Romancing SaGa 2’s original creator feared only one thing about the remake – a shift to the action genre
Square Enix’s Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, slated for launch on October 24, will bring a JRPG classic from 1993 to modern platforms. In a recent interview with Famitsu, the title’s producer Shinichi Tatsuke gave some behind-the-scenes insight into the game’s development and explained how Akitoshi Kawazu (the creator of the SaGa series) was involved in the process. The producer also touched upon conflicts that arose between Square Enix and studio Xeen during development and how they were resolved.
Although he has experience in leading projects such as Trials of Mana, Shinichi Tatsuke himself has no previous involvement in the SaGa series’ development. Thus, he chose Xeen – the studio that developed the original Romancing SaGa 2 for the SNES, as a trustworthy co-developer for the remake.
According to Tatsuke, Xeen’s love for Romancing SaGa 2 and the SaGa series as a whole proved to be very helpful during the development process, but it also led to the two sides clashing. “They are very particular about things, or rather, they’re kind of like SaGa fundamentalists,” the producer commented jokingly.
Disagreements would arise as to whether something they were about to implement was “true to the SaGa series” or not. But luckily, the team had Akitoshi Kawazu, who directed and designed the original title, on board. According to Tatsuke, whenever a dispute arose, Kawazu had the last word, even when it came to matters such as how tall a Pyro Hydra should be (3 meters is correct, apparently).
One proposed change that caused a dispute was related to the battle system. The original 1993 game had the player encountering new, bigger enemies as their battle count rose. For the remake, Square proposed that this could be replaced by a system where enemy monsters’ strength increased according to the player’s strength, instead of having bigger monsters appear (as the change in perspective from the 2D overhead and side-on views of the original to 3rd person 3D would make it hard to fit big monsters in every location). Xeen found this mechanic to be too different from the original game, arguing that the changing monster types were a big part of its appeal. However, Kawazu ultimately approved the new idea of having monsters’ strength levels match the player’s.
When asked about whether or not Kawazu made any specific requests regarding Romancing SaGa 2’s remake, Tatsuke says there was almost nothing – all Kawazu asked for was a remake that would make the game enjoyable for a wider audience.
But there seems to have been one thing Kawazu was concerned about – apparently, when it was first decided to develop Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, rumors started circulating internally that it would be an action game. These rumors eventually reached the ears of Kawazu, who “apprehensively” asked Tatsuke about it the first time they discussed the project. “When I told him, ‘No, no, there’s no way I would do that!,’ he seemed relieved,” Tatsuke recollected. It seems that an action-game approach was one thing Kawazu was openly against, but thankfully, it looks like Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven will respect his wishes down to the smallest details. The remake looks set to keep the original’s strategic turn-based battles, with the addition of a turn order timeline system similar to Final Fantasy X and Octopath Traveller.
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is scheduled to launch for PS4/PS5 and Nintendo Switch on October 24, with the Steam version following the next day.
