Romancing SaGa 2 (Super Famicom, Nintendo Switch, 1993/2017)

 "And lo! Even as he laughed at despair he looked out again on the black ships, and he lifted up his sword to defy them. And then wonder took him, and a great joy; and he cast his sword up in the sunlight and sang as he caught it. And all eyes followed his gaze, and behold! upon the foremost ship a great standard broke, and the wind displayed it as she turned towards the Harlond. There flowered a White Tree, and that was for Gondor; but Seven Stars were about it, and a high crown above it, the signs of Elendil that no lord had borne for years. And the stars flamed in the sunlight, for they were wrought of gems by Arwen daughter of Elrond; and the crown was bright in the morning, for it was wrought of mithril and gold."

Romancing Saga 2 is a Super Famicom game from very early in the system, and I wasn't sure if I'd ever get to it. Luckily it got a sharpened-up port a few years ago which presents an interesting opportunity. This is basically the original game directly ported, only with sharper graphics (PS1-level - and widescreen - instead of early SNES-level). Now there's a new, 3D port out as well. I'm checking out the 2D port as it's closest to the Super Famicom original while simply gorgeous-ing it up.

Too bad they haven't done a similar direct HD port of RS1 (no interest in the oddball-looking PS2 version or its remake), because I'd like to complete the trilogy with that one if I can stand it. Then again, RS1 is said to be so bad that perhaps it's best if I just unburden myself from what has been on that one. Let's go!

While other SaGa games sometimes give you a choice of heroes at the beginning, this one throws you a curveball. The intro presents the legend of the Seven Heroes, who...

...that's right, saved the world. Would be crazy if it turned out these seven heroes were actually the characters from RS1. Either way, we won't be playing as them, because...

...yep, the Seven Heroes poofed. Wait, what? I was definitely expecting something else from the game (the Seven Heroes being the characters you choose from). Turns out this game doesn't follow the same style as RS1, RS3, or SaGa Frontier where you have a group of very different characters to choose from at the beginning to be the main for the duration. Instead it has you going through a series of characters over the course of the game and making character choices between chapters.

These "seven heroes" don't look very heroic. Are we sure this isn't the Gazel Ministry?

We get a gander at all of them as they fly into the screen. Two of them are chix!

WHOA! Easy there, Nintendo! Looking at gorgeous lady-bags is very bad in some countries! We'll get an M rating if the wrong person sees this.

In the present day, monsters are popping up everywhere and harassing the good people of Avalon Kingdom. What's behind this sudden resurgence of monsters? And where are the seven heroes?

One thing is very cool right off the bat. You can start New Game Plus at any time in this game. Not sure I can remember any other game that allows that. This carries over some things but not others:

Carries over:

-Some items (consumables, not key)

-Abilities that you've learned and "banked" (i.e. finished a chapter of the game with them so they're added to the permanent ability roster)

-All your money

-Character skill levels (for instance, if any given character is level 10 in Fire spells and level 18 in Swords, that'll carry over)

Doesn't carry over:

-Character HP...you're starting from scratch on that one

-Upgrades made to the home base (Which means no learning any advanced skills/spells for a while, until it lets you unlock the appropriate parts of the base again)

-Monster level (This is HUGE, because in this game the monsters get stronger the more battles you've fought. After a while they can get very nasty and outpace your characters. Switch to NG+ and the monster levels are reset to their base, which is a massive help)

It's good to start a NG+ right after finishing a chapter, if you're going to do it. Chapter endings give your party some nice bumps in power, as well as saving all the new abilities you acquired during that chapter. I'm really glad this feature exists, because this game can get very confusing if you aren't following a guide, and it's possible to find yourself not knowing what to do midway through. However, a quick jump to NG+ and you're back at the beginning with enemies reset and can speedrun to where you are while getting even more powerful.

You have one character choice, and it isn't the seven heroes I expected. Nope, you chose whether this unnamed Future Emperor is a guy or a lady. That's it. I named him Pecil, after Paladin Cecil, because he kinda looks like Pecil.

This is your character for the third act of the game, so he's out of the picture for a while. Think Dragon Quest IV here.

The game begins with the third act Emperor in a bar, while a bard sings about the history of the kingdom. We'll get back to this situation much later on, because right now we're going back in time. Way back in time! Like 800 years back in time. That's right, this game transpires over generations. Like Phantasy Star 3, just not...bad.

Avalon is the core of the game, the main city of the main kingdom. You play as the Emperor, whoever that is at any given time. This is pretty awesome, and a departure from the usual RPG where you play as an assistant pig-keeper or a random soldier or a merchant beaver-man or something. Nope, here you're no pauper, you're THE guy.

800 years earlier...Emperor Leon is battling his way through a cave with the help of his trio of trusted bodyguards (and his son, Beloved Children's Muppet Gerard the Completionist, before he ruined his good name by taking six weeks to comment on a scandal)

Yep, this is a SaGa game alright. For formation we've got the Imperial Cross, which puts the Emperor safely in the center and a weaker caster type in the back. In this case, that's Gerard, who starts with like....nothing for skills and extremely weak. There's a reason for that, though.

You can actually just turn around and leave the intro dungeon without doing anything there, and proceed with the game. However, this probably isn't the best idea because:

A) You get a decent bit of money in here

B) The "battle difficulty counter" quietly goes up to 10 anyway if you fight fewer than 10 battles in the cave, so you might as well fight a few. Otherwise you're just letting the enemies get stronger while your characters aren't*

C) Supposedly the game can bug out and be immediately un-finishable if you do this, as in no other areas will appear on the world map. That's only in the SFC version, at least, as I understand it. It's good that the game's sole hard-lock is right at the beginning.

* - The more battles you fight in this game, the stronger enemies get. It's supposed to be a scaling situation, but it's very easy for it to go awry if you fight too many battles without really leveling your characters (aka excessively grind in a place with weak foes).

The 10 battles the cave adds to your counter won't make much of a difference. However this raises a question. Is grinding bad in this game since you're powering the enemies up? Yes and no. Yes because they could outpace your characters after a while, especially if you aren't getting equipment upgrades to match them. No because it takes a long time for that to happen and you can get pretty strong in the meantime. One thing that could work: Grind a lot in your first playthrough, then NG+ when things get too rough.

However, if one just wants to play through a single time, you're fine just fighting battles normally as you go and not worrying about grinding. Probably gives you enough power to get by, without jacking the enemy level up.

This game SEEMS all complicated at the outset, but it really isn't. It's somewhat experimental, and designed to be played experimentally. Your party is always getting more powerful, one way or another, and gets stronger even if you wipe out.

Back to the game... Gerard is the weakest character we have because he neglected his training and instead focused on studies, something the game wants to remind you of a lot. What is he, Gohan?

Victor, the Emperor's other son, thinks Gerard should be an administrator instead of being out in the field. He has a point. Gerard would probably be much happier staying in and completing things anyway (books, presumably).

Emperor Leon has received word that one of the Seven Heroes has been spotted in the land...and seems to be leading the rampaging hordes of monsters that are appearing. What? But they're supposed to be heroes! It's right there in the name!

Perhaps they got too close to the abyss and it stared back. Other SaGa games have flirted with this concept.

Avalon Town is where a lot of the micromanagement goes down. And this game loves micromanagement. I'm really enjoying the Suikoden-esque graphic update on this port. On a big screen it's nearly as pixelated as the Super Famicom version, but it looks very good on a portable Switch.

"I gotta push myself hard if I'm gonna complete this game!"

Leon heads out to deal with a goblin menace in a nearby cave. I like how this Emperor just goes and fights his own battles. It's kind of not smart, however. This kingdom must have a lot of Emperor turnover.

Before you talk to Leon and re-form the party, it's good to bring Gerard over to this lady. She'll teach the spell Fireball, which is very useful here (especially for otherwise-weak Gerard). It's gonna be tough to find spells for the first bit of the game, so this is important.

There's an R&D division at the castle (not to be confused with BFG Division, the greatest battle theme of all time). You can give these guys huge amounts of money and they'll develop powerful equipment for the empire to stock in the stores. At least, it SEEMS like a huge amount. This game gives you tons of money from chests. So this 400k is more like 4k in a normal RPG.

It's easy to sleep on this R&D stuff and not even bother with it. It's very important, though. And it takes a bunch of battles for them to finish whatever they're working on, so it's important to bop over here between quests and get something new started. The equipment these guys make easily outclasses what you can normally get in shops.

Next is the first real dungeon. It's a cave, no big whoop. This would be a good time to mention that your characters have LP, like RS3 and SaGa Frontier, which means permadeath. However it's way less of an issue than it is in those games, because you have a zillion replacement characters back at the castle. Even your main gets replaced upon death, as you choose a new heir. The downside to this system of having an army to choose party members from is that very, very few of them are actually characters that get any sort of development.

If I can get past the near-insurmountable challenge that is... Bone Heads, I MIGHT just have a shot at winning this thing.

Win battles and, if you're lucky, a character will gain HP. This isn't quite full-on random stat growth like Final Fantasy 2 but it's close. You use weapons/spells/skills to raise your skill level in that field, but other than that the only stat to increase from fights is HP. Not sure what governs MP/SP (skill attack points)...they might go up alongside HP or they might go up as you gain more expertise with spells/skills which seems more likely)

There are two routes in here. One takes you to this above-average greatsword (2H sword, which is I think the best weapon type to train / spark skills with). It's a must at this stage. The other takes you to...

...a ::makes quotes with hands:: "boss fight" with whatever these things are. Leon starts with the Light Ball AOE and it's already paying dividends. Use Light Ball and use it constantly, because after gaining a few levels it obliterates early game enemy groups.

In addition to spells leveling as you use them, you also raise weapon skills from using them, and spark new techniques ala SaGa Frontier. This game is like Final Fantasy II if the idea was taken to its full potential, and it's actually quite good. I'd even put it above RS3, which was a solid game when I played it a decade ago.

More on this game later.