The SaGa series has always been one that eluded me for one reason or another. I wouldn't say it's for lack of wanting to try to get into it but I guess part of me has always been hesitant to get into a series that has, as far as I know of, always been divisive and mixed amongst JRPG fans. Even though the people that love it certainly do love it. Interestingly enough, this game isn't exactly my first experience with the SaGa series. In fact, it wasn't even a SaGa game to begin with. My first foray into the series, if you can even call it that, was "The Genius of Sappheiros". A fan-made Touhou Project RPG released in 2010 that at the time I only knew was heavily influenced by the SaGa series. To this day, that game remains one of my favorite games of all time as well as one of the most difficult JRPG's I have ever played. Encounters and boss battles are brutal, further complimented by game systems that up until then I had never seen nor was I very familiar with. Systems that were far more in-depth than I initially thought and failed to take advantage of at times, such as formations and an incredibly extensive skill tree for each character that could be re-specced at anytime and completely altered the way they'd play. Bosses were more often than not a puzzle that you had to figure out through trial and error. It all culminated into one of the most frustrating experiences I've had as well as one of the most engaging ones. I'll stop here before I start talking about a completely different game. Back then, I didn't know where the "heavy" SaGa influence started or ended and what was exclusive to Touhou itself, a series already know for being a difficult bullet-hell. With such incomplete knowledge, I always wondered whether I really wanted to go through such an experience again in the form of the actual SaGa games and ultimately, I never did. Until now. After having spent 50 hours with Romancing Saga 2 Revenge of the Seven, I am pleased and honestly a little surprised to say this is one of my favorite games of the year and quite high up just in general.
Before I can begin to say anything, It's important that we understand this game's systems and mechanics and why the series tends to have a notorious reputation of being unwelcoming and difficult. The first thing I noticed is that there is no traditional leveling system. Rather than having your characters level, they instead gain TP after each encounter. TP works as EXP where it instead levels up your HP, BP(mana), the proficiency of the weapon-type, and spells that you may have used during that encounter. The higher the proficiency, the more damage you'll do with that weapon or spell. Traditional stats like STR, DEX, MAG, etc. are there but are determined by your equipment and the class of your party member, with each stat being tied to a particular weapon type or two. That said, any class can be proficient with any weapon so long as you equip them with that weapon and use it, though your damage will still be influenced by their particular class' stat spread, so it's generally better to just stick to what your party's classes are already proficient with. Techs(skills) are not gained by leveling up but instead by what the game calls "Glimmer". As your proficiency rises, when you use an attack or tech you already have, there will be a chance you can glimmer a new tech. This chance, either low or high, will be denoted by a light bulb icon next to your normal attack or tech that you use that's either dim or blinking. The chance is further raised based on whether you're fighting strong or weak enemies. Not only can you glimmer new techs yourself, but being attacked by certain moves will allow you to glimmer the techs used against you, allowing you to equip them under a separate category of "Evasion". Each character is allowed to equip four techs as Evasion and it simply means that you will always evade that particular tech no matter what. This is honestly more important than you think, as various enemies and bosses will use particularly powerful techs across the entire game that can be quite devastating. The frequency of their usage means you'll often have the chance to glimmer them eventually, though it's also very possibly you just won't. That said, even if you don't, there are plenty of alternatives for you to defend against particularly powerful techs so it's usually not a huge deal. While this Glimmer mechanic sounds like it can lead to some very unfortunate RNG situations, and it honestly probably will, I found that it all felt very natural so long as you're actively trying to glimmer and not skipping encounters. Classes also determine what kind of techs you can glimmer, by which I mean later classes will be able to glimmer more advanced techs of weapons that an earlier class was also proficient with. I should mention that the game explains all this rather well and succinctly though I can't say if this applies to the original game(the manual it came with probably explained all this). One last stat to take note of is LP, which varies across classes. LP basically serves as "lives". When a party member falls in battle, their LP will decrease by one, and once it reaches 0, they will permanently die and will be unavailable to use for the current Emperor's generation. If your current Emperor, the main character, reaches 0 LP, you will instead have to choose one of your party member to succeed you instead. I will explain more on this later.
So if there's no leveling, then how does enemy scaling work? From what I understood, enemy scaling is based off the amount of battles you engage in, likely tied to the amount of TP you have gained. Initially, you might think that you're not allowed to grind and are encouraged to skip battles for fear of making enemies too strong but that's actually not the case at all. In fact, I felt that enemy scaling rarely ever mattered. I played the game as I would any other JRPG; hitting every encounter (enemies are on the overworld) as I went through a dungeon, with only occasionally skipping some now and then. I also took time to get into encounters purely to try and glimmer new techs which is technically what "grinding" is in this game. Rather than proficiency and new techs I found what matters the most is formations, class composition, and above all, equipment. This leads to the Emperor mechanic that is unique to this game amongst the SaGa series. Your main character takes the role of an emperor and with that role you are tasked with developing your kingdom. One of the things you will develop is the smithy that will produce the majority of your weapons and armor. Equipment in this game is crucial to your success. Aside from obvious Phys. and Mag. Defense, they often provide you with much needed stats to round out a class better as well as resistances to elements and aliments. Weapons you find in chests also often come with unique techs tied to them that either break the weapon upon use or allow you to glimmer new techs that will be tied to that weapon, often very useful for when you first initially find that weapon. Class composition is also crucial for fairly obvious reasons I'd say. You generally always want a "Tank" and for your melee/ranged and magic dps to be well rounded and not overlap in their proficiency. Formations, which are what they sound like, are how your party will be placed on the battlefield and dictate multiple factors such as increased/decreased damage, defense, aggro, speed, etc. based on each individual's position. The game encourages you to play around with all these mechanics as you'll often find that some classes are just not good for the current dungeon or boss you're trying to tackle, or perhaps you'll want to opt for a more aggressive formation over a defensive one. You will be engaging with the menu a significant amount of time and it's a far more important aspect to your success rather than just leveling up your proficiency or worrying about enemy scaling.
Finally, there's the Emperor mechanic that is also tied to the main narrative of the game. As previously mentioned, your main character takes the role of an Emperor, with your main task to ultimately defeat the Seven Heroes. This is not a simple task, and is in fact one that will span multiple generations and Emperors. The first Emperor, Leon, and the second, Gerard, are mainly used as a prologue and to get the narrative started. When playing as Gerard, at one point you will trigger a time skip, one that is quite jarring as the game up until then makes no mention of when or how this will happen. It made me just a bit sad as I was honestly fond of Gerard though it did lead me to understand how this game will work going forward. Each subsequent Emperor, which you will choose from amongst classes you have currently unlocked, will inherit the memories and proficiencies of the previous Emperor, which, if you're making sure to keep your Emperors varied across various proficiencies, will ultimately culminate in your final Emperor being a super character that can basically cover any role possible. Each class is also able to provide you with a new formation you can choose so it's very important you have as many different classes be Emperors as possible. As you begin your journey, the map at the beginning will be littered with quests to the point where it felt a little bit overwhelming as to where to even begin. These quests often involve helping out people or territories plagued by one of the Seven and often lead to eventually facing one of the Seven, as well as unlocking classes and getting these territories to join you against the Seven. I should also mention that when I say classes, I don't mean your characters get to choose a class but rather a character that represents that class joins your retinue. This means you'll eventually have quite the colorful cast of characters to choose from in your party composition journey with enough variety in classes for each proficiency.
There's far more details to everything I've tried to explain and plenty that I've missed but all of that is provided to you in the game itself. I am unsure of how the original worked, but this game provides enough tutorials to the point where I don't think it should ever feel particularly overwhelming or unwelcoming. The only mechanic that isn't properly explained is how time skips work. From what I've gathered online, time skips work on a hidden value system. This value is influenced by the quests you complete as well as the number of battles you do, with each adding to this hidden value. Once this hidden value reaches a certain point, the next quest you see to completion will trigger a time skip. It should be noted that specific quests and events will ALWAYS trigger a time skip no matter what. Lastly, a time skip also occurs if your entire party wipes in an encounter, prompting you to choose a new Emperor to succeed you. As previously mentioned, if your Emperor loses all their LP without a party wipe, you will instead choose one of your party members to take the role of Emperor. As you might imagine, it's very important you keep multiple save files. There are events and classes that are easily missed if their quests aren't completed within a certain amount of time skips. The non-linear nature of this game means that unless you are playing with a guide, you're very likely to miss out on events and classes depending on the routes that you take and the order in you which you defeat the Seven. I'm fairly certain you also have to an extent manipulate the hidden value and take note of how many battles you do in order to fully optimize a route that ensures you get everything possible. This, however, should not discourage you as I feel this is honestly part of the charm. There's nothing wrong with doing your first playthrough with a guide, but seeing these events unfold naturally as well as the consequences of putting things off or not completing them before a time skip do add to the game's charm and to the simple but effective narrative. But again, do keep multiple save files.
All of this comes together to provide what I believe to be an incredibly satisfying and engaging JRPG with a surprising amount of depth to it, if a bit overwhelming at first. If I had to point out a weak aspect, it would be the narrative. The narrative isn't bad or even weak by any means, but one must understand that this game focuses primarily on it's gameplay aspect over its story, which to me, as some might already know, is something I almost always appreciate. The narrative naturally falters when it comes to dealing with constant time skips. You can leave some quests half finished, complete another, trigger a time skip, and still go back to the half finished quest with the same npc's still there waiting for the previous, and now dead, Emperor. It's a little silly but considering narrative isn't the focal point, it's very easy to simply overlook it and pretend your current Emperor is the one that started and finished to quest to begin with. While your Emperors past Gerard won't really engage in narratives unique to them, nor will your party members every really interact with each other, the game will provide you with background on the Seven Heroes, a crucial aspect in order to understand why the Seven are what they are and why they now seek revenge on a world they once saved. This is done through memories you can find across the world's various dungeons and are very difficult to miss. The story they tell of the Seven is simple but effective enough at letting you understand their motives and even at times support their cause. For what it is, I really enjoyed the game's simple story and was pleased it allowed me to mainly focus on playing a game with very minimal interruptions that often come in lengthy story beats in any other traditional JRPG. It provided just enough background to be engaging and to feel the grand scope of it's idea of going against the Seven across multiple generations.
Upon starting the game, there's three difficulties you can choose from; Casual, Normal, and Hard(Classic). Of course I opted with Hard, as it implied this was the intended difficulty of the original games. In my honest opinion, outside of the beginning where you're stumbling and getting used to the learning curve, the game isn't that difficult. The early game difficulty stems from your limited selection of classes and formations which, as I've stated before, are very important to you succeeding in the game. As you naturally get more of these, your options open up and allow for a diverse selection of tactics you can choose from should you ever find a boss or dungeon giving you trouble. And even then, the non-linear nature of the game means you can simply choose to do something else if you're getting pummeled. One more aspect of battling is that all enemies have weaknesses to a specific weapon type and/or spells. And by hitting weaknesses, you fill up your Union meter. You are able to spend your meter to initially chain two attacks that will deal increased damage and ignore enemy resistances. Over time, this two chain attack will eventually increase to a five chain attack. There are plenty of tools at your disposal and the game expects you to use them. That said, I did get party wiped numerous times, especially at certain bosses. While I could opt to carry on with that loss, choose a new Emperor, and form a new party, I just loaded to a previous save. It's not really possible to know what exactly you'll need going into a boss so it's fairly common to wipe against some bosses. I'm honestly not sure how time skips work in that regard as I never let it happen, but I do know that unless you wipe a few times, you won't really be able to have every single class be Emperor at least once, leading to you missing various formations for a single playthrough. Regardless, so long as you are engaging with the game's numerous mechanics, I never felt like anything was particularly difficult to the point of being infuriating. There were moments where I entered an area and proceeded to get absolutely destroyed by its enemies but like previously mentioned, I simply went somewhere else. Difficulty can also stem from your own party composition which to an extent I can understand. Each class has a passive that is unique to them and that they unlock after participating in a certain amount of battles. This means that you'll naturally want to keep your party composition varied whilst still maintaining a composition that can tackle dungeons without much difficulty. This becomes even more important over time as you'll eventually be allowed to equip characters with up to 2-3 of these passive abilities, further rounding out your character's strengths and covering their innate weaknesses. The game wants you to play with it's mechanics and it's very clear that it even expects you to do so and balances itself around that. I often feel that games like these become notorious for being unfriendly simply because one doesn't take the time to actually learn what the game expects you to do. I could understand if the originals failed to provide QoL and tutorials that are now common in more modern games and remakes, but even then, these games are now more than ever easier to get into and play.
Music is something I am more or less neutral on when it comes to this game. You have the option of using the original soundtrack, or the modern one, both of which are quite good. The issue here being that while the music is good, it's also very limited compared to what you'd expect from a traditional JRPG. A large part of this is due to the lack of story beats you would generally encounter over time in any other RPG. Other than towns and dungeon vistas, battle music in particular stays the same through the entire game, with bosses having the same track across all of them, and the Seven Heroes sharing the same track as well. The boss track is good, and the Seven Heroes track is great even and always succeeds in setting a grand mood to facing a being once considered a hero. But as for the rest of the soundtrack, I wouldn't say anything ever stood out or stuck with me compared to something like a Final Fantasy game which has very iconic tracks. Nonetheless, the music is good and the final boss track is really good.
One particular nitpick I have that is the result of the game being a remake done with fully rendered 3D models is the loss of boss spritework. Bosses in the original and in other games like Final Fantasy as well, often had huge spritework much larger than that of your characters. Octopath Traveler is the most recent example I can think of that does this, but I really liked that detail. It made bosses feel much more grand than if they just kept it all to scale. With fully rendered 3D models, you lose this aspect as it would look quite silly if a normal guy was suddenly much bigger than you in battle than in a dialogue or cutscene with them. Though some of the Seven Heroes take the form of now hideous and large fiends, some of them retain most of their human form and felt a little underwhelming to fight when compared to the spritework they had in the original. Even then, this game still manages to make the Seven in particular feel like grand battles. They are likely to be the most difficult fights you'll engage with and each one even has their own intro, furthering adding to their "cool" factor. The loss of spritework, while a shame, is not a big deal nor does it affect my enjoyment of the game, but it's something I feel I should mention. Partly because I think this game warrants a section on just the final boss alone, which in my opinion managed to be much more grand than in the original.
After defeating six of the seven heroes, you will face the last hero still standing in the final dungeon of the game, guarding the corporeal bodies of all the heroes that need to be destroyed in order to truly defeat them. Upon defeating the final hero, you will be allowed to face the Seven Heroes in one final and frankly, very epic battle.
Yeah, that's them. The ball. The Seven Heroes. My initial reaction went along the lines of "Huh". They didn't even have their own intro. I figured there was more and was quickly proven right. With each turn, Each of the Seven Heroes begin to partly emerge from the ball, attacking you with a limited pool of attacks they used in their normal battle. As they each emerge one by one, you'll find very quickly that you might be a little inadequately prepared for this fight. Preparing your party for a hero is one thing, preparing your party for the entirety of the Seven Heroes? That's something else. Very early on, I mentioned glimmering techs you could equip for evasion, and honestly I rarely ever engaged with that mechanic. I never felt the need to ever have to set up evasions for any particular boss and felt that the standard buffs/debuffs were enough to get me through. Not here. For the first time, I had to go back and see what evasions I even had that could help me out. Thankfully, I had a few, but not enough to cover every hero, and certainly not to cover the attacks unique to this fight. Nonetheless, I did what I could and went right back in. This battle feels like the culmination of what SaGa leads up to. You HAVE to use everything at your disposal in order to fight and defend against the Seven Heroes. One mechanic I never even explained was the Elemental Affinity mechanic. And that's because I honestly never engaged with it either. When an element is constantly used in battle, it sets the affinity to that element, thus making it stronger when it's used, but also providing a heal at the end of every turn for any units aligned with that element. This never mattered except for a few of the battles with the heroes but it mattered alot in this particular battle. Not only are you thinning yourself out defending against and attacking the Seven Heroes, you also need to watch that the element affinity is never in their favor, lest they receive a MASSIVE heal at the end of each turn. It's crucial that you make sure a character working against their element doesn't get incapacitated or you will quickly find yourself losing progress as the Seven begin to heal. Once all the heroes eventually emerge from the Ball, halfway into this grand battle, you are finally met with their best intro yet.
Their complete form is now accompanied by them being able to use chain attacks against you, a mechanic only used by you, the player, thus far. You now have to defend and figure out how to survive against something you had never dealt with up until now. These are not just the "Villains" of the game, but instead you realize that they truly are the Seven Heroes, beings who once saved the world and were very much the main characters of their own grand adventure. It's only fitting that they are able to use the same mechanics you thought were only unique to you.
This battle took me almost two hours to complete. It's the hardest battle in the game by far, not to mention quite long. I had to go back to the drawing board numerous times, switching up techs, equipment, and trying different formations. I considered starting a new party comp from scratch but I was really stubborn and wanted to complete it with what I already had. By the skin of my teeth, I eventually came out on top. Their chain attacks are very difficult to defend against and on my very final attack I was able to defeat them before their next chain attack that would definitely wipe me. In every sense of the meaning, this really felt like THE final battle. Surprisingly, nobody was permanently killed. Shoutouts to my tank who took some of the most devastating attacks and was constantly being revived to be killed.
The ending of the game is extremely satisfying. Again, while the narrative was very simple, it still managed to be incredible effective. Seeing the adventure come to an end was as satisfying as it was melancholic. The final sequence of the game has you walk through your throne city, with each of the characters you've unlocked as classes roaming around and doing their own thing, finally ending with you setting your crown down at the throne, the party members you cleared the game with right behind you, depicting a bond that only they are privy to. It honestly got me a little bit emotional.
After clearing the game, you are able to tackle the postgame which includes one more dungeon and a superboss. Once you clear this, you unlock New Game+ as well as not just one, but TWO more additional difficulties; Expert and Romancing. Difficulties which I assume are expected to be tackled under NG+ with all your equipment and proficiency levels.
Romancing SaGa 2 Revenge of the Seven is a phenomenal game that puts game above all else. It has a surprising amount of depth and difficulty that is very well balanced and tied to how well you can make use of it's mechanics. It is a simple but grand adventure and without a doubt a top contender for my GOTY. While I would love nothing more than to do another playthrough under Romancing difficulty and attempt the optimal 100% route, this game is long. There are other games I need to play but rest assured that this is a game I will be more than happy to come back to in the future.
