Romancing SaGa 2

"This is the Legend of the Seven Heroes...
 Once, they subdued countless hordes of demons, and saved the world...
 And then vanished from it...
 Kujinshi... Subier... Dantarg... Noel... Bokuohn... Rocbouquet... Wagnas...
 And one day, so they say, they will return to save the world again..."
 Long after the people were scattered across the world, they told the legend, and were thankful for their salvation...
 However, as peace and prosperity came, the legend was forgotten... The world of man was once again prosperous. The peaceful times that brought stability to the nations came to an end. An era of division and war began...
 And the names of the Seven were spoken once more...
 ...and then... they came...
 ...so they say....

Romancing SaGa 2 is the 5th game in the SaGa series by Squaresoft, released in 1993 for the Super Famicom. It does not focus on just one character but a lineage of an empire.

Initially only released in Japan, the Android and iOS ports were released worldwide in 2016.

Tropes used in Romancing SaGa 2 include:
  • Action Girl: Lots of them.
  • After-Combat Recovery: This game, as well as subsequent entries in the SaGa series, uses this setup along with free post-battle resurrections, but only with health points: LP is lost every time a character is KO'd and attacked while they're down, or hit with attacks that directly target LP, and once it hits zero, that character is gone for good.
  • Anyone Can Die: Due to its multi-generational setup, the game will force you to lose some or all your current party characters permanently due to death from old age or due to the Take Up My Sword trope.
  • Artifact of Doom: The Demonstone Ring. It negates status ailments, but you must sleep in the Emperor's Bed; otherwise, the other party members aside from the wearer loses Life Points at an inn. And it can't be unequipped.
  • Artificial Gill: The Fishman Potion. Cue the annoying Fetch Quest. But as a benefit, you unlock the Nereid Class.
  • Auto-Revive: The Revive spell does this.
  • Back from the Dead: Kzinssie and the Hive Queen, who both receive massive upgrades.
  • Bag of Spilling: Subverted: all the items you are equipped with are sent directly back to storage after completing each generation. It's still annoying to reequip the characters you do have though.
  • Battleship Raid: A Land Battleship!
  • Because Destiny Says So: It was first shirked off by Emperor Leon until his eldest son was killed by Kujinshi.
  • Beef Gate: The Canal Fortress Gate, which is a door guarded by 4 regenerating monsters. Each time you take down one or two, they will respawn. Destroying the gate will allow you to enter the fortress, but if you do, you cannot recruit the City Thief Class and you will also have trouble finding your way around the fortress. Also, said gate fight will have to be repeated if you leave the area and try to get back in. Pretty much all the Seven Heroes except the first Kzinssie battle are Beef Gates.
  • Big Bad: Wagnus is the leader of the Seven Heroes. Also, he's also the most difficult to fight.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: The termites complete with Hive Queen in which you have to fight twice by the way.
  • Bonus Dungeon: The Ice/Snow/Sand Ruins, as well as a hidden town which allowed an deeper explanation of the game's backstory.
  • Charm Person: Rocbouquet's Temptation ability charms all males in the party, and there are other techniques as well that can charm allies.
  • The Chessmaster: Bokhohn, as he commands a large number of the monsters under the command of the Seven Heroes.
  • Chosen One
  • Clingy Costume: Subverted. The Iron Will, which can negate mental ailments such as charm, but can't be unequipped if gotten through cheats. Some Classes have a permanent fourth item which cannot be removed either
  • Combat Tentacles: One of the abilities Subier has is called Tentacles, and does it hurt!
  • Continuing Is Painful: LP does not replenish by staying at the inn. It's not okay to have a lord running low on LP during an important mission, which can sometimes render the entire quest uncompleted by the next lord.
  • Cool Sword: Moonlight Sword has a healing technique built into it in addition to Moonshades, which shoots out frigid Blue Skulls at the enemy. Dayblade has Holy Light, which deals out HUGE damage to undead monsters.
  • Elemental Powers: You cannot have spells of opposite elements though.
  • The Empire: You are the ruler this time around!
  • Evil Genius: Bokhohn basically weaseled his way into the group. The man is extremely crafty and an amazing politician.
  • Face Heel Turn: Noel, if you kill Rocbouquet after making peace.
  • Fallen Heroes: And there are seven of them.
  • Flaming Sword: The Providence Cut Technique.
  • Game Favored Gender: The Final Empress as she will be immune to Rocbouquet's Temptation in the final battle, she also has the Moonlight Sword as the default weapon.
  • Gender Bender: Wagnus is male, but his demon form is a very female cross between a human and a butterfly with Vapor Wear covering his very feminine breasts.
  • Generational Saga: The story chronicles a roughly 500-year lineage of emperors.
  • Generation Xerox: This game takes this trope Up to Eleven. It runs on a generational system, but except for Leon, Victor, Gerard and the Final Emperor/Empress, there will always be the same lines of characters available to provide you quests and similar recruitable characters with Palette Swap to fill your class rosters no matter how many hundreds of years have passed.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Most of the Seven Heroes show up in quests that tie back into their plans and you can go in expecting to fight them. Dantarg is the exception, however, pretty much showing up to fight you without much buildup or prior warning.
  • Global Currency: Crowns.
  • Gotta Kill Them All: You have to eliminate all Seven Heroes as the story unfolds.
  • Hard Levels Easy Bosses: Enemy grunts scale up as your characters gain health and skill with weapons. Bosses, however, don't. Not to say that the game is devoid of hard bosses though, it's just you will sometimes end up fighting grunts far more dangerous.
    • The Seven Heroes however are the exception, they do become stronger as you level up, the only one who doesn't is Subier, he is upgraded only if you kill Master of Ocean beforehand. Dantarg has four forms depending on your stats.
  • Harping on About Harpies: The Irises.
  • Hello, Insert Name Here: Subverted with every character, but the final generation ones.
  • Hidden Elf Village: The Village of the Ancients.
  • High Altitude Battle: Hakuro Castle AFTER the inner sanctum of the castle is ripped straight out of the ground!
  • Horrible Judge of Character: Strange thing is that Noel does not hate Kzinssie at all and STILL sees potential in him.
  • How We Got Here: The Emperor you chose at the start of the game is at the bar where the Bard retells the story of the Empire.
  • Idea Bulb: This is the game in the SaGa series that started the system of learning techniques and evasions during battle.
  • Interspecies Romance: Completing the Southsea Mermaid side quest when a male emperor. The current emperor chooses to stay with the mermaid under the sea as the breath potion he took has the side effect of being unable to return to land after three uses. Knowing this, he accepts the fate to be with the mermaid.
  • Lamarck Was Right: The game has a system of inheriting the previous Emperor's abilities. Justified with magic though.
  • Life Energy: LP, as per the SaGa series standard. Run out of them, and you are as good as dead.
  • Magic Music: The five instruments of the bard are packed with this. They are required to meet with the Iris race.
  • Musicalis Interruptus: Dungeon or area music would stop and change to boss music at a certain part of the Dialogue with bosses or the Seven Heroes.
  • Mutually Exclusive Magic: This feature has been carried over from the previous Romancing SaGa game. However, you can combine specific elements if they are not opposite to each other to create new and more powerful spells.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: If you encounter the narwhal without the Toba seashell, you can choose to fight it. However, killing it will allow Subier to assimilate to his much stronger form.
  • No-Gear Level: If you choose to sneak aboard Bokuohn's landship by purposely being abducted. That being said, characters with Stuck Items keep them, making characters like the Molemen a good option for that mission.
  • No Hero Discount: Averted. As a monarch, the player has access to ungodly sums of money from the country's treasury that he/she never has to worry about being able to afford equipment from stores. In fact, if you purchase items from your own town, the shopkeepers refuse to charge you. Building new facilities in the empire and researching new equipment does cost money, however.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: They can even be the Emperor once they are recruitable. They also fall under the tropes of One-Gender Race and Elemental Embodiment.
  • Our Mermaids Are Different:
    • The Nereids are a race of them you can recruit into your army. They regenerate health if you continuously cast water spells. Weirdly enough despite having the classical form of a mermaid with a lower fish tail, they seem to be able to walk on land just fine, and indeed spend more time out of water than in. Their walking animation shows them using their tails similar to how a snake moves along the ground.
    • There's also another mermaid, who may not be of the same species as the Nereids given her different sprite and smaller tail. Unlike the Nereids, she requires a human guise to walk on land.
  • Palette Swap: Every recruitable character and emperors except Leon, Gellard, Last Emperor/Empress and a few others...
  • Power Limiter: If you kill Rocbouquet before Noel, he will not allow you to make peace with him and will attack at full power. It is even worse if he is the only remaining hero since he will be the penultimate boss in the final dungeon; he will be in his second form and without the limiter, meaning he will use every technique at his disposal.
  • Ruins for Ruins Sake: Three of them; all sidequests.
  • Samurai: East Guard.
  • Sequential Boss
  • Shout-Out: The names of the Seven Heroes are actually anagrams of stops in train lines in Japan; also, the music from the GB SaGa games is used in a scenario.
  • Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Openness: This game can hover between levels 5 and 6.
  • Standard RPG Items: An aversion: the only known item that can restore Life Points can be bought from a witch for 10,000 (crowns Cap).
  • The Strategist: The tactician class proves to be invaluable when taking on Bokohn's land ship. After building the Imperial land ship, the Emperor/Empress asks why not just use the ship to take on Bokohn's ship head-on. The tactician says that's a short-sighted goal; stopping the land ship won't stop Bokohn's since more than likely he'll get away. The best way to deal with it is to "cut off the head from the body", namely kill Bokohn's himself while his security is low.
  • Sword Fight: A one on one battle with Sekishusei; Retainer to Lord Ato; Ruler of the Eastern Lands.
  • Take Up My Sword: Leon to Gellard.
  • Thieves' Guild: One such guild uses the empire's own graveyard as its base of operations.
  • Time Skip: From less than a year to 250 years, depending on how many enemies you killed.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Gellard, after his father's death by Kujinshi.
  • Trauma Inn: If you have the Artifact of Doom equipped while sleeping anywhere other than the Emperor's/Empress' bed, you lose LP.
  • Trojan Horse: The only way to sneak aboard Bokuohn's Land battleship; creating a fake one to draw the enemies away from the real one.
  • Updated Re-release: For i-mode phone, iOS, Android phones, PC and every major consoles. The ports include new dungeons and bosses.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: None of the Nereids wear anything to cover their breasts save for a flower necklace that does a poor job of it. Especially awkward if your Emperor is a Nereid.
  • Warrior Prince: You are the Emperor who has to save the world.
  • Was Once a Man: All of the Seven Heroes except for Noel and Rocbouquet, whose demon forms still at least resemble humans.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: To get the Dark Magic, you must allow the towns of Zemio and Tsukijima to burn. This, however, causes the Emperor of that time period to abdicate the throne.
  • Wutai: The entire Eastern lands.
  • You Have Researched Breathing: At one point, you'll need to reach a sunken ship. You'll need a potion that requires you to breathe underwater in order to access it, even if your Emperor is a Nereid, a race that can actually breathe underwater in the first place. While it's easy to justify this as being required for your party members, you'll still need the potion even if the Nereid goes alone.
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