Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven

Pros: Good game so far, very well polished with excellent graphics and sound. Cons: However, I am not a fan of the gameplay. The technique learning system actively punishes you. A character can't learn more than 8 weapon techniques and 8 spells in total. What is this, Pokemon? This severe, unfun limitation does not add depth or strategy to the game, it's just irritating.

Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song is one of my favorite games, but I don't think I could recommend it to most people. Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven on the other hand, I can recommend to basically anyone who likes JRPGs with my full chest. Minstrel Song had a very interesting art style that I would personally describe as serene, but was definitely off putting for a lot of people (including myself at first). RotS in comparison does not reinvent the wheel, but it is significantly easier on the eyes. There is a time mechanic, but it is nowhere near as punishing as Minstrel Song. Where Minstrel Song had me micromanaging and dodging enemies in order to keep time from passing, RotS had me excited for the opportunity to jump to the next generation. The inheritance system is largely responsible for this, I believe, as I progressively took emperors from opposing classes and ended up with a final empress that was basically an ubermensch that could wield whatever weapon and cast whatever spell I needed of her in a manner far superior to any standalone class (though I think that's partially intentional based on some of the guides I've seen). Where Minstrel Song (as well as 3 which I hope also gets the remake treatment now) had specific named characters, only the first two playable emperors (and the last that you name yourself) are explicit characters with some manner of backstory attached to them. Everyone else is a silent protagonist selected from a pool of playable classes, many of which you unlock through completing quests. Character stories take a backseat to experiencing the environments and cultures of the game, which is typical for SaGa games. You basically just build your party out however you see fit, and the classes are fluid enough that you can mold them into largely unexpected builds that make you feel like a genius when you pull it off. My final party was my Uber Empress, an Amazonian Healer, two mermaids slinging water/wind/light spells (they're separate classes, but both mermaids), and a lizard man that just tore through everything with an axe and his fists. The Magic system is spectacular, probably my favorite in gaming. Since there is no requirement on learning basic spells (more powerful spells need you to be a certain level in their skill), everybody can learn magic. The only "hard" restriction is you can't have one character learn magic from opposing elements (fire mage can't learn water spells, earth mage can't learn wind spells, light mage can't learn dark spells). But even that can be overcome with the right equipment. The Amazonian healer was a complete accident. I initially just gave her an earth spell that buffed her strength, then I unlocked an earth-water spell that fully healed an ally and removed any status ailments. My lizard man had earth magic too, but he couldn't learn water magic because lizard men are innately good at fire magic, so the Amazonian ended up filling the role perfectly. I genuinely could go on forever about the stuff I love about this game. I love that it's an RPG where the Empire are the good guys and not just in some "take the good with the bad" sense. I love that you get to BE the emperor. I love the bug men villains. I love the tragic, eponymous Seven. I love the classes and the character designs. I love that the post game dungeon was just me steam rolling through it so I could prepare for NG+. I love that the game kept my attention so effectively that I beat it within a month of first starting it. I love that it's a remake that pays its respects to the original (to the point that it almost restores my faith in the concept of remakes). I love how little the game holds your hands and just wants you to go out and do things. If you've been recommended the series in the past, you've probably heard it described as something like "Elder Scrolls" or a "CRPG" but made by JRPG developers. I can understand why people would say that, but it's really doing the game a disservice to reduce it like that. There's so much more going on here. Any game even remotely similar to SaGa owes most of its inspiration TO SaGa. Even if some of the weirdness of the franchise scares you, I can confidently say this game earned my money and time. If you're a JRPG fan, I'd say it will earn yours, too. The game goes on sale for as low as $25 nowadays and that is frankly a steal for as much content I've already received from it and how much more I'll get out of it in a NG+ playthrough. Long live the empire and long live SaGa!

Just buy it, it's a fun game. Not quite sure how to word it, but I've always wanted to play more JRPGs like DQ8 or Eternal Sonata, but sadly most good ones (I assume anyway) are locked behind 7th gen consoles. On PC it's slim pickings if you want an actually fun JRPG that captures the essence of those older games that came out in the 2000s. Those more light-hearted, cartoony/cell shaded JRPGs that just feel "right". DQ11 in theory is just that, but only on a surface level, hence I was very disappointed when I played it last year, after half a decade of waiting for a larger sale. It's very mediocre and lacks passion for pretty much everything from the writing and plot, to the graphics and gameplay. Basically it's not even half as good as DQ8. I am not super fond of 2D either, so while there's a ton of 2D DQ games, including a couple ones on PC too, I just don't really care for those. This game I came across by pure chance when someone talked about it in the general discussions and I checked it out, and there were a few hours left before the sale ended. Ended up buying it with a couple of minutes left on the sale. In short, with the preamble out of the way, the game's overall very good. Combat feels rewarding and challenging enough even on normal difficulty, and the difficulty you can also change pretty much anytime you want to. There's a wide variety of classes, attacks/skills, spells and special techs your characters can learn. During combat your party's also in a formation, which influences your overall stats and how likely/unlikely enemies are to attack/hit certain characters. With one formation for example the character in the back's harder to hit, and the character in the front is more likely to be attacked but also gains defensive resistances. Certain attacks also have special AoEs, so like, maybe a shock attack that rips through your party as a straight line, hitting the front, center and back. Some of your attacks are like this too, like a lightning whirlwind that hits horizontally in one row. Enemies as always also have weaknesses and resistances, but hitting attacks with the former builds a special meter that you can use for tag team attacks, where the current character attacks and the next character in the order follows up right away (using up their upcoming turn, but skipping an enemy's turn, if there's an enemy turn in-between). Also, health restores between battles, "BP" (used for most attacks) doesn't. Before most/all dangerous encounters you get a save point and a BP restoration point though. Enemies are also visible in-world and you can attack them early for a slight advantage, there's no random battles. The story progression is also non-linear, so you may get quests at village A and not B, while during another playthrough it's switched. You can choose where to go and which area(s) to tackle in which order, which can change the outcome of the story up ahead. Every now and then you're also forced to pass on the crown (and all of your skills/stats) to a new lead character. The first time this happened the game forced me, but the second time I did it on my own accord. At any time you can go to your throne and choose to pass on the crown and reign over the kingdom to another character, which I think is semi-random(?), between some of your party members, or some of the available party members you can hire at taverns. And yeah, at taverns you can switch out party members, in the castle in the trainings facility you can learn (old) skills and techs on new characters. Oh and I forgot to mention, skills generally are discovered mid-combat. Certain attacks/skills will have a lightbulb next to them, which means that using it right now can trigger a new skill to be executed and then permanently learned too. Besides that, there's other buildings too, like a smithy that lets you commission new weapons with found materials, and an academy where you can learn (and research I believe) spells too. These buildings have to be built first though, which requires funds and a bit of time. And yeah.. that's what the game is.. you battle a lot with your posse, learn, discover new skills and help villagers and Co. around the area to expand your kingdom's reach, which in turn lets you upgrade your own castle and town even further, and increases your passive income too. The end goal's to defeat all seven "heroes" I assume, but I reckon there's more to it. So far I've expanded to only a tiny bit of the world map, maybe 15%, and I've beaten two of the heroes. It's fun to tackle quests and locations in my own way and shape the story through it. Now, some technical information: The game runs incredibly well, even though it's UE4. Overall the graphics definitely don't match 2024 (year of release) standards, but that doesn't really matter to me. The game overall has a nice artstyle, nice lighting (especially inside houses when the light comes through the windows) and the only thing I'd criticize really is the lack of a proper resolution slider and the fact that sometimes, sometimes, I can see LOD pop-in. Now, I think both of those things can actually be fixed with UUU. UUU unlocks the console in this game, so you can use commands like r.screenpercentage to change the render resolution. Haven't tested if it sticks between re-launches, but it's definitely nicer to use a higher render res to make the game look sharper, more detailed. Anti-aliasing doesn't really benefit from the increased render res, at leasty with TAA on. It's roughly the same, just a lot sharper with more details if you render at 150-200%. LODs may be able to be changed too via UUU, I haven't tried that yet. Mainly because LOD pop-in is pretty rare and I am rarely noticing it. Just editing the ini/cfg files, instead of using UUU, may work too, haven't tried it either. Other than that.. Game's 20GB installed and also a 20GB download. They let you rebind your controls, even for controller, and also toggle/change various HUD elements. Oh also, NO DENUVO!!! Thank the heavens. Thank the lord Square doesn't put Denuvo on every single game they put out, just their bigger IPs. Hopefully it's zero one day. The UI overall is very stylish and adds to the game's flair and artstyle. I do wish the attack/skill list was "taller", fitting 5 or even 6 attacks instead of just 4, making it a bit nicer to navigate, but eh. The options, specially just the options aka settings, could've also been better, layout-wise. Gameplay, graphics, controls and so on, it's all in a giant list. Your cursor position is remembered between exiting the menu, but still, would've been nicer to have sub menus for gameplay, audio, graphics and controls. But again, those issues aside I love the UI too, it looks stylish and for the most part works very well in most menus. Buuut yeah. Game's great. Is it great because it's a remake/re-imagining of a 20+ year old SNES game, and most core gameplay elements carried over from it? Most likely. But I think that there's more to it and the developers of this game, xeen Inc., did an amazing job with this old IP. It's very clear that they cared and this wasn't just a half-assed rush job like DQ11 or so many other games being remade these days. There was a lot of passion put into this game, from the voice acting to the UI design and everything else, really. Here's hoping Square noticed how well they did and these guys get to remake another SaGa game in the future, or maybe even make an original one. There's actually quite a few of these SaGa games and I cannot wait to see what might be the next title they get to work on and put out there for us to play. I am really stoked. [spoiler]Here's also hoping Square lets em remake DQ8 and improve it with all the 3DS QoL enhancements, on top of adding new things. That would be lovely.[/spoiler] Me to Square: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3781982745