Good parents want their children to grow up to be happy, healthy, successful, and loved. While you can do your best to impart good values and lessons onto the next generation, you can’t decide on their behalf what they’ll get up to as they grow up. Yet in Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, that’sexactlywhat you can do, and not only do you get to decide what happens to several generations of your family, you’ll play a campaign as each one and continue working to expand the family empire.
You play through Romancing SaGa 2 as seven generations of a single royal family, beginning with King Leon of Avalon who’s tasked with maintaining peace and order in the kingdom while also investing in its development as a newer settlement. You’ll need to carefully balance the economy of Avalon as it develops, with set amounts of cash in the royal family’s reserves with which to work.
The game isn’t all about sitting on your throne and barking orders though – Leon’s lineage is full of warriors, ready to battle when push comes to shove. But nobody lives forever, and when it’s time for your current reign to come to an end, you’ll choose the next heir and pass on your abilities and skills – and then play as that heir for their entire life until it’s time for them to pass on the crown, too.
In the demo I got to try at PAX West, we played as Gerard, the soft-spoken, redheaded second king, eager to do his best in King Leon’s absence. His father has only just died when a group of garish goblins begins ransacking the castle town, but some warriors from Leon’s rule are unwilling to support Gerard as king until he proves himself. As such, Gerard takes off running through town with the few fighters who stuck with him, and I got my first taste of SaGa’s combat.
This classic JRPGmodernizes the combat of iconic ‘90s-era games in the genre, providing a smooth 3D experience as myself and my three warrior cohorts launched our first attack on the invaders. Fighting alongside me was the tankish knight Bear who fought gallantly with a broadsword, and James, who was incredibly deft with spears. There’s multiple ‘physical damage’ types in the game, meaning there’s damage to consider from each type of physical weapon, as well as from all the spells in our arsenal. Each enemy type had weaknesses we needed to discover by performing each kind of attack in the hopes of it doing the most damage, which would then be displayed below their health bar so I never forgot which kind of attack to use.
One of the most interesting things about Romancing SaGa 2’s combat is how you gain new skills in the middle of battle. Each attack in a teammate’s command list has its own skill branch, and the more you use said skill, the more it develops. This is telegraphed with a lightbulb icon next to the command in battle, and the brighter it shines, the more likely it is that that skill will level up the next time you use it, so I honed in on a few attacks to bolster them.
When skill evolution happens, the teammate immediately uses that new attack instead of the one you asked them to, and from then on, it stays in their repertoire. This makes each team feel customizable past just getting to choose who comes along for the journey.
Once Gerard and company took care of the goblins, others from Leon’s reign were more willing to join the cause now that the new king had proven himself, so I rearranged my party before setting off again to infiltrate the Goblin King’s hideout. Bear and James stuck with me, but I added Andromanche, a colorful pink-clad archer who was easily my favorite of the bunch, and a warrior who had been vocal about Gerard needing to prove himself first – just fall in line, dude.
Romancing SaGa 2’s combat, like a lot of older JRPGs, is heavily shaped by your team’s physical formation during battle – the character at the front is more likely to be hit by enemies, while the one at the back is least likely, forcing you to strategize based on everyone’s max HP. Since my giant friend Bear had the most HP, I stuck him out front to defend the group while everyone else focused on dealing damage. We had to heal Bear a couple of times, but that was a small price to pay for safety.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven originallylaunched in Japanin 1993 forthe Super Famicom system, but never made it over to the West – until now. Despite having never heard of the SaGa series until setting up my appointment to see a game that’s almost the same age as I am, I thoroughly enjoyed the demo.
Despite having half an hour to spend with the game, I still didn’t feel quite ready to put it down when my slot was up. What do you mean it’s time to move onto something else? The Goblin King is literally in my sights, please just let me shortsword him to death real quick.
With games like Persona being some of my all-time favorites, getting sucked into Romancing SaGa 2 felt really natural to someone like me, who thrives in turn-based combat that takes affinities into account with each strike. I’m really eager to play with my team setups and find my best configuration for each generation when Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven launches later this year.
PAX West
PAX West began life as the Penny Arcade Expo, a celebration of gaming culture hosted by the creators of the titular webcomic. Held in Seattle, it draws over 100,000 visitors.
