Summary:
So what sets SAGA apart from the rest? Firstly, it's a persistent world MMORTS. Unlike other MMO's, where logging out causes your character to disappear from the game world, logging out in SAGA is not so. You base will still exist even when your logged out, adding an massive tactical effect to the game.
This review partly reproduced from Neramaar's blog on MMOsite Blog.
I have to admit that I wasn't overly impressed with the Tutorial system. It's completely voiced and very well presented, but it drops off at certain points, leaving you slightly confused for a while, and doesn't really cover much more that battle. Beginning with a vague overview of your Town Hall and Barracks, it's ends after a few simple 'kill all enemies' quests. After completing the 3 Tutorial Quests you do have a decent understanding of how to kill, capture and navigate the quest maps, but as soon as you return to your base it all comes to a very abrupt halt, leaving you with a "What should I do now?" feeling.
Fortunately, the help system in SAGA is quite frankly the best that I've ever seen. There is a large chat box at the bottom of your screen dedicated solely to helping you with anything and everything, and is (From what I could see) constantly manned by Game Masters ready to answer your queries. Using this 'Help Chat' in conjunction with General Chat, it didn't take me very long to find out what SAGA was really all about.
The Tutorial Quests do give you a solid understanding on how the battle system works, and it is naturally very similar to most other RTS games. They follow the standard point and click system, left-clicking to select and group and right-clicking to have them move or attack. The unit system is both familiar and unique all at once. Units are selected as small groups, in which the size can be pre-determined by you in your barracks before you enter a Quest, this is not really an uncommon feature amongst RTS games. No, the innovation is shown with the "Card System" that has been implemented. A group of units, before it has been selected and entered into the map, is represented by a card. New cards can be obtained in one of 3 ways, Purchasing them for 1000 gold per unit, trading on the Market with other players, or buying 'Booster Packs' from the games website for US ?3 (In certain places around the world, Booster Packs can actually be purchased in store, with a much larger selection and actual cards with codes on the back used to receive the in game equivalent). Booster packs come with 10 random cards, and always include some form of rare card. Although Booster Packs are completely optional, it seems that buying a few later down the track will be necessary to really enjoy the game. So within this monster MMORTS game, there is an MMOTCG (Trading Card Game) embedded too.
One thing I personally enjoyed was the superb use of stances (or formations), such as the attack stance that will reduce your defence, but significantly increase the amount of damage dealt by the unit. Proper use of formations is a quick leap to success.
They also explained some of the game mechanics like unit management too. Units are managed using CP (Command Points), and although a little confusing at first was simple enough to get the hang of quickly. Each unit card you have requires a certain amount of CP to be used, and you have a maximum amount of CP that you can have on the field at any one time. This seems to increase as you complete quests and progress through the game. Although this system works fine, it seems to grow slowly, meaning that the first few days of playing SAGA are going to be very slow, and you wont be seeing larger scale battles, city sieges or wars for a fairly long time.
So what sets SAGA apart from the rest? Firstly, it's a persistent world MMORTS. Unlike other MMO's, where logging out causes your character to disappear from the game world, logging out in SAGA is not so. You base will still exist even when your logged out, adding an massive tactical effect to the game. Fortifying your defences so that you are not attacked whilst you are offline is paramount to your success. Building and resource gathering in SAGA is a very slow process, but as mentioned above, this all continues even when your logged out of the game, allowing you make preparations for the day ahead, even though you'll be at work or school.
The Quest Map was another feature in SAGA that I was immediately impressed with. The map not only looks fantastic, but it it completely interactive and displays all your current quests. Quests are represented by several small multi-coloured coins scattered about the map, each showing the name of the quest, a small description, and the recommended level. Simply select a quest on the map, accept it and you will be entered into a small "Quest Instance" to complete it.
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