Akitoshi Kawazu is one of Japanese role-playing game’s most long-standing and persevering game designers. From his weird and unique take on the second Final Fantasy game to his long-running SaGa series that takes Western RPG tropes and ran with it using unique methods of leveling up and skill-getting, his run in gaming is never dull. Controversial? Sure! But never boring or stock.

Now a high-level executive in Square Enix -he was there since 1985- the JRPG-making company will be seeing more SaGa games being greenlit and remade. Fast forward to now, we are seeing a rebirth of one of his more prominent works: Romancing SaGa 2. Made by developer Xeen (of Trials of Mana remake fame), new JRPG fans will get a good taste of a Western/Eastern role-playing hybrid in a current gen gaming context. After a few hours with the demo, it may be joining this year’s Eiyuden Chronicle as a veritable dark horse of the genre.

Not-Quite-Magnificent Seven

The plot of Romancing SaGa 2 involves seven corrupted heroes who must be stopped at all cost. Enter the king you control and his lineage who will take up his mantle as he passes; you control a generation of royalty who can fight for their kingdom of Varennes and the world. You gather heroes from all over the world, make decisions that determine what kind of party you can amass, and use your inheritance powers to have subsequent generations defeat the immortal heroes.

Romancing SaGa 2 has adopted a “play your way” style, where your decisions aren’t right or wrong; you just roll with it and build your party of demigod-killers according to what’s been given. Its scope is ambitious, and it’s accompanied with some decent turn-based combat that uses the Glimmer system where you discover new abilities the longer you keep using certain skills. The 2024 remake just makes everything look better and feel more modern, while retaining the freedom it gives its players.

The demo that’s available now let us play as King Leon as he is accompanied by his son Gerard to know the ways of combat. The whole Prologue chapter had us clearing through a couple of dungeons while advancing the plot, heralding the existence of the demonic Seven Heroes. We cleared a cave full of demon rabbit things and a mansion with our first major villain Kzinnsse. Everything about the remake’s look is bright pastel-wise and is gorgeous to look at. It’s not highly detailed, but it’s colourful and fantasy-filled enough to allow a lot of objects and elements to be on the screen, making for livelier visuals. The music remix of the original is also well-done too, and does a lot of service to the past compositions that were already thumb-thumping.

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven’s combat is turn-based,with units acting immediately after doing a command. There’s a timeline that signifies who goes first, so that you can plan ahead on who should attack or heal. It’s also a good indicator to see how status-affecting attacks work, as Stun attacks will delay an enemy’s turn on the timeline significantly. Conversely, you can also see if an enemy will be doing a potential game-ending blow. When you see an enemy dead last on the timeline but has an exclamation mark, that’s your cue to either defend or knock it out, less you get a party wipe.

Speaking of enemies, you can uncover their weaknesses if you hit them with the correct attack. This information will be on display in battle on the enemy all the time if you uncover them, so having your characters cast Fire spells or specific attacks is a must to sort out who is weak to what. Plus, you gain meter for your Overdrive and United Attack systems; super-powered moves that require just your character or two characters in a party to perform. They hit hard and turn the tide of battle to your favour, so getting meter off of exploiting weaknesses is a must if you want to get far in the adventure.

The Glimmer system is a lot more intuitive and less obtuse here: whenever you see a lightbulb on one of your commands, there’s a slight chance your attack will make your character learn a new skill. A glowing lightbulb means a bigger chance; this usually appears if you’re fighting higher-leveled enemies. This encourages you to pick fights more and use whatever techniques you have that feature lightbulbs; you’ll never know when you’ll uncover a skill on the spot if you don’t find time to train nearby the save point. This new quality-of-life change is definitely welcoming for fans curious about the SaGa series, but are too afraid of how cryptic it gets. Demos like this help with the onboarding process; to help ease new players in this JRPG’s non-linear Western-influenced ways.

A Glimmer Of Hope

While not a heavy-hitter franchise like your Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest titles, the SaGa series deserves some love for at least innovating and trying out daring mechanics to spice up its battles and structure. Even with a few hours playing the demo, I sense a potential underdog hit with this remake. Few JRPGs handle the “passing the torch” storyline like how Dragon Quest V did, so I’m glad that Square Enix and Xeen are up to the task to remake this particular 90s trendsetter for this generation of JRPGers. The fact that the remake might in new playable(?) story bits involving the Seven Heroes’ past is also icing on an already throwback-layered cake.

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven will be out for PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch on 24th October.