Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered Review

Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song was a PS2 remake of the original Romancing SaGa made in 1992. Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered is a remaster of the PS2 remake. Confusing stuff I know but just think of it as a remaster of a remake if that helps at all.

Game Name: Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered
Platform(s): PS4, PS5(Reviewed), Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, PC
Publisher(s): Square Enix
Developer(s): Square Enix, Bullets
Release Date: December 1st, 2022
Price: $24.99

Square Enix did do quite a bit to make some nice quality-of-life changes in the game, however not every aspect aged well in Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered from its old 2005 self. I enjoyed my time with the game and a look back into how some of the PS2 JRPGs looked. It reminded me of the PS2 remake of Dragon Quest V. Trying to make the 3D sprites similar to the 2D ones doesn’t always look good. An ambitious title for the time and some of those aspects still hold up and even age well for the game. With the internet available, it also made it more interesting to see the various routes characters can choose that will change the cast you have or the story that gets told.

Minstrel Song

You begin Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered with the choice of starting in the shoes of eight playable characters. The character all have changed intros that provide more backstory to each one of them. It also changes the cast of characters you start with and where you are in the world. A big thing is that it also changes just how often you will get help in the game. What I mean is if you begin with Albert, the game will help you understand the directions of the game based on your party. Albert constantly has a good chunk of party members and it doesn’t take much effort to get into other areas. He is the recommended character you start with. In comparison, if you try playing as Gray. You will get a very short introduction and very little aid in what you are supposed to be doing.

You can straight up miss characters, items, weapons, and story events due to not knowing where to go or what to do. There are several guides online that help add clarity of course so if you want to have direction, you can find it. Otherwise, the game does not hold your hand or apply any effort to aid you to the next objective. Which is an interesting way to play both getting an experience that helps aid you in all your objectives vs not giving you any aid at all whatsoever in the same game.

The combat was pretty ambitious for the time but is more common in current-era turn-based JRPGS. When you get into combat you get a BP (Battle Points) gauge, an LP (Life Points) gauge, and a DP (Durability Points) gauge. Every turn you do a normal attack or defend, you gain BP. The amount of BP you have determine the moves of your arsenal you have available to use. Your DP gauge determines the durability of the weapon you are using. You can have up to 4 weapons equipped at a time. A first aid kit is classified as a weapon, so items can be included to be used for consumables in that regard.

You begin with each character having only one main attack with their weapon. You can buy more weapons to equip to have more choices too. Each time you attack, you have an opportunity to learn a new move out on the battlefield. Once you learn it, you have this move with that weapon for as long as you use equip it. Stronger moves will deplete your DP however and if your DP gauge goes to zero, it means you have no more attacking moves with the sword and a decrease in its overall performance. Resting at an Inn and using up extra money can help rebuild the DP gauge or going to a blacksmith also increases its DP number.

That brings us to the LP gauge now. When you get your health below zero, you instantly lose one LP. Enemies can still attack downed characters while they are unconscious. However, it just decreases the LP gauge further for that character. If a character gets to zero LP, they are dead. They can’t be revived and you lose no named characters forever. Named characters can still come back to a place later on in the game. It is interesting to juggle so many gauges and even some abilities you learn will be strong but could cost you LP. It may overwhelm you at first though so take learning the basics of combat slowly. You don’t level up in this game in a regular sense of the word. Each battle has a chance to increase stat points for the characters that were involved in combat. It may make you think twice about bringing in a no-name character if it means they steal some of the stat boosts from your other characters. You can recruit one no named character from the pub in each town. If you don’t like the character you may figure out to recruit the Minstrel character who is in every bar. Depending on your part of the game he will have several tales to talk to you about. The progression system determines where the timetable is in the game. If you take too many interactions or side quests you may miss certain characters you can recruit or items you can find. There is an option to turn this to the American release (where progression moved slower) or the Japanese release (progression was fast-paced). If you want to get the most things done, I would recommend the slow option.

Remastered

Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered shows some of the best moments of PS2 era JRPGS. Sure the graphics are blocky but they still have some fun personalities in the models. The faces are a bit jarring. Especially with their eyes being so oddly placed on the face and when you see half of the character you get to see half their face is just an eye. Though the 3D sprites themselves are much better to remaster than trying to get some of the more realistic PS2 games that came out that do not look too good upscaled. Honestly, the sprites were jarring at first but after some hours with them, I got used to the looks of the character models in the world. The cinematics was weirdly put into the game inside a small box on the screen. Probably the worst of the game is the cinematics. They could have been beautiful but a lot of the quality is butchered by being so small on the screen. I am guessing they didn’t really remaster the cutscenes and just put them in the same aspect ratio as the original cinematics on the PS2.

The part that aged the most poorly in Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered is the voice acting. In 2005, Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song was being extremely ambitious having every single line of dialogue voiced over. The audio quality is much better in this remaster but them using the same files means we get the voice acting of the 2000s. You will hear some standouts in this cast, like Albert’s actor. Other times you get moments where it sounds like they just read the script instead of acting it. Going from the heartfelt Albert moments to the monotone moments of other characters saddened me a bit. It shows how much the gaming industry has improved with voice direction. Just for those who need to understand, poor voice work is hardly ever the fault of the voice actor. It is the fault of the voice or sound director and how it gets implemented in the game.

Romancing SaGa

Overall Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered is a really good showing of how JRPGS were in the early 2000s, they had their issues but overall there is still a lot of charm to the game with a fun cast of characters that lets you start with any of the main ones. It was highly ambitious for its time and its inspiration is felt in modern JRPGs like Chained Echoes. Some of the problems of PS2 visuals will not hold up to modern gamers. Especially those who focus a lot of their time on graphics and action gameplay. Overall this was a fun time and I recommend it for those who want to go back to a time when JRPGs were thriving on the PS2.

Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song Remastered is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

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