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>>3893565
If you want.
I personally would never get a game where you control more than 4 party members in a battle.

I liked it a lot. Play the demo, see if it clicks.

>>3893565
Like anon said check the demo. It's the entire Prologue.

there's iirc 15 memory scenes scattered throughout the world which give the villains backstory. other than that, and the prologue, there is essentially zero story. so if you need story to keep you invested, no. that being said, saga games are a very very different from typical JRPGs (anti-grind, kingdom management, generational unit shuffling, and no levels (except for each class/character's skill levels)). it's also fairly tough; you can't unga-bunga your way to victory, and will probably get team-wiped at least once if you aren't a JRPG veteran. but it has probably the strongest battle mechanics of any JRPG i've ever played, so if that sounds appealing, then absolutely yes.

>>3893840
Wonder how the rs3 remake will end up. If its a no story title like this, won't buy.

>>3893842
although i usually prefer story myself, i felt like my interest in rs2 was kept thanks to the regular generational rotation. your team can only do a couple dungeons before the game forces a timeskip where you have to pick a new emperor & teammates. kinda like SMT in that way, but i liked rs2 way more than nocturne. it also not being horrendously long to beat also helps.

>>3893566
>I personally would never get a game where you control more than 4 party members in a battle.
Leave it to a Trial & Error shitter to admit outright that they aren't interested in games you actually have to, you know, play.

>>3893565
I took me a while to get into it at the beginning but later omg i enjoyed it a lot

>>3893842
Story never was the focus of SaGa games, though.

>>3893565
I grabbed it off amazon for 20 bucks. It hasn't arrived yet. Prime's a ripoff.

>>3893842
RS2 has enough story as is. Your mind has been poisoned by the countless railroaded, cutscene addled JRPGs out there. RS2 remembers that it's supposed to be a game and lets you take to the reins of your campaign.

>>3894132
Modern games being so "Cinematic" has honestly warped people to a point were I question if they know what story and character even mean anymore.

>>3893565
Get it. They fixed the UE4 Fatal Error so you'll be able to see the ending without having to beat the game twice.

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I liked it.

>>3894166
So let me see if I get this. Every time a class character dies they get replaced with the next one in line. Do it enough times and they circle back to the first.

>>3894187
You are correct

>>3894187
You mean Emperors or other party members? Because in the remake you don't need to kill party members to replace them anymore.

>>3894204
The latter. I don't really intend to kill anyone. Just wanted to get a sense on how things worked now,

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I'm glad games like this and the Trials of Man remake were made but I wish they got more attention and I can't help but feel like even though Square is making them they're sort of pushing them out to die and any game that's not some mega AAA release is overshadowed too quickly

>>3893840
>there is essentially zero story
There's plenty of story. The seven heroes are back and they're wrecking chaos on the people of the world. Monsters are loose in the world and you end up helping various parts of the world and bring their territories into your kingdom. You learn there's a thieves guild in your kingdom and there's an underwater passageway. The brawlers have their own rite of passage in a sacred cave for initiates to defeat monsters. Subier and the narwhal are in constant battle in the waters. Cumberland has an adviser that attempts to bring a kingdom under his rule by using a kid as a puppet after he disposes of the king.

The story isn't about developing the main character, it is about the world and your actions that leave an impression on it. The game doesn't need to tell you these things because you're actually playing them out. Do you really need to be stopped and be told through text and cutscenes about what is happening?

>>3894242
Yeah, it's a story about an empire struggling to deal with a rising threat. Not everything needs to be some retard who needs to learn a basic bitch lesson.

>>3893840
>. but it has probably the strongest battle mechanics of any JRPG i've ever played
A bad way to say you don't play many games considering how bad the battle system in this game is

>>3894321
That's a double negative, retard. If that's a bad way to say a negative that means it's a positive.

>>3894242
>Do you really need to be stopped and be told through text and cutscenes about what is happening?
That's how JRPGs tend to do it, yes.

>>3894321
can't wait to hear you elaborate and actually try to make an argument.

>>3894369
My arguments are wasted on somebody who thinks filling limit break bars and spamming your strongest nukes behind light wall II and restoration spam makes for good, let alone strongest mechanics he has ever seen in a JRPG, the remake manages to be more archaic, obtuse and limited than the original, but that's something people who don't play many games wouldn't know, let alone those who don't play SaGa games.
On the other hand, this mediocre remake is also made in the hope to nudge people like you into slowly discovering better games by checking out the other SaGa games, so I suggest you to not just play the original but the rest of the series so you can see how actually good games are designed rather than this poorly made imitation.

>>3894371
damn, you wasted the perfect opportunity to shill your preferred game. sucks for me i guess. i was really looking forward to hearing the thoughts of a superior mind.

>>3893842
1. Business minigame: We get to see the characters and NPCs interacting during the game, not just the flow of money. Expand it in such a way so that we are doing it all game. Allow us to buy property with that money in towns to create our own hubs in each town, like that beach house you buy in Final Fantasy VII.
2. War minigame: Full 3D, real-time strategy if necessary. If it is too complex, include a sudden death mechanic, if you lose the war, your current party gets to fight a powerful boss. If you win, you win the war with less rewards, game over if you lose.
3. Expand Commander mode, change the tech and spell crown system so it is similar to SaGa Frontier.
And re-localize the game, the localization in the remaster is the worst in the series.

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>>3894225
it's the anime look with graphics to actually realize it

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>>3894498
>2. War minigame: Full 3D, real-time strategy if necessary. If it is too complex, include a sudden death mechanic, if you lose the war, your current party gets to fight a powerful boss. If you win, you win the war with less rewards, game over if you lose.
Suikoden fan in me yearns for this shit.

>>3894503
Yeah I like this a lot more than t he pseudo realistic style of something in FF7 remakes which I just can't help but find odd.

Goddamn those time skips really sneak up on you. I wasn't grinding or anything but I Gered got rotated out sooner than I expected and then my next emperor got swaped after a couple missions and that succession quest.

I will admit anons, the demo clicked with me and so I got it... And I won't lie, I'm the beginning everything was good and all, now after grinding a lot the game is kicking my butt at the beginning on the goblin's nest, I barely managed to beat it but the enemies are starting to hit stronger and harder, did I mess up by grinding?

>>3894849
No, eventually the enemies stop leveling up with you, so you're not gonna end up softlocking yourself with difficulty. Just use the strongest party members you have and unlock formations that boost your stats. Such as Imperial Cross, then have a Vagabond emporer so you get Free For All 2, which is one of the best formations until you get Rapid Stream.

>>3895073
>Rapid Stream
A good formation in the original/remaster, as well as in the remake on Hard difficulty. Would not recommend it on Romancing difficulty since a lot of enemy attacks one shot you regardless of armor. The remake heavily incentivizes you to equip Guards for whatever reason, and therefore incentivizing you to not use 2 handed weapons. In fact, that's just the remake's hardest difficulty in general. Only few viable strategies and anything beyond that results in failure.

>>3894371
I say the battle mechanics in the remake are still strong, you can get your ass kicked if you come in unprepared. The inclusion of a broken spell doesn't change that. I'm going to mention the original also had a broken spell where if you used that alongside Rapid Stream, the enemy never gets a chance to attack. All enemies but one are susceptible to this strategy.

>>3895087
Another thing about the remake compared to the original is that you cannot stack buffs, some buffs overwrite other buffs (If you use Revive, you remove Shadow Servant, for example).

>>3894835
Doing 3 - 4 quest will ensure a generation skip. At some point, you might start skipping enemies if possible just to ensure you won't get time skipped after a quest.
Be careful not to do a quest that has multiple parts like the Cumberland one. You might end up generation skipping in the middle of it, failing the whole quest line.

>>3895083
>The remake heavily incentivizes you to equip Guards for whatever reason
Time to grind those Willguard+ in the last dungeon then.

>>3895329
>Time to grind those Willguard+ in the last dungeon then.
I grinded them in that one dungeon you unlock by talking to someone in the Village of the Ancients. Helped that there's an auto-save spot that's close to the enemy that drops them.

>>3894369
I've seen this doofus sperg about this in every SaGa thread on /v/.
>no actually those postgame abilities meant for ng+ makes the game poorly designed actually!
SaGa is inherently poorly-designed. When a remake deviates from that, schizoid minds break. It's common.

>>3894835
if you're careful you can get him to marry the mermaid

>>3894849
enemies will EVENTUALLY stop leveling up. honestly, if you're only at the goblins, it probably is better to just restart. and it won't take nearly as long if you don't grind.

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so is it actually possible to beat the game on fresh NG classic start doing final emperor challenge? i see no talks about it from quick google search
>>3894849
this happens to me too, starting in classic difficulty goblins in the nest rapes me while kzinssie mansion up to the rematch was chill in comparision
early game scaling is..weird early on like game expects you already sparked many good early game techs but you likely still haven't so shit takes forever to die when mobs 1-2 shots you, eventually it stabilizes however. for me most early fights are always uphill battle with female mage barely holding the team from falling apart until second hero kill and i can recruit bestgirl from jap castle who always hardcarries

Crazy how Sagafags think their game has the best battle system when it is very limited and archaic.
FF3-9 gives you more options in the battles.

Sorry for hijacking this thread OP but in regards to Minstrel Song, are there any noticable differences between the Switch, PS4 and PS5 versions anons?

>>3893565
It's a good remake of what I consider the best SaGa game, and it's not as big of a >filter as Unlimited

Well I just murdered about a half dozen emperors to get some formations

>>3897779
Menus aside, every version runs at 30fps so the only real difference should be load times

>>3897786
This guy Praetorians

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>>3897786
On my first run, I did this along with mastering all of the abilities that I could, then I was stuck fighting Noel's enraged 2nd form for about two days.

Got to my Final Emperor. Decided to go fight Wagnas because Noel was kicking my ass. He was much easier.

>>3893566
Sauce?

>>3898240
Noel folds to Sword Barrier. Better grind up that light magic aptitude level.

>>3898478
Unfortunately, you cannot stack Sword Barrier and Fire Wall. Then Noel throws out the Red Drake Wave and three of your five characters drop to one knee.

>>3898488
I was actually able to keep ahead of that thanks to having restoration on a couple dudes. It's much easier to keep pace when you don't have to worry about everything.

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ALL MY DUDES SUDDENLY GOING ALL CHEST BURSTER!

>>3898478
Having a few greatsword Evasion techs against him is good too. I forgot which are the ones to equip against him though.

>>3898240
Funny its Wagnas that gaves me problem on my run because I expect him to be weak on Earth since hes flying. My Dancer and Levante Guard needs to work double time in racking the Water damage on him or I'm gonna get roasted by his Firestorm.

>>3898637
>I forgot which are the ones to equip against him though.
Flowing Slash, Waterfowl Blade, Lunar Blade

So I guess I'm at the last battle. Compared to what I've seen online I feel like I'm pretty underleveld but also I'm stilling beating bosses so I guess I'm doing alright? I know the game scales weirdly so maybe it won't be an issue but I also feel like I might not be getting the most out of the game. Saga's weird.

I don't like this final boss at all

What's your retinue? Mine:
Final Emperor (M)
Iris
Dancer/Ninja/Corsair/Desert Guard
Diviner
Strategist

>>3899170
Hope you got Light Wall buddy

>>3899543
I've been rolling
FEMperor
Ninja
Court Mage F
Heavy Infantry/Light Infantry F
Ranger F

more or less the whole game

>>3893565
I'm curious about this one. I am currently downloading the demo. I can't afford the full game.

I do have two SaGa games,
SaGa Frontier and
SaGa Frontier 2.
I like them both.
but damn can SaGa Frontier 2 get really bleak.

>>3899820
The demo cuts out on this one before anything interesting happens really.
>but damn can SaGa Frontier 2 get really bleak.
I really need to go back and replay that one

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>>3899543
Final Emperor (M)
Imperial Guard (F)
Imperial Blacksmith
Dancer
Strategist

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>>3899170
Imagine not liking kino.

https://x.com/RTAinJapan/status/2005560701755314308
Speedrun bug appears to have dropped on the latest RTA in Japan. Using the memories of the Seven Heroes, to warp to the location of the scene of the memory, then leave and you are in the post-game dungeon, taking advantage of the game's autosave feature.

>>3899861
I recently found out the remaster lets you beat the game without the Final Emperor. Maybe I should do that.

As Souji.

>>3899865
Souji? It would be similar to these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kytulmsdLrk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9M-VSuj_lE

>>3899543
Final Emperor M
Hannibal (Imperial Guard M)
Tirpitz (Corsair)
Kongming (Strategist)
Skya (Iris)

Final Emperor M and Hannibal has the highest STR stat at 25. Tirpitz has the highest STR stat among all Corsairs at 19 STR and is a good axe user provided you unlocked dark magic and fucked over the Salamanders. Kongming is the best magic user, no contest, with a MAG of 25 and a LOG/Reason of 10. No other magic users can compare to him in terms of magical damage. Skya is a good magical attacker and a good tank. Give her a Fire Circlet and she is immune to fire and water-based magic without needing to cast Fire Wall. In the remake, you can give her all the elemental immunity abilities which gives her more immunities to elemental attacks than in the remaster.

>>3899543
>final
>ninja
>dancer
>iris
>nereid / blacksmith / imperial guard f

>>3899543
from what i remember from my old save
Femperor (greatsword because its cool)
Ninja (martial arts here is insane. gets a good tech rather fast, berserk downside gets negated with certain equip and still doing hax damage even without guanyin if built glass cannon way stacking str+spd)
Strategist
Iris (sorry F Crusader you are just too slow i have to kick you for a birb)
dancer (rapier)
wish magic damage has higher ceiling in remake, no easy setup like RS3 servant+hypergravity

>>3899891
>no easy setup like RS3 servant+hypergravity
I tried that once and wasn't impressed. I'd rather keep Undine with water magic and equip the dolphin statue for more thunderclap damage. Plus the field bonus if someone uses hasten time, and she can use hasten time herself.
Bai Meiniang is great at using wind magic in commander mode teams.

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>End boss can just combo you
>Twice in a row
And fuck you, game.

Good christ finally won. Not a fun challenge. Overall fun game but I have no desire to do the post game shit.

>>3899951
You fought too many battles, anon.

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Romancing SaGa 3 Remake when

>>3899820
Saga Frontier having the most appealing setting kills me because the remaster looks fucking hideous. Every single PS1 remaster Square does looks fucking terrible, their shit font choices are the cherry on top.

>>3900235
So play the original. It's not like PS1 emulation is hard. The added story content is nice but I'm sure it's on youtube.

Just started into this game and I'm enjoying it a lot. I have some experience in Saga, did two endings in Frontier and I've played a little Scarlet Grace and Emerald Beyond.
My question is, it sounds like everyone agrees that Romancing Saga 2 Remake is the easiest game to get into, what's the second easiest game to get into?
Just curious where to go if I finish it and I'm interested in more.

>>3900490
I feel like once you're buying what Saga is selling any game at this point will be easy to get into.

>>3900519
You say that but I blitzed RS2 and haven't been able to get into any other ones. Frontier and RS3 kept hold of me for a few hours but it never quite clicked like RS2.

>>3900519
Not for me, I love RS2 remaster and remake but I got completely filtered by Emerald Beyond
I didn't enjoy my first RS3 playthrough very much, but I eventually got the hang of things and replayed it several times. Similar situation (hopefully) for Frontier, it hasn't quite clicked yet after a playthrough.

>>3900490
Final Fantasy Legend 2 on the gameboy. It's more basic but still pretty interesting. Just prepare for a lot of random battles.

>>3900526
How far into RS3 did you get? When I fought the dragon in the mountain I was fully invested. Same thing happened with Romancing SaGa 2. I thought it was good but wasn't utterly gripped by it. Then I ran into Dantarg and trying out different skills and strategies to down him and then I was hooked. I think with Minstrel Song was when I finally got to the top of Mt. Scurve. There's just certain events that push the game over the edge from being good to really being an epic.

>>3900490
I started with Minstrel Song and it completely hooked me to the point that I want to play more Saga now. It's a cool ass bizarre game, but I struggle to let go of my completionist ways and just accept that I will lose shit. I didn't look up a guide for my first character but I sure as hell did everything in my power to avoid random encounters at some point.

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Time to beat the final boss as Souji, who only has a max LP of 1.

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>>3901564
Did it.

>>3901593
Nice
When I did a solo playthrough I suicided my units at the start of the game and played the entire game with the final empress, so a lot of the most overpowered tools were unavailable to me. E.g. no darkstone ring, no axe skills (for the amethyst axe). The final boss was tough.

How do I maximize the amount of time skips to reach Year 4000+? My current plan is:

1st TS: Clear Gemstone Mine and annex Ludon
2nd TS: Complete the Saigo Clansman quest without defeating Dantarg and defeat the Queen to annex the Savannah
3rd TS: Complete the Mermaid quest
4th TS: Take the boat from Miles to Cumberland and solve their quest
5th TS: Liberate Canal Fortress
6th TS: Solve the Corsair/Armed Merchant Quest and annex Comroon Island
7th TS: Stop the eruption in Comroon Island and banish Garon
8th TS: Solve the sunken ship quest without triggering the fight with Subier and annex Melu by negotiating with Noel
9th TS: Defeat Dantarg in the missing Mu and Child quest
10th TS: Annex the Steppe
11th TS: Annex Salamat
12th TS: Annex Yauda

Romancing SaGa 2's boss theme is weird, for the most part it's great, but https://youtu.be/4dr7XxEi0U4?si=P14lKwnAmORb7RI_&t=41 annoys the hell out of me every time it plays and it kinda ruins the entire track for me.

>>3902130
I miss MS’ flamenco theme :(

>>3900490
> what's the second easiest game to get into?
Not Emerald Beyond.
Curiously, a lot of my friends back in the PS1 era liked Saga Frontier 1 - and most of them were absolutely not into JRPGs before FF7. So, maybe that one ?

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Guy playing the 2017 remaster here.
...what just happened?
I got a victory (barely) over the vicar of Canal, and suddenly I'm a hundred and fifty years in the future? Huh?

>>3904739
You did enough events for it to be considered a generation and time skipped to the next point the inheritance magic activates.

I'm not clear on how event points actually operate, but depending on how much you fight and exactly what events you finish, you can accomplish more or less within a generation before the skip.
The system has a few ramifications on team building, but you really shouldn't worry about it too much.

>>3904742
bruh, I did ONE THING after I beat the first corrupted hero, which is take the Canal fort with thief help... game design aside, did Gerard really just sit on his ass for the rest of his life after that one thing?
I can appreciate the ambition of the concept but it's all so abstract in how it's done... and the kingdom hasn't changed during the skip far as I can tell.

>>3904745
Recruiting Thieves is a separate event from taking the canal fort.
And yeah, the only actual indication that time is passing is if you do kingdom development stuff like construct the Magic Academy or the Barracks or the Orchard

>>3904748
Guess I gotta keep every bit of "questing" in mind.
On that note I'm rolling back to previous save, combination of wanting to get at least the dragon lair done and enemies suddenly becoming beefier.
Man this game feels so weird and I'm pretty sure I'm just past the tutorial chapter.

>>3904816
Yeah, Gerard is the tutorial.

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Just wanna say, it is absolutely aggravating how hard it is to find information on particular stuff for RS2 original/remaster because of how much Revenge of the Seven gets in the way of search results EVERYWHERE.
Also, got a bit of mixed aggravation/entertainment when I tried to manipulate the system
>>>3904745 happens
>go back to previous save, figure out I can do other stuff south
>eventually get to point when finishing a quest does the timeskip
>figure I can get a big event out of the way instead to avoid that causing issues again, go back to Canal and finish that instead
>next emp I go to steamroll the scalies that were the boss of the other quest
>they're replaced by a giant fucking seven member who can kill me with a stern glare
Well done game.
At least I have thieves now? Who don't seem much different then the classes I already had. I already miss my previous squad, this lot doesn't seem as effective despite giving them the same skills.

>>3904931
>Just wanna say, it is absolutely aggravating how hard it is to find information on particular stuff for RS2 original/remaster because of how much Revenge of the Seven gets in the way of search results EVERYWHERE.
Use before:2024 when searching on Google.

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>>3904931
You're just free exp.

>>3904739
So, time skips happen when you gain enough event points. Certain quests end in a black screen with some text, indicating that it might trigger a time skip. You trigger a time skip when you've gained Event Points within the 8-15 range. If you have 15 or more Event Points accumulated, you're guaranteed a time skip. If your Event Points are somewhere between 8-14, you're guaranteed a time skip if you engaged in 240 battles or more during your current generation. If you have less than 240 battles, you may or may not trigger a time skip, it depends on the remainder of your current generational battles / 16, and if the event points accumulated excluding the one you just completed is higher than the remainder of your current generational battle. If you have less than 8 event points accumulated, you will not trigger a time skip at all.

https://romancing-saga-2.blogspot.com/p/gameplay.html#genskip
This can help explain how time skip works. You could even plan ahead which quests to do first and predict a time skip.

>>3904931
Just a heads up, a big part on whether or not you win a battle depends on the development of spells and weapons. You want to regularly check the blacksmith and the incantation lab if you want stronger gear. You only get one copy of that gear when the research is complete, and you can start buying said gear in shops on the next time skip. The game has limited number of quests and therefore, a limited number of time skips. If you're not keeping up with the development of equipment and spells and you've progressed past a certain point, your playthrough of this game might be over. Therefore, it's best to get them done and over with asap.

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>>3904997
I don't wanna concede defeat yet, it's just the emp right after Gerard, but man I do feel like I'm just not doing something right. Went from 1/2-shotting most things with two longswords that do more then double the damage of a greatsword to said weapons barely being competitive. After doing some reading, I may have fled from too many battles (the in-game record says 266).
Game is super daunting but I'm coming to respect it, enough that I'd feel embarrassed if I gave up on it or went and played that shiny and probably compromised remake.
>>3904937
He basically says exactly that.

>>3905069
The remake and the remaster are both great, you should eventually play both.
While the game is designed for you to continue playing after a party wipe, i.e. you can usually build a new party to avenge yourself, killing Dantarg with your second emperor is very doable. But consider taking a detour to explore the world before returning there. And try sitting on your throne if you haven't built the magic development facility

>longswords
>greatswords
You should have found stronger weapons. There's a good one-handed sword earlier in that dungeon.

>>3905089
Oh I've got a facility and orchard up already. First thing I did when he got dad's armor was sit on that throne.
>are both great
...I'm sure it's better then a lot of remakes currently, and it's certainly less visually offensive compared to the RS1 remake... but I checked out while watching footage of it when I saw Gels getting beaten with weapons. Maybe on a steam sale after I beat this version.

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>>3905089
>There's a good one-handed sword earlier in that dungeon.
This?
Also earlier got a sword called Worm Slayer from I think a random drop, not quite as damaging but i think it taught me to summon bugs.
Guess I can go sift through previous areas and see if I missed anything.

>>3905069
>Hey, jump over this gap, will ya?

Is choosing mage emperors a bad idea, at least until you get more ideal formations then Imperial Cross?

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WILL THE ORCHESTRA PLEASE CALM THE FUCK DOWN I'M JUST GETTING THROUGH THESE MONOLOGUES FUCK

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Just got the Final Emperor in RotS and I feel like I locked myself out of a lot, like never having a Corsair Emperor.
I guess I'm okay with it as long as I can't softlock myself. I'll probably do NG+ even though I rarely do NG+. Only really done it in Chrono Trigger, SMTIV and SMTV but I'm really liking this game.

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>this much fighting done by the time of first post-Gerard emp
...yeah may have fucked myself, even if around half of this is probably retreats. Enemies are getting beefy and a pain to hurt at all.
I don't even know how I fought this much...

>>3905116
That's a good sword.
>>3905492
It's not a big deal, but other emperors could transfer levels in various weapons to your emperor.
>>3905746
While running from so many battles doesn't help, you can never fuck yourself so badly that your run is unsalvageable. Even if you fled from 1000+ battles you could rely on status effects, like instant death, to kill endgame enemies. And if you level up enough you can learn a spell that wins the game for you.

>>3905793
Final boss will rape you, though. You have to survive his additional attacks.

>>3905736
You only missed out on formations if you didn't try all the classes as Emperor.

Went ahead and restarted run, think I'm mostly paced out better and not seeing minibosses in random encounters anymore. Also got a better laid out team and the roflstomp hero didn't appear in that dungeon this time so actually making progress south.
Lost 1-2 levels of global skills I think, and I miss my worm sword, but eh it's fine.

>>3906189
You really didn't have to restart. Just keep up with the development of weapons and armor and use magic often, and you'll be fine. I'd even go as far as saying it's fine running away from battles just to get the R&D done. The research would complete after 5 battles. Having a high proficiency in weapons and spells is beneficial, but it's mostly your gear and unlocked techs that would be a deciding factor on your victory.

>>3906223
Was only on the post-Gerard emp and barely did anything during it, didn't take that long to catch up.
On the topic of development though, what if anything decides what they have available to do as projects? One moment they're offering sword and armor, next they're offering light shield and no option for weapon, any way to manipulate it?

Is there a downside to killing off your characters?
I'm on the final boss of the Remake and I have characters on 2 and 4 LP. I can bump them up to 6 LP each with items but I'm wondering if it would be better to get them killed and recruit them again.

>>3904745
It's a 1993 game, cut them some slack, there's only so much you can do on the SNES especially when you're a b-team which isn't allowed to have much of a budget.
It might be too abstract in some parts but it's still a hell of a game.
>>3906246
You can exploit it.
The blacksmiths rotate their development offers after exactly every fight you get into.
Think of your blacksmith as having a calendar with a set order of objects, like Sword>Greatsword>Spear>Mace and so on, with every fight you trigger the blacksmith silently moves onto the next item in the list provided it wasn't already developed, so if you want you can totally beeline for the Cross Claymore or whatever endgame weapon you want by manipulating the list through entering a fight and then checking whether your blacksmith will develop the item you want.
Of course you also need the cash to do this.

>>3894132
>>3894153
There were a lot of JRPGs back then that had a lot of story.

>>3905736
Classic encourages NG+ in case of hitting a wall in NG. Unlike other games, you can initiate NG+ at any point. If you're going to NG+, remember to hoard as much stuff into storage since you can't keep research or money. Save expensive items in storage, sell them in NG+ for a leg up.

Every fight make sure to rotate actions. Sword on first turn? Cast Light Ball the second turn. You get the experience for a category of action, which doesn't split. So it's free real estate to cast 3 schools of magic and attack with 2 weapons and martial arts, you get 6 battles worth of progress instead of just 1. Everyone adding 2 levels to a skill/element is how your empire gets much stronger global skills the next generation. In classic, magic caps out, I can't remember if 24 or 30, but it's a level that is just low enough to notice the nerf from the time skip.

>>3906955
The only downside in remake is if you cycle through all of the names for a class in the same generation. For example, if you perma-kill your Imperial Guard M over 7 times to roll back around to the original Wallenstein, the game bugs out and reverts the class to the stats before the last character in the class, easily losing hours of progress.

>>3906246
Once you research enough equipment, the re-rolls will feel like they stagnate. If you got 3 of the 4 pieces of suits (helmet, gloves, armor, boots) researched, you might need 30+ fights to force the roll past the non-suit stuff to get to the missing suit piece. The game has to round to the nearest valid option, but still wants your encounters to tick through the categories as if they still have research items. So if it was 8 fights for helmets, 8 fights for gloves, and 8 fights for armor but you want boots, then you need 24 fights instead of 8 to get the boots option. It's very clunky, so Remake just lets you choose the specific object from the get-go.

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>>3907353
You do not understand the difference between passive exposition and story.
RS2 has a ton of "story", it's much more complex than most of its contemporaries narrative wise, but it filters people because it's nonlinear and doesn't rely on passive exposition to convey its "story".
In RS2 you actually have to play through the "story", the difference between RS2 and other "story rich" JRPGs of the time is that RS2 turns what other games use as cutscenes into pure gameplay and doesn't use passive exposition as a crutch to convey its narrative, and its story has multiple branches.

Think about the sheer amount of narrative possibilities you have with Gerard alone, you can do anything from going all the way to Eirunep and kill Rocbouquet (or die trying like in the theater play continuity) to immediately die during the goblin siege and never actually avenge Leon, this deliberate freedom and breadth of choice has massive narrative implications and it absolutely counts as "story" even if it's told to you through actual gameplay and player agency rather than cutscenes where you just button mash through dialogue prompts, even if it's a series of mutually exclusive events you might never see yourself.
The entire point of this fucking series is that you, the player, have to actively shape and create your own version of the "story" through your own actions rather than sitting through the motions and mashing A through dialogue bubbles so you can see the next cutscene.

>>3907353
As always people mistake sitting the player down with a bunch of text boxes and cut scenes as the only way to tell a story. Oh no, not like actually playing the game and going into an underground dungeon to find a dolphin statue to turn on the computer systems to make a whole piece of land move like a boat would be part of the story. Or that you use it to get to the spot of one of the four arch demons out in the water. To people that isn't story because the game doesn't halt you and begin to assault you with five minutes of text you have to mash through rather than playing through it.

SaGa expects you to venture out, explore, and stumble onto things and deduce how it fits into the world. When you go outside and do something do you wait for someone else to explain what is about to happen? No. Your story is the actions you take in your activity.

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Funny how "emergent storytelling" was a big trend not long ago and the people who went through it somehow can't grasp it happening if it's a game older then the trend. Like, people can draw interpretations from random happenings in Skyrim or interactions with some orc in Shadow of Mordor but not RS2?
Now granted, the english translation of the remaster is a pretty lackluster interpretation of already very straightforward dialogue, meanwhile the remake juggles between being the same or trying to explain things like babby's first video game (it's not pokemon it's fucking SaGa) or flat out wasting your time, that may distract.

>>3907609
I have no idea why the remake added all that extra generic JRPG yapping during some of the seven heroes' fights but did absolutely nothing to expand some key NPCs like Sagzaar and Oaive which are stuck with their exact original SNES scripts where they repeat one thing over and over again.
Granted, that lack of consistent direction is a huge problem for the game as a whole but leaving those NPCs completely untouched was one of the most jarring decisions for me, especially when they also added those new cutscenes from the stage play so people who played the original are baited into expecting that, logically, they'd also have expanded their in-game script to elaborate on and acknowledge those new lore additions, but no.

>>3905736
You really don't need Rapid Stream to beat the game. In fact, I'd argue Dragon Stance is a better formation than Rapid Stream because it allows shield usage. Just have an emperor with a SPD stat above 20s. Your final emperor has exactly that.

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People talking about narrative possibilities and emergent storytelling while my story with my game is I'm a bitch who can't beat any boss past the canal vicar because they're all one-shotting 10-20k hp behemoths, and I dunno how anyone else's is different.
I barely managed to stunlock the termite queen to death in an overlong fight, meanwhile had to abandon areas/quests because of Giant/Dantarg/Spriggan(i tried so hard with this one)/something else, thought I was doing well and now falling into a pit of demoralization.
For those curious my path went something like Dragon Lair-Mine-Saigo dungeon-Canal-SKIP-first Mu quest-Cumberland-Termite queen-SKIP-restore Mine-Mermaid quest-SKIP-now.
Dunno if I'm not sparking enough or avoiding too many fights in general or what.

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>>3907528
>For example, if you perma-kill your Imperial Guard M over 7 times to roll back around to the original Wallenstein, the game bugs out and reverts the class to the stats before the last character in the class, easily losing hours of progress.
Okay, so just don't abuse it super hard. I did end up beating the final boss with my party but it is at the point where I'm going to have to kill them off when I start making serious attempts at Dread Queen.
Still have the Seven refights to do.

>>3907745
>700+ Max HP
>300+ Max BP
I think you're underleveled at this point. Not that you need to grind, it's just that you now have to treat the game as if you're playing on Romancing difficulty where attacks one shot you. In this case, you give everyone Guards and a 1-handed weapon, preferably axes and swords. Use any of the following formation: Imperial Arrow, Rising Phoenix, Dragon Stance, Divine Wall. I suggest doing the post-game Seven Heroes fight and beat them in 5 turns or less. You get their personal weapons as a reward for beating within the turn limit and you get OP abilities you can use for the Dread Queen.

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Remaster Dread Queen or Remake Dread Queen on Romancing difficulty: Which version do you prefer, and which one is harder?

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>>3907774
Oh I know I'm underlevelled. Wasn't necessarily intentional but it has been fun figuring things out. All the discussion I see online says you'll probably hit the Enemy Strength cap of 16 before the final boss and I'm currently at 13. I just barely scraped by on the Seven Heroes fight, with my next significant option being to grind 60 fights with new classes for new abilities(which I'll probably do now).

The only reason I made it to phase 2 of Dread Queen was because my Heavy Infantry had the ability to survive with 1 health from the big fuck you move. I'll keep your advice in mind since I do have Divine Wall to work with but I'm okay trying my own stuff for a bit more. I'm also only on Normal difficulty cause I wanted to be able to experiment more and this is the first time I've taken a Saga game seriously.

>>3907735
Personally against Dantarg I used water mist on one guy to support my party.

>>3907826
Remaster dead queen is too easy to cheese
if you get 128 status defense you're immune to most of her attacks. Buff speed and you'll have a 100% counter rate against the phys attacks. Can't remember if you need sword barrier or missile guard.
The only attack that can damage you is the second phase's wracking and it's very weak

>>3908018
Oh... well I didn't use that tactic. I went with the Rapid Stream + Light Wall strategy. It still took me one attempt unlike in the remake where she has new moves including a spell that hits all party members and has a high chance of inflicting instant death. I messed around with the formations I got, changed some party members, grab some weapons with built-in magic spells to bypass the opposing element restriction. In the end, I went with:

Formation: Imperial Arrow
Party: Final Emperor M, Ninja, Dancer, Crusader F, Diviner

Diviner is the tank using Wraith Form and can cast Fire Wall to avoid her AoE instant death spell, Crusader F handles the healing. Final Emperor M, Ninja and Dancer are the DPS with the Seven Heroes weapons. Everyone except the Diviner also carry greatswords so they can use Life Blade and evade attacks for one turn.

>>3907826
Remaster Dread Queen is more interesting because I'm not bottlenecked into a Lightwall+Restoration spam general use strategy, I can approach the fight in a variety of different ways because it's inherently more balanced due to better core mechanics, outside of that the fights are almost identical in terms of moveset with Remake being more pattern heavy as per the Remake's standards, with a couple new attacks that don't really matter and a warning when the big nukes are coming.
Difficulty wise they're about even if we're considering Romancing difficulty, below Romancing the Remake fight is easier since it's too static and easily solved like any other boss fight in the game and the game deliberately pushes you to do so with its turn count "challenge", Remake DQ also doesn't have anti-cheese measures like Remaster DQ, Remake DQ phase 1 music fucking slaps though.

>trying to stunlock boss that one-shots me with any attack
>stun attacks keep being overridden with sparked techs each attempt
bruh

Did they really remove specific damage defenses from the remake?
Dude, why both adding the much needed transparency on what exactly items/equipment do if what it's needed for just gets removed?

>>3908973
>Did they really remove specific damage defenses from the remake?
Yes, but they added new "elemental" defenses but they're still hidden and limited to a bunch of rings and class passives lmao
>why
It's XEEN, not the SaGa team

>>3907609
>Funny how "emergent storytelling" was a big trend not long ago
I don't think that ever caught on. Most people want their on-rails theme park experience because it's easy to understand.

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>>3907573
Not to mention the Remake put a lot of that story in your face compared to the original where you had to find your way to the Forgotten village so you could find out more about the heroes.

Man, actually clawing up power progression to the point to get a win over a Hero feels so good.

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I think I'm almost done? I just need to fight 2 more heroes including Kzinssie. Overall I'm having a lot of fun with this game, but it feels like it only has like 5 pieces of music and 'Clash with Kzinssie' is starting to piss me off. I wish I could use SaGa Frontier's basic battle theme here, but nothing is stopping me from muting the game and having that track play over the game I guess.

>>3908380
Could always fill your skill slots so you can't learn anything if we're talking about the remaster. Or have many people on stun duty until then. I normally have two just in case.

>>3909242
Or use a different stun tech
iirc feint and daze are more reliable, while glamor blade and vertical strike do more damage. And I don't think any of them spark new skills

Honestly, why should I bother with the remake over the remaster? Aside from the swappable party members and (over)improvements of the dialogue, everything about it rubs me the wrong way, from broad things like the art direction and simplified/convenienced stats to specific things like how close the camera is in combat and actions happening immediately and too quickly.

>>3909365
You won't like it, don't bother
But to anyone else asking the same question: obviously for the gameplay

>>3909365
If you care about mechanics and general design there's no reason to bother with the remake because on one hand most things are straight up copypasted with almost no fixes to the original issues and on the other hand there's a lot of extremely stupid changes that add new issues, many of which are not in line with how either the original game or the series works.
There's a select couple of objectively good changes like a decently comprehensive manual, how the Ninja and Onmyouji classes are now fully integrated with the main game's content in a way that makes sense or the new Magic Research Center which no longer makes you run around a ton of rooms and has a much better designed UI, but as good as they are it's not a good bargain when you look at the rest of the game.
Also there's not really any actual improvement on the dialogues at the end of the day, you got some extra generic and kinda cringe JRPG yapping in a couple of places, some new cutscenes and events with the new classes, voiced lines in battle which are also very limited compared to the other games, but also every emperor is now a silent protagonist unlike the original game where they would actually talk and have different things to say during NPC conversations according to their classes, now you just look at them stay completely silent during events and then select some stock replies that are not even voiced while everything else is, only Leon, Gerard and the Last Emperors get some voiced lines in a select couple of cutscenes.

It's honestly bizarre that the remake can't provide dialogues for every possible interactions for each emperor class but Minstrel Song has voiced dialogues for just about everything.

>>3909671
Kawazu wasn't involved in the RS2 remake so there's less soul

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I also decided to try this out. I'm on my 4th Emperor and it's fun. Never played any of the SaGa games. Which ones are worth playing once I'm done with this?

Even though the game can be "difficult" (characters getting randomly one shot mostly) this is a nice game to just pick up and play like an hour then put back down. The level up bars after fights and glimmer system feel really satisfying

>>3912444
>Which ones are worth playing once I'm done with this?
All of them.

>>3912444
As >>3912806 said, I personally would go for the original version of Romancing 1 with fansub over Minstrel Song, and the late 2010s remasters for the other two.
Haven't played the GB games so I can't judge there. And my recollection of SaGa Frontier is very hazy.

Is Therese less shitty in the remake? All she fucking does most of the time is die and die, often in one hit.
I'm actually grateful LP is a thing cause soon I can put someone more useful in.

>>3912885
She starts with water magic in the remake so you have a healer at the beginning. She's still your character who can clear mobs with Haphazard Arrow and stun enemies with Feint. LP damage is (almost) nonexistent and AoE attacks no longer does LP damage on downed characters.

>>3912885
They gave her water magic proficiency+healing water by default and added 2LPs to her pool to make her less squishy

I'm on like 6th or so emperor and I'm starting to chafe on how undefined stats are. Got a Hunter emp and finding it hard to decide on a tough frontline for it's formation. How much defense is ideal? How much Sta is ideal? I just don't freaking know. And that's on top of the game telling you nothing about the exact defenses for equipment.
I honestly wouldn't mind spending so much time every gen going around gathering up a new crew if I just knew what the numbers mean and didn't spend an hour sifting through the blogspot.
Why do these games hate transparency in statistics?

>>3913577
Yeah the lack of transparency was an issue in the original/remaster. They fixed it in RS3.

There's no particular defense number to aim for (except 128 for full immunity). It sucks that the game doesn't include the information by default but if you have the blogspot it shouldn't take long to pick out the gear with the highest numbers. When you make a new party you can just retrieve your old armor and equip them the same way.
Don't equip gauntlets on bow users because it hurts your accuracy.
If you're playing the remaster with additional content you can equip overpowered new gear on everyone.

Stamina mainly affects how much hp you start with and how much you gain when you level up.
Hunter formation sucks, but if I had to use it I would prioritize fast frontliners over characters with high HP.

>>3913577
The main stats range from virtually 1 to a maximum of 25.
Anything in the range of 20-25 is very good/top tier, 17-20 is good, below 17 is mediocre, less than 15 starts veering into bad.
>And that's on top of the game telling you nothing about the exact defenses for equipment.
There's some general rules for discerning equipment properties that the manual explains, helms have good Strike defenses, gauntlets tend to have high Slash defenses while boots tend to have high pierce, body armors tend to vary a bit depending on the type, robes generally have weaker physical defenses but the best elemental defenses, cuirasses are largely balanced while full body armor has virtually the best defenses all around but make you slow as shit, in practice they get beaten by single armor piece combinations in nearly any case but some of them are still good to have around at certain points in the game.
Specific defenses are generally hinted at through equipment names and also highlighted with an icon in your equipment status menu, the vast majority of them are fairly intuitive, Rubber Soles give you a strong boost against lightning, Mittens give you a lot of heat resistance and so on, the more cryptic attribute is Status as there's no real way to know which armor pieces have high status resistance without trial and error.
>Why do these games hate transparency in statistics?
Because everyone did it back then, old FF games didn't really tell you shit about their math, but those games were so easy and simplistic you wouldn't care, go boot up the average SNES JRPG, look at what they tell you in game and then check some wiki/faq and see how much they're hiding from you, FF6 for instance never tells you that your character level is the most important "stat" for damage calculations rather than your main stats, nor does it tell you that something like Bum Rush runs off your MAG stat for some reason, old JRPGs were just like that, SaGa's not an exception despite what casuals say.

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>>3913624
>Don't equip gauntlets on bow users because it hurts your accuracy.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHWHYWOULDTHEGAMENOTTELLMETHAT
>>3913636
Like you said it didn't matter too much with stuff like FF one can mostly faceroll through but in a high-lethality game with shit like LOWER BOW ACCURACY it's less forgivable.

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>>3913975
>WHYWOULDTHEGAMENOTTELLMETHAT
It does, the manual explicitly tells you that.

>>3913980
Reading the manual?
In current year?

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>>3913983
Right?

>>3913980
I honestly completely forgot Steam had a place for stuff like that.
Although the blogspot says full armor also lowers accuracy which this doesn't so...

>>3913996
>Although the blogspot says full armor also lowers accuracy
Because, logically, full armor also includes gauntlets by default.
It's FULL for a reason.
RS2 is the only game with such mechanic though so you can rest easy when it comes to other games.

>>3913980
I'm curious about the original SFC's manual. I want to know what information they cover. If only I can read Japanese.

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>>3913980
>>3914475
Here's an example page of the game's manual. I don't think it says anything about bows reducing accuracy.

>>3899891
Magic is just fucked since their strongest spell in terms of raw attack is mutually exclusive with Shadow Servant.

>>3914787
It's some pretty weird rebalancing, they made some ST spells stronger in the early game by buffing things like Fire Whip but also bloated numbers so much martials win hard in single target DPS no matter what, Berserk alone completely breaks the damage race.
Galaxy is still a good screen wipe for grinding but that's about it, no idea why it took them over half a year to fix Wing God Sword and Claw Extend either, they just copypasted them and then suddenly woke up one day like a year later and remembered that the original numbers were way too low, can't understand what the thought process was there.

Can my MC be a powerful spellcarster?

Can I go in blind?
Or will I brick my run like in TLR?

>>3914988
You mean the character you named at the beginning? Yeah, they have a respectable MAG stat of 23-24 and a LOG stat of 15. The higher the MAG and the lower the LOG, the better the character is at non-dark magic. The effectiveness of dark magic is based on LOG where the higher the LOG the better the character is at dark magic.

>>3914988
They can be whatever you want.
Emperor is tuned for higher STR while Empress is the opposite and has higher MAG, Emperor can still be a good endgame caster as the MAG difference isn't that high and both are in the top range, it's just that Empress has the highest MAG score in the game together with Kongming while Emperor has the highest STR together with Hannibal.

>>3914998
Oh I thought the choice was purely cosmetic.
Thanks for pointing that out.

>>3914992
Thanks.

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>>3914998
>Empress has the highest MAG score in the game together with Kongming
Uh, no? Kongming has a MAG stat of 25 and a LOG stat of 10. Next best magic user is Skya with a MAG stat of 24 and a LOG stat of 11. Final Empress is nowhere near close to top 3 non-dark magic users. Final Emperor however has equal STR as Hannibal.

>>3915002
Shit, I must have confused the MAG and SPD scores, I was pretty sure Empress had a natural 25 like the Kong

>>3914944
Magic is quite strong early on. Martials only really get a clear lead in the second half when the remake suffers from the usual jrpgisms where magic damage boosting tools are few and far between compared to melee, so they get relegated to support outside of poison memes.

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>>3904739
bruh came here to say basically the same thing.
I get it, but it's very abrupt... I mean would it kill them to add something like "the reorganizing/civilizing of the area took a lifespan" when this stuff happens. It's a goddamn remake.
Also Gerard turned into a mute as soon as the game proper started, but it made me laugh so eh.

Is the prince in the prologue supposed to suck?
His growth rates are absolutely abysmal.

>>3915252
Bro is trying to power game the prologue.

>>3915252
Yes, and also the climb from rank 0 to 1 takes more effort then say 1 to 3.

So what is the inheritance and team building strategy?
I gave the prince martial arts and short swords (?) since this was what my team composition was lacking. Next generation if possible I'm going to try to inherit water/earth/air.

Do you always get a full selection of various classes to inherit from? Or can you only inherit from classes that you used in the previous generation?

>>3915485
>inherit from
I meant something else.

What influences the classes you can pick with your next character?

>>3915485
You keep the skills you earned for the most part so you don't go from building up unarmed only to be back to 0 because you choose a non-unarmed class, but your choice in class and global skill levels are the most important elements. Pretty sure you don't stack positive bonuses to skills from classes so you can't make a supersoldier emperor tens of levels above everyone from stacking bonuses. The final emperor is especially dependent on you building up global levels if I remember right.
Generally you get a good emp lineup with magic options, especially in the remake, but what it gives you is decided by what everything in RS2 is run by: a weird algorithm that nobody fully understands. Generally the game wants you to try new classes and playstyles each gen.

>>3915252
The growth rates for all characters are the same, except HP, where how much that character gained depends on their STA stat. Don't bother fighting every enemy in the game especially early on. They don't give a lot of Technical Points needed for your characters to gain proficiency in weapons.

>>3915485
Try to inherit from classes that are great with one specific weapon and use that weapon for that generation of emperor. It would also help to know what their spark types are so that you can try to spark stronger techs. As for your team, it's beneficial to have at least one class good at magic and healing. You can also have an all physical team and give them healing magic but it wouldn't be as potent as a magic user casting healing magic.

>>3915583
Well for Gerard I went with martial arts, since nobody else has it and his stats kinda fit it and short swords, due to his high dex.
Kinda couldn't fit in healing magic into my build, which is a pain, but I will try to do so next generation.

The deep one boss is a load of horseshit.
Being able to oneshot even some armored characters if you are unlucky.

>>3915616
I forgot which status effect it's vulnerable to, but a tech with Stun or Paralysis would help you on that fight.

>>3915656
Paralysis, but he dodges it if you try to apply it normally and only works if you sleep him first, which has a low chance.

The whole fight is pure RNG.

Forget trying to beat Deep One with statuses in the remake, just focus on charging your OD, they nerfed to original's status application chances to gatekeep it behind the Ranger's class passive so you can no loner stun/paralyze/sleep reliably without it, on a clear file in Classic difficulty it's best to just have a tank with deflect to draw aggro while everyone else hits a weakness to charge OD, possibly while also trying to stun/paralyze to fish for a status.
They buffed all the early game stuff to work like that including the Goblin King, they really want you to use OD.

>>3915616
>>3915656
>>3915848
Managed to beat him with 1 LP loss on Gerard.
Best I can do unfortunately.

>>3915848
You can cheese almost every early game boss by spamming Knee Split/Cyclone Squeeze/etc because they're vulnerable to stun and it doesnt matter if the remake "nerfed" the status chance when 5 characters are spamming it to make most fights free.
For the ones that you actually have to fight, Deflect/Parry on a fast character in an aggro up position mitigates a ton of a damage because they're heavily physical based.

>>3915900
Seems to be immune to stun.
An paralyze is autododge unless sleeping.

>>3915848
I hate how beefy every enemy's HP is probably thanks to OD existing.
Like I want to burst down the targets that vomit statuses but they take a whole team focus firing on their weaknesses to do that whereas they get 1-2 shot in the original with strong attacks which was the whole point of them.

Nevermind, the canal fortress boss is just the same kind of bullshit.
Don't tell me all bosses in this game will be like this...

>>3916003
Remake bosses can be really freaking tanky. Perhaps consider playing the remaster. And keep in mind in the remaster the fire lizard can one-shot the entire party yet still is preferable.
Similar strats apply though in that case. The Vicar is actually pretty flimsy compared to the beasts and can be stunned, and the beasts can be sleeped and paralyzed. Keep him and the fire lizard locked down and kill him then the fire lizard to remove the deadlier abilities from the battle. The other lizard is the lesser threat.

>>3916003
The remake has some garbage rebalancing where they bloated enemy HP by a ridiculous amount because they want you to use OD.
In the early game this is an issue because you can't build up OD reliably since the various stocks are gated behind that shitty minigame where you have to find Sensei around the world's locations, so you don't really have the juice to actually deal with those bosses and you have to slowly chip away.
From the midgame onwards you run into the opposite issue of having access to all OD stocks, better equipment and various class passives you can stack so suddenly bosses have too little HP and a single max OD gauge will shave 1/3 of their HP if not nearly half, it's even worse in the postgame when you unlock a bunch of bullshit passives that make you even more broken, they were so broken in fact that a few of them got nerfed because people were absolutely smoking everything with no effort.

>>3915875
>>3916003
Many bosses are like this (in the original as well). The game is designed for you to lose LP. Some bosses will one-shot your units or even attack your LP directly.
And there's no need to worry about it, since you will be replacing your team.

>>3915875
Do not fuss over the loss of 1 LP, or even several LP, or as many people would say a complete party wipe. The most you can lose is immediate access to a sparked ability with their replacement, and as long as they survived the battle they sparked it the ability is saved for next gen.

>>3916003
every encounter is like that. the game is sorta over balanced in the sense that they adjusted encounter durations with raw health pools. they really didnt want all those cool new mechanics go to waste. it all feels so incredibly prescribed. visible health bars dont help either and turns the game into watch bar go down slop.

Whoever came up with the idea of giving enemies massive HP pools in Romancing difficulty of the remake doesn't know good game design. This is especially the case when you try to beat the post-game Seven Heroes fights in 5 turns or less. There are videos that show it's possible even after United Ravager was nerfed to x3.0 and without dark magic even, but it required activating the ability that has a 20% chance to not consume OD gauge TWICE! This means none of your party members should die in these 5 turns, and you can't spend your time doing anything other than using the biggest damage dealing move. This is an issue with Dantarg who starts his move that hits all party members and can kill them with it.

>>3916418
>it all feels so incredibly prescribed. visible health bars dont help either and turns the game into watch bar go down slop.
That's modern JRPG gameplay in a nutshell, normalfags love that shit because that's how modern gacha games work and this remake was specifically made to pander to them.
It sorta feels like they were trying to copy Re:UniverSe on that but not only does that game have more indepth bar go down gameplay it's somehow mechanically much closer to SaGa than the RS2 remake and with better OD mechanics as well since everyone has their own OD bar that's generated dynamically rather than being a static DPS stock you fill and forget until you fight a boss

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Oh boy, starting to run out of world to conquer and the scaling is starting to kick my ass. Barely got a win over Wagnas and it's 80% hp aoes and getting the feeling I'm not doing great on levels/sparks.
Also holy crap is money tight and those equipment researches largely not been worth it compared to dungeon loot.
Should I just go beat up wildlife for a bit and hope the gains are worth the further scaling increase?

>>3917700
>those equipment researches largely not been worth it compared to dungeon loot.
I say it depends on which weapons we're talking about, and even then, it's one of a kind like the Dragon Blade. Most of your best gear comes from completing equipment researches. I told you not to skip out on those, and now, you're facing its consequences.

>>3917700
I'd also like to point out that if you're seeing Sefira, Ruffle Tree, Vlitra, Lizard Lord, etc. during enemy encounters, you've reached the end point of the game's scaling system, and at that point, you're free to grind for TP and complete equipment research.

>>3917700
Wagnas can't do much to you if you have Firewall or even just Self Immolation on everyone, the only thing that can fuck you up is Psycho Bind.
>those equipment researches largely not been worth it compared to dungeon loot.
Depends on what you're researching, some weapon classes aren't particularly worth it when you know where to find some specific dungeon loot like the Irolina Saber and sequence break there, on the other hand things like the Cross Claymore or many pieces of armor are well worth developing regardless, it's kind of a knowledge check really

>>3917758
I dunno how I could've made more money or spent less. Got the magic place, academy, orchard, and just paid for a bridge... every other cent was spent on research. Maybe once bought something from store, and paid the witch to make a sea waifu potion.

>>3917908
Simple, you spend your time doing battles. Every encounter adds whatever value of your current revenue is. While you're encountering battles, it's worthwhile to fight Albions in Lake Wyringa for 3900+ TP. If you almost ran out of territories to conquer, I'd say you're close to beating the game, and strong enemies have started spawning. You would also have a huge value in revenue, so raking in money needed for research shouldn't be too time consuming. People will tell you you can't grind in a SaGa game, and it just isn't true, especially in the case of RS2. The battle rank of this game is to be exploited, I'd even go as far as encouraging repeatedly run away from battles to raise your battle rank quickly and fight stronger enemies early on, but only do this after you've done your research for armors to be able to tank hits.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this. If you have beaten 4 out of 7 Heroes at this point, beating your 5th would spawn in the Final Emperor, the character you named at the beginning. At that point, you would no longer experience time skips, and therefore, whatever you have researched will be your last. You can still research equipment as the Final Emperor, but you won't be able to get multiple copies of them from shops as they need a time skip to mass produce those equipment. Better pray you've done good progress in researching those equipment, because I don't think you can beat the game otherwise.

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I've only played SaGa Frontier 2 on release and dropped it after a couple of hours. How do I get into the series, where to start?

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>>3918249
If you want to see the series roots while playing some short games and tinker with different races with different growth mechanics then you can start with Final Fantasy Legend I and II.

If you want to play as a lineage of emperors that struggle against many adversaries over generations while unlocking the world through quests then try to Romancing SaGa 2.

If you want a 'generally' easier time and get thrown into a world and needing to uncover how to progress then try out Romancing SaGa 3.

If you want a crazy mish mash of settings like the first two Gameboy games with a bit of freedom to move through the world like the Romancing games then try out SaGa Frontier.

>>3918249
Frontier 1 is my recommendation, despite having the same subseries name Frontier 2 is nothing like 1. I also really didn't like Frontier 2 although I did finish it.

>>3918029
>but you won't be able to get multiple copies of them from shops as they need a time skip to mass produce those equipment
theres an upgrade that lets you do that

Are there formations considered mandatory for end game? Seems like that would suck given you're not exactly in control of what emp choices you get except when you can save right before a time skip.

>>3918444
No, you can just stay in Imperial Cross all game long.
its defensive strength is actually really good

>>3918444
Rapid Stream, otherwise make sure your characters are faster than Bokhohn.

>>3918444
The Armed Merchant/Corsair one is mandatory for a particular gamebreaking magic combo but if you're not doing that then you don't have to worry about "needing" a formation. People seem to favor the Amazon and Crusader formations as well as the one you get from the Maze of Memory.
Do look up what exactly they do because both original and remake games don't give you the full breakdown.

>>3917403
>>3917493
I’d like to fight you on this but you are both right. Still, I really enjoyed the Remake and it made me check the original, RS 1 and 3. 2 is still my favorite. There’s nothing quite like it.

>>3918444
Rapid Stream is popular, but not mandatory. Dragon Stance is better since you can use shields and still get the same effects as Rapid Stream. Just have the emperor learn Faerie Glow to boost SPD and be proficient in wind and light magic for bigger boost, and you're guaranteed to strike first. Other formations worthy of note is the Amazon Strike, Goblin Offense, Holy Wall, Rising Phoenix, and Mu Palisade.

>>3918513
Oh, I enjoyed my time with the remake, but the whole game being designed around this OD mechanic is a huge strike against the game. I tried playing the game on Hard difficulty without using OD, and the enemies are tankier than the original. It incentivizes you to go for the OD mechanic. This really limits your options for team building because you're pushed to using characters with high STR or MAG, and equipping armors that boost said stats over something more defensive. On top of that, in Romancing difficulty, you're getting one shot most of the time, so the only way to avoid it is to learn an evasion tech or use Guards, which means you can't use 2-handed weapons as often. If the HP values were lowered, and Romancing difficulty allows to be lenient with character builds so that using 2-handed weapon usage is still viable, I would appreciate the game more.

If I were in charge of designing Romancing difficulty for the remake, I'd do this instead:

>Smarter targeting
Targeting is no longer chance based, and instead the AI will ALWAYS target whoever has the lowest defense. If they see a kill, they will always go for that character.
>Change the formation system back to the original
In the original, a melee character cannot attack the rear enemy unless the front enemy has been defeated or if the character used a ranged attack instead. Same applies to the enemies. If we're going to have smarter targeting, you're incentivized to use formations that protect weaker units by placing them in the back row. Since the amount of formations that protect the back row are limited, I'd introduce...
>Custom formations
You can form your own formations, but at a cost of not providing bonuses. Instead, what this does is help you decide which units to protect by placing them in the back row.

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Welp, ready or not I've hit the wall and one of us will give.
...also no reason given why this guy is a super statted out class? Lame.

>>3918532
Personally I'd just remove OD altogether and debloat all numbers back to normal values, no 99999 nonsense, hitting weaknesses just gives you a damage boost etc., you can keep everything else.
I don't really like how they removed the round based system nor do I like the removal of a lot of other things like the old armor system but I could close an eye on all of that as long as OD is out of the picture because it really is the elephant in the room.
I still think it's fundamentally retarded to dumb down a remake rather than elaborating on the original or simply making a new game but I also get that these games have a bad rep with the wider audience, I get the intention, but I cannot overlook being so amateurish about it and replacing customary franchise mechanics with something from other IPs.

Octopath and SaGa are finally collabing it seems as Ichikawa will join the broadcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UUx_4Uq_so

Honestly interested in what that collab will look like given that Octopath is heavily inspired by Romancing SaGa

>finally beat the canal fortress boss after 5 tries
I just had to hope my party members lucked out and learned the evasion for the earth combo oneshot attack the vicar does

>>3918557
Well, he's a culmination of a whole line of people, so that's why he's statted out.

>>3918940
oh shit i might reinstall this kusoge depending on which saga girls cotc gets

>>3918940
Given the recent release of RotS and its similarities to Octopath, I'm guessing it will be RS2-related and possibly add Leon and Gerard or the Final Emperor/Empress and some unique/gimmick characters like Coppelia. Maybe they'll have some Octopath characters cosplay the seven heroes like how Gonska played the role of Kefka. Can also imagine an SF1, RS3, RSMS or Emerald Beyond collab. I wonder how much they're willing to modify the current combat system to faithfully implement these new units though

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Has anyone here played Evalice SaGa? It's a freeware JP-only SaGa fan-game heavily inspired by the Romancing SaGa games
There apparently even is an expansion pack for it now ("Evalice SaGa EX") made by memeso (one of the original creators), with extra protagonists, characters, maps, routes, bosses, and a bunch of system tweaks/QoL
https://w.atwiki.jp/evalicesaga/pages/39.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xudwnjd4xtg

The gameplay looks really cool, unfortunately can't speak Japanese but you can probably easily create a mod for it with an AI-translated script (the devs apparently forbid redistribution and reverse engineering though). The mechanics are as follows from what I can gather from the wiki:

post-battle growth and attribute-based combat
>weapon/skill pages repeatedly note things like "using this grows X stats more easily" (e.g., certain weapons bias growth toward DEX/AGI/WIL, etc.).
>The EX character page frames growth as directional: some stats are easier to push than others, and fighting stronger enemies can cause sudden jumps, but it’s hard to override a character’s natural strengths
"Chain battles" (チェイン) as a growth accelerator
>enemies can chain into up to 3 consecutive battles when multiple enemies are nearby at contact. This is risky (longer attrition) but grants better growth checks
Weapon durability + EP
>the big resource constraint besides BP. Durability can be restored via a recharge shop (リチャージ屋), paying a fee
>the EX weapon page adds an economy detail: recharge cost can be up to 15% of the weapon’s purchase price
>EP basically states how hard a tech burns your weapon's remaining endurance/durability

>>3919485
Quell(?) Weapons (クヴェル)
>as in SF2, there are special Quell weapons that have infinite durability, but here, they’re not strict upgrades because they increase BP consumption
Sparking is obviously a thing, these are spark tables for techs in EX I believe? https://w.atwiki.jp/evalicesaga/pages/46.html
Combos
>they are based on manual timing and a seperate "combo points" economy. If your party’s action order is consecutive, you can manually trigger 連携 during animations (the UI shows an arrow indicator).
>Combos consume 連携ポイント which: recover +1 after battle, fully refill at an inn, and can have their max increased by using “連携の素” items.
The wiki also warns that the displayed combo % is not used directly for damage calculation and elaborates on two parallel systems:
>Displayed chain rate starts at 120% and increases based on later participants’ Love (愛) in a weighted way (2nd adds 愛/2, 3rd adds 愛/2×2, etc.)
>Actual damage multiplier: 1st attacker is 100%, then later attackers ramp (notably +12.5% steps up to 5th = 150%), with special doubling behavior under certain conditions/techs
"Styles" (スタイル): equipable passives and map abilities.
>Many effects can stack, but some (like BP regen up/BP cost down) have stacking limits, per the style page.
Styles include:
>Character-unique styles (固有スタイル) with things like "BP recovery up”, "chain damage up", "spark rate up", aggro up/down, etc.
>Skill-based styles unlocked by leveling weapon/magic disciplines, including some map abilities (居合/ダッシュ/etc.).

>>3919485
>>3919489
Magic:
>Any character can hold up to 2 spell attributes (no opposite-element restriction)
>you can forget aptitudes from the spell list menu to relearn different schools (costs money, spell levels reset), while keeping earned styles
Defense:
>Shields in Evalice aren't just passive stat sticks: Simply equipping a shield doesn’t reduce damage by itself; you get reduction by choosing Guard or Guard Impact
Final Strike (ファイナルストライク): weapon-breaking burst damage
>You can trigger it via a key press during weapon command selection, and it destroys the weapon in exchange for a powerful follow-up, requires weapon EP >= 1 and BP => (tech cost + 3), can’t be included in combos, can’t use counter-techs as the base, does not work with Quell Weapons or Martial Arts obviously.
>Follow-up damage mirrors the triggering tech’s damage characteristics and is highly affected by resistances/defense
>per the wiki page: you can sometimes spark a new tech mid-sequence and chain multiple Final Strikes

Some EX-exclusive mechanics changes:
>All offensive spells become combo-chainable
>Some element/attribute assignments change
>Weapons get more attribute variants and more stat modifiers, And a key rule: if a weapon has an element, that element overrides the tech's element
>QoL stuff (always-on speed-up, dungeon shortcuts)


Some warnings from the overview pages in case anyone here wants to play it: Evalice saves cannot be savely migrated to EX so you should choose either or, and apparently EX has a bug where save data can become corrupt ones total encounters exceed 32767

Man, I don't want to jump on the remake pile on but now I'm actually getting mad every time combat happens. Everything has too much health and it feels like anything I do that isn't targeting weaknesses is a waste of time, and even then it's more about building up the bar then doing extra damage. Meanwhile enemies will occasionally whip out some attack that one-shots someone and possibly devolves the fight into a death spiral of forever healing. At least in the original the high-lethality went both ways.
A version of the original with some expanded dialogue/explanation and the ability to swap out party members would be great to have.

>>3920664
Man, if you're already disliking standard combat then you'll hate what they did to the last boss