This remake is the first time the original Asdivine game has been released outside of Japan, and a good jumping-on point for the series

Asdivine Saga is a remake of the very first Asdivine game, enhanced with various quality-of-life features: dungeon pillars that control the encounter rate or summon battles; the option to quickly skip past cutscenes; the ability to warp to a dungeon’s entrance at any time; and fast travel to any previously visited town or dungeon from the world map (fast travel is disabled during certain story segments).

Older versions of Asdivine Saga were not available to players outside of Japan, so this remake is a blessing to fans of the series, and to fans of Maidame Curie, Jolie Curie, and Lucy Curie. Unfortunately, the Curie family aren’t directly involved in the main story or any side-stories; they just run the Guild and the Arena.

This review is for the PS5 version, played on the highest difficulty of Expert. I encountered a softlock during autobattle once, in thirty hours of playing. The softlock forced me to reset and I lost a few minutes of grinding progress. Autobattle saves so much time when grinding that I recommend using it in spite of the softlock bug; just remember to save frequently…

…and always keep a backup save in a safe area! Unlike most current Exe-Create RPGs, Asdivine Saga can and will temporarily alter the party’s composition, often without advance warning. The main hero Vyse may have to fight alone, or another party member may become unavailable for part of the story. Fortunately, this happens infrequently enough that the party’s experience levels shouldn’t diverge too much. There were also a couple of mid-game dungeons on an island, where the party didn’t have complete control over a ship yet, fast travel was disabled, and it seemed like there was no way to backtrack to a town that sold supplies.

A few other inconveniences linger in Asdivine Saga. While an in-game Shop item lets the player turn random encounters off at will, there is no way to force battles with every step. Even the in-game Lure Ring just raises the encounter rate; it doesn’t force immediate encounters. This makes hunting overworld monsters more tedious.

Level grinding is unfortunately required on the highest difficulty setting of Expert. Lower settings are presumably not as punishing, and the difficulty can be changed at any time out of combat, but be aware that Expert is not completely balanced. The first major boss on Expert is particularly vicious; the Testing Grounds have random encounters that are far more deadly than its first training instructor; and reaching a certain midgame dungeon requires travel through a world map zone with monsters that will obliterate the party on Expert (there is a consumable item that temporarily turns off random encounters, if the player doesn’t want to buy the Shop ring).

Playing on Expert isn’t a total grindfest; it’s only sometimes that natural progression just isn’t enough to beat the next storyline boss, even when the player takes advantage of powerful ring accessories, customizable weapons, in-game panel rewards, and prizes that the Arena sells. Notably, the optional postgame bosses do not require the maximum level of 999 or maxed-out statistics to defeat on Expert. Their recommended level is 550, and they can be beaten at much lower levels.

Asdivine Saga is fairly short, mostly because its dungeons are small and often reused as the story progresses. The postgame is more robust than one might guess. Completing all Jobs leads the player to four bonus mini-dungeons and a postgame optional boss; the Secret Arena provides more optional bosses and rewards; and half of the sidequests are postgame-exclusive.

One gripe about sidequests is that there’s no in-game way to tell when and where a sidequest is available, other than just searching every town and castle for an NPC with a marker over their head. At least one sidequest just forces the player to search every barrel in every town or check a guide. Some postgame-exclusive story scenes involving Vyse and his female companions have only subtle hints as to what triggers them. I believe these story scenes are prerequisites to accessing some of the endings…

…and oh boy, does Asdivine Saga have endings! There are eight possible endings, six of which require a party member’s trust to be maxed out (getting that last 5% can be difficult without a Shop purchase), three of which require postgame progress in addition to trust. The player can refight the final boss to see other endings at will.

Although there is at least one shocking and extremely memorable moment in the story of Asdivine Saga, it’s mostly just a standard save-the-world fantasy plot with some comedy relief. Asdivine Saga could qualify as a romantic/harem comedy, although there isn’t much emphasis on romance between the hero Vyse and his three party members except in some of the endings. Thankfully, the one party member who is apparently under 18 (Akane) does not become romantically involved with Vyse while she is underaged – even in her special ending, romance doesn’t develop between the two until three years later.

Another amusing and impossible-to-overlook aspect of the characters is that the main hero Vyse and his close friend Axel (a major NPC) have very familiar hairstyles. Vyse could almost pass for Final Fantasy VII’s Zack, and Axel apparently goes to Sephiroth’s barber. Their personalities are different from the iconic RPG legends, but their outward appearances are a little too close.

Asdivine Saga’s gameplay is Exe-Create’s satisfying core formula. There is very little originality other than Akane’s unique ability to combine items, but the thrill of the challenge, the tactical planning and preparation, and the fun of gradually powering up and customizing weapons are all here. Oh, and the Trust gauge is incredibly broken overpowered, once it becomes available.

Asdivine Saga is my recommended jumping-on point for the Asdivine series, and not just because its original version was the first Asdivine game. Asdivine Saga’s story isn’t directly connected to the other games; it can be played after any of them, but it’s short and sweet, and gives a good feel for what an Asdivine game is like.

This previously "Lost" 1st Entry of EXE Create's Harem RPG Series Finally Escapes Japanese Feature Phone Purgatory w/an Enhanced Remake for Modern Hardware--So How Is It?

Gameplay: This is an enhanced remake of the VERY FIRST ENTRY in the Asdivine series, which was a 2008 Japanese Feature Phone release (that later got a straight emulated port to Android via JP Google Play Store around 2013.) It’s gameplay has been modernized to be more in line w/Asdivine Kamura (which was then the newest entry of the Asdivine series prior to the release of this remake and other newer EXE Create RPG’s released around the same time.) Asdivine Saga Remake features lots of the same QoL stuff that many of EXE Create’s newest RPG’s have (including monster pillars/adjustable enemy encounter rates in dungeons, less tedious weapon upgrading, along w/a prompt button for easily fast-forwarding dialogue [useful for going for each ending.]) I should also point out that ASR [the PS5 port at least] has an annoying bug that can cause you to softlock while autoing battles, which can be a real issue while grinding. Asdivine SaGa Remake also has a minimap while exploring dungeons, which is nice. Asdivine SaGa’s remake will come in around 20 hours w/the Postgame contents completed, making this one pretty short.
Controls: I played this on PS5 w/a controller so this was a no-brainer (Your mileage may vary on iOS/Android, though)
Story: This game’s world of Asdivine has been horribly devastated by a terrible war between two kingdoms: Lightoria which worships the element of Light and Zandark which worships the element of Shadow. Caught in the middle of this is Nondia, a third power who represents the Void element and whom our main character (a jerkwad mercenary named Vyse) belongs to. Vyse and his friend Axel go to try and save some of their fellow Nondians from being kidnapped by Lightoria’s army, which sets in motion an epic adventure that will lead our main character to the truth about the war and devastation that’s going on in Asdivine. Being a remake of the very first game in the series, it has a tragic and somber tone that some later Asdivine series entries (such as the Hearts duology) just don’t quite measure up to.
Battle System: Asdivine Saga’s combat is your usual turn-based fare, and in a change from Asdivine Kamura, brings back Trust Charge skills that run off a separate gauge from MP and character-specific Break Skills. One of the characters you get has the ability to combine consumable items you find mid-battle to support your party or easily destroy your enemies (à la Rikku’s Mix Overdrive ability from Final Fantasy X.)
Skill System: You learn magic by leveling up your characters proficiencies in the 3 elements of Void, Shadow and Light. Early on you’ll acquire spirits (and eventually delimiter rings that are purchasable via Battle Arena Coins from the Battle Arena Exchange) that let you learn from the elements opposite your characters’ natural elements. Break skills and Trust Charges are earned through simply leveling up, and the spirits you acquire as part of the story can give your characters access to each other’s Trust Charges, too. Unfortunately the only way skills can get powerful in battle is through repeated use, but thankfully, this is pretty much a non-issue in this game.

Simplistic yet intriguing (if someone only wants combat review, skip to the 4th para)

This is coming from a guy who has only played a 5 or so rpgs in his life but has an uncanny love and addiction to rpgm turn based combat games. Even I don’t know why I love them so much. If you are like me, keep it up!

I watch a lot of anime so taking reference from that the story’s end is kinda predictable after the first 1 hour gameplay only. But don’t let this fool you into the thinking it’s not good and it’s a linear line to the end, you will be surprised 😉

Basically it’s another Stud Mc with a harem type of rpg, I will say that firsthand. I personally despise harems but it’s handled really well. Each girl has its personality and redeemable feature and it doesn’t involve the fawning and tsundere BS you see in others. THIS was for someone who would throw it away after seeing the harem nature immediately. DON’T. This appears to be harem type but is not. Just consider the light princess to be a girl and the other 2 as boys and nothing will change.

Now, for the combat. The combat is simplistic but surprisingly fun. Anyone on any site who says, that, (and I have seen a few) they played the game on auto and enemies die like fodder, play it on easy or normal🤡. It might be too simple at the start but as you level up, your playstyle gets more options. You can get a wide variety of skills by the mid game which you can use as you prefer. There’s this interesting ring synthesis system that allows you to either solidify a character’s existing role or mould it into something slightly different. It’s not much but it’s appreciable that it’s there. If you think you are good, try the arena mode on the guild, that’s gotta give you something challenging. There’s no end game tho. So by the point you best the final boss, you will best the arena too. But it’s still worth going tho, there’s no way you can do it on auto without a biiiiig level gap.

Each character has one element to it. Which can be changed to multiple element wielding and unlock some really powerful moves which aids combat even more. And it doesn’t even require you to grind! I played the game no sweat (well… A few sweats atleast😅) without grinding at all. so don’t worry about that either. You can either grind or pure skill beat the bosses.

A fair warning though, easy and normal are not worth it as enemies are garbage level weak. And Expert, the highest difficulty is not worth either. The enemies are damage sponges and beating them will require you to grind unnecessarily, as most will one shot you if you don’t grind towards end game. Hard is the perfect balance towards no power creep and challenging enemies without them one shotting you needlessly.

An underrated Gem

There may or may not be some spoilers.

When it comes to KEMCO (EXE-Create) games, you can always expect fun (although sonetimes repetitive or similar) experience. Having too high expectations can ruin that right off the bat.

Asdivine Saga is not a perfect game. But it is also not too bad. The story may be a classic “Sealed being breaks the chains to possess someone to get enough Power to destroy/cobquer the World” but it is told in an enjoyable way. The Battle System is great, the plot twist may be expectable but adds to the overall experience and Character designs are amazing (especially our beloved Maidame Curie)!

We have one.. No. TWO Princesses who don’t need saving from any Castle, a sole survivor of a sad event and an Arrogant guy who wants to save his friend..
.Overall, Asdivine SaGa is a game worth playing; It does not excel at anything but it is fun to play as long as you were not spoiled by other games. The biggest issue you could find here is lack of Post-game content since there is none.

Not that bad

But not that great either; A bit “more of the same”.

Guess too many Asdivine Titles out there, makes harder to Saga to compete. It has some interesting things and is kind of a prelude to the other games, and as I said ─ it is not bad.

But I also fail to see anything exceptional or which leaves me impressed. It is not bland as in lacking something, it is bland as in, you’ll play and… forget. It is so unremarkable that I struggle to find a way to describe the game.

It was not bad, probably was worth my time, but…
…I really can’t remember anything worthwhile about it.
And what I remember, is not enough to write a review about it.

It might be competing for the apex of “generic RPG game” group.