Romancing Saga 2 might be shallow – or limited, if you’d rather – but it’s by no means stupid, and there’s a hint here and there of some subversion to the genre norms that I found appealing. That being said, played in the spirit that it was designed makes Romancing Saga 2 a really valuable addition to the Nintendo Switch library, especially for JRPG fans like me who might find themselves with a short commute and not enough time to get enough done in something like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to make it worthwhile. Romancing Saga 2 feels more like the kind of game you’ll have on the Switch for short bursts of play in handheld mode, but not something that you’re going to want to sit with on the big TV for hours on end (even though the pixel art is just gorgeous. Sitting in the same library as modern classics like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I Am Setsuna, there aren’t many JRPGs on the console just yet, but what is there tends to be of a very high storytelling calibre.
On the Nintendo Switch, however, it must be said that Romancing Saga feels shallow. A game with hours of layers of dialogue to work through wouldn’t fit that platform at all.
The whole point of iPhone gaming is to be applicable for short bursts of play. Indeed, the game genuinely felt native to that device. On the iPhone this wasn’t an issue in the slightest. The game doesn’t even have enough dialogue and plot development for its narrative elements to shift from quaint to archaic dross this is a game that’s about dungeon crawling and combat, and it doesn’t give you long to breathe between those moments. It’s a remake of an old SNES game, but where Square Enix has worked overly hard to modernise its classic games through their remakes in the past, this is one where the company was content to leave it looking and feeling like a game on the Super Nintendo, and it is the better for it. It’s a game of pixels and classical JRPG musical riffs. It’s a story of castles and mighty lords, selflessly doing deadly dangerous things to protect both nation and people. Romancing Saga 2 is to JRPGs what fairy tales are to literature as close to the definition of “classical” as you can get. It’s a near perfect example of the classical Square Enix quality. Romancing Saga 2 is as low-pressure as the genre goes, and it is indeed a game I’ve already played thanks to the initial mobile release (though I never did play the original version back on the Super Nintendo), but I’ve loved having this on the Nintendo Switch. As a year where the JRPG not only sustained its healthy niche, but pushed right back into the mainstream gaming community, 2017 has been one where I haven’t stopped playing very, very long games indeed. It feels fitting that my last review of the year would be of a JRPG.
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