IS THIS WHAT "HERO" MEANS?
Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven - https://youtu.be/pov1DDMtzb8
I get the feeling that the "heroes" are not the type that everyone here expects.
The "Defeated Heroes" meter at the bottom of the main menu tells me enough of that. And the statement of return… I get the feeling he wasn't lying. The mechanics are kind of spoiling the story a little, but maybe only because I know what to look for.
This is a SaGa game, but I am actually looking forward to playing more of it, unlike how I felt for the vast majority of the Collection of SaGa play time. Also, I don't feel like I need a guide, unlike for SaGa 3. Between the inheritance magic and the recruitment system, it definitely feels like how I expect the first SaGa game was meant to feel: you can swap out party members anytime, especially when they die. The problem with the first game was that if you used someone too long, you weren't allowed to swap them out anymore. And my worst character was my first and you can't remove that person, either. While I can't remove the Emperor from the party, he feels like one of the more powerful members thanks to inheritance magic, so I don't feel bad about keeping him around.
As for mechanics spoiling the story, I have a few predictions. The huge world map spoils that we'll be conquering pretty much all of it over time. I figured we'd be traveling, but we have a "Territories" meter on the main menu, so we're almost certainly conquering. The "Defeated Heroes" meter likewise tells me that none are going to be any better than the first and we'll have to kill them all. And inheritance magic… tells me that if the Emperor hits LP 0, we'll be somewhat starting over with a new one. I expect we'll need to re-kill and re-conquer to some degree (possibly all places, but probably not) and we'll probably need a new party entirely since we have to wait for the next person to grow up. And, of course, this is reflected on my save data, with the current year listed. There are probably challenge runs for beating the game at the lowest year possible or something like that. With the skill growth statement about recruitment and the inheritance magic for the Emperor, each successive generation will be more equipped to succeed in taking down all foes. Hopefully, I'll be able to win… eventually. This is looking to be a really long game.
Finally, we have the memory system. It outright states the memories are about another world. At present, I predict that we are to where these people fled, and possibly that the Seven Heroes are the people who managed to get away. Not much if that's the case, which really stinks for everyone else. But I only have one memory. I've got a long way to go.
Side note: I’m playing this game and not the promised Final Fantasy XIII-2 because that game broke my computer quite thoroughly upon attempting to play it for forty minutes. Not only would it not recognize my wireless controller like every other Steam game, but it was jumping in both audio and video once a second and, once I closed the game and Steam to try fixing things, caused my computer to not allow keyboard input. At all. I even restarted my computer and it still wouldn’t allow keyboard input. Nothing worked until I shut it down entirely. While I was looking forward to playing the game, I’m not giving it another chance after that fiasco. I have hundreds of other games I can stream instead that don’t break my computer.
