Unlimited Saga starts out by allowing you to select from one of seven pre-defined characters and start your adventure. Each character has a unique storyline, which can and will intersect with those of the other characters. Sounds good so far.

Once you start playing the game, though, things slide quickly downhill. First off, there’s the navigational system, which has you moving your characters across a static landscape like pieces on a game board. How much does it resemble a board game? Well, the characters literally slide across the map and make the sort of clonking sound you’d expect from a game piece hitting the board.

Your "game piece," if you will, is an avatar of your lead character with a glowing halo over his or her head. The halo is actually your directional compass, and as you aim the analog stick, a little star appears on a compass point within the halo. Click X, and you move in that direction. Movement, however, is not free-form; it’s limited to pre-set paths along the board, excuse me..."the map." At the end of each movement phase, locations will appear on the map, illustrating which directions you can move. This directed movement kills any sense of exploration you might be hoping for.

The resemblance to "Chutes and Ladders" doesn’t just end with the clunky movement system; there’s the random events along the way, too. At any given time in your movement phase, you can come across randomly placed treasure chests, traps and monsters. Treasure chests and traps are rated by skill level, and while you can attempt to access or escape them at any level, the odds are stacked against you due to a bizarre slot-machine skill system. The only way to describe it is to use an example.

Let’s say you come up against a "falling rock" trap. You pick one member of your party to attempt the avoidance save (much like a "saving throw" in tabletop RPGs.) That character’s avatar appears alongside a weird ring device that holds another ring inside it and a sort of target sight. The inner ring is covered in colored icons, one color for a failing save, one for a successful save. The inner ring begins spinning like a slot machine roller, and you must hit stop at just the right moment to get one icon of the successful save color within the target. Miss it, and you’ve failed the save. Advanced characters stand a better chance at a successful save, because there will be more "successful save" icons available on the ring. Still, it’s a crazy system, and it leads to an obscene amount of frustration, controller-throwing and disk-tossing.

Thinking themselves terribly clever with the "reel system," Square decided to also apply it to combat while adding an even deeper level of difficulty. Certain monsters are based on the basic elements, and as such, they are doubly susceptible to attacks of the opposing elements (fire vs. water, wind vs. earth, etc.). Naturally, the combat reels reflect this. Along with having icons for simple "hit" and "miss," there are icons for each element, which in theory should make combat more advanced. Unfortunately, it makes everything feel even more random and more annoying. Basically, it’s a special version of a slot machine wherein the ante is the life of your character. And after you’ve spent hours levelling up, choosing skills and purchasing unique equipment, it’s a royal pain to lose it all to a swarm of insects who are just better at the slots.

Almost all the elements in the game are static, and as such, there’s no concern with fluid motion. Avatars for your characters and monsters look like they were pulled directly out of a comic book, but since they don’t move at all, you don’t get to enjoy any detail in the artwork. The map is so simplistic, it’s really not worth discussing in any depth. Towns and other larger environments have no sense of scale, because only a static image of them is displayed, with navigation points such as "Equipment Shop" for you to point the navigation icon to and click.

The real high point in Unlimited Saga is the soundtrack, which is a well-mixed orchestral score that reflects the current pace of the gameplay. It smoothly shifts between the twinkly tone of walking through the woods to a fast-paced combat beat. Unfortunately, the minimal voice acting and environmental sounds are as bland as a box of Saltines, leaving you unfulfilled and unimpressed.

If you’re a hardcore RPGer and can overlook the complexity of the combat system and the game’s simplistic navigational elements, you’ll find plenty of replay in Unlimited SaGa. You also have the option of playing any of seven characters in unique storylines, so if you can handle those attributes you’ll spend dozens of hours on this game. And with the huge random encounter element to the game, you’re sure to never play the same game twice. That is, presuming you can play through this game once.

Square was very up front with just how difficult Unlimited SaGa would be. Never once have they attempted to mislead gamers, and they’ve never wavered from their stance that this game is for serious RPG fans only. Thus, I’m giving Square a little leeway in the overall score. And as strange as it may sound, I somehow found myself enjoying the game after getting used to the bizarre gameplay, because it started to feel like a good old-fashioned tabletop RPG. If you’re a dedicated RPG fan, I’d suggest renting Unlimited SaGa. If you’re a casual RPGer, do yourself a favor and pass on this one.