dtgreene: In SaGa 1, you actually do reach paradise early in the game. It's a side world (and therefore optional), but there's pretty much nothing to do there. There's a healing pond, and there's what appears to be a town, but the town has no buildings and no shops. (According to one townsperson there, "Shops? Nobody works here.".
There's really very little you can do here; all you can really do is use the pool to heal (if you need it) and leave, continuing on.
myconv: That's hardly imagining paradise. How does it work and how did they get there? We will never know, seems the game did not think that deeply. At least the game is claiming it's possible, just Startrek style super light on the details if any at all.
Well, the intro of SaGa 1 talks about the tower, and how there's supposedly paradise at the top of the tower. Yet, somehow, you reach paradise on 3F, even though I believe the tower has 24 floors.
The paradise on 3F is one of the game's minor worlds. These worlds are definitely not developed much. Here are some of the others (spoilers ahead, plus one of them might need a content warning):
* There's a world of water that you can walk around in. At the north end, there's statues. Checking them will give you X-Potions, but after the 3rd, checking again gives you an encounter.
* There's a minor world of clouds with air currents and treasure. This world can be a pain to navigate, but there are some items here (though nothing you can't buy).
* 13F has a dry world with octopi who are complaining about the lack of water. On 14F, there's a flooded world with people in it, who are accusing someone of throwing garbage down the whole. If you step on the whirlpool square, you take the garbage out of the whole, then fall down to the 13F world, only it's filled with water and raining (good for those octopi). Go back up to 14F, and now this world is dry, and a small castle with a bit of treasure is now accessible.
* There's a world where the people are wealthy, but busy. Not that special, but it's important because of the context of the following world.
* [CW: death (and war?)] The following floor, there's a similar looking world, except that this is in ruins. There are 3 dead children (you check the body, and the game says "this child looks dead."). Go further and there's a dead body. Check it, and there's a note, with the game over music playing. From the note, "Creator, protect the children.". Oh, and the game secretly puts a Nuclear Bomb into your inventory at this point.
* There's the garden world where you get Excalibur.
* There's a library world. In the Japanese version, each book has the name of an adventurer and how far they got up the tower. The last one is your name, but it doesn't tell you how far you got. In the US version, they instead give you a message like "Ashura was created by ...". Oh, and one of the bookshelves is fake, taking you into a hidden room with a Flare Tome.
So, I would say that the game does tackle some surprisingly deep topics or its age, especially with that one world that I put a content warning on.
By the way, in the Japanese version, that Creator was God.
(Also, note that I only covered the optional minor worlds. There's 4 major worlds, where the bulk of the game takes place; it is these worlds that have big overworlds with towns and dungeons in them.)