Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Review (Switch)
Square Enix recently put out some mid-tier AA entries for some of its forgotten franchises, including Mana’s vision (not on Switch) and not one, but two SaGa games in 2024. The first is SaGa Emerald Outside in April and now Romance SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven.
Is a remake of the 1993 original Romance SaGa 2Revenge of the Seven attempts to bring one of the more popular SaGa entries into the modern day. The original was groundbreaking during its release, featuring a non-linear narrative structure and unique generational party mechanics that not many RPGs had. Revenge of the Seven retains what made the original special, but loses a bit of its charm due to poor presentation and loading times.
The story follows the Emperors of Avalon as they expand their empire and fight against the Seven Heroes, a group of warriors who saved the world in the past but have now succumbed to dark magic. It’s a pretty basic plot set up for an RPG, but the story spans over 1000 years. At first, the ruler of Avalon, Leon, and his son Gerard led the attack. However, they eventually abdicate in favor of successors, which are other party members that the player recruits over time.
This paved the way for Revenge of the Seven’s non-linear storytelling. The Emperor travels the world solving other countries’ problems in exchange for joining the empire, such as stopping a nearby active volcano or traveling through whirlpools to obtain a the ship arrives in a new country. You are free to merge multiple countries at once and you are free to do them in any order you want, which adds variety to your gameplay as several events take place during when other events do not.
After major events in the story, such as killing one of the Seven Heroes, several decades pass and you are asked to choose a successor. While the story can be a bit dry, the game’s side missions help enhance its world-building. Our personal favorite was a story involving mermaids and we had to collect ingredients to create a Mermaid Potion, which helps us breathe underwater. This led us to discover a giant underwater ship dungeon, and these new areas kept our interest going.
The generation mechanism is a mixed bag. It helps Romancing SaGa 2 stand out from a gameplay perspective. You can build facilities in Avalon including a magic school to learn new spells and a forge to create new weapons. Every time a new emperor is chosen, they inherit all the skills and abilities of their predecessor. After each skip, these bases can pass on and teach all the moves to new units that you have accumulated over the years. This life simulation aspect keeps the game engaging every moment.
However, it’s hard to connect with any of the characters because they don’t have strong personalities, if any, and just feel like cannon fodder to fill out your party. Our party definitely grew stronger, but we didn’t feel much character development, which left us feeling bored throughout much of the story and cutscenes.
Revenge of the Seven’s combat system is a traditional turn-based game and is much simpler than that of Emerald Beyond. Both use a BP system, but Emerald Beyond makes players allocate their limited BP to certain attacks. In Revenge of the Seven, BP essentially functions like an MP consumable system, like you’d see in most RPGs.
In Emerald Beyond, manipulating the turn-based timeline is a key aspect of preventing enemies from attacking your party with enhanced consecutive attacks, called United Attacks. Revenge of the Seven’s manipulation of the timeline has little to no impact on the flow of battle, as orders seem to only take into account a unit’s speed stat minus obstacles. As a result, Revenge of the Seven’s combat system lacks much nuance.
Instead, the focus is on hitting the weak spot. Enemies have many weaknesses and they are initially hidden, very similar to octopus tourists. By exploiting these weaknesses, you build an Overdrive gauge that, when full, allows your team to perform United Attacks. But in general, the combat system lacks a strategic element like Octopath Traveler’s BP stacking method personality‘One More’ mechanism. It turns into something like one Pokémon game in which two sides simply take turns fighting each other.
However, we like Revenge of the Seven’s progression system. Each character can equip two weapons and upgrade their personal weapons to learn new skills called technologies. To learn them, the characters must use existing technologies in battle and activate ‘beams’. Characters tend to sparkle more often during difficult battles, such as boss fights. Although the chance of a flash of light is random, you are not completely in the dark. There is a light bulb icon next to the techs that can still sparkle and unlock new moves. It’s fun to continually unlock and collect more technologies to add to your repertoire and be able to pass on to future generations.
On Switch, Revenge of the Seven suffers from long load times and choppy frame rates. The images are also nothing to criticize. The original game really looks similar to Octopath Traveler, especially in battles, and the HD2D approach for this remake should be much more engaging than the full 3D game we get here. The 3D models aren’t terrible but lack exceptional art direction and the characters have a bland appearance. At least, though, there are plenty of monster designs that keep the number of palette swaps to a minimum.
Revenge of the Seven also has many quality-of-life features. The original was sometimes criticized for being too difficult, but Revenge of the Seven has many difficulty options to tailor your playstyle. Your party’s HP is also fully replenished after each battle, which makes dungeon crawling a smooth experience.
Conclusion
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a pretty engaging RPG but has some unique gameplay mechanics. The open-world narrative structure feels liberating, but the characters are boring. The sparkling mechanics are fun, but the combat system lacks strategy. Each of its gameplay systems is a double-edged sword, as we will find one particular aspect appealing while another aspect is confusing. It may seem like a slight step down from other recent SaGa games, but if you’re a fan of the series, Revenge of the Seven might impress you more than it did us.
