Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Interview - Talking remaking a niche classic with Shinichi Tatsuke
For us here at RPG Site, what was perhaps the biggest surprise of the June 2024 Nintendo Direct was the announcement of a full remake of Romancing SaGa 2, called. Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven. As a fan of the SaGa series, including the incredibly unique and incredibly underrated Romancing SaGa 2, this unexpected new version has me very curious about how it will shape up. Josh's preview from his hands-on opportunity at PAX West (and Cullen's from the newly-announced demo) has me even more eager for this great-looking remake.
Ahead of the remake's release, I had a chance to interview the producer — Shinichi Tatsuke — over a video call through an interpreter. Tatsuke previously was the producer for 2020's Trials of Mana remake (for which I had previously interviewed Tatsuke back in 2019); a game that was also developed by the team at Xeen.
Our discussion can be found below.
This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.
RPG Site: How did the decision come about to remake Romancing SaGa 2, of all SaGa games?
Shinichi Tatsuke, Producer: To discuss the timeline of events on how the remake of Romancing SaGa 2 happened ... As you know, back in 2020 I was involved with the remake of the Trials of Mana. After that, the team and I were considering which title we should work on next. That was when the SaGa team approached me and asked me if I wanted to join the team for Romancing SaGa 2 remake. And that's how I got involved with the project.
So, to answer your question on 'why' we chose Romancing SaGa 2 out of all the SaGa titles.. the SaGa team has a goal of expanding the series to to wider audiences around the globe, not just in Japan. We wanted to make the series bigger, and we wanted to make a remake, just like we did for Trials of Mana, which is generally the background as to how this project happened. The reason why we chose Romancing SaGa 2 is that we already created a remake of Romancing SaGa 1 called Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song, which was originally released in 2006 and received a recent remaster. However, we hadn't done any remakes since then, so we figured that it was a good time to pick up on that again and make another remake for the SaGa series.
Shinichi Tatsuke, Producer: To discuss the timeline of events on how the remake of Romancing SaGa 2 happened ... As you know, back in 2020 I was involved with the remake of the Trials of Mana. After that, the team and I were considering which title we should work on next. That was when the SaGa team approached me and asked me if I wanted to join the team for Romancing SaGa 2 remake. And that's how I got involved with the project.
So, to answer your question on 'why' we chose Romancing SaGa 2 out of all the SaGa titles.. the SaGa team has a goal of expanding the series to to wider audiences around the globe, not just in Japan. We wanted to make the series bigger, and we wanted to make a remake, just like we did for Trials of Mana, which is generally the background as to how this project happened. The reason why we chose Romancing SaGa 2 is that we already created a remake of Romancing SaGa 1 called Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song, which was originally released in 2006 and received a recent remaster. However, we hadn't done any remakes since then, so we figured that it was a good time to pick up on that again and make another remake for the SaGa series.
RPG Site: Romancing SaGa 2 is unique within its own series due to its generation mechanic, where you switch from generation to generation as you proceed through the different scenarios in the game. In the original version, this was dictated by an obscure point system in the background, based on battles and scenario completion. Has that changed at all? How does the generation system work in the remake?
Tatsuke: As you mentioned, the emperor/inheritance system in the original Romancing SaGa 2 is one of the most unique systems in the game. As the producer of the development team, we believe that this is not only considered unique for its time, but even by modern standards, we still feel that this inheritance system is very unique. So, the core component of the inheritance system is taken as is from the original version. However, we did make some fine-tuning and some adjustments to the more granular parts of the system.
One of the examples is that in the original title, players were not able to willingly have the Emperor abdicate the throne at the time that players wanted. So, in the original version, what players did instead was that they would lose a battle on purpose to have the Emperor move on to the next one. In this remake, we have a new system where players can get to choose if they want the Emperor to abdicate on their own. So, you can do that instead of losing battles on purpose. Another adjustment that we made is that when you move on to the next emperor or next generation, in the original version, players had four characters to choose from. In the remake that's expanded into six, so they have six different options when they move on to the next emperor.
Tatsuke: As you mentioned, the emperor/inheritance system in the original Romancing SaGa 2 is one of the most unique systems in the game. As the producer of the development team, we believe that this is not only considered unique for its time, but even by modern standards, we still feel that this inheritance system is very unique. So, the core component of the inheritance system is taken as is from the original version. However, we did make some fine-tuning and some adjustments to the more granular parts of the system.
One of the examples is that in the original title, players were not able to willingly have the Emperor abdicate the throne at the time that players wanted. So, in the original version, what players did instead was that they would lose a battle on purpose to have the Emperor move on to the next one. In this remake, we have a new system where players can get to choose if they want the Emperor to abdicate on their own. So, you can do that instead of losing battles on purpose. Another adjustment that we made is that when you move on to the next emperor or next generation, in the original version, players had four characters to choose from. In the remake that's expanded into six, so they have six different options when they move on to the next emperor.
RPG Site: Romancing SaGa 2, as we've established, has this unique generation mechanic unlike most RPGs. However, Revenge of the Seven is seemingly being positioned as a good entry point for newcomers to the series. I'm curious, what adjustments or additions are being made to tell Square Enix fans who don't know SaGa why they should play this game?
Tatsuke: In order to appeal this remake to the newcomers of the series, or people who have not had the opportunity yet to play the SaGa series, we identified challenges to achieve that. One of our big goals was to have more newcomers play this remake in Revenge of the Seven. But in order to do that, there are two challenges that we saw: one of those challenges being the barrier of entry, and then the other one being how we communicate the strengths of the series.
Starting with the first point, the barrier of entry, our understanding was that a lot of players had this impression that the SaGa series was a difficult title to play, or it was very hard because of these complicated rules and systems that SaGa titles had. So, we anticipated that that's what a lot of the players had imagined for the Saga series. So because of that, in this remake, we took some of these rather complicated rules or systems and tried to ease that up a bit and make it more mild. One example of this is that, in the original release of Romancing SaGa 2, enemy weaknesses *were* there. It was in the system. It's just that it was not visible to the players, so the players had to figure out on their own how to strike weaknesses for each of the enemies because it wasn't displayed in the game. In this remake that's going to be actually displayed in the game, so it's easier for the players to understand what kind of attacks they need to do to hit those weak spots. Then there are the added difficulty options, where we have three different levels of difficulty. We have a casual mode, which is catered towards the players who just want to experience the narrative. So, those are some of the examples of the efforts that we made to ensure that the newcomers get to have an enjoyable time experiencing this game.
As for the second challenge, again as you mentioned, the emperor inheritance system is a very unique system where players get to experience not only just one protagonist. It instead spans into multiple generations and multiple different protagonists. In most games, you would only have one single protagonist, and you would follow that protagonist's life. But in Romancing SaGa 2, it's not really that way. We have multiple protagonists and multiple lives, and we eventually get to witness the history of one entire nation. We get to experience the entire piece of history of that nation and multiple generations of protagonists. In order to communicate that strength for Romancing SaGa 2, we wanted to make sure we remove that barrier and make sure that it's easier and more intuitive for the players to play. This was one of the main components we wanted to communicate to newcomers, making sure that understand that Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a perfect entry point for series of the series.
Tatsuke: In order to appeal this remake to the newcomers of the series, or people who have not had the opportunity yet to play the SaGa series, we identified challenges to achieve that. One of our big goals was to have more newcomers play this remake in Revenge of the Seven. But in order to do that, there are two challenges that we saw: one of those challenges being the barrier of entry, and then the other one being how we communicate the strengths of the series.
Starting with the first point, the barrier of entry, our understanding was that a lot of players had this impression that the SaGa series was a difficult title to play, or it was very hard because of these complicated rules and systems that SaGa titles had. So, we anticipated that that's what a lot of the players had imagined for the Saga series. So because of that, in this remake, we took some of these rather complicated rules or systems and tried to ease that up a bit and make it more mild. One example of this is that, in the original release of Romancing SaGa 2, enemy weaknesses *were* there. It was in the system. It's just that it was not visible to the players, so the players had to figure out on their own how to strike weaknesses for each of the enemies because it wasn't displayed in the game. In this remake that's going to be actually displayed in the game, so it's easier for the players to understand what kind of attacks they need to do to hit those weak spots. Then there are the added difficulty options, where we have three different levels of difficulty. We have a casual mode, which is catered towards the players who just want to experience the narrative. So, those are some of the examples of the efforts that we made to ensure that the newcomers get to have an enjoyable time experiencing this game.
As for the second challenge, again as you mentioned, the emperor inheritance system is a very unique system where players get to experience not only just one protagonist. It instead spans into multiple generations and multiple different protagonists. In most games, you would only have one single protagonist, and you would follow that protagonist's life. But in Romancing SaGa 2, it's not really that way. We have multiple protagonists and multiple lives, and we eventually get to witness the history of one entire nation. We get to experience the entire piece of history of that nation and multiple generations of protagonists. In order to communicate that strength for Romancing SaGa 2, we wanted to make sure we remove that barrier and make sure that it's easier and more intuitive for the players to play. This was one of the main components we wanted to communicate to newcomers, making sure that understand that Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a perfect entry point for series of the series.
RPG Site: That was a very thorough answer, and I appreciate it! Has the narrative of the game expanded or changed, or has anything been added compared to the original release? Or is it mostly the same scenario-based narrative style of the original game?
Tatsuke: To answer your question, regarding the main storyline, that's going to stay mostly the same. However, as part of the adjustments in turning a 2D game into a 3D game, there were a lot of character dialogs that were just too simple for modern games. So there, we did fill the gap there and tried to perfect the dialogs in this way. There are a lot of changes in dialogue, but in terms of the main storyline itself, that's going to stay mostly the same. That being said, there are some additions and newly added elements to the story. Unfortunately, I can't really talk about the details of that yet. So we hope you look forward to our future announcements on that.
Tatsuke: To answer your question, regarding the main storyline, that's going to stay mostly the same. However, as part of the adjustments in turning a 2D game into a 3D game, there were a lot of character dialogs that were just too simple for modern games. So there, we did fill the gap there and tried to perfect the dialogs in this way. There are a lot of changes in dialogue, but in terms of the main storyline itself, that's going to stay mostly the same. That being said, there are some additions and newly added elements to the story. Unfortunately, I can't really talk about the details of that yet. So we hope you look forward to our future announcements on that.
RPG Site: I have a more specific question here: Many of the recent SaGa titles have had a 'New Game Plus' system where you can restart the game at any point to essentially keep some progression, but start over. This was useful if you got stuck in a difficult or seemingly unwinnable situation. Generally, it was nice to carry over progress to repeat playthroughs. Does Revenge of the Seven have any sort of New Game Plus system like that?
Tatsuke: In terms of whether Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is going to have New Game Plus or not.. apologies, that's something I can't answer at this time. So again, we hope you look forward to future announcements.
You mentioned in your question that players may use the New Game Plus feature to get themselves out of unwinnable situations. So there are other ways and this remake for players to get out of those tough, difficult situations. One of these is the added difficulty option, which you can change in the game, so players can get themselves out of those situations. That's something that we added for the players' benefit.
In the original release, the game can make it unfavorable for the players if they, for example, run away from battle too many times and they might get stuck in an 'unwinnable' situation. So in this game, we try to make sure that the players can progress the game smoothly without encountering those types of situations.
Tatsuke: In terms of whether Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is going to have New Game Plus or not.. apologies, that's something I can't answer at this time. So again, we hope you look forward to future announcements.
You mentioned in your question that players may use the New Game Plus feature to get themselves out of unwinnable situations. So there are other ways and this remake for players to get out of those tough, difficult situations. One of these is the added difficulty option, which you can change in the game, so players can get themselves out of those situations. That's something that we added for the players' benefit.
In the original release, the game can make it unfavorable for the players if they, for example, run away from battle too many times and they might get stuck in an 'unwinnable' situation. So in this game, we try to make sure that the players can progress the game smoothly without encountering those types of situations.
RPG Site: If I remember correctly, in the original version, running from a battle counts the same as fighting a battle as far as the scaling goes. So, it was not always good to flee, hah.
Anyways, which of the Seven Heroes is your favorite?
Tatsuke: (Laughs) This is a tough choice, and it's also tough to go into the details of why I picked this character without going up too deep into the details without spoiling anything. I would have to say Wagnas. In order to fully understand why I really like this character, you have to know the full story behind this character. Wagnas led the Seven Heroes, and at one point they were very respected among the people. However, the Seven Heroes are back for revenge. A part of what makes his character enticing is the player wondering why that happened.
Anyways, which of the Seven Heroes is your favorite?
Tatsuke: (Laughs) This is a tough choice, and it's also tough to go into the details of why I picked this character without going up too deep into the details without spoiling anything. I would have to say Wagnas. In order to fully understand why I really like this character, you have to know the full story behind this character. Wagnas led the Seven Heroes, and at one point they were very respected among the people. However, the Seven Heroes are back for revenge. A part of what makes his character enticing is the player wondering why that happened.
RPG Site: I'm curious, are other SaGa producers like Akitoshi Kawazu or Masanori Ichikawa involved with Revenge of the Seven, providing input towards this project in any way? Or is this project more free rein for you in terms of how this remake is handled?
Tatsuke: Actually, Ichikawa was the one who invited me to the SaGa team. So there's that connection there. The one and only thing that Ichikawa asked me to do when I took on the role as the producer of Revenge of the Seven was that he wanted to make this game into something that a lot of people would play ... more people who haven't played the SaGa series yet. That was really the only direction that I received from him, and he didn't really provide any other specific details on how he wanted this game to be. So in terms of the actual gameplay elements, he didn't have any specific orders.
In terms of Kawazu, he actually did give me free rein and he was comfortable with me taking this game in the direction that I wanted to. That being said, there were some elements of the worldview of Romancing SaGa that I wasn't very clear on. So, there were times that I would consult him and ask for his advice on how we should do certain things, which he did provide input on.
Tatsuke: Actually, Ichikawa was the one who invited me to the SaGa team. So there's that connection there. The one and only thing that Ichikawa asked me to do when I took on the role as the producer of Revenge of the Seven was that he wanted to make this game into something that a lot of people would play ... more people who haven't played the SaGa series yet. That was really the only direction that I received from him, and he didn't really provide any other specific details on how he wanted this game to be. So in terms of the actual gameplay elements, he didn't have any specific orders.
In terms of Kawazu, he actually did give me free rein and he was comfortable with me taking this game in the direction that I wanted to. That being said, there were some elements of the worldview of Romancing SaGa that I wasn't very clear on. So, there were times that I would consult him and ask for his advice on how we should do certain things, which he did provide input on.
RPG Site: How good is Kenji Ito?
Tatsuke: (Laughs) Kenji Ito, as you may already know, has been active for the past 30-plus years, composing tracks all the way back in the Super Famicom era. For this remake, we asked him to compose new arrangements and new songs as well. I suppose my impression of him is that he's actually still in his prime. That's just really impressive when you consider that he's been active for more than 30 years, and it feels like he still retains all the energy that he had in his younger years. He's still learning new things about music, which is really admirable to see all that from someone in his realm.
Tatsuke: (Laughs) Kenji Ito, as you may already know, has been active for the past 30-plus years, composing tracks all the way back in the Super Famicom era. For this remake, we asked him to compose new arrangements and new songs as well. I suppose my impression of him is that he's actually still in his prime. That's just really impressive when you consider that he's been active for more than 30 years, and it feels like he still retains all the energy that he had in his younger years. He's still learning new things about music, which is really admirable to see all that from someone in his realm.