Game Boy game spriteAbout Final Fantasy Legend and Makai Toushi SaGaWonderswan Color game sprite

Scan of North America's box - the front
NA box front

Scan of North America's box - the back

NA box back

Scan of the original box art from Japan
Japan box front

FF Legend's History

Final Fantasy Legend is a Squaresoft RPG, released for Game Boy in 1989. In Japan this game is known as Makai Toushi SaGa (or SaGa 1). The following is what the back of the FF Legend box says:

"Final Fantasy Legend takes you on a sensational voyage through four fantastic worlds: land, ocean, space and a future city. You and your band of warriors seek out to overpower Zombies, Goblins and dreadful monsters hidden along the way. Secret clues lead you to the exotic weapons and treasure you'll need to stay alive. It takes you all the spirit and cunning you can muster to claim victory. Once you've started there's no turning back. Are you daring enough?"

In 1998, Sunsoft got the license for FF Legend and re-released it. They didn't do anything special to it. All they did was re-distribute it for Squaresoft and got most of the profit from it. The images over there are FF Legend's box front and box back, and SaGa's box front. Btw, did you know that SaGa Frontier is SaGa 7? Here's what's what to make things more clear:

Picture of the Tower• SaGa 1 (Game Boy)
• SaGa 2 (Game Boy)
• SaGa 3 (Game Boy)
• Romancing SaGa (SNES) a.k.a. SaGa 4
• Romancing SaGa 2 (SNES) a.k.a. SaGa 5
• Romancing SaGa 3 (SNES) a.k.a. SaGa 6
• SaGa Frontier (Playstation) a.k.a. SaGa 7
• SaGa Frontier 2 (Playstation) a.k.a. SaGa 8
• Unlimited SaGa (Playstation 2) a.k.a. SaGa 9

Front box art of the Japanese cover of Makai Toushi SaGa
Japan box front

Makaitoushi SaGa's History

Makai Toushi SaGa is actually Final Fantasy Legend's real Japanese name. Nowadays in the US when people talk about Makai Toushi SaGa, they're referring to the WonderSwan Color remake of Final Fantasy Legend. In the year of 2002, Squaresoft decided to re-release Makai Toushi SaGa for the Wonderswan Color (Game Boy Advance's petty competition in Japan). However, that is not all they did! They totally renovated the game and upgraded its quality to something more on the lines of the Super Nintendo.

Sadly, since the WonderswanColor was not released here in the US, Makai Toushi SaGa never saw the light of North American day. However, in March 2011 (9 years after Makai Toushi's SaGa's release!) Tower Reversed released the finished English translation for the game! SaGa fans rejoiced! Click here to view some English screen shots. You can download the translated game from my Downloads.

Tips & Strategy

When you start the game, you get to choose one of 8 characters: a male human, a female human, a male mutant, a female mutant, a clipper, a red bull, a wererat, and a zombie. I recommend the female mutant. Then you're supposed to go to a guild to recruit your other 3 party members. I recommend three more female mutants. At this point you're all set! Mutants grow strong pretty quickly, allowing you to go through most of the game with ease. Later on when you're just about to leave the The Ruins, let your three female mutants die and replace them with male humans. Equip them with the best armor and weapons and bring up their max HP to about 600. Now leave the city to go on into The Tower to fight your final battles. Make sure your only mutant has plenty of Cure spells.

My Opinion

I LOVE Final Fantasy Legend. It's so fun! Really! Don't lets its simplicity fool you. I first played it like five years after it came out. If you're the kind of person who enjoys to play classic RPGs games then you'll love Final Fantasy Legend's mostly text battles and its 8-bit, 4 color action. I remember when I first got this game long ago. I approached Toys R Us in a manner such as this. I was happily skipping down the aisles looking for a new game to buy. I stumbled upon a dusty box which read Final Fantasy Legend on the cover, in a manner such as this. At this time I've already played and enjoyed Final Fantasy Legend 3 (that was my first Game Boy RPG) so I was very excited to find the original Final Fantasy Legend. I remember my first moments playing the game were quite confusing, but I eventually got used to it. The battle system is totally different than Final Fantasy Legend 3. I remember how much I loved the mutants. I was so excited each time they learned a new spell. But to this day I still wonder what the heck "ESP" does. =P

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