Back at the very start of the year, one of my goals was to dip my toe into Square’s long-running SaGa franchise finally, and to thank my vigor in completing this goal, Square has graced me with not only one new SaGa game with Emerald Beyond (check out my review HERE) but also a full-blown remake. While at PAX West, I had a chance to check out a 30-minute demo for Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, a modern recreation of the second game of the SaGa franchise, and I came away feeling far more comfortable playing this than I did in my first half hour of Emerald Beyond.
Developed by the team that brought us Trials of Mana a few years back, this latest rendition looks to offer several elements that I found to make this a more approachable and modern-feeling take than any previous attempt. To set the stage, I have played roughly an hour or two with the 2017 release of Romancing SaGa 2, which was the West’s first (official) taste of the game, and regardless of how many times I tried, I always bounced off of it. But, even with having only spent a short time with Revenge of the Seven, I can already tell that I want to spend more.
The demo I played gave me two choices—to deal with a goblin horde attacking the city or investigate a sunken ship later on in the game. I opted to deal with the goblins. Aside from the redone visuals (which, by the way, look great), the major new thing that I took note of was the additional information that is provided to the player during and after combat. In the original and 2017 remakes, not much information or UI was presented to the player, and actions for a turn were assigned all at once, as opposed to a character’s turn. This has all been fixed with the inclusion of a more traditional Square Enix interface, complete with a bar that shows turn order, character bars displaying health and SP at all times, and even a small light bulb next to skills that have a chance to “Glimmer” – the SaGa series’ method where a character will have an idea mid-combat and learn a new skill. These all may not sound like ground-breaking additions, but they do truly help make the game more newcomer-friendly, and I’m thrilled they’re here.
Difficulty has also been adjusted, with the new default “Normal” setting being toned down a bit from (what I’ve been told) the relatively punishing difficulty of the original game. For fans of the original, you can still get that same challenge, however, in the added “Hard” mode, which specifically mentions that it is based on the original game’s settings.
Now, from everything I have heard, Romancing SaGa 2 is a complex beast, with its inheritance system and such. Unfortunately, with only 30 minutes to spend with the game, I wasn’t able to experience those systems. Hopefully, the considerations that the team has taken regarding updating the interface and gameplay will continue onward through those areas as well. At the very least, what I did get to see has me a lot more excited and open to diving into this new remake.
While I came away from my time with Emerald Beyond early this year with a positive opinion, it still was an experience where I felt like I kept having to figure out how to have fun with it – like I was trying to cram a square block into a round hole situation. I eventually came around on the game, but it took some struggles to get there. Even in my short time with Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, the game feels far more grounded in my comfort zone of RPGs, with stats and information clearly given to me, a good amount of challenge, and unknown horizons spread out before me. Luckily, I won’t have to wait too long before I can continue on in my saga into the SaGa series with Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven, releasing on October 24 on PlayStation 4, 5, Nintendo Switch, and on Steam. And if you want to get a taste right now, you can download a demo right now!
