WayForward’s returned to a number of its past games and series with different types of remasters and rereleases, and the latest brings back the GBA cult classic Sigma Star Saga with a DX remaster and bug-free release. In addition to rebalancing and updates, it features a number of other additions to ensure it will be an optimized experience on consoles and PCs. To find out more, Siliconera spoke with WayForward Creative Director and Sigma Star Saga Creator Matt Bozon about the updated release.
Jenni Lada: We’ve seen WayForward work on quite a few remasters to bring games to more modern platforms with enhancements and updates. How did your experience with past releases, especially the recent Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution, influence Sigma Star Saga DX?
Matt Bozon: Completing Shantae Advance 20-plus years after pausing development was a great opportunity on its own. But the side effect was that we had the original dev team back and working together on the old tech and refamiliarized with our early 2000-era tools. Making new builds of the original Sigma Star Saga was far less daunting, and it was the perfect time to fix legacy bugs and add quality-of-life features.
WayForward developed Sigma Star Saga during a period of time when the company was working on a lot of licensed games based on kid’s properties like Barbie and SpongeBob SquarePants. How did working on an original IP like this kick off, and what challenges did the company face when working on it while also handling those other obligations?
Matt Bozon: Back then, I was running the handheld group, which had grown from the original three-member Shantae GBC team into about a dozen people. We’d been keeping the lights on by working on various licensed titles while building the Shantae Advance framework with the Scorpion King on GBA, and the other titles you mentioned. My goal was to bring in new directors and build new teams so that we could work on multiple projects at once.
Unfortunately, as games based on kids licenses became all the rage, budgets and schedules got smaller as the bargain bins at Toys R Us and Target started to fill up. It started to feel like we were nearing the end of GBA as a platform, and Nintendo DS was on the horizon. There was a point where we’d knocked on the door of every publisher to no avail, and decided that, given the state of the retail games business, it was time to give up on Shantae Advance.
Things would turn around with the advent of digital distribution a few years later, but in the meantime it was good news for Sigma Star Saga! Coincidentally, Namco reached out soon after with hopes of catering to core gamers with an original game. We’d get creative freedom in exchange for a reasonably small budget. WayForward’s GBA staff and tools were reaching the limits of GBA by this time, so it set us up for something high-quality and big on inspiration, as long as we could stay within the budget. The resulting game became a fan-favorite, and one we look back on fondly!
One of the changes in Sigma Star Saga DX involves balance adjustments regarding random encounters and EXP. How did you fine-tune these changes, and how influential were fan feedback and the original Sigma Star Saga reviews when you worked on that element?
Matt Bozon: We’d kept screen grabs and scans of any letters or message boards from fans over the years. The first thing we did was dig those up and start looking for feedback. Then, we went to sources from fans over the last 20 years who likely discovered the game during that time. We addressed that feedback, but also completed some features that were unfinished and never made it into the final game, such as marking objectives on the map. On top of that, I made a lot of changes based on having two more decades of know-how. Improved hitboxes, rebalanced weapons, making dialog more concise to the point, trying to make the tone more consistent in places.
The biggest change is the pacing. Reviewers in 2005 loved the game’s ambition, but it was frequently called out for having too many random encounters and not enough EXP, which we went in and tuned. I worked closely with Shantae Advance and Sigma Star Saga programmer Michael Stragey, who had written the GBA engine and game framework 20 years ago. And this time we had the benefit of WayForward’s QA team, which didn’t exist back then! What you have in Sigma Star Saga DX is similar to a modern day patch or update.
What’s the biggest bug that got squashed in the Sigma Star Saga DX release that you can discuss?
Matt Bozon: There were a few. There are a lot of randomly shuffled elements in the game that make it different every time you play. The ship you pilot, the enemies you face, and the location changes with every battle. In the original game, it was possible to pilot a large Star Destroyer-esque ship, but be spawned into a narrow tunnel that was too small to spawn in – resulting in a game over. There were also some cases of neverending battles due an enemy spawning, and some weapon combinations that fell flat.
The original Sigma Star Saga was notable for its multiple endings. Are there any changes to that in the DX release?
Matt Bozon: I won’t spoil the endings or how to achieve them, but they have been preserved.
Now that Sigma Star Saga DX is done, could we see WayForward return to something like the original Wiiware version of the game LIT that goes back to its original 3D roots instead of the PC and mobile version that swapped that for a 2D approach?
Matt Bozon: We love our past works, so if fans are interested in seeing some of the favorites make a return, please let us know!
Sigma Star Saga DX will come to the Switch, PS5, and PC on April 7, 2026. The original game is available on the Game Boy Advance.