SaGa II Review

Game Boy title SaGa 2, released to the U.S. as Final Fantasy Legend II, combines a simple, sequential plot with surprisingly addictive gameplay mechanics.

The Story

Your father has been away on a journey for years, so you and three friends leave home to find out what's become of him and his quest to gather MAGI, pieces of the statue that forms the fabled goddess Isis.

Your journey consists of traveling from one world to the next, gathering MAGI, and defeating the hostile god of that world. Most worlds have few details and are relevant to the story only once or twice. Aesthetically, the geography looks cheap and slapped-together compared to the lovingly-formed contours of, say, Dragon Quest I's Alefgard.

The four player characters say very little, and so don't have much character development. The enemy gods have distinct personalities, and one in particular has a hand in multiple worlds. In some worlds you'll help people along the way and see their stories play out, but the character who ties everything together is your dad: learning about his journey, and getting the chance to fight alongside him.

The Gameplay

The versatile mechanics of character stat progression and weapon types make this game stand out; they're the reason that SaGa 2 is among my most-played Game Boy titles.

Player characters are chosen from four races: human, mutant, robot, and monster. The race determines how the character progresses, not in a predetermined path, but on an open framework of progression.

Nearly everything used in battle has a charge consumed on use, and so must be either recharged or replaced. This makes resource management vital. Weapons and items are scarcely explained in game. A weapon might seem useless at first compared to things of similar cost, and yet be powerful if applied correctly. I recommend keeping a guide or search engine handy to look things up if you're not sure.

Dragon Warrior Monsters II Hint: Small Cave in Sky World

In the cave south of Hitano in Sky World, the hole near the entrance is "too small to fit some heads." So how do you know what kinds of monsters are small enough to fit? The library in GreatLog can help you. When you look up a species, you'll see its skills, descriptions, rarity, etc.... and also its size. So to fit through the hole, just make sure that your entire party, including the monster master, are size S.

Why So Few Women in Computer Science?

I've previously posted on why computer science makes a great major for women. Given the advantages, why don't more college-going women look into it?

A blog post by Dr. K considers the possibility, as brought up by Dr. Margaret Burnett, that the abrasive metaphors found in computing (e.g. "killing" a program, "zombie" processes) may turn girls off of computer science. That's one I've never heard before. As a tomboy child flanked by brothers, growing up in a Dungeons and Dragons household, I don't consider myself a good judge of this hypothesis.

A comment on the post points to the unattractive "nerdy" stereotype associated with computer experts. I think this a more likely deterrent: even brainy girls tend to have a bit too much vanity (at least on the basic personal hygiene level) to want anything to do with that image. But if the "geek chic" trend keeps up, that image problem could be solved any year now.

As for the terminology, I think the problem isn't that girls find the computer nerds' jargon disgusting; it's that they find it alien and intimidating. You see, they generally haven't been brought up speaking the language.

According to my observations, a lot of nerds first gained computer expertise years before they and their classmates could take high school programming classes. They got it during middle school years while hanging out with their computer nerd friends, programming games on their home-built computers in an atmosphere of male bonding. I played video games with my brothers quite a bit when I was a kid, but when my older brother invited his buddies over and they learned QBasic together, I didn't feel like I belonged there. So I didn't learn programming until I stumbled upon a C++ tutorial years later.

A lot of the guys who end up studying computer science in college come from the nerd-male-bonding background I've described. They spout all sorts of jargon that I, the n00b programmer that I was when I entered college, had scarcely heard. I understood logic and math, and I was ready to learn, so I wouldn't say I had a real academic disadvantage. But the social climate had me feeling left behind sometimes. Many of us girls have the smarts that it takes, but as freshmen most of us aren't gutsy enough to stick with a potential interest if we don't have a network of support. That's something I think is missing for young women who might otherwise consider C.S.

What discussion have you seen on why there are so few women in computer science? What do you think of it, and how can we make the field more welcoming?

Games that Train your Brain

In a previous blog post, I explored some possibilities for how video games can be designed to offer real-life benefits. Here's one in the news: a MindHabits Trainer game that boosts confidence and trains the player in good emotional habits. By finding the smiling face in a crowd of frowns, the player learns to focus on the positive. The CNET News article "Online game smiles seen vanquishing the blues" has the story on this game and the study that shows its psychological benefits.

I notice some pronounced differences between today's good-habit games such as BrainAge (also mentioned in the article), and habit-forming games such as Halo 3. Obviously, the former serve a purpose that's beneficial to real life, and the latter are just for fun. But there are differences in how long people play, too. Addictive online games keep players coming back regularly, in blocks of hours at a time. The good-habit games are also designed to play regularly, because habits are built on regularity. (BrainAge even graphs the player's performance from one day to the next.) But they only keep you on for about ten minutes at a time. These good-habit games, though made to be fun, are designed to bring you the benefit and then send you on your way.

Do Video Games Have Value?

Most video games are like junk food: they're nice in moderation, but they have little nutritional value. People like them because they afford an opportunity to experience the fantastic. The player can rule an empire, find treasures in the deep, or soar through outer space. I enjoy video games the way I enjoy a good dessert or even a good novel; they let me reward myself or unwind. Yet I am among many who have spent hours upon hours playing a game, burning up time, that resource that's so necessary to get anything done. Then as soon as I turn off the game, I have nothing important to show for my time and effort.

Why, then, do people put so much time into playing? It's because the video game's fantastic world offers new honors and opportunities step by step: only after reaching a certain level can the player advance to the next. If playing video games is addictive, then achievement is the drug. Unfortunately, this achievement is an illusion. After all, what difference does being a 60th-level paladin make in the real world?

In this same power of addiction, I also see video gaming's redeeming grace. Excelling in video games has something in common with excelling in basketball, piano, or mathematics: all of them take hours of practice. Video gaming offers a "practice for the fun of it" that, with the right game design, can hone real-life skills. Puzzle game enthusiasts learn to analyze in split seconds. Dance Dance Revolution maniacs have a fun way to keep fit. And, once the game is created, an 85-WPM Martial Typist will not only save a computerized world from evil ninja lords; he'll also be well prepared for an office job that will put him through college.