Romancing SaGa 2 Producer Talks How to Make the Remake More Accessible

In addition to early access to the upcoming Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven demo, Square Enix approached me with a request to meet virtually with producer Shinichi Tatsuke. It was an easy fit, not only because SaGa rocks, but because this remake features people outside of the regular SaGa team. Tatsuke himself is fresh off Trials of Mana, a remake from a similarly underrated series in Square Enix’s library that was fairly well-received.

I got some good stuff here, especially since I was allowed to ask for some details about aspects of the original Romancing SaGa 2 that weren’t represented in the demo. Learning about how the “Battle Rank” was modified was particularly interesting, and I consider it one of the main barriers to entry into the original, especially since new players could accidentally get themselves pinned against a wall and forced to start over. We also talked about how the remake is more direct with information, how the Free Scenario system has changed, and what some of the team’s goals are for Revenge of the Seven and its demo.

The text has been changed from the original spoken words for clarity and readability, because between my stumbles and using a translator, the hard copy would not have been very pleasant to read. I had to go back and listen to myself, that was bad enough, people. Enjoy!

Lucas White, Shacknews: First things first, can we learn more about your role as producer on Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven?

Shinichi Tatsuke, producer, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven: From the beginning of the project, I set the direction of what we wanted to create. I set the budget and handpicked the team members. I also oversee the content and marketing of the game.

Shacknews: Expanding on that a bit, I’m curious about the timeline. There’s been a lot of SaGa games coming out lately, and I’m curious where Revenge of the Seven fits in.

Tatsuke: In 2020, I was working on another remake project, Trials of Mana. When it was released, I was wondering what project to work on next. Around that same time, the SaGa team contacted me and asked if I wanted to work on a remake of Romancing SaGa 2. Fast forward a bit to 2021, when development officially began. You could say that’s when the SaGa team and the Trials of Mana team joined forces to work on this project.

As you mentioned, there were other SaGa games at the time, like Emerald Beyond, which came out earlier this year. Our idea was to add a remake to the mix with remasters and new games.

Shacknews: As a fan of the original game, one of the most striking aspects of the demo for me was how much information was exposed to the player. It makes sense that the remake was designed to be more accessible, but was there any concern that players would be overwhelmed by too much information?

Tatsuke: In the original Romancing SaGa 2, a lot of information was hidden from the player, who would have to work around it. We felt that leaving everything the same would be inconvenient for modern players, but we also felt that it was inconvenient for players of the time. We wanted to make the game more intuitive and accessible for modern players; that was one of our goals. If you’re playing Revenge of the Seven from the beginning, it takes players through a series of tutorials. We built it to present information gradually, so that players aren’t immediately overwhelmed by the amount of information being presented to them.

Shacknews: Something that was hard to tell in the demo was something that SaGa fans call “Battle Rank.” For viewers, this is the point where enemies get stronger the more battles you engage in (a staple of SaGa games). Is this in the remake, and if so, has it been changed or modified?

Tatsuke: It’s interesting that you ask this, because I imagine that diehard fans would be concerned about this. In the original Romancing SaGa 2, the way it worked was that the more battles players went into, the stronger the enemies became, and they changed into different types of enemies. The problem was that if players ran away too much, they could get stuck because the enemies became too strong. In our remake, we decided to try a different approach. Each area has its own set of enemies, and the enemies don’t change. In a way, it’s a bit more similar to traditional RPGs. But that doesn’t mean that the enemies won’t get stronger. They’ll get stronger based on two factors. This will depend on the number of events you complete and the number of times you win a battle. In short, the enemies won’t change like in the original game, but they will get stronger based on the player’s progress.

Shacknews: There’s a “Chronicles” option in the menu that goes into a lot of detail and tracks your progress through various events in the game. I’m curious how certain events, like one of my favorites from the original involving a mermaid who was very hidden, are handled in Revenge of the Seven. There’s also a civil war event that has a different ending if the player simply leaves the area, so I wonder if that kind of thing is in the remake as well?

Tatsuke: In this remake we still have the Free Scenario system, so the decisions players make in their quests will affect the outcome of said events. This basic concept is still present in the original Romancing SaGa 2. As you mentioned in your examples, some of the events were very hidden. We realized 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 in the remake. We don’t use that term specifically, but there are “quests” in the game that are reminiscent of the old Free Scenario system. However, the way it is presented to players in the remake is much clearer. By using the exclamation mark, players will be able to more easily understand and discover quests that were more hidden in the original game.

In the case of the other event you mentioned, the story is about inheriting a throne in another region. What can happen if a character leaves that area, the country simply falls. In the remake, we didn’t want everything to happen suddenly like that. That said, there are still options that the player can choose that will lead to the same outcome. So it’s still an option, but we’ve made some changes so that things like that don’t happen automatically if the player leaves the event halfway through.

Shacknews: Thanks for answering my nerdy questions, I promise the last one will be a bit more casual!

Tatsuke: You mentioned that your question was nerdy, but it’s actually quite common among Japanese gamers, so we get it a lot. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary!

Shacknews: With this demo now available to players, I wanted to know if there’s any data you’re looking at or player reactions, if any?

Tatsuke: The demo will be released just before the full game, so our goal with this demo is for players who haven’t had the chance to play SaGa games before to get a feel for what Revenge of the Seven is all about for free. We see this as an opportunity for more people to get to know and experience the game. So it would be great if people had fun with the demo and decided to buy the game. That’s one of the reasons we decided to support transferring save data 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 everyone working for and with Square Enix, for making this conversation possible!

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Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven will be available on October 24, 2024 for PC, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 and 5.