"Romancing SaGa 2: Interview with Producer Shinichi Tatsuke and Steam Deck Preview"

A lot of folks got into the SaGa series through its many releases on prior console generations. For me, Romancing SaGa 2 on iOS was my gateway into the series nearly a decade ago. I remember struggling with it initially because I kept playing it like a typical JRPG. Fast forward to today, I adore the SaGa series, as you can see in the photograph at the bottom of this article. I was surprised to see Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, a full remake of Romancing SaGa 2, announced for Switch, PC, and PlayStation.

For today's double feature, I've been playing Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven on Steam Deck through an early demo code. I've also had the chance to interview Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Game Producer Shinichi Tatsuke, who was behind Trials of Mana's remake. We discussed Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, learnings from Trials of Mana, accessibility, potential ports to Xbox and mobile, coffee, and more. This interview was conducted on a video call, transcribed, and edited for brevity.

TouchArcade (TA): How does it feel having worked on a remake of Trials of Mana, a beloved game, and now working on Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, another classic and beloved game?

Shinichi Tatsuke (ST): Both Trials of Mana and the Romancing SaGa series are entries from the pre-Square Enix merger when Square Enix was Squaresoft. These are both considered legendary titles from Square. It's an incredible honor for me to handle the remakes of these two incredible titles. Both Romancing SaGa 2 and Trials of Mana, when we remade these titles, it's been 30 or almost 30 years since the original release. There was a lot of opportunity for us to improve with the remake. It was very fun to work on.

Romancing SaGa 2, as you may know, is a very unique game with a lot of unique systems. These systems were considered unique back then, and we felt that they are still considered unique today. Even though it's been more than 30 years, we felt that remaking this title would still be a great experience for modern players due to its uniqueness.

TA: Romancing SaGa 2, the original game, was very challenging. When I played it, I got a game over in the first 10 minutes, which was a wake-up call for me with it being my first SaGa game. The remake, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, has multiple difficulty options. What were the challenges for you to stay true to the original while still making it accessible? This is likely going to be the first SaGa game for many people with its modern graphics.

ST: You bring up a great point because the difficulty of the SaGa series is well-known throughout the fanbase. The SaGa series has a lot of hardcore fans in Japan and outside of Japan as well. Many claim that the difficulty is essential to the SaGa series. However, there's also a high barrier to entry for newcomers who feel that the SaGa titles are too difficult.

Many people know about the SaGa series but have never tried it, often because they think it's too difficult. We wanted to cater to both newcomers and hardcore fans. Our solution was to introduce a new difficulty system with normal mode for standard RPG fans and casual mode for those who want to experience the narrative or story of the game.

In the development team, we had core SaGa fans, and it was our collective decision to add these new difficulty settings. It's like adding honey to spicy curry to make it more palatable. The original Romancing SaGa 2 was very difficult, and the difficulty options are the honey that makes it easier for players.

TA: One more question about the difficulty. How was it like trying to deliver the original experience for veteran fans while also offering quality of life improvements into the gameplay and the game in general? How did you decide which features to bring in to modernize the game while keeping it challenging for long-time fans?

ST: Our belief is that the SaGa series is not just about difficulty; it's about how difficult it was to understand the game. In the original release, there were many elements or data that weren't visible to players. For example, the weaknesses of enemies existed in the game but weren't presented to players, who had to figure it out. This also applies to other stats like defenses, which existed but weren't displayed.

We thought this wasn't just difficult; it was unfair to players. For the modern audience, we wanted to remove these unfair elements and make the game fair and enjoyable. In this remake, weaknesses are displayed for players, unlike the original. We've adjusted areas that were too difficult in the original to make it fair and more enjoyable for modern audiences.

TA: When I started playing Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven on Steam Deck, it impressed me with how well it runs. That got me thinking about Trials of Mana, which I played on PlayStation 4, Switch, and eventually on mobile. Has the team been working to optimize the game specifically for Steam Deck?

Editor’s Note: This was asked before the game had an official Valve rating of Steam Deck Playable.

ST: Yes, as you've experienced the demo on your Steam Deck, the full game will also be compatible with the Steam Deck and playable on it.

TA: Can you comment on how long the development was for Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven?

ST: I can't provide the details, but I can say that we started the main development towards the end of 2021.

TA: What learnings from the Trials of Mana remake did you take into Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven to ensure that this is also a remake that fans love?

ST: From our experience with the Trials of Mana remake, we developed a good understanding of what players want and enjoy from remake titles. One example is the soundtrack. We learned that players generally prefer arrangements that are not too different from the original tracks. They prefer something faithful to the original arrangement. However, the original tracks were released on older platforms like the Super Famicom, and we're releasing the remake on modern platforms like the PlayStation 5. The technical limitations are very different, so we were able to refine the quality of the arrangements while keeping the general direction the same.

We also learned that many players prefer the original soundtrack over the newly arranged tracks. We added an option in the Trials of Mana remake for players to switch between the original and newly arranged tracks. We've included this system in Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven as well because players loved having that choice.

There are also new areas we worked on that weren't part of the Trials of Mana remake. For example, the graphics. The characters in the Mana series are typically shorter because the graphic style is more adorable. In SaGa, we can't keep the same aesthetics. The characters are taller in this remake compared to the others. For the backgrounds, we added shadow effects into the textures for the Mana series, but for SaGa, we wanted to keep it more serious and realistic, so we utilized lighting effects to add shadows, not textures. We brought in a lot of knowledge and experiences from Trials of Mana, but also figured out new things for this remake.

At this point, I thanked him and the team for making the "Romancing SaGa 2 Primer" video where he introduced the game in English. I was very happy with that video and have shared it with many of my friends who haven't played a SaGa game before.

TA: Trials of Mana remake eventually came to mobile. Are there any plans to bring Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven to mobile or Xbox in the future?

ST: We do not have any plans to release on those platforms at the moment.

TA: My final question is how do you like your coffee?

ST: I don't drink coffee because I'm not a fan of bitter drinks. I can't drink beer either.

I'd like to thank Shinichi Tatsuke, Jordan Aslett, Sara Green, and Rachel Mascetti for their time and help with this interview and preview access over the last few weeks.

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Steam Deck Impressions

When I was offered a Steam key for Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven to try out the demo beforehand, I was both excited and worried. The reveal trailer looked excellent, but I had no idea if it would be a good experience on Steam Deck pre-release. Thankfully, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is not only great on Steam Deck OLED out of the box, but the few hours I spent with the demo made me not even want to bother getting the game on PS5 or Switch to play. It is that good on Valve's handheld. But what about the remake and how it feels to play? I'm going to cover my early thoughts here.

Right off the bat, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven looks great and sounds fantastic on Steam Deck. This remake also properly introduces the basics of battle, stats, and more gradually. If you've played Romancing SaGa 2 before, there are some changes through quality of life improvements with information, how combat flows despite being turn-based, and also the new audio options. If you've never played the original, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is shaping up to be a lovely modern entry point into SaGa in general for newcomers. The visuals definitely make it more approachable, but this is very much Romancing SaGa 2 with a fresh coat of paint and some new features. Playing on the difficulty meant to be like the original is still challenging.

As for the remake's visuals and feel, it is a lot better than I expected. I loved Trials of Mana's remake, but I think Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven will end up being the better remake overall. This may be because I love the original game a lot more than Trials of Mana, but only time will tell when I get access to the full release. It also helps that at least on Steam Deck, the PC port is quite a bit better than I expected. When it comes to sound and language options, you can toggle between the new remake soundtrack or the original, English or Japanese audio, and also various graphics options.

The PC port of Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven lets you adjust screen mode (windowed, borderless, exclusive fullscreen), screen resolution (800×450 and more with 720p support on Steam Deck), frame rate (30 to unlimited), toggle v-sync, toggle on dynamic resolution, use graphics presets, toggle anti-aliasing, adjust texture filtering quality, adjust shadow quality, and adjust 3D model rendering resolution. I set most things to maximum or high with shadows on medium and still got a near-locked 90fps on my Steam Deck OLED at 720p.

On the audio side, I stuck to English for my first playthrough. The voice acting is good, but I will likely play the full game with Japanese first to see how I feel when I get it. I might even do English on console and Japanese on Steam Deck. Either way, a lot of care and effort has gone into not only making Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven feel modern but also retain its SaGa-ness.

I'm looking forward to digging into the full game when I can, and also seeing how the demo feels on consoles. Right now, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a game you should have on your radar if you enjoy RPGs. I hope this leads to more folks trying out other SaGa games as well, but Square Enix needs to give us SaGa Frontier 2 next.

Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven launches on October 24th for Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS5, and PS4 worldwide. A free demo will be available on all platforms today, and I recommend trying it out.

You can keep up with all our interviews here, including our recent ones with Sukeban Games, FuturLab, Shuhei Matsumoto from Capcom about Marvel Vs Capcom, Santa Ragione, Peter 'Durante' Thoman about PH3 and Falcom, M2 discussing shmups and more, Digital Extremes for Warframe mobile, Team NINJA, Sonic Dream Team, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and more. As usual, thanks for reading.