Romancing SaGa: Revenge of the Seven - Hands-On Preview
Romancing SaGa is having a bit of a resurgence. I’d played it way back when, but in the last 10 years they’ve come back into the niche’s attention via remasters. There’s a harshness to the series that really appeals to me, and Romancing SaGa 2 is a critical memory of my early JRPG formative years. I’ve never heard of other people actually playing it, so when I saw it was getting not remastered but remade, I couldn’t help but be excited. In the same way that the Atelier series has garnered a larger fanbase from a standout title, this might be the time for SaGa to enter the zeitgeist.
The first of many changes is incredibly easy to spot; the shift from 2D to 3D. There’s a few things this does for the game. Areas feel a lot more interesting. Still maintaining a sense of loyalty to the original, the change in depth allows areas to feel much grander. Cave path above and below mean that actual dungeons have a sense of adventure in them, something that felt a little lacking in the original. This works equally for cities.
One of the critical things that makes Romancing SaGa what it is is the battle system. Instead of levelling up or learning skills, you gain competency via the Glimmer system. Characters can use any weapon or spells in combat, and at the end of each combat you’ll earn experience in whatever you use. Each level you raise up in this seems to increase the damage but more critically, levels give you a chance when using the attack to learn a new skill. In the original game you couldn’t tell when this would happen, but here it has a nice little lightbulb which shows you have a chance. This also seems to get stronger if you level up and still haven’t learned it. It’s a really nice system that is more information forward. You’ll also earn points into HP or BP (your action points), so some light grinding can be very worthwhile.
Another change I adored was also in regards to the battle system. Enemy weaknesses are actually shown after you trigger them once. This wasn’t true in the original and again, it’s that care with being upfront about information that makes things really shine for this game. It has such weird and unique mechanics that it’s really fun to actually play around with them now that they’re easier to understand.
I don’t mean to harp on about it but one last thing about the combat, I promise. Instead of the old-school style of characters attacking all in the same turn but having no information about who would act, now the turn order (for the next few turns also) is completely visible, which means you can actually try and tactically take out enemies to stop their attacks. Big fan.
If there was something I’m not a huge fan of, it’s the designs of the females. I love cuties as much as the next straight guy, but out of all the women I saw, all of them were fairly buxom and wearing skin tight stockings/tights. I kind of wish we’ve moved past this. If you’re a fan, that’s cool. No tea, no shade, no pink lemonade. For me though, it felt a bit much.
I played through the first dungeon on Hard mode, and it was a pretty good challenge. Characters have Life Points, which decrease every time they’re downed. Once their LP is exhausted, they can no longer be used in combat. Replenishing these points is hard and it would suck to lose a good character, so you still need to be aware of how often people are dying.
I absolutely adored my time with Romancing SaGa: Revenge of the Seven. The original is such a slept on game and the changes they’ve made here are super interesting. The music is great, the levels look good and are enjoyable to explore, and combat feels really rewarding and on the higher difficulties requires tactical play. This is all without talking about the big ‘hook’ for the game, which I think is better experienced than spoken of. I’ve tip-toed around it because all the other changes are super meaty.
