We had the opportunity to check out Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven ahead of its worldwide release and we’re here to tell you all about it.
I admit to not knowing much about the SaGa series before encountering this game, but when I heard that this game was a remake of a title released in the 90s, I was definitely intrigued. The original Romancing SaGa 2 was released in 1993 for the Super Famicom (the SNES in Japan). 31 years later, the game has been remade in 3D as Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven.
For this review, I played the game on the Nintendo Switch.
The Story
The game’s story centers on the Kingdom of Avalon over the course of centuries as a series of rulers defends the kingdom against the seven legendary heroes turned villains. Which leads me to what is perhaps the most interesting element of this game: the player takes the part of not just one ruler, but many, over the course of the years. And as the years pass and rulers change, all the skills that ruler has learned pass down to their successor.
This is such a fascinating gameplay mechanic, not least because it’s the player who chooses who each successor is. That means everyone is almost guaranteed to play this game differently and spin out a different story of the kingdom.
The goal is to eventually defeat the legendary Seven warriors over the course of generations. This can be done in pretty much any order the player chooses, the game allows for a lot of narrative freedom the further you move into the game.
The Gameplay
On the face of it Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a standard RPG game. No matter which ruler of Avalon you’re playing as, the gameplay is just about the same: you have a variety of quests you can embark upon, parts of the kingdom to upgrade, NPCs to talk to, all standard RPG things.
That might sound boring but it really isn’t. In this game there is always something to do, or something new to upgrade. And the best part is that once the introductory story quest is over, the player is free to pursue these actions in any order they would like. As far as I can tell, there is no set order the quests have to be done in, though some side quests can prove useful for larger quests.
Turn Based Combat and Exploration
Most of the player’s time in the game will be spent in combat and making their way through various dungeons in order to reach a given quest objective, usually defeating a boss enemy. The game allows the player to change up the “retinue” that follows whoever is Emperor, allowing players to employ various strategies based on which NPCs are with them and the various weapons they use.
Combat is turn based and the player has unlimited time to choose which attack (or defense) they would like to use for that character’s turn. More powerful attacks can use BP points (similar to mana points), but be warned, BP does not replenish unless at very specific places inside a dungeon and so those attacks need to be used strategically.
It is also highly encourage to diversify what attacks the Emperor and their retinue use. The game rewards the player for improving as many weapons skills as possible, and given that different monsters are weak against different things, it is in the player’s best interest to have as wide a range of attacks, both physical and magical, at their disposal as possible.
It is also very strongly encouraged to explore as much as possible. The various maps are full of crafting materials and treasure chests filled with gold that can be spent towards kingdom upgrades. The crafting materials don’t really come into play until later on in the game, but trust me when I say you need to start collecting these as soon as possible, it will become very necessary as the game goes on.
Confusing Maps
Unfortunately it’s not all good news. While the many quests are fairly straightforward and it’s obvious where one needs to go to complete it, some of them are, well, not so clear. For instance, there’s an early quest that requires traveling into the city sewer in order to locate and destroy a given monster. It sounds simple enough, but the layout is so confusing that it was close to ten minutes before I realized I’d been moving in a circle without getting any closer to my objective. It was a further twenty minutes before I finally gave up and abandoned the quest entirely as I simply could not determine where I was meant to go and was tired of running into the same monsters over and over again.
Thankfully, not all of the dungeons have that issue, but it is an issue. As detailed as the game world is, some of the dungeon areas just look the same and if you’re not paying attention to the map, you might end up doubling back without realizing it.
A Game Worth Playing
All in all, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a wonderful game to play and more than a worthy remake of the 1993 original game. Though some of the game areas have layout issues, the overall game is well crafted and will easily suck the player in for hours of gameplay at a time.
