though the games use a rather simplistic art style that is reminiscent of the games released in the 90s, in their core lies classic JRPG elements, such as deep character customization and leveling system. Each battle won gives out SP, which is used to acquire skills and level them up (character in your team and their skills level up independently). Skills can be leveled up to level 8, which will be marked as Mastered once reaching it. Also, once the characters reach a certain level, they can switch to another class which has its own set of skills to acquire and level up. Skills can be leveled up to level 8, and reaching level 8 gets a skilled tagged as mastered. Mastered skills don’t disappear even when the character switches to another class, so the more class a character switches to, the more skills they are going to have available at their disposal.
Characters start out as a certain class, such as a warrior, wizard, thief, nun, etc. Each class has its own specific skill set, such as either a melee fighter, a spell caster, or healer. You are required to deploy 6 party members in a battle, and it is a good practice to make sure your team comprises of at least one of these types. The enemy team, however, usually has more than 6 characters deployed, and in some battles, more enemies join in if you are not able to defeat them right away. Because of this, you may need to grind to ensure that your party is at least a level or two ahead of your enemies. Aside from the regular story battles, there are also free battles that you can join, either for grinding purposes or to level up your party members that are getting left behind level-wise (only characters that fight in battles get to earn SPs and level up).
Whether it is a story or free battle that you join in, you get to acquire gold, either by defeating enemies or opening treasure chests. Gold is used to buy equipment, such as weapons, armors, headgears, footwear, shields, items, etc. As you progress in the game, more and more equipment becomes available in the shop. You constantly have to upgrade your gears to increase your attack and defense and other stats. You can also sell the equipment that you no longer use to get more gold.
After every battle, you get a breather with the very well-presented menu screen, where you can do all your character upgrading, shopping, and preparing for the battles ahead. You also get to save your game, or load a saved one if you so fancy. The menu screen has the same look and function for all three games, and it serves its purpose very well.
Overall, Mercenaries Saga Chronicle is a good bang for buck collection of games. Especially now that the games are on Switch, players will now be able to play the game on the go with HD graphics that look well enough on either the TV or the console screen. Add to that the wonderful musical scores that are also reminiscent of the 90s. So if you’re a fan of tactical RPG games, suit up and lead your group of brave mercenaries to victory.
REPLAY VALUE: Medium
PROS
- Simplistic yet clean-looking, 90s-inspired retro pixel art visuals
- A soundtrack that is full of MIDI-goodness for all three games that are catchy and helps you get emerged in the world of the games
- An awesome menu system that are very well-arranged and easy to follow and helps you prepare before every start of a new chapter
- Simple yet deep leveling and customization system
- Dialogues can be fast-forwarded, if you don’t care about the story
- Mastered skills carry over to the next class system you have switched to
- Good use of HD Rumble
- Ideal for short bursts of on-the-go gaming sessions, more so now that on the 3DS because the visuals are now in HD, making it looking good in both the TV and the Switch screens
CONS
- Bland story for all three games
- All three games look and play the same that there’s very little reward in playing all three games; you play one game, you play them all
- Very repetitive gameplay
- A whole lot of dialogue texts to get through, making it a chore to know the story, if you care about it
- No voice acting
- Some items quite expensive, making you having to grind more than you should
- STAGES CANNOT BE ROTATED, making it difficult to see character placements because you only get to see one angle
RATING: 3.5/5 mercs and monsters
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