Video games, especially RPGs, often have a problem with finding the right balance between what the player can do during gameplay and what the character can do during the game's narrative. For example, no matter how people try to justify it, it is silly Cloud and his friends can be hit during battles with swords, bullets, explosions, poisons and anything else that would kill a normal person instantly, but a single strike from Sephiroth in a cutscene results in instant death for the character. And why do gangsters and terrorists challenge 10 year olds to honorable pokémon battles when their evil plans are threatened? They are grown adults who could easily overpower a child, but that wouldn't be what people want to see in a Pokémon game.
Gameplay and narrative often exist in completely separate bubbles, and you're expected to simply accept things like this don't make sense. Something like this isn't enough to break my immersion of course, and it is probably a lot easier for a game's writers to make the story if they don't have to take into account everything the player character can do during battle. Similarly, if a game's designers just want to make a fun game they shouldn't try to limit the player's actions just because the writers want something more grounded.
You can take this too far of course, for example, if the story makes the main character killing a single person into a big deal, maybe the designers shouldn't have the player frequently fight against humans with lethal weapons. But generally I think it's fine, writers and designers should just focus on making their own parts of the game as good as they can.
But because gameplay and story so often do not have any kind of consistency, it feels very special when you do find a game where the story and gameplay complement each other. In this post I want to tell you about one such game: SaGa Frontier, and how its Alkaiser is one of the coolest examples I've seen of story and gameplay complementing each other.
What is SaGa?
SaGa is a series of RPGs by Square that started on the original Game Boy in 1989 (back then it was localised as The Final Fantasy Legend though, as Square USA had no faith in releasing a new IP). SaGa has never been as famous as Square's other long running franchises, but the games are successful enough that the series has had over a dozen games released in 35 years (with the latest game being SaGa Emerald Beyond in 2024)
SaGa ignores a lot of the conventions people associate with Japanese role playing games, such as there being no traditional level up system and having a non-linear structure, nor do they put much focus on characters or story. The series is always trying something new with each game, and very rarely does the next game follow up on any ideas established by its predecessor.
A recurring feature in SaGa is the choice between several protagonists, although the protagonist you choose usually won't have a big impact on how the game plays out. Each protagonist has their own playstyle and some unique scenes, but for a casual player the difference between characters is so small that there isn't really a reason to play more than one character's storyline. However, if you are someone who likes to replay games and experiment with different playstyles, this system of multiple protagonists ensures your playthroughs are always a little different, as each protagonist has completely different stats and skills.
SaGa Frontier, the seventh game in the series, is no different in this regard and gives you a choice between 7 different protagonists. But whereas in other SaGa games your chosen protagonist has very little impact, in SaGa Frontier each protagonist's campaign is wildly different from each other. Not only do they all have completely different stories from each other, all protagonists also have a unique gimmick in their gameplay that makes each playthrough significantly different compared to how the protagonists play in other SaGa games.
I could talk extensively about each of these characters, their stories and their gimmicks, but for this post's topic I only want to talk about the character Red and how his story manages to find a balance between gameplay and story in a way that's unlike anything else I've seen in an RPG
The superhero Alkaiser
Red's campaign begins like any other superhero story would: Red and his father are attacked by the terrorist organisation BlackX, but just as Red is about to die, he is saved by the masked hero Alkarl. Alkarl then gives Red a portion of his power to save his life and Red becomes the superhero Alkaiser.
But Red is given one condition for his power: he is not allowed to reveal his secret identity to anyone under any circumstance.
Naturally the player assumes this is just something the writers threw in as a reference to other superhero stories and it won't actually matter at all. And as you're starting out it seems like this is indeed the case, Red can freely transform into Alkaiser during combat to receive significant buffs.
But this changes when you recruit someone into your party. The reason you've been able to freely transform into Alkaiser in every fight was because Red was alone, no one was there to see Red's transformation. Now that you have other people in the party, Red has to fight in his regular civilian form in order to not expose his identity.
In other words; the rule given to Red about never being allowed to reveal his identity is not just a meaningless callback to superhero stories, it is the gimmick of his campaign. However I wouldn't be writing this post if that was all there was to Alkaiser's transformation, because it gets much deeper and much cooler than that.
When you realise you can't transform if you have other characters in your party, you might start thinking the Alkaiser transformation is intended for solo challenge runs. Having a unique buff that can only be used when alone certainly sounds like it's there to encourage solo runs of the game, why else would it be designed like that after all?
But SaGa Frontier is a rather difficult game, and even with a full party of 5 characters you will eventually run into a battle so hard your party is almost wiped out and only Red is standing. And that's when you see the Alkaiser transformation is available in your battle commands once again.
No one can find out Red's secret identity if no one in your party is conscious after all.
This is Alkaiser's true purpose. It's not there for challenge runs, it's there to save you in your most desperate moments. However it gets deeper than this, there are more ways to prevent your party from knowing Red's identity than simply having everyone knocked out. Your party being asleep, paralysed or even blinded will have the same effect as unconsciousness. As long as your party is prevented from seeing Red transform into Alkaiser, the option will be available to you. If you know a boss or an enemy is capable of inflicting those ailments, it might be worthwhile to only give Red resistance to those so that you have easier access to Alkaiser as the rest of the party is hit by the ailments.
However those are still pretty niche scenarios and not something you can count on reliably. However there is one way you can have permanent access to Alkaiser besides playing solo: just have a party that only consists of entities who can't tell anyone even if they do see Red's transformation.
SaGa Frontier has many many different characters you can recruit, and among those characters are robots and monsters. Robots and monsters can't speak however, so if your party only consists of them, there will be no restrictions to using Alkaiser. Although nothing is stopping you from mixing and matching humans, monsters and robots. You could keep one or two humans in your party, and if something happens to them, that'll be your cue to activate Alkaiser.
Unfortunately Red isn't available for recruiting in any other character's campaigns, and as each campaign is rather short, you're quite limited in how much you're able to experiment with parties involving Alkaiser. It's my one big gripe with the system, as I'm sure it could be expanded further if the player was just allowed to use Red in more scenarios than just his own (though the HD Remaster from 2021 allows you to recruit Red in its brand new Fuse campaign)
Ludonarrative harmony
Video games are a unique medium of storytelling because of their interactivity, yet very few video games actually try to build their interactive elements around the story. The reason for this is very simple of course, because as I said at the start: limiting the gameplay by what the story allows the characters to do will almost always result in a "worse" gameplay experience. Games are meant to be played, and if you're constantly limiting the fun for story reasons, players might not want to play your game.
Yet I have a lot of respect for any game that builds its gameplay around the story, even if it makes the gameplay "worse". Making the audience feel the restrictions the story places on you is something only video games can accomplish, it makes the audience relate to the characters in ways no other form of storytelling can do, and I believe that is what makes video games such a wonderful form of art.
Alkaiser isn't a particularly egregious example of gameplay being "worse" in order to make the story more memorable, it is ultimately a small part of much bigger game and this post's purpose was just me wanting to gush about how cool and unique I think Alkaiser is.
I think a lesser game would've ignored Alkarl's warning at the beginning of the game and allowed you to use Alkaiser as much as you want. Yet if Alkaiser could be freely activated whenever you want, it would be no different from any other buff you have access to in RPGs, just with a superhero coat of paint. But by giving Alkaiser such a restriction it becomes an organic part of the story, it becomes more than a simple buff and it becomes much more memorable than it would otherwise be. It's because of its narrative restrictions that I think it is one of the coolest mechanics I've ever seen in an RPG.
I have plans to write about this topic again on a much larger scale some day in the future, but for now I'll leave it at this.
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