What's the Deal with Japanese Game Sagas?

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 So, is it just me, or has anyone else noticed this strange trend in video games: in the past 7 years or so, lots of series (mainly Japanese action games and fighting games) have given a fitting conclusion to their main characters and defeated the main villain, only to declare that this is only the end of a single “Saga.” 

Off the top of my head, the five worst offenders of this bizarre trend are:


  • Kingdom Hearts III, released in 2019, which concluded the “Darkseekers Saga” that started with the first game back in 2002. 


  • Guilty Gear Strive in 2021, which concluded the “Gear Hunter Saga” that started with the first game in 1998. 


  • BlazBlue: Central Fiction in 2015, which concludes the “C-Saga” that began with Calamity Trigger in 2008. 


  • Tekken 7 in 2015, which concludes the “Mishima Family Saga” that began with the first game in 1994. 


  • Devil May Cry V in 2019, which concludes the “Sons of Sparda Saga” that began with the first game in 2001. 


In all five situations, the main characters of the story (Sora, Sol, Ragna, Kazuya and Dante) defeated and/or made peace with their recurring nemesis. Sora defeated Xehanort, Sol defeated Happy Chaos and I-No, Ragna defeated Terumi in his ultimate form as Susano’o, Kazuya threw Heihachi off a volcano, and Dante finally convinced his brother Vergil to abandon his world-ending ambitions. After overcoming all obstacles, these characters ended up in situations that were so definitive, it would be next to impossible for them to come back to the fray for a future title in any meaningful way. 


But, in all five situations, the developers also claim that this is only the end of a single “Saga.” And that…doesn’t sit right with me. At all. 


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At a glance, the decision for the developers, writers and marketers to label a chunk of story as a single “Saga” in a larger whole makes complete sense. 


These fighting game and action franchises are massive cash cows, but they were also extremely character-driven from their inception. The developers wanted to create complex and meaningful character arcs for their protagonists, but they didn’t want to burn through the story too fast, lest they lose out on potential profit. So their solution was to wrap up all the loose ends, but then claim that there is still more story out there so fans won’t lose hope in such a rich setting. 


For example, Kingdom Hearts is one of the most well-known crossovers in fiction, and the core premise of “Disney meets Square Enix” is enough to entice pop culture-savvy nerds, but one of the biggest criticisms of the franchise is that the preexisting Square Enix characters never do anything and the Disney locations are obviously padding. Packaging Sora’s storyline so far as a “Saga” is supposed to elicit optimism. Now we have more chances for Disney characters to meet our favorite Final Fantasy characters! Surely this is a win for everyone, right?


But the skeptic in me would disagree that this is inherently a good thing, for a few reasons. 


  1. Labeling your entire work so far as a single Saga puts massive pressure on yourself. Looking at the examples above, some of those Sagas range from seven to twenty-three years long. Is the next Tekken Saga supposed to be as long? 


  1. Slapping a name on the franchise so far implies the existence of a tight narrative that might not actually exist. Kingdom Hearts Coded is technically an installment of the “Darkseeker Saga,” but it doesn’t really advance the Xehanort plot at all. Devil May Cry 2 is technically an installment in the “Sons of Sparda Saga,” but it has nothing to do with Dante’s family relationships because Nero and Vergil are absent. 


  1. In the reverse direction, slapping a name on the franchise so far and calling that Saga “done” locks you out of story directions without looking like a hypocrite. Tekken 7’s ending sets up Jin and Kazuya as enemies in the next game, which makes no sense if 7 is supposed to be the end of the “Mishima Family” Saga. 


  1. More importantly, developers like Capcom, Arc System Works, Square Enix and Bandai Namco have crafted a storyline so intricate and a character so likable that both of them became part of the franchise identity. This creates a Catch-22: if you make a new game and you bring that main character (or main conflict back), the Saga becomes meaningless. If you make a new game and don’t bring that character/conflict back, it ceases to be recognizable to veterans. 


You might say that some of these franchises can go beyond their initial storyline and circle back to the core premise. But I ask: do you think that will actually work? Let’s go through the above franchises and take a look:


  • Is Kingdom Hearts about Square Enix characters running around with Disney icons? Well, a little bit, but that’s more like set dressing. Ever since its inception, Kingdom Hearts has crafted an intricate grand-scale narrative about Xehanort trying to conquer the multiverse. With Xehanort gone, it probably won’t feel the same. 


  • Guilty Gear is a story about magical cyborgs and monsters in a science-fantasy future, but that’s more like a setup for a story about a bounty hunter coming to terms with his traumatic past and complicated family life in the present. With Sol now a normal scientist at the end of Strive, one of the franchise’s biggest selling points is absent. 


  • BlazBlue’s setting is all kinds of crazy, but that setting only served to produce characters in Ragna the Bloodedge’s narrative. It was a narrative about Ragna accepting the trauma of his past, reconnecting with his siblings and saving the world from fate itself. Without Ragna…what even is BlazBlue? 


  • Tekken takes the complicated family to the next level. The entire story has always been about three generations of men in the same family trying to kill each other. Take that away, and you’re left with a generic martial arts fighting game setting. 


  • Devil May Cry is probably the worst example. The cast was so limited that every story became laser-focused on Dante (and eventually Nero and Vergil). Even when the writing team tried to push Dante to the sidelines in 4, they couldn’t ignore him entirely, and you end up playing as him for almost half the game. 


To a certain degree, I think the very same developers who label their entire franchise so far as a single Saga would agree with my three points, and it’s why we never see meaningful follow-up. 7 years after its conclusion, and the only BlazBlue titles released are a mobile game and a non-canon crossover. 


But in never meaningfully following up, a fourth problem is created: by never making another Saga of the same caliber as the first, the developers have made the Saga title obsolete. Labeling the first four BlazBlue games as the “C-Saga” feels like an epic copout because it's becoming increasingly unlikely that there will even be a sequel saga, and at that point, why call it the “C-Saga” at all? 


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Now, I will admit, I am making a lot of assumptions in this essay. For instance, I’m assuming that these games aren’t going to get many more installments because their main characters and/or main villains have had their character arcs wrapped up. That doesn’t mean it is impossible for these franchises to get more installments, but I do think it makes it marginally less likely. 


Each of these franchises have, to some extent, tried to set up a potential “next generation” protagonist who could carry the torch in a new Saga. Tekken has Jin and Lars, BlazBlue has Naoto, DMC has Nero, Guilty Gear has Ky (who recently became a Gear and got his own Dragon Install), and Kingdom Hearts has Yozora. But shifting the series to a new protagonist would only alienate veterans, and it’s impossible to tell from within the confines of a single Saga if a supporting character is even meant to be a legacy character at all. Ky could be the protagonist of the next GG, sure, but his narrative function as a rival has already been fulfilled just fine. Nero could be Dante’s replacement, but he works so well as a younger apprentice / foil to Dante that I don’t think I’d want him to appear solo. 


I hope all that made sense. This essay isn’t nearly as in-depth as I like to get into, but I still thought it was worth discussing. At the end of the day, I do genuinely hope that each of these franchises continue, but I wish these companies would be more transparent about their future plans from the start. 


This is Nexus Analysis, and I am signing off for now.

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