Humans

Humans are a race who populate the worlds of SaGa. They approximate real world humans in appearance, being bipedal animals approximating the shape of gorillas and apes. Though they share said worlds with other beings and fantastic creatures, humans often make up the bulk of the populations and playable characters. In the early entries, the player can create their own avatar and humans are one of the races available as a choice.

Despite the physical differences involved, it is shown that humans can have physical relationships with Espers and Monsters without consequence.

In SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha, humans who devour monster meat can be transformed into a monster themselves, and some humans have no issue with augmenting their bodies with cybernetics, turning themselves into cyborgs or even full robots into the process. However, in most other games, humans can not transform into monsters.

Makai Toushi SaGa[]

SaGa Humans — Game Boy Version (Left: Male Human, Right: Female Human)

Humans are one of the three default races the player can choose to make their avatar. While humans begin as the weakest of the three races, they have the potential to become the strongest fighters in the party. Humans do not grow stronger through battle, unlike in most RPGs, but instead need to consume special stat raising items sold in most shops in order to raise their Strength, Agility or HP. There are no consumable items to increase Defense, which means they need to wear items in order to do this.

Humans are unable to learn magic or obtain skills, instead they have a larger inventory screen at their disposal and can equip all types of armor. This often means that humans will eventually have greater defensive capabilities than the other two races. Additionally, humans can equip a wide variety of weapons giving them strong versatility in battle. In addition, several pieces or armor and weapons offer the humans stat boosts or special passive protections as long as they are equipped. Humans are also likely the best choice to carry healing items into battle since have more inventory space than the other races.

Due to a glitch in the code, humans have a significantly higher cap for their stats than what the game can show. The counter will stop at 99, but both Strength and Agility can be raised to 254 before the stat rolls over and starts them back into single digits. In a similar fashion, HP can be raised to well over 2000 despite the counter stopping at 999. These factors means that a human can easily solo the game if the player is willing to grind for it.

The major downside of Humans is their expensive cost to maintain as well as their inability to use Magic with any effectiveness. While humans can equip Spell Books, their Magic stat can never be raised making their use of spells worthless.

Humans do have gender but the differences are negligible. Males have slightly higher strength while Females have slightly higher agility, but these differences are made meaningless due to items. When choosing the main character's sex, it does affect starting equipment as the male player character begins with a weak Long Sword, easily found in the first world; whereas the female will start with a Saber found on the fifth floor of the Tower. For this reason, many players opt for a female MC since the Saber can be sold for enough money to outfit your whole team from the onset.

SaGa 2 Hihou Densetsu[]

SaGa2 Humans Art — Game Boy Version (Left: Male Human, Right: Female Human)

Humans return as one of the four races players can choose for their player avatar and party. Humans have been radically altered from the previous installment in terms of ability and leveling. Instead of using items, Humans now level up like Espers, but unlike Espers, they can never naturally learn spells. Humans can now use magic competently, but they must equip Magic Tomes in order to do so.

Battling stronger opponents will open the possibility that the human will gain a stat boost in their HP, Defense, Strength, Agility, or Magic. Like the leveling system found in FFII and SaGa 1, these stat upgrades are influenced by what type of equipment the character uses in battle. Striking with an Agility based weapon will raise the likelihood of the characters agility to be raised in battle. Using magic will raise magic ability. Course the likelihood of raising a stat also depends on the internal enemy level of the opponent they face. Humans can only raise one stat per battle in the original, while in the Remake, they can raise multiple stats per battle like later entries in the franchise.

Despite these changes, Humans maintain one of their chief advantages from the first game, which is the largest inventory set. Humans are more dependent on their gear than other classes but have the most customization options.

Stat Raised	Best Method	Probability
Hit Points	Regular Battles, taking damage.	Common
Strength	Using Strength-based Weapons	Uncommon
Agility	Using Agility-based Weapons	Uncommon
Magic	Using Magic-based Weapons and Magic Books	Uncommon
Defense	Using Shields in battle	Very Rare (1%)

In the DS Remake, Humans now have Proficiency levels with each of the ten weapon types which are mastered by using those weapons by using those weapon types in battle exclusively. Higher levels increases damage potential.

SaGa 3 Jikuu no Hasha[]

SaGa 3 drops the character creation system, instead Dune and Sireugh begin the game as humans as their default.

Humans no longer have as many advantages as they did in previous installments. Their main strength comes from getting the most out of weapons as humans will usually do 2x more damage than the other races. They also retain their ability to equip most armor, but due to their lower magic ability, they can't take advantage of some of the game's better magic based weapons. Their overall stats are average making them versatile but with few advantages over other races. They are more strength based than Espers.

Humans and Espers act as the neutral classes in the game due to the new transformation system which allows the player to turn their characters into any race/class they wish by eating monster meat or installing monster parts.