Robots

Robots are one of the many races that inhabit the worlds of SaGa. Robots are an artificial race that lives side by side with the other organic races. Robots are powerful fighters who often use more modern weapons like guns or lasers to fight, but can get the job done with more ancient weapons as well. They can tack on other equipment to make them more durable too.

While the origin of most robots within the series vary from title to title, SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha proposes that some robots may have started life as organic beings as both the CPU for the Talon originated from a human brain, and humans and espers can augment themselves to the point of becoming completely mechanical.

Though prominent in the early entries, robots are not seen as often in most of the series compared to the other races. They are first seen in SaGa 2: Hihou Densetsu.

SaGa 2 Hihou Densetsu
The first game to introduce Robots as a race, they are one of the four races the player can choose from when creating their player avatar and party. Like the other races, Robots have a unique way of being developed for the game. Robots start with no stats and only gain them by equipping weapons and armor. Most pieces of equipment will grant some amount of HP but stats will depend on the type of equipment and it's own strengths. Agility based weapons will raise the robots agility while strength based does for strength. Armor will grant defensive bonuses and sometimes the robot can even gain elemental bonuses if the armor possess one. Robots cannot gain any magic and so magic based weapons will usually not grant any bonus except HP.

There are restrictions though, in the case of armor, the robot will not get the same defensive bonus from armor that Humans/Espers will get, instead they get a flat rate based on the type. So Bronze armor might give an Esper +3 Defense when equipped, but a Robot will only get +2. On the other hand, any Bronze armor piece such as helms and gloves will grant this bonus as well, so a player can save themselves money by only buying the less expensive armor pieces. Another perk of robots is that they can equip multiples of the same types of armors. So a robot can be equipped with four Giant Helms and not be penalized, whereas humans and espers are restricted to one headpiece.

Weapons have their own trick to them as well. When a Robot equips a weapon, the weapons amount of usages is automatically halved. If the weapon is removed from the robot, it is halved again. As an example, if you equip a robot with a Rapier that has 20 uses, the Robot will only be able to use it 10 times, and if the rapier is not used and then removed, it will only have five more uses. For this reason it is important to think wisely before equipping a robot with any gear that might be better served on a non-robot character. To counter this steep price, weapon usage will actually be restored by resting in an inn for the robot.

Like Humans, Robots have full access to their equipment slots and it's possible to give them several pieces of armor and weapons to develop them. Since these stats stack, it's possible with careful planning to develop a robot with stats that go beyond the 999HP and 99 stat cap. This allows Robots to be one of the strongest fighters on the player's team if developed correctly.

In addition to this, robots also have innate immunity to Paralyze and Poison. The biggest downside of robots besides their obvious expense, is the robots great weakness to magic. Due to being unable to raise their magic, robots suffer from low magic defense and can easily be decimated by a strong enough magic casting enemy after a few rounds.

SaGa 3 Jikuu no Hasha
SaGa 3 no longer lets the player choose their starting class, instead humans or espers can transform themselves into a Robot by installing robot parts taken from fallen enemies.

Robots have been completely altered in how they are developed from the previous game. Like Monsters, Robots are dependent on Robot Parts that are dropped and installing them will transform a character into a new robot similar to how Monsters were developed in previous games. Transforming uses a much simpler algorithm than the monster ones from previous installments. There are 32 possible Robots the player can develop their party into. The 32 robots are divided into two tiers, one representing Earth and Water, while the other tier is Air and Fire. All player characters have an innate Element that is one of these four elements, and all robot parts fall into one of these elements as well. When a human/esper installs a part, the game will check the element of the character and the robot part to determine what the resulting new form will be based on the two tier lists. The exact form is then calculated by the character's level.

Robots are still a bit unique from here as well. Unlike monsters, Robots will not change form through leveling, so the player can easily take any Robot from the list and keep it for end game as long as they don't install any new robot parts. This can be helpful if the Robot has unique skills and abilities the player finds useful and wishes to keep. Robot don't develop like the other classes, instead they work using a similar design as Humans did in SaGa 1. In order to raise a robots stats, you have to purchase capsules and parts in stores to raise all of their statistics. Like the first game, it is possible to keep raising these stats well past the level cap allowing Robots to be one of the strongest classes in the game.

Robots can still equip armor and weapons like other classes and these stats affect them normally. Robots are unable to use magic and still have the lowest magic defense in the game.

Also new to the game are transitional forms which a character must go through before becoming the full form. For robots, these are cyborgs who function in a similar fashion to how robots worked in the first game. By installing a few more parts after turning a character into a cyborg, they'll finally become a full robot.