Once more, for those of you curious, the following will be the general path I took through Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, as well as the Emperors I chose at any given time. Bear in mind, there will be spoilers ahead, so tread with caution:
Starting things off, my endgame Imperial Standing. I’m sure that’s a reasonable Enemy Strength to have in the endgame, don’t worry about it. Really, the Lv. 59 Bows says a lot about my general strategy throughout the game. Just like the Lv. 56 Greatswords speaks volumes to my endgame party. Don’t worry about that 1 defeat, it was probably nothing. I certainly didn’t underestimate the Melu desert and I would never get blindsided by a snake in the grass. Formation Breaks are easy to deal with.
Naturally, Leon’s up first. Not all too much to say here. Same for everyone.
My Gerard ha a mighty campaign which ended somewhat earlier than I intended. I truly, truly hoped to be able to play around with Cat in the same party as him, but… Well, this was the first of many times that a timeskip caught me offguard and derailed my plans. I also went ahead with the Victor Canal because I thought I’d have time to go back and help out Tefal after taking care of it quickly, but… I suppose that’s what I get for spending too much time exploring the sewers.
And thus my first Emperor of choice: Side. I chose Mercenary (F) mostly because I found Andromache the most interesting member of the first generation and rather liked her combo of Swords and Bows. I figured she would be a good physical powerhouse of an Emperor. And she accomplished… Some stuff. Between the mine and the Corsairs, she helped increase my revenue I guess. But I really, really wanted to head to Cumberland after dealing with the Corsairs, and I guess I spent too much time messing around in the Ludon Highlands. Which leads rather neatly into…
Why did I choose Freelance Mage (F)? I don’t exactly remember. I think it’s because I was somewhat underwhelmed by my ‘physical powerhouse’ and wanted something a bit more magically inclined. I think I chose Freelance Mage (F) for the BP efficiency. In any case, she picked up where I definitely did not fumble the ball and saved Cumberland. I mean, a quarter of the royal family survived, so that’s a win, right?
And saving Cumberland unlocked the Crusader class. Now I’m a Paladin kind of guy, so I was very excited for this class. I was thrilled to see Crusader (F) come up as an option for my next Emperor, so I chose her without a second thought. And Monica, well, Monica certainly accomplished things. She certainly didn’t underwhelm me so much that I just about never touched the Crusader class for the rest of the game. It’s not entirely her fault that I tried Bokhohn too early and hard reset myself out of the Landship since I was not equipped for his second form that early. Don’t ask what happened to her after that, she probably lived a long and fulfilling life.
Now, Herbert. This guy got work done. I needed someone a bit tankier after the Monica incident and he did the job. He traveled all across the world, slaying monsters in the pursuit of his one true love. It’s just a shame he died in heartbreak after his triumph over the Termite Queen launched him into a timeskip and the mermaid disappeared forever.
Remember what I said about ‘slaying monsters’? Well there’s your 255 year timeskip. Anyway, in my vain hope to continue the Mermaid Quest, I chose another dude. And I chose another tanky one because, well, once bitten twice shy. Hedgehog didn’t do too much — basically just finished out the Mermaid Potion and then dealt with Subier perforce, but he did everything I needed him to. A forgotten champion. As in I literally forgot I played as him.
Especially since Hedgehog was followed up by Juliana, one of the MVP Emperors. You see, during my run as Hedgehog — maybe even Herbert — I realized that Corrupter is very, very good. And I figured, ‘why not have that on my Emperor’? Plus I meant to deal with Rocbouquet anyway, so it served me well to have a female Emperor. And what do you know, that’s what she did. Not much else to say here, but she was a champion. Definitely the first Emperor were I really noticed that I was just so incredibly strong.
Now this one’s a little underplayed. As I stated in my final retinue summation, I chose Lysianassa because Corsair wasn’t an option and I thought maybe Nereid would let me explore the Comroon Strait. Color me a fool, I guess. I had to take the long way around through Yuyan. But Lysianassa was an absolute all-star who cleaned up most of my lingering questlines and stomped Wagnas into the ground. It’s a toss-up between her and Juliana as to which was my (second to) best Emperor, but I might give the edge to her. Despite this, the only thing that got her name in the history books was killing Wagnas, so… It really looks like she was underwhelming, huh?
Then there’s my penultimate Emperor, Sapphire. She deserved longer than she got. As far as I recall, the only things she did were ave the Salamanders and kill Dantarg. I guess she must’ve also got the Leon bridge repaired and the Saigo Clansmen settled, but… I really thought she’d have longer than she did. Especially after Juliana and Lysianassa had such long runs. She was a good Emperor, a real force to be reckoned with, but kinda faded without much of interest.
And there he is. The absolute legend. Mr. Clear Your Villains. If you know Revenge of the Seven, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that the Final Emperor was just an absolute steamroller of a fighter and blasted his way through three Heroes, the Real Queen, and the Final Battle. He’s just That Guy. I will say, the Real Queen did do an impressive job of being one of the few villains I can think of in recent time to genuinely piss me off. I was prepared to take things easily and mosey on down to fight her, but then she killed my Imperial Guards. Can’t have her killing my Imperial Guards. At that point, I was in full ‘rip and tear until it’s done mode’ and made a beeline for the catacombs. Never forget Davout and Juno. They deserved better. Other amusing notes? I didn’t even mean to fight Noel. I just stumbled into the Wandering Lake by accident, walked into his room without realizing he was there, and killed him as an afterthought. I hadn’t even down the Teretuva Towers yet. And leaving Kzinssie as the Seventh Hero is one of the funniest things ever because he is just an absolute joke when you know to prepare for him. I think the battle lasted three, maybe four turns. The only meaningful thing he did was cast one Ill-Storm off his sword and maybe a Life-steal or two on my otherwise max LP characters. The rest was just Soulsteals I avoided.
All in all, the Final Emperor did Final Emperor things. My only stumbling block was when I cast Solar Wind instead of Restoration in the Final Battle and then wiped because of a cavalcade of errors. Liza fell for lack of healing, Brokkr got Astral Gated into confusion and hit Tsubaki so hard she would’ve died at full health, and then the last three ran head first into the enemy Union Attack while I was trying to recover. I might’ve died anyway, but it was certainly a misclick at the worst time imaginable.