Romancing SaGa 2: An Unexpected RPG Gem

Hey RPG nerds! While Brighton is away serving the Lord in San Antonio, Texas, I'll be taking over the blog for a while. I'm Brent, and I'll be honest—I'm new to this blogging thing, so bear with me as I find my footing. I've got some interesting content planned, focusing on some weird and wonderful RPG adventures that might take us in a different direction from Brighton's usual coverage.

Discovering SaGa

For my first review, I want to talk about Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, a game I recently completed after investing about 80 hours into it. Before this, my only experience with the SaGa series was a brief stint with SaGa Frontier on PlayStation many years ago. I remember being underwhelmed by the disconnected storytelling approach back then, which had players selecting different characters and following separate adventures (similar to what Octopath Traveler does). I never finished it and didn't give the series another thought until now.

When Romancing SaGa 2 was released last year, I decided to give the series another chance. Going in, I expected something similar to SaGa Frontier or Octopath Traveler. Since the subtitle is "Revenge of the Seven," I assumed I'd be playing through seven different adventures with seven different characters who might eventually meet up. I couldn't have been more wrong—and I'm glad I was.

What Makes Romancing SaGa 2 Special

This game is absolutely awesome. I loved every minute of those 80 hours, and it differs significantly from traditional JRPGs in ways that make it refreshingly unique:

Progression Without Levels

First of all, you don't level up in the traditional sense. Similar to Final Fantasy II, your individual stats and abilities improve with use rather than your overall character level. You can't simply say "my character is level 20" because that's not how it works. Instead, your proficiency with weapons and abilities increases as you use them—your axe ability might be level 20, or your sword skill might reach that benchmark.

Generational Gameplay

Perhaps the most distinctive feature is the generational shifts. Unlike most RPGs where you play with the same characters throughout the game, Romancing SaGa 2 has you creating entirely new parties as you progress through generations. You might complete one generation's story, then 200 years pass, and you continue your quests with a completely different set of characters and classes. There's a fascinating inheritance system where abilities and skills carry forward, creating a real sense of legacy.

Life Points System

The game introduces a system called LP (Life Points), where each character has a limited pool (usually 8-12 points). When you fall in battle, you lose one LP, and if a character loses all their LP, they're gone forever. This created some genuine anxiety for me early on!

What's particularly significant is that if your Emperor (your party leader) loses all their LP, you must select a new Emperor, but you don't get to carry forward all the abilities and skills you've learned. This creates real stakes and consequences for failure.

Skill Acquisition

The skill system is somewhat reminiscent of Final Fantasy IX, where you learn abilities from weapons. There's this cool concept called "glimmering" where you might see a blinking icon next to your weapon, indicating a skill is ready to emerge. If you use the weapon at that moment, the skill might manifest itself.

Some skills naturally develop as your proficiency with a weapon increases, while others can only be learned from specific weapons. There are even skills that will only "glimmer" when you use certain ability types—like an "attack all" bow skill might be necessary to unlock specific archery techniques.

Nonlinear Exploration

The game is refreshingly nonlinear. While there isn't an old-school world map like in classic Final Fantasies, it has a structure similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. You can use a map for fast travel, but you can also walk directly between locations if you prefer, reminiscent of Final Fantasy X's approach to world exploration.

Final Thoughts

This game was built for replayability. Depending on who you choose as your Emperor, you can learn different skills and experience variations in the story. There's even a point in the game where I made a choice that caused me to miss out on two different features—some players might hate missable content, but I see it as an incentive for another playthrough.

On Backlogged, I gave Romancing SaGa 2 the highest score possible—5 stars. I loved every moment of it. The music is excellent, and while the battle system is fairly traditional, it's implemented exceptionally well. Battles can be challenging, too. I started playing on Classic Mode (the harder difficulty) but had to switch to Normal after getting destroyed by some late-game bosses.

After recently finishing the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, which felt too easy, I appreciated the greater challenge that Romancing SaGa 2 provided. The experience was so positive that I've now purchased most of the other SaGa games on Steam and plan to play through them as well.

If you're looking for something different from the standard JRPG formula, I highly recommend giving Romancing SaGa 2 a try. It might just surprise you as much as it surprised me.

This is the first of several posts I'll be sharing while Brighton is away. We'll have some guest reviewers joining us as well, so stay tuned for more unconventional RPG content!