Recent reviews by Sterga

I haven't had any major technical issues. The game seems locked at 30 fps as of this post, which is sad, but not game destroying. The graphics look good at 1920x1080, but the video options are limited. The menus have been greatly improved from the original, although choosing another color would be nice. Text is perfectly readable for me and my bad eye sight. The translation and localization seems alright. I haven't found anything cringy yet and some personality has been injected into the dialog.

There are keyboard and mouse controls that I didn't bother using because I prefer a controller. I've had no problems with my off-brand Xbox style controller and easily rebound some of the buttons.


RS3 is a rpg with blend of Western and Japanese elements. Like the main numbered Final Fantasy games, none of them have anything to do with each other in story. You pick one of eight, pre-defined people as your main character and then explore the world after a shortish intro mission. Eventually, you will also save the world from the Big Bad Thing. The two defining parts of this game are the deep combat system and world exploration. SaGa games in general are considered challenging. No hand holding, no rails, no HUD arrows guiding you to the next NPC asking you to collect boar bums.

There is no need to spend a million years grinding for power. In fact, you can see and run past enemies. Monsters grow in power as you do. The combat is turned based. Characters gain skill by using their weapons or magic. You can save whenever you wish out of combat.

There are a ton of YouTube video from the original game that can give you an idea of what this thing is about. There are also a ton of guides from the SNES version that are still relevant for this update.


The game is pretty hard-core about the exploration part. Things are happening in the world and the only way for you to see those things is to go out, talk to people, visit new places. No mission log (moved to the bottom left corner of the menu), no quest givers, no giant walls of text telling you why you want to collect sea shells.

You might go home and see the circus is in town. Some old lady talks about how she's worried for her bother which opens up a new city to visit. The shop keeper's BFF wants you to travel through a bandit infested forest to deliver goods. There's this thing with some Evil Magic Gates that someone should probably close and maybe you'll get around to that some day. In the mean time, there's a spooky well that needs your attention.

There are also plenty of folks to join your group. You can only take five people into combat, but you can have six people with you. Most of the time, you can throw them out, but some are stubborn and will only leave after experiencing certain events.


I don't think I've ever found another game with combat like what SaGa games offer. It is turned based, but there are some quarks to it. Different formation can be chosen and learned that have various effects on combat (speed boosts, enemies target some people more often, etc). There are two different styles of combat. The first is what you might expect from a jrpg. The interesting part of this is how you learn new weapon moves. Your characters can learn thing during combat. They can also master those moves so that other members of your party can use them too. Magic is mostly bought. Sounds boring in comparison, but magic can also be used in combinations.

You also have commander mode. This mode has it's own special group combo techniques and is directed by your main character that doesn't actually participate in combat. It's easy to start up, simply move your main character out of the combat group. (If you have four characters, pick a 3-person formation and move your main to the fourth slot.) After that, it's pretty complex. You don't control the individual party members, but give them basic commands instead. The team learns and uses special group attacks in addition to the weapon techs you can pick up in the normal combat mode.

Every character has their own specialties that you can totally ignore if you want. Characters gain ability by using skills in combat. You can punch people in combat and raise your punching ability until you become a punching champion. It doesn't matter if that person specializes in swords, they will still gain punching power if you punch things. They won't be as good as a punching specialist and won't gain new punch techs as easily, but they'll still work.

How can you tell what a character specializes in? Look at their default equipment. There are some exception, but usually, if someone comes with a big sword, they specialize in big swords. If they come with a Mighty Morphing Power Weapon that can transform from small sword into big sword, they probably specialize in small swords and big sword.

That's all. Toodles.

Just look at my too many hours. And I still keep playing this thing. Amazing character build ability. New players aren't f---ed by being way behind long time players due to the three month leagues existing. New content on a regular basis. Build guides if the character tree looks scary to you. Wiki gets updated. Community building tools. Hideouts to decorate, collect, showcase.

Lootboxes exist but all of the stuff ends up in the cash shop to buy outright, so can be easily ignored. MTX are expensive, but there are contests for free crap from the cash shop at least once per league. I won some wings in the last flashback and got a free lootbox with a hypnotoad. Got a portal effect from a previous flashback. Leagues generally have free MTX for completing challenges. Not really any p2w BS on the international servers, unless you want to count extra stash tabs to hoard all of your stuff or to sell your stuff easier.