Get emotionally attached to your crew of 5 and try to prevent their Permadeaths, only to face a 135-year time skip! This isn’t Final Fantasy, this is Romancing Salsa… or wait, that’s a G. Generationally expand your Empire and eventually face the Seven Heroes that are somehow bad guys? Level and learn abilities by using them, occasionally invest in gear, and pass all these down to your Inheritors, planting trees under whose shade you can never sit. They don’t make them like this anymore, but they do remake them.
This 3D remake features quality-of-life bonuses of: a lightbulb by skills that have a chance to glimmer a new ability, save points instead of being able to save anywhere, fast travel, battle point healing pools prior to boss fights, and three difficulty levels to start with, NG+ unlocking a fourth difficulty. The Classic or Modern audio option is a nice addition but the music has little variation and many themes are reused a lot over the almost 50 hours.
Many side quests carry over to the next generation’s Emperor even though NPCs should be dead, which is confusing, and it is unclear what triggers a time jump before it happens as it uses a hidden Event Point system. Certain events also require the Emperor to be a specific job class or sex, which can force you to change from your chosen play style. The fact your characters change throughout seven generations makes them all feel expendable, and you can even abdicate an Emperor once per generation, with Inheritance Magic being the only thing connecting the game besides the bad guys. This made me care less and less as time went on, but the combat was so enjoyable, and I wanted to see the whole game’s story and environments.
The theme of the Seven Heroes growing so powerful that they had to be banished out of fear of what they would become intrigued me enough to keep finding their hidden memory cutscenes. Finding all the memories unlocks a special dungeon as well, and they each have glowing blue trails, so if you explore everywhere you won’t miss them. These slowly appear – often out of order – across the entire game, revealing the majority of its backstory.
The different take on not having a numbered leveling system while being a turn-based JRPG was refreshing. I was shocked at how much they added to a game from 1993. The character model improvements compared to the original and 2D-port’s sprites were huge! The collectible Mr. S and chests are eventually marked on maps through a stamp card, and help your party in several tangible ways. I enjoyed it despite its flaws, and though part of me wondered if they had remade it completely from scratch it could have been better, it probably would have lost its old-school vibe and challenge.
Holyrustedmetal is an Alaskan Variety Streamer specializing in First Impressions and First Playthroughs spanning Retro, Indie, and AAA. You can find him on Twitch, Kick, YouTube, X, and Bluesky.
