SaGa is a series of science fiction role-playing video games produced by Square, now Square Enix. The series originated on the Game Boy in 1989 as the creation of Akitoshi Kawazu. It has since continued across multiple platforms, from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to the PlayStation 2, and like the Final Fantasy series, the story in each SaGa game is independent of its counterparts. The music of the SaGa series consists of musical scores and arranged albums from various composers. Some of these composers have created soundtracks and pieces for other Square Enix franchises including the Final Fantasy series and Mana series. The SaGa series is divided up between the original series, released as the Final Fantasy Legend series in North America, the Romancing SaGa series, the SaGa Frontier series, and Unlimited SaGa.
The music of the original series was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, Kenji Ito, Ryuji Sasai, and Chihiro Fujioka. Ito went on to be the composer for the Romancing SaGa series, with each arranged album from the series arranged by a different artist off of Ito's work. Ito composed the soundtrack for the first game of the SaGa Frontier series, but was replaced by Masashi Hamauzu for the second game of the series and Unlimited SaGa. Music from the original soundtracks of the SaGa games has been arranged as sheet music for the piano and published by DOREMI Music Publishing, while tracks from Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song were played at the Press Start -Symphony of Games- 2006 concert and Extra: Hyper Game Music Event 2007 concert in Tokyo and a piece from SaGa Frontier 2 was played at the fifth Symphonic Game Music Concert, held in Leipzig, Germany on August 22, 2007.
SaGa
The original SaGa series consists of Makai Toushi Sa·Ga (lit. "Warrior in the Tower of the Spirit World ~ Sa·Ga"), released for the Game Boy in 1989, Sa·Ga2: Hihō Densetsu ("Sa·Ga2 ~ The Treasure Legend"), and Jikuu no Hasha ~ Sa·Ga 3 [Kanketsu Hen] ("The Ruler of Time and Space ~ Sa·Ga3 [Final Chapter]"), both of which were released for the Game Boy in 1990. The three games were published in North America as The Final Fantasy Legend, Final Fantasy Legend II, and Final Fantasy Legend III. The original releases spawned only one album to date, a combined soundtrack album for all three games. Another album was released in Japan on September 9, 2009, SaGa 2 Hihou Densetsu Goddess of Destiny Original Soundtrack, which is the soundtrack album for the Nintendo DS remake of SaGa 2, SaGa 2 Hihou Densetsu Goddess of Destiny. The soundtrack for the DS remake of SaGa 3, SaGa 3 Jikuu no Hasha Shadow or Light Original Soundtrack, was released on January 12, 2011.
The music of SaGa 1 was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, and that of SaGa 2 by Uematsu and Kenji Ito, while the music of SaGa 3 was composed by Ryuji Sasai and Chihiro Fujioka. Uematsu has stated that while SaGa 1s music could be made of better quality, the emphasis was on enjoying the game, and not solely its appearance or sound. The Game Boy's sound hardware was different from that of the Famicom, which Uematsu was used to composing for at the time, with new stereo and waveforms and only three notes; as a result, Uematsu struggled with deciding how to work with these, developing new themes for the music in the process despite SaGa 1s director Akitoshi Kawazu's desire to have the music be in the same vein as Square's preceding Final Fantasy titles. Uematsu has stated that the Game Boy was a system he would like to compose for again. SaGa 2 was the first soundtrack or album that Kenji Ito worked on.
All Sounds of SaGa
All Sounds of SaGa is a compilation album of the soundtracks for The Final Fantasy Legend, Final Fantasy Legend II, and Final Fantasy Legend III. The first album of the two-disc set is split between 15 tracks from SaGa 1 and 19 tracks from SaGa 2, while the second disc holds 20 SaGa 3 tracks and an arranged medley of SaGa 1 tracks by Uematsu. The album was published on December 21, 1991, by NTT Publishing/Square with a catalog number of N32D-007/8 and re-released on December 15, 2004, by NTT Publishing with a catalog number of NTCP-1004/5. The album has a total length of 1:28:18 and 55 tracks.