Published , by Lucas White
Published , by Lucas White
Alongside giving me early access to an upcoming demo for Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, Square Enix also approached me with some time to virtually meet with the producer, Shinichi Tatsuke. This was easy to say yes to, not just because SaGa rules, but because this remake involves folks from outside the regular SaGa team. Tatsuke himself is fresh off of Trials of Mana, a remake from a similarly underserved series in Square Enix’s library that was quite well-received.
I got some good stuff here, especially since I was allowed to ask some specifics about aspects of the original Romancing SaGa 2 that weren’t represented in the demo. Learning about the way “Battle Rank” has been modified was particularly interesting, and I’d consider that one of the main barriers of entry for the original, especially with how novice players could accidentally pin themselves to a wall and be forced to start over. We also talked about how the remake is more upfront with information, how the Free Scenario system has changed, and what some of the team’s goals are with Revenge of the Seven and its demo.
The text has been altered from the original spoken words for clarity and readability, because between my bumbling and going through a translator, a hard transcript wouldn’t be much fun to read. Having to go back and listen to myself was bad enough, folks. Enjoy!
Lucas White, Shacknews: To start, can we have some insight into what your role is like as producer on Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven?
Shinichi Tatsuke, Producer, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven: From the beginning stages of the project I set the direction on what kind of remake we wanted to make. I decided the budget and hand-picked the members of the team. I oversee the content and marketing of the game as well.
Shacknews: Building off that a bit, I’m curious about the timeline. There have been a lot of SaGa games coming out lately and I’m curious about where Revenge of the Seven fits in.
Tatsuke: Back in 2020 I was working on another remake project, Trials of Mana. Once that was released I was thinking about what kind of project to work on next. Around the same time the SaGa team reached out to me and asked if I wanted to work on a Romancing SaGa 2 remake. Fast-forward a bit to 2021 and that’s when development officially began. You could say that’s when the SaGa team and Trials of Mana team combined to work on this project.
As you mentioned there were other SaGa games at this time, such as Emerald Beyond which released earlier this year. Our idea was to add a remake to the mix with the remasters and new games.
Shacknews: As a fan of the original game, one of the most striking aspects of the demo to me was how much information was visible to the player. It makes sense that the remake is designed to be more approachable, but were there concerns about overwhelming players with too much information?
Tatsuke: In the original Romancing SaGa 2 there was a lot of information hidden from the player, which they would have to work their way around. We felt like keeping things the same would be inconvenient to modern players, but we also feel like it was inconvenient for players back then. We wanted to make the game more intuitive and approachable for the modern players; that was one of our goals. If you play Revenge of the Seven from the beginning, it takes players through a series of tutorials. We built it out to present information little by little so that players aren’t immediately overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information displayed to them.
Shacknews: Something that was hard to tell in the demo was about something SaGa fans call “Battle Rank.” For the audience, that’s when enemies get stronger the more battles you participate in (a staple in SaGa games). Is that in the remake, and if so has it been changed or modified?
Tatsuke: It’s interesting you asked that, because it’s something I suppose the hardcore fans would be anxious about. In the original Romancing SaGa 2, how it worked was that the more battles players were in, enemies would get stronger and change into different kinds of enemies. The problem was if players ran away too much, they could get stuck as the enemies would grow too strong. In our remake we decided to try a different approach. Each area has its own set of enemies, and the enemies won’t change. In a way it’s a little more like traditional RPGs. But that doesn’t mean the enemies won’t get stronger. They will become stronger, based on two factors. It will depend on the number of events you’ve completed, and how many times you’ve won in battle. So in short, the enemies won’t change like in the original game, but they will grow stronger based on the player’s progression.
Shacknews: In the menu there’s a “Chronicles” option that goes into a lot of detail and tracks your progress in different events in the game. I’m curious about how certain events, like one of my favorites from the original involving a mermaid that was very hidden, are handled in Revenge of the Seven. There’s also an event involving a civil war that has a different ending if the player simply leaves the area, so I’m also wondering if that kind of thing is in the remake as well?
Tatsuke: We still have the Free Scenario system in this remake, so the decisions players will make in their quests will impact the outcome of said events. That core concept is still in place from the original Romancing SaGa 2. As you mentioned in your examples, some of the events were very much hidden. We understood that some of these events were harder to unlock, and some people might not even notice they were in the game. We didn’t want that to happen with the remake. We don’t use the term specifically, but there are “quests” in the game that resemble the old Free Scenario system. But the way it’s displayed in the remake to players is much more clarified. By using an exclamation mark, players will be able to more easily understand and discover quests that were more hidden in the original game.
For the other event you mentioned, the story is about the inheritance of the throne in a different region. What can happen, if the character leaves the area, the country just falls. In the remake we didn’t really want to make things happen abruptly in that way. That said, there are still options the player can take that lead to that same outcome. So that’s still an option but we made some adjustments so that things like that won’t just happen automatically if the player leaves the event midway.
Shacknews: Thanks for answering my nerdy questions, I promise the last one will be a little more ordinary!
Tatsuke: You mentioned your question was nerdy, but it’s actually quite common from the Japanese players so we get that a lot. It wasn’t out of the ordinary!
Shacknews: So since this demo is about to be out for players, I’m wondering if there are any kind of data points you might be looking out for, or kinds of responses from players, if any at all?
Tatsuke: The demo is going to be released right before the full game, so our objective with this demo is so players who haven’t had the opportunity to play SaGa games before can understand what Revenge of the Seven is about for free. We see it as an opportunity for more people to get to know and experience the game. So it would be great if people have a great time with the demo and decide to purchase the game. That’s part of the reason we decided to support save data carry over from the demo to the full game. We want more players to try the game and see what SaGa is all about!
Thanks again to Mr. Tatsuke, as well as the folks working for and with Square Enix for facilitating the conversation!
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is available on October 24, 2024 for the PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 and 5.