I wish I played the original Romancing Saga 2 before its misguided remake

I’ve played a lot of video game remakes in the past few years, but it’s surprisingly rare that I play one without having played the original version first. Usually, my opinions on these projects are shaped by what came before. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Resident Evil 4, and Silent Hill 2 are all as interesting to engage with as they are because I understand the conversation between past and present. I don’t often dive into a remake without that helpful starting point, but Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven felt like a perfect place for me to try something new.

Square Enix’s latest remake breathes new life into its 1993 SNES classic, bringing its pixelated world into vibrant 3D instead of giving it the HD-2D treatment like Dragon Quest 3. It’s more ambitious than a lot of projects like it, completely rebuilding the original from the ground up rather than giving it a fresher coat of paint. On paper, that makes for a modern reimagining that can better realize a once-limited world.

So, why do I wish I had played the original instead?

Revisiting a classic (for the first time)

I decided to start Romancing Saga 2’s remake on a whim after a review code for it landed in my inbox. The Saga series is one of my RPG blind spots and a remake like this felt like it was designed for people like me. It makes a complicated game more approachable by making it look and feel more like a game released in 2024. I imagine the idea here is that it can be an easier entry point for newcomers and hopefully convert them to other Saga games, while still teaching them the series’ roots. I’d be the perfect test case.

If you’re in the same boat as me, you’ll find a lot to dig into when diving in headfirst. Romancing Saga 2 is a classic fantasy RPG with a strong setup. The world once had seven heroes who were sworn to protect it. Those heroes mysteriously disappeared one day, though, only to reemerge a millennium later as corrupted villains. That kicks off a hit list premise where the king of Avalon and his retainers set out to slay them, one by one.

While its opening dungeons aren’t as thrilling as that premise sounds, Romancing Saga 2 quickly reveals what makes it special. When the king is unexpectedly killed, my character inherits their powers and becomes Avalon’s new leader. That isn’t an empty shock scene; death is a real threat here. Each of my party members, including my main character, has a set amount of life points. Every time their health is reduced to zero, they lose one. Once their counter hits 0, they permanently die and I need to hire a new retainer to join my party. It’s a high-stakes premise that makes every single decision in battle feel important. To skimp on healing magic or defensive maneuvers is to risk losing a party member for good.

Though its combat system employs a fairly standard turn-based approach that’s all about exploiting weaknesses, Romancing Saga is a deceptively deep and systems-heavy RPG. I have tons of gear slots to work with on each character, letting me get into the nitty-gritty with my builds. There’s a creative move learning system in which characters occasionally gain a bolt of inspiration mid-battle and learn a new attack or defensive maneuver on the fly. There’s also a formation system that gives my party different benefits depending on how I align them. All of those ideas get their hooks in me after a few hours as I experiment with my party composition.

Nearly 30 years after its release, Romancing Saga 2 holds strong as an RPG for hardcore RPG fans. It’s a tough adventure filled with punishing deaths and impactful decision-making. I truly do feel like a leader of an army in ways that a lot of games like this fail to hit. When my warriors die, it’s because I’ve let them down by putting them in a bad situation. Each action has real weight.

What’s in a remake?

While I was able to unearth those strengths after a bit of play, I almost bounced off the remake before I could. Revenge of the Seven puts its worst foot forward from the jump. Right away, I’m subjected to grating voice acting that melodramatically reads out SNES-style writing that was never intended to be acted out. Its visuals disappoint out the gate, as it has the flat aesthetic of a mobile gacha game.

The move to 3D sounds like a slam dunk on paper, but it comes with some clumsy design decisions. When I see an enemy wandering around in the open, I can run up to them and strike first to initiate an attack of opportunity. It’s a modern feature that you find in RPGs like Metaphor: ReFantazio, so it’s no surprise to see it here, too. It’s awkwardly implemented, though, as I only have the option to slash when I’m virtually on top of an enemy already. It’s difficult to pull it off unless I’m walking into a room explicitly laid out to let me surprise foes.

Square Enix

The original game’s formation system is entirely lost in the changeover, too. In the 1993 version, players are looking down at their party and enemies from a top-down perspective. That means it’s always easy to see exactly how the party is laid out. The remake changes that to put the camera behind each character when it’s their turn. I never actually see how they’re lined up, so it takes me a bit before I realize that’s a system at all. It’s a modern instinct that flat-out doesn’t make sense for a game built around very specific ideas.

The more I played, the more underwhelmed I felt. I could feel the bones of a great game, but something wasn’t clicking. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but a moment of fate gave me clarity. I started my playthrough on Nintendo Switch while I was away for a weekend. When I came home, my girlfriend was playing on the Steam Deck on the couch. By complete coincidence, she told me she’d picked up the original Romancing Saga 3 on a whim, completely unaware that I’d started the second game’s remake at virtually the same time.

I decided to watch over her shoulder for a bit. That’s when my intangible problems with Revenge of the Seven crystallized. I was immediately drawn in by the SNES game’s rich pixel art. I saw enemies similar to those I’d been fighting in my game, but they were significantly more expressive as flat images. The remake’s 3D art style looks interchangeable with any number of RPGs and lacks much detail at all. The combat in our games wasn’t very different on a fundamental level, but it was easier to see the strategic depth in her game as I looked down on the battle. Even the “ye olde” writing felt more natural in text form. I could see the better version of Romancing Saga 2 that I was probably missing out on by jumping straight into an inferior remake.

I’ve been haunted by a question since that moment: Why do publishers think I actually want remakes like this? Throughout the gaming industry, there seems to be a faulty instinct right now that gamers need their games to look and feel a certain way. It’s something that’s popped up in even successful remakes like Silent Hill 2, a lovingly made project that’s still more of a supplementary experience to its PS2 predecessor. Square Enix seems to believe that someone like me, who has never played Romancing Saga 2, won’t want to experience it unless it’s turned into a 3D RPG with as many modern fixings as possible.

That instinct is wrong. In trying to bring Romancing Saga 2 up to speed with modern times, the remake entirely loses sight of why the original is considered a cult classic. As was the case with Nintendo’s fine, but unnecessary Super Mario RPG remake, I don’t want or need to play a version of it that paves over its dark, gritty pixel art with smooth lines and bright colors. An HD-2D makeover or some quality of life improvements are all I could really use in an update, but you could even just make the original version playable on a service like Nintendo Switch Online and I’d be happy. A reimagined remake is no substitute for easy access to the original.

Square Enix

And if you do want to play that original version, good luck. Once I saw what I was missing, I popped over to Steam. A port of the original game had its own page, but it has mixed reviews. The user review section is filled with gripes, as the PC version is a shoddy port of its mobile version. It’s a copy of a copy. There’s no easy way for me to play a clean, localized version of the original even if I wanted to get some much needed context before playing a remake that’s likely to be best enjoyed by longtime fans who will find it novel to experience a story they’ve played to death from a new perspective.

If you’re not in that group, I’d advise against doing what I did here. Revenge of the Seven is not the best introduction to Romancing Saga 2; if anything, it makes a deep RPG feel a whole lot less distinct than it actually is. Treat this as an appendix page meant to be read after playing the original, not a new pressing.

Romancing Saga 2: Revenge of the Seven launches on October 24 for PlayStation 4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.