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Game Information

Game Title: SaGa Emerald Beyond

Platforms:

• PC (Apr 25, 2024)
• PlayStation 4 (Apr 25, 2024)
• PlayStation 5 (Apr 25, 2024)
• Nintendo Switch (Apr 25, 2024)

Trailer:

• SaGa Emerald Beyond - Demo Trailer | PS5 & PS4 Games
• 『SaGa Emerald Beyond』TGS trailer
• SaGa Emerald Beyond - Nintendo Direct 9.14.2023

Developer: Square Enix

Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 76 average - 69% recommended

Metacritic - 79 average based on 9 Critic Reviews

Critic Reviews


CGMagazine - Hayes Madsen - 7 / 10

SaGa: Emerald Beyond is a strong entry in Square Enix’s most bizarre franchise. It may not be the best introduction to the series, but it’s filled with wacky characters, fascinating stories, and an incredible combat system.

Capsule Computers - Dustin Spencer - 8 / 10

SaGa: Emerald Beyond stands tall with its superb battle mechanics, which are just as addictive as they are enjoyable.

Console Creatures - Dennis Price - Recommended

SaGa Emerald Beyond is a challenging throwback that hardcore veteran players will feel right at home with.

GamingTrend - Adam Moreno - 75 / 100

SaGa Emerald Beyond is a fun experience with new mechanics and many ways to play. With five different characters with their own stories, it's a fun time to run around fighting a flurry of monsters, demons, and more. While things might get a bit repetitive at times, many will find it a blast trying out the different formations, United Attacks, and more.

Hey Poor Player - Kenny McKee - 3.5 / 5

Square Enix’s addition to the SaGa series is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, you’ve got its storytelling and exploration mechanics—both of which feel strangely placed, and neither of which gives the proper amount of freedom that you’d expect from a SaGa title. Its masterful approach to combat, however, ensures that you’ll never have a dull moment when it comes to duking it out with the baddies—or even when setting up your own team! SaGa Emerald Beyond isn’t “middle-of-the-road” by any means. It’s a mixture of good and not-so-good. However, as long as you go into things knowing that, you’ll probably still have a pretty good time.

Nintendo Life - Ken Talbot - 7 / 10

SaGa Emerald Beyond has a deep and satisfying combat system that gets its hooks into you from the jump. There's a lot of narrative content across its five adventures, as well as a diverse collection of characters, but very little that truly grips the attention.

NintendoWorldReport - Neal Ronaghan - 5 / 10

I wish I was more engaged in the story, because the potential of bouncing between 17 worlds and criss-crossing replayed stories sounds cool. It just doesn't coalesce into something all that fun. Maybe the SaGa series is something best left to ports and remakes.

PSX Brasil - Thiago de Alencar Moura - Portuguese - 80 / 100

SaGa Emerald Beyond is another good step for the series, evolving the ideas seen in its predecessor and delivering a fun RPG based on freedom and challenge. A few stumbles prevent it from being even more memorable, but it's a game that will please both fans of the series and curious newcomers.

RPG Fan - Izzy Parsons - 81%

There really isn’t anything else like a SaGa game, and you will get your SaGa fix with SaGa Emerald Beyond.

RPG Site - James Galizio - 9 / 10

SaGa Emerald Beyond is a bold celebration of the series' past and present, warts and all.

Shacknews - Lucas White - 9 / 10

This is a game that wants you to tinker and fail, before you “get it”. It’s also a game explicitly designed to be different every time you pick it up. With its disregard for convention and disinterest in “quality of life” guidelines, you could have a rough start. But there’s so much going on under the hood, so much charm in its presentation and fearlessness in its design, it’s easy to recommend even to folks who might be looking at me like a weirdo right now. SaGa Emerald Beyond comes with caveats like any other JRPG that isn’t the usual Final Fantasy or Persona blockbuster, but those caveats are in service of an experience you won’t find anywhere else.

Siliconera - Cody Perez - 7 / 10

SaGa: Emerald Beyond fascinates (for better and for worse) from start to finish. The multiple protagonists, bizarre presentation, and straightforward mechanics make for a rather easy but wholly unique JRPG.

Video Chums - A.J. Maciejewski - 8.2 / 10

SaGa Emerald Beyond is a wonderful RPG for anyone who loves experiencing multiple worlds and stories while partaking in incredibly gratifying encounters against imaginative enemies. This is the sort of game that we need more of.

 

[jshackles]

Did not expect to see anything above 5/10, so I'm shocked seeing Opencritic at 75 presently.

 

[BaldingAshCrimson]

Considering how nieche SaGa games tend to be, I'm not surprised the reception is somewhat mixed.

Man, that art style is gorgeous.

 

[graywolf323]

basically exactly what I expected for a Saga game, they usually score ~70-75, really the only exception has been Saga Scarlet which managed to hit 80 on OpenCritic

 

[RoboFu]

I downloaded the demo and after what seems like 4 hours of bs low quality cutscenes I uninstalled. I literally didn't make it to any gameplay.. is there any gameplay?

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I downloaded the demo and after what seems like 4 hours of bs low quality cutscenes I uninstalled. I literally didn't make it to any gameplay.. is there any gameplay?

I watched a video of the demo because I didn’t have time to play it yet, I ended up never downloading it because it looked so awful. I think there was 1 battle in 30 minutes, the rest was dialog scenes and some brief running around in the ugliest world map I have ever seen in a JRPG.

 

[Zheph]

SaGa Emerald Beyond Review | RPG Site

SaGa Emerald Beyond is a bold celebration of the series' past and present, warts and all.

www.rpgsite.net

Rpg Site loved it

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Bumping this as I've updated the OP with more reviews earlier today.

 

[KiteGr]

While I'm a fan of the old Saga games, It pains me to see the recent one look so amateurish...

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

World map in 1995:

World map in 2024:

 

[Zheph]

World map in 1995:

World map in 2024:

this and the mobile menu, it's hard to for me to drop some money on the game

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

this and the mobile menu, it's hard to for me to drop some money on the game

Yeah man it looks so ugly and cheap. There are indie pixel art games made by single-digit dev teams that look 1000x more appealing. Looking at that shit actually makes me angry. It’s shocking how hideous and soulless this looks compared to e.g. Saga Frontier 1&2 from 4 console generations ago.

I didn’t exactly have high expectations given the last 25 years of Saga games but this still hurts to see.

 

[KXVXII9X]

World map in 1995:

World map in 2024:

Yikes...