Does the combat system becomes more deep after the demo (Leon's story)?

[fandrfa]

I finished the demo recently and I wasn't impressed by the combat system much, pretty much all fights require you to simply use basic attacks with occasionally switching to more powerful attacks that cost BP (TP) when you face stronger enemies. Alignments didn't play much role in the demo. The demo included 3 dungeons and ended with Leon' s story ending.
At the same time I've seen a review mentioning generations, different enemies requiring different tactics, learning new magic & skills etc.
My question is - is there more stuff after you take control over Gerard? Are you actually required to adjust your playstyle for different dungeons / bosses, can you switch between melee and magic more freely later?
I have no prior experience with the series, so don't know what to expect.

[Oyajuu]

What difficulty level did you play on?
On Hard/Classic you certainly want to pay close attention to what classes you put in your retinue, what spells and spell elements they have, and very importantly inflict/protect against stun/sleep/etc. You'll want a bit of physical attack on mages and a bit of magic on fighters. It's not groundbreaking, but it does require careful planning, and wiping is common. You absolutely can't win by mashing the attack button.

[fandrfa]

I was playing on Normal.

[rgoodness]

I found it one of the more enjoyably difficult combat systems I've played in recent years, but it's true that the demo only gives a basic taste of it. For me the core of this particular battle system is elemental weaknesses and the overdrive meter, which if I remember right the demo just does a basic job of covering. Whenever you hit a weakness, your overdrive meter goes up, and you can do some powerful combo attacks when it fills, so a lot of boss fights end up becoming about the management of that. There's also elemental influence on the battlefield -- there's some nuances I never quite understood because SaGa, but essentially if you're casting a lot of spells of a certain element, that element's influence can start to heal both enemies and party members that are aligned with that particular element; using spells of the opposite alignment cancels the effect.

I found this all did lead to a lot of really interesting tactical choices. Take a basic example of an enemy that's fire-aligned but weak to earth. There's fire influence over the battlefield, which is healing the enemy every round. Should you use water spells and begin to cancel the healing effect? Should you use earth attacks to bring up the combo meter and do an overdrive attack that's going to do so much more damage than he can heal? You do end up picking a particular party that's going to be able to do a good job of fighting the particular boss or dungeon you're up against.

I've been playing SaGa Scarlet Grace after Romancing 2 and I'm finding one of the quirks of SaGa is that the battle system sometimes ends up encouraging you to do something that would be considered tactically unintuitive or even an actively poor decision in any other game, but which triggers a bigger gain. I've been playing JRPGs since Dragon Warrior and I'm with you that I generally want something that's a little more complex than attack-attack-attack. The DQ3 remake got grandfathered in and justified itself because it was beautiful, but also I did play 90% of it on autopilot while watching TV. RS2 will give you the challenge and tactical complexity you're looking for, I think, and it'll also help unlock a new series for you. SaGa has always felt very aimless in structure and random in character development. RS2's structure is very clear while still sprawling and nonlinear, and it gives a lot more insight into what's going on with its stats, and now I have a much better idea how to approach the other games in the series.

Anyway I loved this one and will not shut up about it, but the Romancing SaGa 2 remake was about as pure, unadulterated, undiluted JRPG combat as you can get -- I played it right after Metaphor Refantazio and while I loved and devoured both, I think RS2 was the better game. (Metaphor obviously had the better story and characters.) If you like JRPGs focused on dungeon crawling and going through the intricacies of a battle system, this is exactly where you want to be. It may be accessibly crunchy, but it is *crunchy*. I cannot explain how much the final boss hates me.

[Chester]

A huge part of the gamplay, which the prologue won't cover, is (as you mentioned) the generations system and the team building that forms around that. Leon and Gerard have a goal that they have to complete (defeating Kzinssie), but after that's completed the world opens up to you and you can tackle quests in whatever order you choose. Furthermore, after Kzinssie is defeated, Gerard's time as Emperor will soon conclude - either through abdication, a time skip, or death; the game will not punish you for any of those outcomes, you will just be given a new Emperor to continue the story with.

This is where a huge part of the strategy lies. There are over 25 playable classes in this game, with several having 2 gender options each with different gameplay focuses. You start with a half dozen basic classes, but as you explore the world you'll recruit more of them. You can freely change your team based around these classes, including which class your Emperor will be. You can have a full team of magic casters, a full team of archers, a full team of non-humans, etc (you'll probably be looking for more variety though). Discovering synergies and strengths of each class and how to combine them will change for each generation and is a lot of fun.

(Explaining The Time Skip: after a few events/bosses have been completed, a Time Skip will occur and several generations will pass. You will have to pick a new Emperor, each class will have a new individual in them who will be similar but slightly different, all glimmered skills/spells can now be freely shared, and certain new events will be available)

If you're finding the combat simple, I'd recommend bumping it up to Hard (classic). Although once you reach the Seven Heroes, things will get a lot more complicated. Since it's an open world, you can discover them and take them on in any order you please at any time. But similar to how things go with Kzinssie, it's very possible your party is going to be wiped out by them on first meeting. And that's okay! The game is built around that! Each Hero (and a few notable non-Hero bosses) has distinct strengths and weaknesses - there is no "Super Team" that is ideal for whole game. So fighting them, discovering their patterns, maybe glimmering a few good skills/evades against them, then dying and coming back with a better prepared team is a part of them gameplay loop. You can look up guides if you want, but you'll be robbing yourself of part of that discovery - when this game originally came out in the 1993, it was unique in that it rewarded you for dying and gave you benefits for continuing on from a party wipe.

This game isn't for everybody, but if you're concerned about having more gameplay and strategy options as the game opens up... oh yeah, you're gonna find those.

[fandrfa]

Thanks everyone for answering, sounds like there is more to combat than the demo showed, so I'll try the full version :)

[Aegix Drakan]

Originally posted by fandrfa:

Thanks everyone for answering, sounds like there is more to combat than the demo showed, so I'll try the full version :)

Oh man, if you think it's too easy, give Classic Mode a spin.

I just beat Kzinssie from after the Demo and it was a horrifying struggle, I had to try like 5 times, and reconfigure half my party to survive. It was seriously brutal.

But dang am I having a good time!

[rgoodness]

Originally posted by Aegix Drakan:

Originally posted by fandrfa:

Thanks everyone for answering, sounds like there is more to combat than the demo showed, so I'll try the full version :)

Oh man, if you think it's too easy, give Classic Mode a spin.

I just beat Kzinssie from after the Demo and it was a horrifying struggle, I had to try like 5 times, and reconfigure half my party to survive. It was seriously brutal.

But dang am I having a good time!

I've been playing on Classic and it was a wonderful struggle and I finally got to the final boss and he killed me in 3 turns. Figuring, okay, you know what, it was a good run, but I'd just like to see the ending and get this one done and dusted, and I moved it down to Normal. Now he killed me in 5 turns :) I gotta still grind...

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Monotonous is the way I would describe it, as the combat system gives you new abilities throughout the game which are slightly different than the ones you start with. Each serves a tactical role that gives you more combo's and options in combat, but combat is so common as part of the game with no real quirks outside of boss fights that you end up doing a lot of the same throughout the game.

So if the story isn't captivating, you won't be as willing to drag yourself through the games combat system.