Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a turn-based RPG developed by ArtePiazza and Square Enix. It is a blast from the past from its original Debut in the early 90s when the JRPG genre would slowly become more and more prevalent in console home entertainment. Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Ultima would be some of its elder brethren, aiming to achieve their fanbase, story, and popularity.
One thing about the Romancing SaGa series that would either assuage or refrain gamers would be its unique take on the genre’s gameplay structure. Starting right at the beginning of most Romancing SaGa entries, the player can select between many different characters to begin their Journey. What can players expect from this remake of a 16-bit Japan exclusive? Find out in our Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven review!
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven
Developer: ArtePiazza, xeen inc.
Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: Windows PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 Nintendo Switch (reviewed)
Release Date: October 24, 2024
Price: $49.99
Those who are familiar with the more recent Octopath Traveler series will be familiar with this approach because it gives a lot of freedom to choose.
In the case of Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, the game takes a slightly different direction where the player must temporarily take the role of Avalon’s current king, Leon, and his youngest son Gerard.
Hoping to educate Gerard to be a worthy magistrate of the royal family, he takes him along for a small excursion to a sealed cave where the player begins their adventure. Not more than a couple hours into this prologue, disaster strikes the two protagonists and a new heir must be chosen.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven boasts the most engaging turn-based combat since Persona 5 and even the recent highly rated Metaphor: Refantazio.
Much similar to Octopath Traveler, Weaknesses must be exposed to gain an edge over the monsters you will face, creating a scenario of having to go based on the monster’s appearance or by randomly fishing between weapons and spell elements.
Though always going for an enemy’s weakness is wise, it isn’t crucial in the lesser difficulties as monsters have much lower health pools. If you so choose to go with the “classic” difficulty, perhaps not.
As battles continue, you will learn of your new dopamine injection known as “Glimmers” which will randomly occur when you fight. These new attack and magic commands will take your encounters further with new options.
Each glimmer skill usually branches out into learning more, such as Double Cut eventually teaching you Cross Cut, an effective sword technique against undead.
Lastly, constantly hitting an enemy’s weakness will fill a gauge that will allow your party to perform devastating combo attacks. It is a must for dispatching bosses or even groups as fast as possible.
Customizing your retinue of heroes is an ever-growing pursuit of many different options. As in most RPGs, it’s wise to grab a beefy tank, which is available right at the start with the character Bear, a heavy infantry who will serve you well as your wall of defense.
Need some heavy-damage pumpers? Look no further than the Light infantry heroes such as James and John or their female counterparts Jessica and Audrey who, based on gender will have many different stats and weapon specialties.
Sex matters and there are only two to choose from, no more, no less than two, So choose wisely! Apart from those two entry-level jobs are available from the start, expect to discover many more as you explore the game’s many missions and side stories.
My personal favorite, the Female Vagabond excels in both bow and martial arts which has a lot of advantages in both early and late game. She’s also got a lot of personality and a very cute design, possibly one of the best female designs to ever be on a screen.
Though Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a remake, it does have some new features apart from its original counterpart. One particular feature that caught me completely by surprise was the ability system. Each class now has a unique “ability” that grants them a passive with an extraordinary effect.
If you unlock the Female Ranger’s ability “corruptor”, it will massively increase the chance of inflicting status ailments.
This is an absolute must if you wish to stun enemies by preventing them from acting entirely with early learned abilities like stun slash or Feint. This strategy saved me a lot of deaths playing in “classic” mode as it gave me a very strong chance each turn to prevent a boss from attacking outright.
The fun with abilities not only stops there, but once an ability is learned, it is possible to equip it to other heirs and characters, allowing for a much more vast array of tinkering and customization among your retinue. The Heir system is where Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven takes selecting your protagonist to a whole new level.
While not being able to do it right at the start during your time as Leon and Gerard’s story ends, a large time jump incurs, and you get to pick from a pool of classes who shall inherit all of the abilities from your recent retinue. Skills and magicks they have learned thus far in your playthrough are all essentially passed on to the next.
This may be somewhat perplexing to an average RPG enjoyer, but once they see that the newly selected Heirs retain all of their previous heirs’ abilities, progress is by no means lost, despite having to select a fully new roster.
In addition to building your Heirs, Avalon, your kingdom must also get stronger. Through the use of very large spending of your collected money, you can add facilities to aid your adventure against the seven heroes.
Some facilities such as the blacksmith or even a magic institute to allow training in advance magic are selectable, but the cost to develop facilities is very pricey.
This opens the realm of having to make choices with much more weight as the loss of all your money to upgrade can prevent you from getting consumables or necessary weapon and armor upgrades from shops.
The story itself isn’t exactly the most deep, but certainly the most involving one. The Seven heroes are out to stake their claim on the world after being corrupted by evil magic. With the help of liberating the nearby territories, there is a chance to put a stop to them.
If there was anything to complain about regarding this, is more because not a lot of actual character development happens as all of your retinue past Leon and Gerard are essentially generic heroes.
But this is all saved and excused due to having fleshed out and enticing adventure itself along the way. Treasure at every turn during dungeons, boss encounters, and a constant supply of side quests that earn money or character classes.
After a certain milestone is achieved, there is a time skip. This is when you must select new heirs to take over and a lot of other exciting changes take place. Blacksmith crafts in the previous heir now become available to purchase in shops, and any tech learned up until then also becomes available to learn at the castle tutor.
The music is exactly what one would expect from the great Kenji Ito. High energy, electric fast music that fits the setting. The option to even go back to the classic versions of the music is also available with no extra download needed by simply going to the settings.
On the other hand, so is the difficulty slider. This upset me because I played most of the game in the hardest mode only to realize there was no point in doing so. No reward, and no form of achievement whatsoever. If I were to lower the difficulty, I could just raise it back up as if there was no point to any of it.
Video games of all kinds need to stop doing this once and for all, it adds nothing to the game and only serves to damage the commodity of the game’s harder experiences. Sadly, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is another victim of this contemptible and unforgivable design practice.
As a remake, this game deserves praise far more than most with the same goal. To relive an old classic but with a more modern take.
A more recent game that aimed to do this, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake does not. Juxtaposing both of these Square Enix titles, I can say in full confidence that Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven pushes the envelope much further.
New features like the ability system, character models, and even the overall interface and presentation feel much more thought out when compared to Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. If a remake is going to be a project, a lot more needs to be done than just a few visual effects and updated music.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven without a doubt succeeds in spades in this department over the other mentioned square enix title. On the other hand, another very successful and fantastic remake done by Square Enix’s people would unarguably be Star Ocean The Second Story R.
Remakes and remasters are everywhere nowadays and the thought of it is honestly quite sickening and very bleak for the future of the gaming industry. The endless supply of remakes and rereleases of successful games sounds good on paper, but in reality, it’s a grift to get people to pay for the same thing at the cost of creativity, and having to spend nearly nothing to put it out on the shelf.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a flawless JRPG experience. It takes an old gem masterpiece from the golden age and refines it into an epic masterpiece with an AA budget than what Square Enix typically spits out of its mouth. I’ll be enjoying this game for a long time, as well as the heirs to come.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven was reviewed on a Nintendo Switch using a copy purchased by Niche Gamer. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is now available for PC (via Steam), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
