As per this thread, I started up a game of SaGa 2 for ds.
My team is a human female (mc), elf female (with bow), mecha, and a monster (slime transformed into jaguar).
I'm really liking it. It's...different. In the beginning there's this cave dungeon and I found it pretty easy.
That is until I was wondering "I've used Cure with the Sensei a bunch of times so far. Where's the MP?" Then I realized that magic is consumable, like an item, like in Final Fantasy VIII or Chrono Cross. That made sense.
Then I realized the same was for attacks as well.
So by the time I realized this, my mecha had only 8 more attacks left with his gun attack, and my Jaguar had only four more moves left. Sensei only had 4 more Dissolve (I think it was?) left. So I realized that you need to take caution in these games. So I ended up having my mecha not attack or take any action for entire battles to not waste his attacks until I equipped Punch on it. When my monster could change into another monster I did so at the first chance because I only had four more attacks left and he'd be using up a space otherwise, so I might as well.
It was the first dungeon and I already had a fire under my ass to use my abilities better, fight the right battles, and not play so mindlessly. I saved up the rest of my mecha and Sensei's moves on the dungeon boss. Went down in two hits.
I slept at the inn at the next town and turns out my mecha's attacks replenish but everyone else's is static. I've replaced my Elf's depleting bow numbers with another bow.
This is...interesting.
I'm not sure how stats work. Sometimes agility goes up. Sometimes HP (for the humans). I equip Punch on my mecha and it does 0 HP 5 attacks in a row, until it finally gets a 1. I equip a giant Hammer on my MC and she attacks lower with that than her default sword. I'm assuming weapons get stronger the more you use them?
Either way, this is interesting as hell and should totally be up my alley.
Is Romancing SaGa 2 like this?
Okay, here are how a few things work. Weapons such as swords and axes are usually strength based. They use strength to determine their attack power, and will level up your strength as you use them. Weapons such as rapiers and bows are agility based, agility determines their power, and they level up agility as you use them. However, there are a few strange weapons that use Strength to determine damage, but level up your agility. I think the whip is one of these? I would need to check a guide again to be sure.
Guns and explosives are simple: they always do the same damage regardless of who uses them. Some, such as handguns, will level stats even though they don't depend on them. Others, such as bombs, will not give you stats, I believe.
Now, magic tomes use Magic, and will level up Magic as you use them. There are a few weapons, namely the PSI weapons, that work the same as magic. However, the magic spells that mutants learn work differently from weapons. Namely, they recover their uses whenever you stay at an Inn. So a mutant who can cast healing magic or use a group attack spell is extremely useful early on. You can use such mutant magic rather freely. However, mutants can periodically some of their current spells or passive traits with new spells or traits, but it is random and uncommon. Your best chance at learning new spells with mutants is after boss fights. If you really want a new one, you might want to save and reload a few times after major boss battles.
Monsters are tricky. They can be useful, since all of their attacks will refresh after an Inn stay, or when they change form. However, if you are reckless, it is really easy to get a monster that is stuck in a weak form forever. I highly recommend reading a guide such as
this one to figure out how it works. Basically, monsters are broken into eleven tiers of power, and need to choose your transformations carefully to keep your tier up. It works by comparing the type of your current monster to the type of monster meat it eats, and compares the tiers of the two and takes the higher. However, there are complications, since not every type of monster has a form in every tier, and you
will drop in tier if you fall into one of those holes. I usually kept a chart on hand whenever I play SaGa 1 or 2. If you use them carefully though, monsters can rocket ahead of everyone else in power and carry you through some tough parts of the game.
Mechs are comparatively simple: just give them the best gear you've got. Mechs are the best at using expensive weapons such as guns and bombs, since they can refresh their ammunition by staying at an inn. However, the uses of a weapon are halved when a mech equips it, and this is never refunded. So, if you equip a mech with a sword, de-equip it, then equip it again, it will only have 1/4 its original number of uses even though it was never used in battle and staying in an inn will only return it to that level. On the plus side, mechs have no slot limitations at all. You can equip them with as many swords, helmets, full armor suits, or whatever as much as you like, and they get stat bonuses from such gear that other characters do not.
As other people have mentioned, martial art skills will increase in power as you use them. So each hit of a Punch will do more damage than the last, and the very last hit before it breaks will be especially powerful. However, I think only humans can benefit from those bonuses, making martial arts the specialty of human characters.
I also recommend using shields, since using one is the only way to defend, and later shields have some really nice benefits that can help the whole team in a big way.
Now, I don't actually know how similar Romancing SaGa 2 is to this. The Romancing SaGa series represents a big change in the series compared to the Gameboy games. Namely, Romancing SaGa 2 introduces the glimmering of special moves, where you can randomly learn more advanced fighting techniques by using basic moves. SaGa 2 is purely built around equipment and a simple array of stats, while the Romancing SaGa games have a very different paradigm.
SaGa Frontier 1 was an attempt to unify the original trilogy's gameplay and setting with the new stuff from the Romancing SaGa games. It is the first game where all of those mechanics were used together. The SaGa 2 and 3 remakes for the DS carried on some of that, I believe.
EDIT: And I just noticed that you are playing the DS verison, rather than the Gameboy one I am more familiar with. Oh well, they shouldn't be
too different, but you will be able to take advantage of the monster transformation preview feature, which didn't exist in the original Gameboy version.
