Romancing SaGa 2

This is a janky, archaic game that doesn't explain itself very well and has all sorts of weird intricacies that'll turn away anyone but the most patient of players. It's also one of my favourite games of all time.

Romancing Saga 2 is a game designed by Akitoshi Kawazu. Like with all other SaGa games that he designs and produces, it is ideal to approach this kind of game NOT with a typical console JRPG mindset that one would expect to have when playing a game of this genre, but with instead a more TTRPG/CRPG mindset. The real drive of of the SaGa franchise is to explore it's vast, detailed world, and to let the story or "saga" build from there. It does give you a unique premise to start off with: you are an imperial lineage of emperors/empresses battling with the fabled Seven Heroes of yore who have returned to the world during a period of great strife NOT to save said world, but to conquer/destroy it. An intriguing hook for sure, but like I said earlier, the narrative is there to spur you to go out into the world on your own. The narrative doesn't drag you along linearly in a set manner; You have to explore the world in order grow the story along with your party of characters. And the world is detailed and full of all kinds of life to encourage extensive exploration, it has over a dozen of recruitable playable characters/classes, dungeons to navigate, and secret treasures to unearth. Gameplay wise, It is a turn based JRPG, with no random encounters, which is nice. What makes this different from say Dragon Quest of Final Fantasy is that it is skill-based progression, not pure level progression. Basically, the more you do a certain action, that stronger that that action gets (i.e. uses swords frequently=sword level raises up=more special sword skills/"techs" get unlocked). All of these features that Kawazu and team have brought have helped make this game and many others in the SaGa franchise feel ahead of their time. Think of it as pre-"Elder Scrolls" with turn-based menu combat. It is an acquired taste, but if you acquire it like I've had, you might find yourself savoring it more and more. It can feel a little grindy if you're not too familiar with its mechanics, especially at first; But if you let it get under your skin for even just a little bit, you'd might be surprised at how compelling it actually is. Also, I find this to be one of Square-Enix's best remasters of a classic JRPG in years. Compared to some of their other mobile and pc ports (Particularly FF PRE-pixel remastered) it's visuals alone stand above its competitors. Keeping the 16-bit characters sprites BUT having the backgrounds be HD is a lot more pleasing to the eye than just trying to HD everything with mixed results. It does justice to Tomomi Kobayashi's vibrant artwork, which really gives it and the franchise as a whole its own unique identity. Also, just having Idle animations for bosses and supre-strong enemy monsters is a nice visual cue to the player about how strong their opponent is in comparison to them. Plus, it retains Kenji ito's original soundtrack as it was composed back in 1993 instead of just giving an orchestral upgrade. It really pairs well with the updated, yet traditional visuals to give you sense of how immersive Japanese players felt when they first played this game nearly 30 years ago. All in all, a compelling game in a compelling franchise if you give yourself the chance grok on its level.

A lot of the negative reviews are about how bad the port was a long time ago, that is not the case anymore. There are some minor issues, but not enough to detract from the game, I'll go over them.
1. No volume slider, I had to manually open my volume mixer in Windows to set the volume every time I started the game. Easily the biggest problem I had.
2. No way to enter fullscreen, easily solvable by hitting alt+enter, pretty much a non-issue.
3. To go back to the main menu (if you need to load a save), you can't use your mouse like the rest of the game, you have to select it with WASD then hit enter.
Now that that's out of the way..
This game is fantastic. This is my first Romancing Saga game and I was blown away. So much variety in the way you can do things from the classes, to the weapons/spells, to the formation and skills you can use for your party. The game can be a LITTLE obtuse at times in telling you what to do. I'd say like 80% of the time they give you a good enough direction in what to do, the other 20% I did not feel bad about glancing online. And you should definitely glance at the Steam guides to figure out what armors actually do.
So the gameplay is great. But what about the story? Going in I was told that Romancing Saga isn't very story focused, and it's mostly about the gameplay. I'm here to say I don't agree with that. This game has some outstanding scenarios in it that are super creative. The overarching story isn't bad, but it's the individual little stories in different towns that I love.
If you don't mind doing a little learning on how this game works, you'll have an awesome time.

Fun non-linear classic JRPG. Worth multiple playthroughs. Especially with the carry over system.

Shocked to see all the bad reviews for this game.
It's great! Sure the UI that seems lifted straight from mobile isn't that aesthetically pleasing but every other aspect from the SFC original was ported fine to Steam.
Essentially this game is a mix between your typical linear, narrative-centered JRPG gameplay and the more nonlinear, customizable WRPG gameplay, and it pulls that mixture off beautifully. It's a game that encourages experimentation and even restarting one's entire playthrough to apply what was learned from previous playthroughs. People who aren't aware of this upon booting the game may be confused and frustrated this isn't the kind of JRPG they were expecting, but for those ready for this game's offering it will be hard to put down. I also think the game's core narrative is pretty good and interesting despite being pretty sparse.

Fascinating combination of traditional JRPG combat and exploration with some sim and city-building elements -- but it's very obtuse, as is any Akitoshi Kawazu game. Go in with a guide, imo.