WK's Not-so-short Guide to Romancing SaGa 2
Been wanting to write this up since starting my second playthrough of RS2. I know a few people around here have talked about wanting to play this entry, and I get that like any SaGa game, it can be fairly daunting at first since the game explains nothing. So here's my not-so-short guide to playing Romancing SaGa 2.
Gameflow
RS2 is a generational story about a kingdom trying to fight the legendary Seven Heroes who once saved the world a millennia ago and have returned as evil monsters themselves. At first you're part of a small kingdom, but by liberating other countries with your exploits and investing your resources carefully, you can transform you kingdom into a mighty empire and have warriors of great ability waiting to help your current ruler go kick ass and take names.
Gameflow basically takes the form of you exploring the available world and helping out various kingdoms and communities with their problems. The game is fairly open ended after the Gerad generation and several events actually have multiple ways to complete them depending on the order you take them on. For example, early in the game you're asked by the neighboring Cumberland kingdom to come and intervene in a succession crisis. You can either go do so to see the scenario play out, or you can do something else, watch a generational skip occur and come to the land to discover it is now under the iron rule of a despot and needs liberation. It's actually surprising how many scenarios have at least two ways they can play out and they do affect a few things later on.
Likewise, the player can commission and fund their empire to research various weapons or building projects to expand the empire's abilities. These are finished based on the number of battles you fight or generational skip. Money is generated by either finding it in treasure chests, having human enemies drop it after defeat, expanding the Royal Orchard, and mostly from taxation from your territories which are collected after a certain amount of battles are fought.
Avalon itself serves as a hub for your ruler where they can recruit certain warrior classes. It also has a Dojo where you can customize a characters Weapon Arts or learn Formations with certain classes. When you build a Magic Research Lab, you gain access to most of the elemental mage classes and can now teach spells to your party.
Building Stuff
To commision a great works project, you'll need to do a few things. The main thin is sit on the throne, if your character doesn't just sign for a moments rest then they'll likely call on their administrator to start a project. Projects unlock as you fulfill certain requirements. The main one to be concerned with is the Magic Research Lab, you'll need to raise your Successors magic level to like seven or ten I believe to get this opened up. You'll need the cash to get these projects started, but money from chests are ridicukously high. Most of the time, the expansion won't appear until after finishign a lot of events or instigating a generations jump.
the other building is the small building on the second floor of the courtyard of the castle. You'll find a blacksmith and his assistanct. The blacksmith makes weapons, the assistant makes armor. They can only research one at a time and it costs a bunch of money but in addiiton to the stuff being available ins hops, you get a freebie from them as well. The time is takes to finish an item is based on the number of battles you fight. It doesn't take than many so be sure to check back. If the generation skips then the item will be lsot and you'll have to wait until they have the idea for it. So be careful when making commisions if you know you've done a lot.
Stats
RS2 doesn't follow a conventional leveling system. It instead uses a streamlined version of FFII's system that focuses mainly on HP growth and proficiency with the various weapon and elemental magic classes. With that said, there are technically three types of stats to be aware of.
Raw Stats - This is a character's main stats and it's based on the character's class. These are the usual Strength., Defense, Magic type stats most people know from other RPGs. These stats will never grow and can only be modified by equipment. With that said, gaining a point of two in a stat does reflect a big difference so you shouldn't ignore them. The only stat you can technically manipulate is HP and to a lesser extent MP. HP rises as you survive battles with strong enemies while MP will slowly rise as you raise proficiency with various magics. No, the HP/MP trick from FFII does not work here and you can't target your own party anyway, so don't bother.
Proficiency Stats - This is the main stat you can alter by your actions and they are a huge part of the game. Whenever you use a certain weapon or spell, there is a possibility your character will increase their proficiency with that weapon or spell. The tech points you gain in battle will raise the likelihood of getting a stat to go up, similar to leveling up in Crisis Core.
Weapon proficiency will alter how much damage you do with the base weapon attack and also slightly alter the damage your Weapon Arts do as well. The other reason to raise these stats is that the higher their level, the more likely it is the character can Spark a new Weapon Art when fighting stronger enemies. This is very important because as mentioned, Weapon Arts don't get as much of a boost to damage with higher levels, so low level techs will leave you under-powered until you start gaining more powerful ones.
Magic works differently (of course) so magic is divided into the six elemental classes of Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, and Darkness. A character can equip up to three magic elements of non-opposing elements and they can increase their proficiency by using that particular elemental class. Raising magic is imperative to making this game less of a nightmare due to how powerful and broken magic can be in this game. So unlike weapon arts, raising your proficiency in a magic field will have a much more noticeable affect on the spells powers. Magic can only be learned by either using a class that starts with it or having a mage teach you spells from the Magic Research Lab. Raising Magic levels will allow the researchers to discover new spells for that element once you reach the correct Global level to unlock it.. Once you've raised two non-opposing elements to certain levels, the research institute will begin researching Fusion Magic. Every element has at least two spells with each non-opposing element.
Global Levels - This is the biggest stats to be concerned with and the one the game hides from you. Global Levels are basically a party average of all the various proficiency in weapons and magic you've earned between generations. The purpose of this stat is dictate the starting proficiency of new characters you recruit so that the player doesn't have to spend time grinding in case someone dies while on the field and also to make sure new generations start at a similar level as the previous one so there isn't any difficulty spikes. GL is gained from the points earned after battle which goes towards every weapon and magic type used in battle. Once the weapon/magic stat earns enough points, it goes up a Global Level permanently and the next generation will start with a higher proficiency with it. Global Levels are imperative to magic since new spells and fusion magic are tied to the Global Level instead of the character's personal proficiency. So if you get a mage with level 18 proficiency with Fire and Earth magic and wonder why the Fusion spell hasn't become available, it's likely because your global levels are not high enough. The biggest pain of Global Levels is that it's an unseen stat. The game will never directly tell you what they look like and instead you'll simply have to see what a new recruit's stats look like to garner a guess. It's annoying, but having played later SaGa entries that drop this and force you to grind new recruits, I honestly wish this mechanic remained in later installments.
Difference between HP and LP.
LP is a new mechanic introduced in this entry and would remain in all future installments. HP works pretty much like it does in all other RPGs, once it's depleted to 0, your character will lose consciousness and lose one LP. LP is pretty much what it says, it's the character's actual life. Once it's depleted to 0, the character is permanently killed and will need to be replaced. When a character is knocked out, they can be revived with a simple healing spell or item, no life spell needed. When their HP is depleted again, they will become unconscious and lose another LP. The biggest thing to understand though is that unconscious characters can still be targeted by enemy attacks, but since they have no HP they will lose LP every hit instead. So it is important to heal characters ASAP when they get knocked out unless you're purposely trying to kill them off to recruit someone else. If the Successor gets LP killed then Succession takes place, unless it is the Final Ruler, if they get LP killed, the game is over and you have to restart from the last save.
Generational Skips and Succession
The Ruler of Avalon uses a forbidden magic called Inheritance which allows them to pass on their power and abilities to a successor thus allowing the player to hold onto any progress they've made. Succession can occur one of two ways, either by Generational Skip or a direct Succession cause by letting your ruler die from LP death.
Generational Skips will automatically happen after your ruler accomplishes enough events. Each story event or quest in the game is worth a certain amount of points, and once enough has been completed the game will jump a number of years into the future and ask you to choose between four randomly selected successors. Liberating a territory or defeating one of the Seven Heroes are worth the most points, while doing smaller quests are worth less. So it's very possible you can have a successor who accomplishes ten things because they were all small quests before getting a generational skip, whereas another can liberate one region and take down one of the Seven and get the boot as well.
Succession occurs in one of two ways. If the current ruler is LP killed in battle, then a new successor will be chosen among the remaining party members. If the whole party gets knocked unconscious though, the game treats it like a generational skip, and isntead you'll have to choose between four randomly selected classes.
I advise players to save before and after every boss fight to ensure they can go back in case a generational skip occurs and you're handed a bad selection of successors. I say after as well because not all events end after a boss defeat so you can often save afterwards and either leave the area or talk to the right NPC to officially end the event as well and give you a stress free means of re-rolling your possible successors. I will say that any new classes you unlock in a generation often have a high chance of being one of the successors.
Time passage
Another factor at hand is time. Time passes in this game based on how many events you complete and how many battles you fought. Certain events, once activated must be completed in that generation or you may lose out on somethings but more likely you'll just miss the event and have to do a different one instead. Examples are Cumberland or the landship scenario. Other events won't activate until a later event happens like the Camroon Volcano events or the Narwhal quests. This system is much more forgiving than RS1's mechanics. This is most evident with combat and its role in time. Fighting a lot also makes time pass but it happens rather slowly during the Successor's tenure. It really kicks in when you have a generation skip as the amount of time between generations is directly proportionate to how many battles you fight. The important thing to remember here is that you do have a soft time limit in this game as reaching the year 1900 kick starts the final successor. So don't think you can grind in Gerad's time consequence free as it can potentially lock you out of some later quests that require a generational jump to activate.
Combat
Mostly works like typical RPGs where you select the weapon or spell you wish to use. A character can equip about four items to their hands, be it four weapons or items to use in battle. Bare Handed is always an option for battle regardless of class. Only equipped items can be used in battle and even then, only healing Balms are available. Because of this, your character is allowed to use multiple weapons in battle. All characters have three equipment slots but certain classes have access to a fourth slot where they can utilize a unique piece of equipment only their class can use and cannot be removed. The Crusader for instance always comes with a special Crusader Shield equipped so they can't equip other shields but they also get an extra equipment slot.
One unique element of the game is that your HP is restored to max between battles so you never have to use items of magic outside of combat except to restore MP. It is also possible to run from almost every battle in the game including bosses so you can regroup.
Weapons
There are Eight weapons in the game with three damage types. Certain weapons are classed together in the proficiency stats to make it easier to raise their power.
- Rapiers/Epees - Lightweight weapons that do pierce damage and have access to buffing/debuffing Weapon Arts. They share a stat with Spears. Their damage is calculated by a characters Speed and Dexterity stat.
- One-Handed Swords - These are medium weight all-rounders that have techs for dealing with anything. They do slash damage and share a stat with Greatrswords. Damage is calculated by strength. This is the hardest weapon class to spark all techs for because there are four types of sword sparking classes in the game.
- Greatswords - These are two handed weapons that are very heavy but do greater damage than regular swords or epees. They do slash damage as well and their techs are primarily big damage against single targets. They calculate damage by Strength and share a stat with 1h swords.
- Axes - Are very heavy slash dealing weapons. Their damage is calculated by strength and mainly targets a single opponent. They can do more damage than greatsword but their accuracy is poor so you may see more misses. They share a proficiency stat with Maces.
- Maces - Are heavy weapons with average blunt damage. Their techs are kind of all-rounders like 1h-Swords but they trade raw damage for buffing/debuffing effects. Most of them have a unique weapon tech attached to them. They share their stat with Axes.
- Spears - Are a heavy pierce damage type that focuses mainly on doing damage to a single target. Their skills do have some nice debuffing effects and they get a really great defensive one as well. They share a stat with rapiers and use DEX for damage calculations.
- Bows - Long range piercing weapons that can hit the back row. They are medium weight but some bows can get pretty heavy. They do fairly good damage and their design is for crowd control over doing big damage to a single target. They also get a fair amount of debuff techs. They do damage based on DEX and have their own proficiency stat.
- Unarmed - lightweight weapon that can do heavy blunt damage depending on the strength of the character and the class. Their techs are all-rounders but the game only has really one class dedicated to sparking new moves. Ki Meditation is a must have skill that is a free healing spell for the user. Their damage is based on several stats which is why only a few classes can do some serious damage with it despite being a weapon type all classes have access to. They have their own proficiency stat as well.
Magic
Magic is broken down to six elemental types as mentioned before. Each element will learn a total of five spells and their are two Fusion spells per non-opposing elements. That means there are thirty pure elemental spells total and twenty four fusion spells. You can only possess three elemental types and are not able to use others. So if your character has fire magic, they can't learn water magic unless you forget all of their fire magic. Thankfully, once a spell is unlocked its unlocked for good, so it's easy to swap around spells and doesn't require any grinding to get them back. All magic remains unlocked into NG+ with the exception of Dark Magic's availability. It has to be unlocked by its quest line every playthrough to gain access to.
- Light - The first element you have access to. This is a great magic class and one of the few where almost every spell is useful. Sword Barrier is one of the best defensive spells in the game because it negates all edged and melee attacks on the caster. It has some very potent fusion spells for a battle mage and the Fusion spell Light Wall is one of the best group defensive spells in the game.
- Fire - Fire is a pure damage element with one exception. Fireball actually remains a potent spell throughout the game due to the fact it can be powered up into a group hitting spell with enough Fire Proficiency. The elements best spell is Revivar which is the game's auto-life spell and the last spell you'll learn. The best thing about Revivar is that when it activates, the character doesn't lose LP. The majority of the Fusion spells it makes are offensive but Fire Wall is an excellent defensive group spell that no-sells Fire and Ice attacks for a turn.
- Water - Mainly defensive and healing. It's the only spell class that has status removal magic as well so keep that in mind. It's best spell is Hasten Time that is basically Hastega. It's offensive magic only comes into play with Fusion magic the best fusion spell is Elixir, which is a single target spell that heals for max health and removes all status magic except petrification.
- Wind - Is the weirdest magic type. It has a mix of spell types that do interesting effects. Wind Guard protect against all bow attacks and HP Suction is a drain spell that's good for causing damage and healing. Wind God Sabre allows a character to use swords without needing to equip one which is neat but not very practical. It gets some potent offensive magic with Fusion spells but this is honestly the least useful element.
- Earth - Possibly the best element behind Light. This element gives you some great buff spells, a healing spell and one of the stronger group hitting spells in the game. It's fusion magic is also fairly strong since it's the other half of the Light Wall and Fire Wall spells. This is also the other half of the Dark Wraith spell which is the best offensive spell in the game since it doubles your characters attack. The biggest drawback is that you have to choose between other elements is it's impossible to get all of these spells onto one character.
- Dark - Is mainly Debuffing and damage focused. Dark is actually optional and can only be earned by doing a certain event at Camroon Volcano. If you're hoping to build a powerful combat focused mage, Dark is definitely the way to go about it. It's best spell is Wraith Form which creates a doppleganger of your character that repeats any action the character makes every round. The rest of it's magic varies from powerful group hitting spells to devastating single target spells. Most Dark magic also has a secondary status affliction element to it as well so even if the enemy resists it, they can still get stuck with a devastating status effect.
Weapon Arts and Sparking
New to this entry and a standard of the franchise ever after is the concept of Waza/Sparking/Glimmer in relation to weapon arts. Weapon Art are basically powerful techniques associated with each weapon type. Sparking is when a light bulb pops over a character's head in combat and they create the technique. Once a move is sparked, it's permanently learned for that character. When a generational skip occurs, all sparked moves are added to the dojo, allowing future generations to use the techniques as well. Even if a character dies, any moves they spark will be in the Dojo the following generation. Sadly, sparked moves are not available to teach to other characters until the following generation, meaning that any moves sparked during the final successors era will not be available even in NG+.
Despite what people say Sparking is not entirely random. There are several factors that go into whether a character will spark a move. Their weapon proficiency level, the Enemy level, the spark type of the class, and the difficulty of the move are all factors that determine whether you'll actually spark a move or not. This is why skills will still often unlock in a specific order of weakest ability to strongest.
One more important thing to remember is that a character will never spark a new move if their move list is full. So always make sure you have an empty slot or two to encourage more sparking.
Spark Type
Every class in the game has a spark type. There are fifteen different spark types in the game. One type, the Stagnant Type which is relegated to Leon, Pre-Succession Gerad, and Coppelia is unable to learn any techs. For the most part, a classes spark type will be explained to the player when they are recruited into the party. Usually telling you what weapon type they're best in. Mages are their own class and can only spark low level techs with weapons. The one kicker here is that Spark type can sometimes be split between genders if the class has different genders. For instance the Crusader class varies between the character you recruit and their gender as males tend to specialize in Spears and women specialize in Maces. Occasionally a class can have an outlier such as the Amazons who are spear specialists but have one member of their group that is a Bow specialist. The problem is the game only uses the generic message about specialty so you'll never really know without a guide the biggest offenders are 1h swords and melee since both have a few specialty spark types that have a higher chance to spark specific moves. For the most part though, you only ever really need to know this info for some endgame techs. For the most part you can use the class and safely get all the techs you need from them. Low level techs can often be sparked by any class, but more powerful ones will require a specialist to earn.
One other factor at play with sparking is that certain moves are connected to each other. So using these weapon arts a lot gives you a higher probability of sparking their advanced form. Granted, not every art has a corresponding art associated with it, but some of the endgame weapons arts tend to be directly connected to mid or even low tier techs. An early one is how Double Cut can be used to learn Slice much earlier.
Weapon Arts
The big thing to understand about Weapon techs is that their power is connected to the Art itself rather than your stats. Granted having a stronger weapon, strength boosts, and high proficiency will give the move a significant boost compared to working with lower resources, but Prism Blade is going to average between 2k-3k of damage most of the time whereas the early Double Cut will rarely go over 1k without some end game stuff. So it is important to switch out weaker moves with stronger ones as you progress the game.
Specific Weapon Techs
Many of the game's weapons actually have special techniques attached to them. These moves need to be sparked like any other weapon art, but once they are sparked, they remain on the weapon forever. Even if you get rid of the weapon and acquire a new one, the new one should still have the Weapon Art activated. Many of these weapon specific arts are unique moves and the best part is they don't use up a Weapon Art slot. This is one of the reasons why you might want to forego using a strong weapon for one that has a more useful tech attached to it. The biggest advantage is with mages since they are terrible at physical damage and sparking, so saddling them up with less than powerful maces to use their special skills is often a better strategy. Also, the unique signature attack for most members of the Seven Heroes is available on a specific weapon.
Defensive Arts
Easily the most useful and difficult moves to spark. Defensive Moves are basically a move that allows the equipped character to completely avoid the specific attack of the Defensive Art. The game will automatically give you one for plot reasons in the early game with Soul Steal, Kzinssie's signature instant death move. With this move equipped, Gerad is able to completely avoid the art. You can Spark a defensive move for almost every move in the game. The chances are rare but getting the defensive skill for moves like Terror Voice, Death's Scythe, Hypnosis, and Pheromone can make certain boss battles less of a nightmare. The one thing to know is that these skills do take up a weapon art slot, so choose carefully.
Armor and Accessories
Easily the biggest headache in the game is the terrible UI when it comes to what equipment does. The main stat you see only details protection from Slash damage, but there are three weapon damage types (Slash, Blunt, and Pierce) and six elemental types. So you can easily have a character sporting a 90 in defense that is still getting KOed in one hit because the enemy is using Blunt type attacks. Likewise, the armor descriptions give incredibly vague ideas of other things they can do, so you might bypass a piece of gear that has poor protection but offers a huge boost to your strength or magic stats which I might add, make a big difference.
Likewise, there are two main types of armor Basic, and Full Armor. Basic works like normal games, equipping them allows ou to also equip helms, gauntlets, and accessories. Meanwhile Full Armor offers better overall defense at the cost of restricting a character to only being able to use rings and usually being heavier.
Accessories mostly come in the form of Rings, they garner a single point in most defense areas, but make up for it by either giving a sizeable stat boost or protection from harmful status magic.
Speed
A character's speed is determined by both their speed stat and the weight of all their equipment including armor. While a character can equip up to four weapons at a time, it's not very sound to do so since each weapon weight will slow them down. There is a scale in the Storehouse in the castle that will tell you what your teams weight is.
Formations
This is the other unique element to this game and something that made the BoFIII fan in me smile. RS1 had a stuffy grid system not too dissimilar to the equally awful one from Persona 1 when it came to party formations. Getting attacked the side or behind would scramble the formation and make it impossible to attack with certain weapon types until the character spent a turn moving into place. RS2 thankfully drops this whole mechanic and instead offers a new formation system where the party can use pre-set formations to garner special benefits in battle.
There are a total of eighteen Formations in the game. Two are given to the player at the start being the Free for All that doesn't garner any benefits or penalties and the other is Leon's Imperial Cross which makes creates a meat-shield around the Emperor and protects whoever is in the back row. Formations can honestly make or break the game, so it's important to use them as effectively as possible as some formations boost counter rates, magic power, bow power, gives initiative to the whole team, or has the party auto-defend after finishing their turn.
Formations are earned by having the current Successor speak with the Dojo instructor who teaches formations to the troop. Every class not found within the castle ( so no Light or Heavy Infantry, Archers, Mages, or Mercenaries. Also non-human races and Coppelia will not teach a formation) will teach a new Formation. You can honestly go through the whole game and not see all of them and sadly the game makes you earn them again every playthrough even with NG+. The only way you'll likely My personal recommendations are:
- Imperial Arrow - Learned from Imperial Guard - Good speed bonuses to the whole team, everyone auto-defends after turn. Great for Blitzkrieg strategies.
- Desert Fox - Learned from Desert Guard - Great decoy formation with strong boosts for frontline melee fighters.
- Amazon Strike - Learned from Amazon - Great damage focused formations with good speed and melee bonuses.
- Whirlwind - Learned from Nomad - Good defensive formation that doesn't have a speed penalty.
- Goblin Attack - Learned from Scroll found in Maze of Memory - Best offensive formation in the game.
Classes
At the start of every generation after Gerad's reign, you'll need to recruit a new party. You should choose wisely because once a character is recruited, they can't be removed until they are either LP killed or until a new generational skip. There are twenty five classes you can recruit in this game. Your five starting classes are: Light Infantry, Heavy Infantry, Court Mage, Ranger, and Mercenary.
- Light Infantry - These are all-rounders with stats and their Spark Type is also all over the place so they can be useful for sparking lots of early techs for various weapons. The female variant are a bit better about sparking techs since they have better spark types within their ranks. They mostly specialize in swords of all types so experiment between all three.
- Heavy Infantry - These guys are meat shields who come with a full suit of armor. Place them in the front row and let them soak up damage. They are mostly 1H-Sword Generalist in spark type so keep them with swords and shields.
- Court Mage - Your starter Mage class. Most of them are not good at sparking anything excpet possibly clubs, but agin, don't expect much. Their real strength is in their magic with Males usually specializing in water magic and females specializing in fire magic.
- Ranger - These are your main bow experts and you can easily just stick to one to spark all the bow techs in the game since all of them are bow specialists. There is not much difference between gender expewct females are slighlty better casters.
- Mercenaries - These are your heavy hitters in the early game. They all have fairly good stats and most of them start with high proficiency with swords. Oddly enough though, their spark type is all over the place, especially the female variant. They are also not the best for sparking later weapon arts.
The recruitable classes include:
- Mage for Hire - These are spell casters that often have sparking types that allow for more variety. They are not as powerful as a court mage but they are a bit more well rounded. They are acquired once the Magic Research Institute is built.
- Vagabonds - The series version of the Thief class. Their high speed and dex makes them good for Bows, epees, and martial arts. Males have poor spark typing though while females are more consistent. Females get a unique footwear allowing for an extr a slot for armor and the it allows them to learn Stomp.
- Brawler - Martial arts experts and the games version of monks. These guys will be your main source of melee moves. They are useless against slimes but they can spark several great techs any character can use like Ki Meditations. Keep an eye out for a monk named Liger, he's a rare spark type that can spark certain moves the others can't.
- Crusader - These are your upgrade to the Heavy Infantry. They are meatshields that can also use magic rather proficently and they have better spark typing. Males specialize in spears, females specialize in clubs/maces and are far better with magic than their male counterpart. The class also comes with the Paladin Shield which is fairly awesome in the early to mid-game until R&D catches up. Their only downside is that they are slow.
- Nomads - Better class than you would think, they specialize in Axes and Bows. Males will be your earliest access to axe specialists while the females are bow experts with good potential in magic.
- Tactician - This class has some of the highest speed scores in the game and they are experts with magic usually starting with three elemental spells ight out the bat. There biggest flaw is their durability and the fact most of them are terrible at sparking anything. You acquire them once you complete the University and graduate from it.
- Armed Merchants - These guys are basically pirates. They are also serious badasses with great defense, high speed scores and good strength that helps with their Axe proficiency You can never go wrong with this class.
- Hunters - These people are your upgrade for the Ranger class usually sporting higher dex in echange for overspecialization.
- Saigo Clansman - Another meatshield class, they can specialize in melee or clubs. If you're missing some techs in clubs this is your class.
- Imperial Guard - These are an upgrade to the Crusader class just with their usefullness reversed. Females are kind of all over the place and while they have better magic ability, they have nothing on their crusader counterpart. Male members are the game's best spear users and sport some of the highest attack in the game.
- Desert Guards - These guys are a cross between mercenaries and heavy infantry. They are good fighters with the ability to take a beating or two.. These guys are pretty good mid-tier to endgmae fighters.
- Amazon - Amazons are fairly well rounded. Their stats say boy, but their spark type is spear. They make decent mages as well and have good speed. Sadly they can only be recruited by a female emperess until you build the city expansion.
- Divers/Ocean Woman - One of the weirder classes. Depsite starting with two magic types, they are mediocre casters. Their main weapons are spears and they come with a rare Trident that only drops from a certain rare enemy in the game. I found them to be a bit too fragile.
- Levante Guard - Call it like it is, this is your Samurai. These guys have high strength and speed making them great blitzkrieg options. They are the best greatsword specialists in the game and a usual pick for end game teams. they can be a bit on the fragile side though. They are surprisingly decent mages as well. Oddly enough, one member of the class who has the best stats also has only 1 LP.
- Mole Men - The games best epee/rapier wielders, moles are earth experts and all can cast Earth Magic. Like all of the non-human races, they get a regen effect when earth magic has been used enough to change the environment to earth focus. They also come with the Iron Will helmet that makes them immune to mind status effects like charm and confusion. They are also excllent craftman and you'll need to rescue them if you want to get Nerids or acquire the Darkstone Ring.
- Nerids - The mermaids are not as useful as I would like considering the headache you have to do to recruit them. They are magic users who get a regen effect aroudn water and when water magic is used a lot. They are not good at sparking, being the mage of the four non-human races. They do come with their unique Mellow Ring which makes them immune to cold and gives them a good defense against both status magic and Fire magic.
- Salamanders - This class is pretty powerful. The y are Axe and Melee specialists who come with a strong unique armor called Red Heat Scalemail that makes them immune to fire magic. They also get a regen effect around fire magic or fire centric locations. They are fairly strong and very beefy, the only issue is that recruiting them negates your ability to get dark magic... Apparently the Salamanders are also all female so Rocboquet should be in trouble.
- Irises - Though they primarily use bows, this harpie inspired race are actually better spell casters and they are also extrememly quick. They get a regen boost when wind magic is used a lot. Their unique equipment is the Kazanaha Scarf which makes them immune to cold/water magic and gives them a good boost to status magic. Like Nerids' they are all female. The only real drawback is that they will usually be the last class you will recruit, though the quest to do so is actually one of the most amusing.
- Ninja - New to this entry is the Nija class which was added when the game got remade for cell phones. They are a female variant of the Battler class, being mainly Melee specialist. Despite that, they start with great proficieny with swords and have the stats to make them perfect with greatswords and on par with the Levante Guard. Their main weakness is their poor magic ability and their low defense. She's recruited in the optional Maze of Memory Dungeon in the Red Orb section. They come with a unique accessory the Dash Ring which gives them good status effect defense.
- Diviner - Man I wish they had stuck with the Japanese title of Onmiyoji. This is another class exclusive to the post Super Famicom version. They are comparable to Tacticians in stats but their spark types run the gambit of Bows, Clubs, and Epees making them a bit more versatile. They're real unique trait is that they are a class that specializes in Dark Magic which was incredibly rare in the original game. So this class was created to make better use of the magic. Even if you opt not to get Dark Magic, they will usually start with it and will be you only means of using it on that playthrough. He is recruited in the optional Maze of Memory Dungeon, in the Black/Purple Orb area. They come with a unique accessory called the Demon Ring which gives them boosted defense against all of the elements.
Resources
It's hard to find great resources for everything, but these are the two I like.
RS2 Data Sheet - Pretty much a spreadsheet which is great for learning what armor and weapons do as well as a more manageable spark table.
SaGa Wiki - It still needs to be updated for the remake but this gives you a better breakdown of the classes and formations.
Misc Tips:
Emperor vs. Empress
You get to choose the gender of your final successor and there are some reasons you may want to choose one over the other. Each of them gets a unique greatsword that is also capable of using 1h sword techs as well. Neither is stronger than the other, nor even the best weapon of their categories but it does free up a potential weapon slot if speed is a factor. Both swords come with two unique abilities.
Dayblade (Male) - comes with some fire and holy based attacks that are great against enemies weak to fire or holy power.
Moonlight (Female) - Comes with a group hitting ice attack and the holy Moon Light healing spell.
The male emperor has far more LP than the empress. close to 20 compared to her measly 10. On the flip side, the Empress, being a female, is automatically immune to Rocboquet's Temptation skill giving her one free equipment slot for the final battle. This might not sound like that big of an advantage but it really is because Charm is the second worst status effect behind Petrification.
Dark Magic vs. Salamanders
You're going to have to decide which one you want. Salamanders are debatably the most useful non-human race in the game since their only real weakness is how slow they are and their inability to use Water Magic. Fire locations are also rare, so you won't see their regen bonus as often but the class is physically powerful, their special armor is pretty strong and frees them up to use an extra slot for equipment and their specialty for weapons are axes, which are the strongest weapons in the game. They are real power houses. Bonus points, Salamanders are all female so Rocboquet's Temptation spell has no effect on them.
Dark Magic is the best offensive magic in the game outside of a few Fusion spells and two single element spells. They also have the benefit of causing secondary status effects which can turn the tide of battle for you. Dark Magic also gives you some of the best offensive buffs in the game and are best used with the new Onmiyoji/Diviner class as well as certain members of the Samurai class. If you plan on having a powerful offensive mage this magic element is pretty much required.
Seven Sword vs. Seven Armor
Unique to the remaster is the ability to forge a specific weapon or armor with an ore from the Maze of Memory. You can only forge one per playthrough but at least it transfers into NG+. So the questions is which one?
Personally, go with the Armor first. the sword is great but there are several weapons close to it in power and Weapon Arts are still fairly potent without the extra points. Defense is more important by the late game and the Seven Armor gives you a great stat spread while also being criminally lightweight. It really is the best armor in the game overall.
Bejeweled Ring vs. Potency Ring
There is a shop in the Maze of Memories that offers these two items but it costs 10,000 Crowns which is your max amount of money you can carry on you. You can lower the price by asking him to lower them and then exiting the dungeon so you can get both, but if that's too much time wasting for you, I would choose the Bejeweled ring first.
The Bejeweled Ring raises the probability of enemies dropping items in battle. There are lots of weapons and armor that can only be obtained this way and they are far more valuable, especially if you sneak in and grab this item as early as possible.
The Potency Ring doubles the amount of Points you get per battle raising your Global levels and speeding up how often your character raises their proficiency. Great item in early game but becomes useless by NG+ since a regular playthrough should have you reach the cap on both Global and personal levels.
Empress Coppelia?
Yes, the foul mouthed automaton can actually be turned into a successor. You simply need for the current successor to die in combat while she is recruited as a party member. Coppelia on her own comes with some disadvantages but they mostly disappear once she's made the successor. For one thing, you can control her now and secondly, she can use magic finally. She has fairly good stats and while she can't equip armor, her Prima Tutu accessory is just as powerful as Full Armor so she's pretty tanky. Take advantage of her fast growth rate to raise your global levels.
Darkstone Ring/ Demon Crystal Ring
There is a quest midway through the game where you'll acquire a cursed dark crystal. If you take it to the mole men later on, they can crafy it into the Darkstone Ring. This ring will grant you immunity from mind status effects like charm and confusion as well as good defense against the elemental magics. But the item is cursed and won't be able to be removed. If you sleep anywhere that isn't the Successor's personal bed, then they user will drain an LP from each party member refillign their own even if they have full LP. Save this for the final battle.
Hopefully this will help some of you. I'm hoping to start SaGa Frontier 1 tonight.