Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is quickly becoming my favorite rpg of all time, about to ramble about it, sorry.

I HIGHLY recommend this game to anyone who played rpgs back in the day, a time before everything was speedrun and figured out online and instead hinted at through conversations with friends etc.

It was a bit of a rocky start, the game is a little idk slow/pushy to begin with, and very linear with its 'go to dungeon, run down 1 path, kill boss, repeat', not that I didn't have fun, just felt very typical of an rpg.

But then you start getting your ass kicked after the first 'boss' and begin needing to glimmer and experiment, I started having somewhat more fun. Annnd then the enemy scaling with you hit and it kinda pissed me off, because I was NOT learning fast enough to outpace the side by side scaling so I kept getting my ass kicked. But I pushed through, found some slightly better strategies (aka hit enemy harder faster so I die less) and beat a tough for me boss, and then the time skip happens.

I was LOST, needless to say my second party was kinda ass and my dropping LP proved it. I kinda gave up for a day or two but came back and really tried learning what I was doing and what was good, began taking advice and exploring more, and hot damn does the game open up, I didn't think there'd be just so damn much freedom to go out and well, go anywhere. I hadn't looked much up in ways of progressing, so I was lost but enjoying the sights, while enjoying running around most mobs to see more stuff I was probably too soon to be seeing, or maybe the game expects this, not sure, but man it was fun.

Then you begin to unlock new classes, and new gear, and it's not in any certain order, almost to a fault because damn it I was using some ASS bows for like 50 hours of gametime before finally catching them up, but had some really good swords/greatswords carrying me through fights early and mid game.

I also enjoy how choices you make do effect how certain things play out, and how you can see some seriously cool things, get classes, items etc purely by chance of exploring or even discovering new locations by talking to seemingly random npcs, it brings some kind of feeling I haven't had in an rpg since I was a kid. Freedom, perhaps? And a reward for taking advantage of that freedom, and sometimes a punishment with locked content. And I feel I'm probably roughly only about halfway done!

If I had to give complaints it might be that the story is weak, but honestly I don't care, the world is interesting enough on its own and I'm pretty sure the gameplay is the focus of the game. That said, I'm NOT a huge fan of the boss battles, they're all so samey and play well, the same, they don't have enough unique mechanics imo despite the first boss kinda hinting they would. most are just dps rushes and stun/sleep/paralyze on your non weakness abusing character. They aren't the worst of any rpg, but definitely nothing exciting, which is a bit disappointing with how much depth learning skills and spells has in this game. That said, doesn't ruin the game, just makes it like a 9/10 instead of a 10/10.

I need to find more games like this one, its truly the most fun (and frustration) I've had in an rpg in very long time.