At this year's New York Comic Con, I met with Square Enix to check out two of its upcoming RPG projects. One was Final Fantasy VII Revelation, a game firmly planted in the modern era of video games with top-of-the-line visuals and all the trimmings of a AAA, big-budget game.
The other was Romancing Saga 3: Destinies United, a remake of a classic turn-based RPG from the mid-1990s. At first glance, the remake's updated visuals and faster gameplay are easily apparent draws for newer players, but that doesn't change that this game is built around the core of the original Romancing Saga 3, an RPG that calls back to a bygone era for the genre. Remaking a classic like this is a balancing act, but based on my brief time playing the game, it seems like Square Enix is on track to unite the best aspects of the two wildly different eras of RPGs.
A Flurry of action
The demo takes place in Gwayne's Den, the home of a massive dragon terrorizing the nearby Louv Peninsula. I take control of party leader Khalid and head down the mountain path, where I spot an enemy not paying attention to my approach. By sneaking up to the foe and pressing X, I can stealthily swing my sword at it, and, if I connect, I launch a Preemptive Strike--this starts the ensuing battle with every enemy having lost a bit of their hit points. It's not a massive chunk of health, so I didn't feel too bad if the enemy proved difficult to sneak up on, but the head start always felt good when I did pull it off.
Battles play out in classic turn-based style, with a turn-order indicator situated at the top of the screen. Most of my party is ready for battle, with leader Khalid, fairy Peony, fighter Ellen, and masked swordsman Robin sporting a full kit of weapons and abilities. There's a fifth party member, Flurry the actual snowman, who's underpowered compared to the rest, but it still packs a wallop with its punches.
Also, just to make clear what I said just now: Yes, Flurry is an honest-to-goodness snowman, its body made of a small orb of white snow on top of a larger orb of white snow. It can punch, they can cast spells, and it quickly became one of my favorite parts of the demo. I need to learn more about Flurry.
Each party member brought a different battle approach to the table, and it was fun figuring out each character's nuances. Khalid is a standard swordsman with water-based attacks who fared well against the Draconian enemy, while Ellen's electric-charged punches and kicks made her the best option for direct damage.
Always a Glimmer a hope
One of the unique traits to this battle system is the Glimmer mechanic, which sometimes replaces a chosen ability with a similar and more powerful ability. For example, I chose the basic Spear Attack ability for Peony, only for a lightbulb symbol to appear over her head, followed by a new Giant Swing attack. What's more, I gained access to Giant Swing for the remainder of the demo, and it proved valuable in the later boss fight.
While the idea of randomly receiving buffed abilities through Glimmers isn't always convenient, I do like the concept, as a well-timed Glimmer can help turn the tide of a lost battle with the new ability it unlocks. Also, when the light bulb does appear, the jolt of excitement in the discovery of a new ability is pretty cool.
Romancing Saga 3 also uses a formation system, where party members can be positioned in particular ways. Placement on the battlefield matters during a fight, as some attacks can score multiple hits by moving in a straight horizontal or vertical line, while others are area-of-effect attacks that damage everyone standing in the danger zone.
I like this wrinkle to the turn-based scheme--not only does it deepen the complexity of combat, but it gives me an extra bit of agency in terms of how to position my characters best for battle and rewards me for thinking beyond just how my party can attack or defend. This means that the remake doesn't follow the traditional "weaker characters in the back, stronger in the front" format seen in a lot of RPGs either, as the vertical-line attacks can reach the back row with no issue. It's not exactly novel, but it helps the remake stand out against its modern contemporaries. The demo offered a few formation examples, from a straight horizontal line to one resembling the five sides of a six-sided die, and I wonder what other formations the game will have in store.
Gwayne Over
Eventually, I get to the bottom of the pit, and I find Gwayne, a black dragon with massive wings laying on top of a pile of gold and treasures. He's a Smaug … sorry, smug individual, goading my team with insults until it's time for battle. Gwayne is one tough customer, with attacks that hit multiple party members at a time, along with an energy bolt move that damaged Khalid for one-third of his total HP.
However, I had one more trick up my sleeve: Overdrives, which pair two of my party members together for a single attack that inflicts big damage. The Overdrive meter at the bottom of the screen charges as I deal damage, and eventually I can activate it to send two of my party members in for an attack at once.
I saw Khalid pair with Ellen, Ellen with Peony, and Robin with Flurry before the battle was over, and each one added a little more excitement to the fight. Eventually, Gwayne was felled, Khalid picked up what looked like a scale from the ground in front of the treasure cache, and the demo was over.
Romancing Saga 3: Destinies United offers classic turn-based RPG gameplay from a long-gone era, but does so with enough modern tune-ups that it feels like it can fit right in with the current role-playing offerings. Then again, not many of those other games have a fighting snowman, so perhaps standing out from the rest of the RPG pack will be snow problem.
We'll find out when Romancing Saga 3: Destinies United launches in February for PlayStation 5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.