Took a break from MMX6 to check out the SaGa Emerald Beyond demo and was pleasantly surprised. Visually and mechanically, it plays like SaGa Scarlet Graces, so people not vibing with the storybook pop up visuals and Visual Novel cutscenes are going to be disappointed, but the game has certainly fixed a lot of issues from SSG. For one thing, there is more of a tutorial for how mechanics work, which is nice, even though the voice over sounds very insulting when explaining stuff. Unite Attacks have been changed for the better. In SSG, the only way to activate one was to kill an enemy whose turn took place between two party members turn, which was easier said than done because enemies are downright tanky in SSG. SEB on the other hand takes the mechanic back to the Frontier series where Unite Attacks are simply activated by having party members use attacks that overlap with each other on the turn order. Even better, unlike the Frontier entries, this game gives you a visual cue to show if this will happen. Of course, like SSG before it, enemies can do this as well, so it's not always the best strategy to get Unite Combo happy. There is a new mechanic that lets your characters activate a second unite combo as well after performing one which was interesting. The other two QoL changes is the game is far better about explaining where you need to go and what to do on quests using a special visual cue called the Emerald Path, maybe not quite hand holding, but far better than most of the series is known for. Secondly, weapon and armor upgrades can now just be done from the menu screen and so you don't have to traipse around the map finding the right blacksmith.

The game also seems to be bringing back unique leveling mechanics as the tutorial mentions only Humans can Glimmer/Waza. The demo only allowed you to play as Mido and his puppets, but speaking of, his puppets learn skills by mimicking them off of other characters, this includes enemies as well. My samurai puppet Musashi mimicked a two handed sword tech from a mini-boss while my fencing puppet kept mimicking skills off of Mido. Not sure how magic is going to work in this game though. I did have two characters who could use magic, but the process of learning or leveling it up never came up in the game. But it might be fair to say they are not keeping SSG's version, which is likely for the best because it was just as unintuitive as Unlimited SaGa's magic mechanics.

The demo lets you play as Mido the Puppet Master who seems to come from a version of our world. His family used to be guardians of the Japanese government through the ages, but their powers have largely disappeared until Mido was born and showed he had the power to see the Emerald's Glow that guides his life. Though he resists it at every turn. His uncle sends him to the Gate of the Heavens which allows him to traverse to other worlds and his goal is to take the four puppets he has and imbue them with powerful spirits from other worlds so his family may regain their magical powers. The worlds he traverse are ones the other characters you can choose as your main character come from. In the demo, I got to see the magical cat girl Ameya's home world, and I got to reach Yomi where the Dismal King's homeworld resides. The game is being very heavy handed with references to the Game Boy originals with even Mr. S's monster species returning as enemies and Mr.S himself appearing as an NPC in the Emerald Road world to offer tutoring. The voice acting wasn't bad either though Mido's voice feels way older than he looks, but it fits his attitude really well and gives him a Trashy Parker from Into the Spiderverse vibe which I digged. Overall, I'm more excited for the full game which comes out next week.