A remaster of the 2005 title Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song has been announced by Square Enix and is scheduled to release this winter.
Minstrel Song is a remake of the original 1992 Super Famicom Romancing Saga RPG and was initially released for PS2. Outside of changing the 16-bit visuals to 3D, the remake also made changes to several character designs and made alterations to the battle system and class system, but still includes the original’s eight main playable characters. The game was notably never released outside of Japan or North America, making this remaster the first-time fans within Europe or PAL regions can access the game without importing.
Although details on the remaster are scarce, the gameplay trailer seems to indicate that it will be a relatively barebones port of the game outside of an enhanced resolution, and widescreen support. However, the game’s cutscenes don’t seem to support widescreen, with bars filling up the empty space on the screen.
The last game in the franchise to receive a remaster was Saga Frontier in April 2021, with Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song being the latest in a long line of recent Square Enix remasters and remakes. These include the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series, as well as upcoming remakes for Live A Live and Dragon Quest 3. Meanwhile, the latest entry in the Saga franchise was 2019’s online browser game Imperial Saga: Eclipse, which only saw a release in Japan.
Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song Remastered will release on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam, iOS, and Android. There’s no price point for the game as of the time of publication, however, Saga Frontier Remastered goes for £19.99 on digital storefronts, so it’s probably reasonable to expect something around that price range.
In other news, fans have created a conceptual trailer for what a potential third entry in the Banjo-Kazooie franchise could look like.
