A look back at: Romancing SaGa 2

Fun fact, I almost played ActRaiser, and then I realized it's not really RPG material. So I ended up playing this.

Back to the grind with Romancing Saga 2, not entirely the hardest of the SNES RPG compendium, but certainly a hard-to-come-by game, until recently in 2017 with a re-release. But it's still pretty hard regardless. Gone are the eight selectable protagonists with separate intros, now we have the concept of an emperor who rules their nation and can belong to one of many classes. The concepts from Final Fantasy Legend actually make a return in this game, which is remarkable since it shows what the series is about. Having to recruit characters is quite nice, as well as manage your own empire and go on quests from time to time. Having a new emperor when the previous one dies or after a certain time period was an interesting mechanic, even moreso when they can be any particular class. Enemies scaling as I gain stats though, and especially when they become really strong enemies that can shave hundreds of HP easily is a real pain though.

Well, at least they came up with some impressive storyline overall. Having one emperor and his son fight off one of the Seven Heroes, who will use his signature move to kill the emperor then, just so the son can learn the technique and beat him the next time in a rematch was a cute move. Having to name an emperor in the beginning isn't so much one though, since said emperor only appears at the very end. The Seven Heroes are an interesting bunch of villains, each apparently with their own backstories and motives. They're all supportive of one another in a number of ways, like Noel and Rocbouquet, or generally good at commanding things, like Bokhohn and Subier. Or they are pretty much just feeding off of things like Dantarg.

I guess if there's one other thing to mention besides growing the Avalon empire, it's the way the inheritance works out, so emperors basically inherit everything (plus whatever class they have) from their ancestor when they take over. The game certainly is rough around a lot of edges, things are definitely gonna be hard no matter what, and even if you decide not to grind so much to avoid the enemies, there's still ways to screw things up. But you know what, ignoring all the hardships encountered in this game, and realizing just how much you can do for an emperor, his/her empire and subordinates, and the overall plot, and believe it or not, this is a fantastic game.