Sigma Star Saga - Final Play

Despite uniquely combining a space shoot ‘em up with a science fiction RPG, Sigma Star Saga, the imperfections leave the player wanting a more refined product. Having said that, the story almost makes up for the flaws.

The random battle stages are a too easy for seasoned shoot ‘em up players. I found myself rarely being challenged during a random encounter, especially when I modified the ship weapons to my advantage. The mini-bosses, which the player sometimes encounters in a random battle, are pretty easily defeated. Having said that, I did power level my character at one point early on in the game, so that probably accounts for part of the lack of challenge. However, the stages themselves are not very complicated as a whole. The ship usually moves in a straight path where you avoid obstacles and enemies Manouvering through tight crevasses brings nice challenges, though their appearance is dependent on the planet on which your character is currently stationed.

The true challenges of the shoot ‘em up stages come at the end of each chapter, just before major boss fights. Here, the pace is frantic, unlike what I feel is the laidback pace of random encounter stages. Enemies are more challenging. The major boss battles are exciting. Indeed, it is only when I faced the major bosses that I felt the rush of adrenaline you get when you face a real challenge in a scrolling shooting game. This disparity between the very frequent random battles and the major boss battles serves to highlight a feeling of imbalance when examining the shoot ‘em up aspect of the game as a whole.

In Exploration Mode, there were a variety of enemies with different attacks and so forth, so I needed to take care when navigating from one part of the map to the next, usually in search of some item that needed to be taken to the space station. Though exploring and fetch quests are standard for role-playing games, I wanted to get through it as quickly as possible in order to move the story along. More often than not, I found Exploration Mode an obstacle, rather than an enjoyable part of the game. The game play difficulty was harder than in random encounters, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you ignore the larger context. But the need to get from one place to another, and having to avoid or stop to destroy enemies, coupled with being randomly teleported into space to the shooter stages, was frustrating. Perhaps I’m just more impatient with this sort of stuff. I realise that an integral part of console RPGs is having to stop all the time to fight random battles, but at least in those games you can flee or avoid battle.

The strength of Sigma Star Saga lies in the story. I haven’t played many epic science fiction console role-playing games, so this was a novelty for me. I would compare the story of Sigma Star Saga to classic anime space epics like Macross or Gunbuster. It feels like the designers were trying to capture this sort of atmosphere, and if this was their intention, they totally succeeded. There are plenty of plot twists to keep the player interested. However, you must first overcome any frustrations you have with the other parts of the game. The need to find out what happens next was probably the only thing that kept me going, because after a while, the uninteresting random battles and annoying map exploration did not keep my interest levels high enough on their own.

The main characters have interesting back stories, but I wanted more depth and motivation to their personalities. I found some of the characters’ interactions with each other, particularly between Psyme and Ian Recker, a little hard to swallow. I needed to know more of their motivations to believe what was going on. I just felt like more effort could have been made to flesh the characters out.

I actually liked the character of Ian Recker. He isn’t some whiny, teenage boy charged with a mission to save the world. Recker is a highly skilled and seasoned space pilot, a tragic figure in that his entire squadron of fighter pilots was slain by an alien force. Determined to avenge their deaths, he goes willingly into enemy hands to act as a spy. He, of course, soon discovers that there are big things at stake, and he is put in the position to save humanity from certain doom. He doesn’t whine or get angsty about his duties. He accepts what he has to do, and the difficult decisions he has to make.

Another strong point of the game is the graphics. The art is just very well drawn anime-style artwork, reminiscent of 2D RPGs of the 16-bit era, but more evolved of course.

Shoot ‘em up fans, like me, may be frustrated with this game because it is not challenging enough. I suspect that hardcore role-playing game fans might be frustrated with how Sigma Star Saga presents the RPG part of the game. You cannot select dialogue options. There are scant few subplots and side intrigues. The Gun Data system replaces any sort of magical or physical attack battle system that a traditional RPG has. As I related in a previous play rating, the Gun Data system is quite innovative, and for shooter fans, it adds more depth to the random battle segments, however the relative ease of the stages removes the need for complicated strategies.

If I were to make suggestions for a sequel, I would be tempted to remove the Exploration Mode altogether. I realise that removing Exploration Mode would turn the game into a heavily story-based shoot ‘em up, thus removing the originality of the game, but this is the shoot ‘em up fan in me talking. I am probably not used to console-style role-playing games, which I personally feel are less like proper role-playing games (table-top Dungeons & Dragons) and more like narratives (Final Fantasy series). Some of the console-style RPGs that I have played provided dialogue choices, and Sigma Star Saga did not have this. Whilst those choices usually only gave an appearance of affecting the plot, you at least had a choice, and you felt that you were making an impact on the game world. Since Exploration Mode is critical to this genre combination, and removing it would remove the novelty of the game, if a sequel were made, I think that providing an option to flee from random battles would be a good idea. This would allow my character complete his tasks more quickly, removing much of the frustration I felt with getting from place to place. I would also make the normal stages much harder, which would provide some kind of learning curve so that the main boss battles are not so jarring because of their difficulty.

The innovation that is Sigma Star Saga could have been accomplished with more finesse. It succeeded in providing a decent story, but did not pull together the two disparate genres in a way that provided me with maximum entertainment value. I actually am glad that this game was made because of its uniqueness. It was a good effort.