The 7th Saga Soundtrack, Norihiko Yamanuki, 1993
It’s probably no surprise that sometimes, games are remembered not for the whole of their various strengths and shortcomings, but rather simply for their most outstanding and pronounced feature. And so when seasoned gamers think back to developer Produce’s The 7th Saga, what’s brought up first isn’t so much the game’s peculiarly sombre atmosphere, or the variety of characters to control. Instead, what dominates retrospective conversations about The 7th Saga is its absolutely unforgiving difficulty level (dialed up for the US release), which required hours and hours of grinding right from the very start. It’s a shame then that its reputation as the SNES’ most difficult RPG often overshadows The 7th Saga’s several accomplishments.