Hmmm... So what do they have in common? Other than the name.

One common thread, found in all SaGa games except the original SaGa 3:

While you do get stronger as the games progress, there are no experience points; instead, other growth systems are used. For example, performing an action might make you better at it.

In SaGa 1, for example, humans gain stats by using consumable items that can be bought in stores. mutants gain stats randomly (well, at least as randomly as the terrible RNG permitsl you will get the same stat gains after you save, turn off the game, and reload later, provided you are using the same Game Boy model), and monsters transform into other monsters according to a table after eating meat which is randomly dropped by enemy monsters.

I have heard that the kanji that make up the name SaGa in Japanese mean "different picture"; I suppose what can be said about the series as a whole is that the games are not like your typical RPG.

Very unfortunate. Not sure where I got the game but I pumped a solid 100 or so hours into it a few years ago and loved the crowd battles.

The game is not very good. The combat system is very hands off experience and the first 17 hours is very easy and then you get to a new area where the difficulty shifts into complete insanity. It's a game you should play with a strategy guide and that's just not fun. The game is pretty and the characters are not bad for a JRPG but man that difficulty spike is insane.

So it's a franchise with... nothing in common except a general way the rules are structured? Would a good analogy be Sierra's "Quest" series which just had the Quest suffix in their names and all played similarly, but had no story/setting in common (King's Quest, Police Quest, Goblins Quest... etc)?

By the way, thanks for answering. Appreciate it. I know I could just google this (and I did read the wikipedia page) but I don't want to hit any spoilers there.

Anyway, the bottom line is: I can safely play the Last Remnant by itself as a standalone game, without worrying about it being any sequel or part of a series or somesuch?

Usually, keys keep working even if a game is removed. Unredeemed keys stop working only if the keys themselves are invalidated or if the sub (the thingy that gets registered to your account) is set to "Unavailable" (for example due to a DMCA request).

You could say that, but even then the rules can change greatly from game to game.

Some SaGa games have stats increasing as the game progresses, but Romancing SaGa 3 doesn't (it's more like Baldur's Gate in that respect, but there are still stat boosting items I believe), and SaGa Frontier 2 doesn't have stats at all. Even when stats increase, even if it's tied to your actions in many SaGa games, that's not the case for SaGa 1.

Then there's Unlimited SaGa, which has very unusual mechanics by SaGa standards (that game did poorly not because of quality but rather because it wasn't what people were expecting and some of the mechanics were not easy to understand, I believe). I have not played it, though I actually own a copy that I have never bothered to attempt.

In any case, there isn't any plot continuity between games, except for the occasional easter egg (a few SaGa 2 characters make a cameo appearance in SaGa 3, the PS2 remake of Romancing SaGa makes reference to a famous bug in the original SaGa, can't think of any others).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k3o-ydsF74&feature=youtu.be

a ha ha

I should be mad at this but I'm not.

I don't know if I should have seen it coming, but I'll definitively remember this. :))

Damn. For a moment I read 'The last remnant of Steam will be removed' ... :-)

The only reason I never bothered playing it, I love taking my time and grinding xD

Reminds me of the anouncement of Everything being removed from GOG.

https://gematsu.com/2018/09/the-last-remnant-remastered-announced-for-ps4

I guess i was right.

So it was Sony that took the game off Steam just so it can be a "PS4 Exclusive"?