MS Saga: A New Dawn (PlayStation 2)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 6.5 (3.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Greg Mueller
• Reviewed on: 02/27/2006
• Released on: 02/21/2006
• Originally published on GameSpot: MS Saga: A New Dawn (PlayStation 2) Review

To the uninformed, the abbreviation in the title of MS Saga: A New Dawn could mean any number of things. Mustard Stain. Mussel Soup. Muddy Socks. But as interesting as those may sound, they're all wrong. The MS in this title stands for Mobile Suit, and in case you don't know, mobile suits are the lumbering, mechanized stars of the immutable Gundam anime series. MS Saga is the latest from the Gundam gurus at Bandai, and even though it's an original role-playing game rather than an action game based on a specific anime series, it's still very much a Gundam game. That means you can collect and customize dozens of mobile suits within the context of a fairly generic story that builds upon a foundation of unambitious game design and limited production values. But as dated as the game looks and feels, it has enough charm and challenge to appeal even to those who are uninitiated in the ways of the Gundam.

The story takes place in a retro-futuristic version of Earth several years after The Great Fall, which was a cataclysmic event involving a massive energy surge that brought mankind to the brink of destruction. Prior to the fall, mobile suits were common, but they were left behind as mankind regrouped after the catastrophe. We pick up the story years later, when an orphanage is suddenly attacked by mysterious mobile suits with unknown motives. The orphanage is destroyed, and the only survivors are an effeminate teenage boy named Tristan and his close friend, Fritz. With the help of a well-connected acquaintance the two boys manage to procure mobile suits of their own and subsequently set out to avenge their fallen friends. As they search for answers they discover that the evil Dark Alliance is responsible for the attack on the orphanage, as well as a host of other unprovoked attacks on cities throughout the world. The two boys meet a handful of companions along the way, and together they set out to (guess what) save the world from the clutches of evil.

MS Saga plays like a very basic RPG and as such it relies heavily on genre conventions like random encounters, experience points, dungeon-crawling, and treasure hunting. The story progresses in a series of missions and fetch quests that take you all over the world from one hostile area to another. While exploring towns you take control of Tristan, but whenever you're in a dungeon or on the world map you move around in a mobile suit. When traveling through contested areas, you'll frequently get dragged into battle--so often, in fact, that it often drags down the pace of the game. It also doesn't help that the dungeon and mission designs often require a lot of backtracking. The game also has a bad habit of building challenge by throwing tons of enemies at you in quick succession, testing your endurance (and patience) more than your battle strategy. Several dungeons require you to simply clear a certain number of battles, although there are occasional bosses to contend with as well.

Battles play out in standard turn-based RPG fashion. You can have up to six people in your party, but only three can participate at any one time. Before each turn, you assign actions to each active member of your party and then the action plays out based on initiative. Your primary attacks are either ranged or melee. Ranged attacks are weaker, but safer because there's no threat of counterattack. Melee attacks, on the other hand, inflict more damage but leave you open to counterattacks. Each character also has unique techniques available, which work like magic spells and can be used to repair damaged mobile suits, inflict status effects, and perform special attacks.

Boost attacks are powerful special moves that require energy points to use. In fact, every action you perform in battle uses at least one energy point. You regenerate energy points each turn, though, so you can quickly build up an energy surplus if you stick to relatively simple actions. That surplus can then be used to perform powerful boost attacks. These attacks vary depending on the character. There's a standard boost attack that simply inflicts heavy melee damage; there's a counterzone boost attack that makes one mobile suit absorb all melee attacks, thus protecting the rest of the party; there's a shoot-all attack that inflicts damage on all enemies; and more.

You can switch your characters during battle as well, so if one of your mobile suits is about to be destroyed you can bring a different mobile suit in to take over. Mobile suits that aren't active in battle gain energy and health each turn, which is helpful for protracted boss battles.

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