Though Square Enix had hinted at an eventual SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered over the past five years, it definitely came as a surprise when they shadow-dropped it on March 27th, 2025 as part of a Nintendo Direct broadcast.

While I (Patrick) enjoyed playing through this remastered version of the classic PlayStation title, we had questions. Fortunately, producer Hiroyuki Miura and director Naofumi Ueno were on hand to answer our questions.

In this interview, we learn more about the graphical upgrade process for the watercolor backgrounds, balancing the difficulty curve, managing quality-of-life for this unique entry in the SaGa series, and more. Enjoy!

---

Ueno: With the original game, although all the background art was created in this watercolor style, the actual artwork was handled by several different designers, so each piece had slight variances to their look.

When the images were upscaled for the remaster, these differences were more noticeable than they were at the time, so we retouched each image one by one to create more cohesion. In addition, we added to parts of the backgrounds on both sides that were missing due to the differences in screen ratio for older and newer devices. So, in this case too, we carefully considered what elements to add to the sides so that they are drawn with the same touch and blend seamlessly into the original artwork, putting a significant level of effort into this process.

Miura: I did play SaGa Frontier 2 upon its release. Going into the remaster, I knew I wanted to faithfully reproduce the graphic elements and the scenario. I thought it would be best to keep the feeling of the graphics while raising the resolution, and for the scenario to be kept as it was back then, adding to it in a way that would complement the story.

Ueno: Yes. I played SaGa Frontier 2 on the PlayStation at the time. I consider myself to be a fairly hardcore fan.

I believe that the watercolor-style backgrounds and distinctive, high-quality pixel art character graphics, as well as the sound that enhances the story, are the most appealing aspects of the original SaGa Frontier 2. I wanted to deliver these elements as faithfully as possible in the remaster, as I believe they are of such high quality that they will still be appreciated today, regardless of the era.

Also, since I thought this was a game with a wonderful scenario, I devoted a lot of effort into making the story even more enjoyable and convey its appeal more clearly by adding new scenarios. I tried to recreate the narrative style and character animations of the original so that even though these are additional scenarios, players will feel as if these were part of the original story.

Ueno: The last boss of the original game was thought to be very strong and challenging to defeat. Therefore, in the remastered version, we added a function called “parameter inheritance” so that the player can take on that challenge without it seeming impossible. This allows the growth parameters from other generations to be carried over to the final generation party, making it easier for those who could not find any opportunities to win the battle at the time of the original to take on the last boss.

However, there was concern that for some people this would make the boss’ strength feel underwhelming. For those players, the enhanced Lords have been adjusted to be positioned as bosses that feel like they are just the right level of challenge for those upon inheritance, if they have fully trained not only the final generation party, but also the other generations.

Even so, it is easy to imagine that there will also be those who feel that the bosses are still too strong.

In that case, I think the balance is such that even those who are not particularly good at command [turn-based] RPG battles will be able to defeat the boss if they train their characters to the limit, which is the point where we decided, “Let’s stop there.” As for the stronger version of the last boss, however, we think that only those who have truly invested in the game should be able to defeat it, so its strength is one order of magnitude higher than expected.

There are no rewards or titles for defeating it, and it is merely a means of attaining personal satisfaction, so it is not something that players have to attempt. For this reason, the balance that we should aim for in determining the challenge level should be such that one may or may not be able to defeat it even at their strongest, but it is always possible to defeat it.

Ueno: In the case of SaGa Frontier 2, in terms of the pacing of the game, there were some aspects that could not be addressed simply by adding a speed setting function. This was because the time used to load the CD on the PlayStation at the time now felt excessive in some parts of the game. Unlike [the first] SaGa Frontier, there were different aspects of the game that needed to be resolved in order to improve the overall pacing of the game itself, such as the characters’ entrance sequence before entering battle and combo trigger sequences.

In addition, the UI, such as the menu screen, and the controller controls were very unique, and we felt that they were not as intuitive as other RPGs on modern hardware, so we made changes from a fundamental level.

Miura: Thank you for your comment that this title has tons of potential. Developing a remaster is still up in the air, but we think the more requests there are from users, the possibility could get higher.

RPGFan would like to humbly thank Hiroyuki Miura and Naofumi Ueno for taking the time to answer our questions. SaGa Frontier 2 Remastered is available on PS4, PS5, Switch, PC, iOS, and Android. Find links to purchase all SaGa titles on the official SaGa Project website.